Building the Casaccia gamma field. Nuclear energy, Cold War and the transnational circulation of scientific knowledge in Italy (1955-1960)

The article will focus on the mutagenesis programme in agriculture implemented by the Italian Atomic Energy Commission, starting from 1955, through the establishment of a specific technological and experimental system: the so-called "gamma field", a piece of agricultural land with a radioisotope of Cobalt-60 at the centre. The Cobalt-60 would emit constant radiation, which would bombard the specimens planted in concentric circles around the source, inducing genetic mutations. The Italian gamma field went into operation in January 1960 at the Casaccia Laboratory, about twenty miles north of Rome, with a radiation device made available by the US Government for the Atoms for Peace programme This article will analyse, first of all, how the American experimental model of mutation breeding was translated into the Italian context, becoming instrumental for the establishment of plant genetics within the local academic system; secondly, it will describe how the sociotechnical imaginary embodied by the gamma field was part and parcel of this process of disciplinebuilding and scientific demarcation.

Ghana’s Nuclear Power and Its Role in Climate Change

The Ghana Nuclear Power Agenda is a programme laid out by the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission in collaboration with the government of Ghana to guide and facilitate the installation of Ghana’s first ever nuclear power plant. The nuclear power plant is expected to generate between 1000 and 12800 MW of electricity from its very first and final installations in a span of 20 years. Ghana's Third National Communication (TNC) Report to the UNFCCC indicates 59 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2e) emission in 2011. Between 1991 and 2011, Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions grew by 20% as energy intensity of the economy rose alongside with a growing demand in industry, transport and households. If nothing is done to curtail GHG emission from fossil-source power plants, the looming catastrophe of the changing climate will occur faster than we imagine. On the basis of this, advocacy for nuclear power has been intensified in Ghana. Nuclear power is not only environmentally friendly (zero-to-low carbon emission), it is efficient and sustainable source of energy. It offers current and future energy needs without burdening future generations with a broken environment. Using Monte Carlo’s model, the current study estimates a cumulative increase (35%) in CO2 emission between 2016 and 2026 without nuclear power in Ghana’s energy mix. With the inclusion of nuclear power in the country’s energy mix by 2029, the model estimates CO2 emission cut by 12.5% between 2029 and 2039. Thus, given the same period of time, the rate of emission of CO2 was found to be more than twice its reduction.

Design, Deployment and Implementation of Local Area Network (LAN) at BAEC Head Quarter

A local area network (LAN) is a computer network within a small geographical area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, office building or group of buildings. A LAN is composed of interconnected workstations and personal computers which are each capable of accessing and sharing data and devices, such as printers, scanners and data storage devices, anywhere on the LAN. LANs are characterized by higher communication and data transfer rates and the lack of any need for leased communication lines. Communication between remote parties can be achieved through a process called Networking, involving the connection of computers, media and networking devices. When we talk about networks, we need to keep in mind three concepts, distributed processing, network criteria and network structure. The purpose of this Network is to design a Local Area Network (LAN) for a BAEC (Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission) Head Quarter and implement security measures to protect network resources and system services. To do so, we will deal with the physical and logical design of a LAN. The goal of this Network is to examine of the Local Area Network set up for a BAEC HQ and build a secure LAN system.

A decade of seismicity in metropolitan France (2010-2019): the CEA/LDG methodologies and observations

We summarize ten years of the French seismicity recorded by the Geophysical and Detection Laboratory (LDG) of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) network from 2010 to 2019. During this period, 25,279 natural earthquakes were detected by the LDG and located within metropolitan France and its immediate vicinity. This seismicity contributes to more than 47% of the natural earthquakes instrumentally recorded since 1962 (mainly due to the improvement of network capacity), and includes about 28% of the most significant earthquakes with a magnitude ML ≥ 4.0. Recent seismic events therefore significantly expand the available national catalogues. The spatial distribution of 2010-2019 earthquakes is broadly similar to the previous instrumental pattern of the seismicity, with most of the seismic activity concentrated in the French Alps, the Pyrenees, the Brittany, the upper Rhine Graben and the Central Massif. A large part of the seismic activity is related to the occurrence of individual events. The largest earthquakes of the last ten years include the November 11, 2019 Le Teil earthquake with ML 5.4 and maximal epicentral intensities VII to VIII, which occurred in the Rhone valley; the April 28, 2016 La Rochelle earthquake with ML 5.2 and epicentral intensity V, which occurred at the southernmost extremity of the Armorican Massif in the vicinity of the Oléron island; and the April 7, 2014 Barcelonnette earthquake with ML 5.1 and epicentral intensity VII, which occurred in the Ubaye valley in the Alps. In 2019, two other moderate earthquakes of ML 5.1 and ML 4.9 stroke the western part of France, in Charente-Maritime and Maine-et-Loire department, respectively. The recent moderate earthquake occurrences and the large number of small earthquakes recorded give both the potential to revise some regional historical events and to determine more robust frequency-magnitude distributions, which are critical for seismic hazard assessment but complex due to low seismicity rates in France. The LDG seismic network installed since the early 1960s also allows a better characterization of the temporal structure of seismicity, partly diffused and in the form of mainshock-aftershocks sequences or transient swarms. These aspects are important in order to lower the uncertainties associated to seismogenic sources and improve the models in seismic hazard assessment for metropolitan France.

Unfriendly guardians: India's first nuclear leadership change in 1966

This article, which focuses on the political decision making around the leadership of India's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), shows how this process both decentralized scientific authority in India and led to changes in India's nuclear programme. New evidence presented from the deliberations of the Prime Minister's Secretariat (PMS) shows that Vikram Sarabhai, appointed chairman of the AEC in 1966, following the sudden death of the previous leader, Homi Bhabha, was the favoured candidate from the start of the process. His view on India's nuclear programme contrasted sharply with that of his predecessor, but his authority was protected, in part, from external challenge by the jurisdictional decisions made by the PMS. This article argues that the ambiguity inherent in India's developing nuclear programme was not the result of the apprehension of external threat, but the result of internal tensions within the relevant institutions, which are both revealed and (partially) resolved by the appointment process for the new chair.

NEUTRONIC MODELING OF A FAST CORE WITH MODERATING MATERIALS USING APOLLO3R CODE

In order to improve passive safety of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has proposed a new core design called CADOR - an SFR core with enhanced Doppler reactivity feedback. One of its most important design features is the introduction of solid moderating materials inside each fuel assemblies to slightly decrease the average neutron energy. The article focuses on development and validation of a neutronics calculation scheme able to produce accurate results in case of CADOR and other fast cores with moderating materials. The study uses two different fuel assembly models moderated by metallic beryllium and zirconium hydride (ZrH2) respectively The study includes discussion of neutron scattering treatment and different ways of spatial homogenization and energy condensations. The results indicate that the accurate scattering treatment leads to much better estimation of Doppler constant, especially in case of ZrH2 moderated core. By using combined deterministic-Monte Carlo calculation scheme we are able to quantify the biases on global reactivity, reactivity feedbacks and control rod worth. We demonstrate that spatial homogenization plays a more important role in case of moderated CADOR assemblies and thus preserving certain level of heterogeneity within fuel assemblies can lower the calculation bias significantly.

Radioactive Waste, the Last Battlefield of Science, Ethics and Law

Nuclear energy is bound to have a negative impact on the survival of human beings. Although scientists hoped to end all wars, the nuclear arms race resulted in huge amounts of warhead reserves throughout the globe. When we consider the effects of radiation exposure, a hostile attitude is common worldwide, mostly because there is no threshold in radiation exposure, and even a small degree of exposure would cause diseases. This attitude also resulted from the explosion of the atomic bomb, killing many people. The general public became worried about radiation exposure, which led to many lawsuits worldwide. In the United States of America, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) at that time, reorganized as the Department of Energy (DOE) later, encountered a problem when a military plane carrying hydrogen bombs met an accident and crashed in Spain, resulting in contamination of the immediate area. The AEC had a policy in principle that countermeasures against radiation exposure should be as limited as possible. The management of man-made radiation varies from one country to another. Countries like the USA try to find rational and universal applications for human activities, while countries like Japan try to keep utilitarianism even after the Fukushima accident. In this paper, the history of the atomic bomb deployment will be reviewed again in light of its influence on the general public, especially in the context of radiation exposure. The world is gradually shifting in accepting nuclear energy as a part of Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs) climate change solutions. However, radioactive waste is still a significant hurdle in transitioning from fossil fuel to nuclear energy. This study will analyze past events and determine how to proceed with the radiactive waste argument to obtain the general public's reasonable understanding and acceptance.

Determination of correction factor of self-absorption for lead-210 in environment samples using spike method

In environment radiation measurement, calculation the correction factors are critical, especially for low energy measurement because of self-absorption phenomena. In this work the main purpose is to determination the self-absorption correction factors of lead-210 (210Pb) energy (46.5keV) in various environment samples (7 sediments, 5 soil) using an experimental method called Spike Method. The samples were collecting from different places in Syrian. They were prepared according to the laboratory producers starting from collecting, cleaning, drying, grounding, hemogenic and calculating the appearance density. Low-energy gamma spectroscopy HPGe was used for radiation analysis which available at the laboratories of the Protection and Safety Department - Syrian Atomic Energy Commission – Syria. The spike method depends on adding a quantity of a standard solution with a known activity which contains lead isotope 210Pb and added to the studied samples. Self-absorption correction factors (CF) calculated by the ratio of the count rate or activity of spiked and unspiked samples. The CF for sediment samples were between 29% to 54% and for soil samples, the CFs were between 38% to 56% recording correction higher than sediment samples. The results showed a relatively high self-absorption and CFs values because of the chemical composition changeable between the spiked and unspiked samples. For that, it is better to adopt other methods less expensive, give results faster, higher accuracy and do not make change in the chemical composition. The results were also showed the density factor is the most influential factor in self-absorption phenomena.

NATIONAL OBSERVATORY OF ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS: NATIONAL TELEMETRIC NETWORK FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF HIGH-FREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS IN GREECE

At the end of 2015, the operation of the National Observatory of Electromagnetic Fields (established in 2012) has started. The National Observatory of Electromagnetic Fields is a network of 500 fixed (480 broadband and 20 frequency selective) and 13 mobile (vehicle mounted frequency selective) measurement stations throughout Greece that continuously monitor the electromagnetic field levels from all kinds of antenna stations in the frequency range 100kHz–7GHz. The results of this national monitoring network, which is operated and controlled by the Greek Atomic Energy Commission (EEAE), are presented through an interactive web portal (https://paratiritirioemf.eeae.gr), in which data are constantly updated with the latest station measurements. This paper presents the operational aspects and the measurement results of the first 3 years of operation (2016–2018). The measurement results revealed that all values were well below the reference levels for general public exposure, as defined by the Greek legislation.

A Decision Reached

This chapter recounts the arrival at the decision. Before the commissioners, split three to two against the Super, resumed their discussions in November 1949, Truman had been made aware of the differences of views. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer threatened to put the General Advisory Committee's opposing view directly to the president rather than going through the commission, in the event of the full Atomic Energy Commission deciding in favor of the Super. By the end of January 1950, the tide of opinion within the closed circle of participants was beginning to flow against the dissenters. They were skillfully outmaneuvered to provide the authoritative advice that Truman needed to close the debate and authorize not just the expansion of theoretical work, but the path ahead to development and testing.