NEI Nuclear Notes

Reporting on the BRC Report

2012-01-27T17:29:00.001-05:00

The NEI coverage of the Blue Ribbon Commission final report is below this post and gives a good summary of industry response. We’d thought we’d take a look at some of the coverage in the press and see how it is playing around the country. These are news stories, so we’re not gauging reaction, as we would with editorials, just the accuracy and usefulness of the reporting.

And some are better than others. The TriCity [Wash.] Herald, using the AP story as a base, sort of misses the boat with this lede:

The United States should immediately start looking for an alternative to replace the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, which cost an estimated $15 billion but was never completed, a presidential commission said Thursday.

It’s not wrong exactly, but the stress on Yucca Mountain suggests the commission had something to say about it. In fact, it had nothing specific to say about it and, if Yucca Mountain were determined to still be the best locale for a central used fuel repository, that would be consistent with the report.

Yucca Mountain was picked by a process established by law, but "now the Blue Ribbon Commission suggests we just ignore the law and start all over?" said Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is running for governor as a Republican, in a statement. "That recommendation could set our country back at least 25 years."

Well, he said it, but it isn’t really the case that Yucca has been eliminated from consideration. The report didn’t eliminate any location from consideration. President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, yes, blue ribbon commission, no.

Here’s what the report says. It’s pretty direct:

The Blue Ribbon Commission was not chartered as a siting commission. Accordingly we have not evaluated Yucca Mountain or any other location as a potential site for the storage or disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, nor have we taken a position on the Administration’s request to withdraw the license application.

The New York Time’s Matt Wald gets closer to the gist and introduced in the lede the second element that picked up a lot of attention, the consent-based approach to siting a repository:

A commission appointed to find alternatives to a failed plan to store nuclear waste in the Nevada desert declared on Thursday that the United States would have to develop a "consent-based approach" for choosing a site because leaving the decision to Congress had failed.

By securing local consent, the panel said, the government might avoid the kind of conflicts that led to the cancellation of plans to create a repository at Yucca Mountain, a site 100 miles from Las Vegas, in 2010. It noted that local willingness had been crucial to decision-making on sites for nuclear waste depots in Finland, France, Spain and Sweden.

This is true, though it ignores that Yucca Mountain might well be open today if President Obama had not closed it – and neither Obama nor Secretary Chu have offered a definitive reason for closing it, so we not sure if “conflicts” led to its shuttering. One can infer a lot of things, but not really know them.

Here’s what the commission says about the consent-based approach:

By contrast [to a top-down, federal-led approach], the approach we recommend is explicitly adaptive, staged, and consent-based. Based on a review of successful siting processes in the United States and abroad—including most notably the siting of a disposal facility for transuranic radioactive waste, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, and recent positive outcomes in Finland, France, Spain and Sweden—we believe this type of approach can provide the flexibility and sustain the public trust and confidence needed to see controversial facilities through to completion.

And it’s right. This has worked to tamp down public opposition in those place – WIPP is almost a case study on how to do it - though it takes more time and effort to engage with local communities and any attempted process may come to nothing. That’s the risk.

Back to Wald:

The panel … also suggested that the government, which assumed responsibility for high-level waste 30 years ago, take the job of managing the waste out of the hands of the Energy Department and give it to a federally chartered corporation created for that purpose.

Such an agency would be more effective than the Department of Energy, which "must balance multiple agendas or policy priorities," it said.

The idea of the chartered corporation appears further down in a number of stories, so a fair number of writers may have decided it’s a little more arcane a subject for general interest readers but still important.

Here’s the commission on the corporation:

[T]he Commission concludes that a new, single-purpose organization is needed to provide the stability, focus, and credibility that are essential to get the waste program back on track. We believe a congressionally chartered federal corporation offers the best model, but whatever the specific form of the new organization it must possess the attributes, independence, and resources to effectively carry out its mission.

The central task of the new organization would be to site, license, build, and operate facilities for the safe consolidated storage and final disposal of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable timeframe. In most stories I’ve read, Yucca Mountain and consent based siting have been the biggest subjects.

Even as the third most covered aspect of the report in most stories I’ve read, it’s often buried. CNN has it at paragraph 11:

It [the report] said this congressionally chartered federal corporation should have substantial authority and access to funds to accomplish its mission. A board, nominated by the president and confirmed by Congress, would oversee the organization.

I missed much coverage of interim storage sites, another of the report’s recommendations – that seems germane to various communities – but maybe that will be thought most important to communities where they will be sited.

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The story in the Las Vegas Sun, opposition central for Yucca Mountain in Nevada media, runs through the same subjects as the other stories we reviewed. What I liked was the headline:

Commission: Store nuclear waste where it’s wanted

Yeah, wise guys, where it’s wanted.

It’s a newsboy. I was a bicycle based suburban newsboy back when rather than a wuxtry-wuxtry urban type of newsboy. The former still have some currency – the latter, our boy in the picture, none at all. Count him as among the culturally lost.

US Panel Recommends New Strategies for Managing Used Nuclear Fuel

2012-01-27T10:46:00.002-05:00

The following article was published yesterday by Nuclear Energy Overview, NEI's member-only publication.

Jan. 26, 2012—Enumerating shortcomings of the nation’s used fuel management program, a federal government panel this week recommended eight steps to improve it.

Among them, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future said in a report issued today, is that levies on nuclear energy that American consumers have been paying for years should be fully available to a new organization created to manage the federal government’s used nuclear fuel program.

The commission also recommended development of at least one consolidated storage facility for used nuclear fuel.

Congressional hearings on a new used fuel management organization should begin “as soon as possible,” the commission said.

The panel also addressed the fund created to manage the program.

Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the government has been assessing utilities—which have in turn assessed their rate payers—a fee to finance the government’s used fuel program. The fund, with a balance of $27 billion, has become inaccessible to the program.

Used fuel management “must compete for federal funding each year and is therefore subject to exactly the budget constraints and uncertainties that the fund was created to avoid. This situation must be remedied to allow the [used fuel] program to continue,” the commission said. It recommended administrative actions that can separate fund receipts from the overall federal budget.

In a statement, six organizations—the Nuclear Energy Institute, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, the American Public Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the Edison Electric Institute—said they welcome the report. The groups collectively represent nuclear energy producers and suppliers, state public utility commissions, and other public and private organizations interested in used nuclear fuel management.

“After two years of fact-finding and intense study, the commission has officially endorsed a number of strategic used fuel-management initiatives that our members and other experts have long supported and that will reform and re-energize the country’s high-level radioactive waste program,” the statement says.

The commission’s recommendations, which are generally consistent with the industry’s integrated used fuel management policies, are:

creating an organization outside the Energy Department with a corporate-style board of directors to manage the country’s used fuel program
making the used fuel levies on consumers fully available to the new organization
developing one or more consolidated storage facilities
making decisions on locations of nuclear fuel management facilities based on the consent of the state and local governments
developing one or more underground disposal facilities
preparing for the large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to consolidated storage and disposal facilities when they are available
supporting continued U.S. innovation in nuclear energy technology and work force development
leading international efforts to enhance safety, waste management, nonproliferation and security issues.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires the federal government to remove used fuel from commercial reactor sites. The process was to begin in 1998, but the government has yet to fulfill its obligation, and fuel rods continue to be stored safely and securely at the nation’s nuclear energy facilities, including at reactors that have been shut down. The law also requires the surcharge on consumers to pay for nuclear fuel disposal facilities.

The Department of Energy spent several decades studying and seeking permits to build an underground repository for reactor fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. In 2008, the department submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the repository, but the Obama administration cancelled the project before NRC review of the license application was completed. The Obama administration created the 15-member commission to study nuclear fuel management in January 2010.

The commission noted that some of its recommendations will require congressional action but said that “prompt action can and should be taken in several areas, without waiting for legislative action, to get the waste management program back on track.” For example, the report says, the Energy Department can take early steps to develop a consolidated storage facility to hold decades-old reactor fuel, particularly fuel from reactors that have been closed.

In their statement, the six organizations agreed, adding that they “stand ready to work with the DOE, the administration and Congress to implement the [commission’s] recommendations to advance the nation’s economic, energy, environmental and national security imperatives by creating a sustainable integrated used nuclear fuel management program.”

The commission report also supports long-term recycling and advanced fuel-cycle technologies, which could reduce the amount of used fuel needing disposal while recovering valuable unused materials for re-use in new fuel. The panel noted, however, that there are “no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments [that] have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer.”

“Nuclear energy is a key component of America’s energy mix. The [commission] recognizes this with its recommendation for stable, long-term support for advanced reactor and fuel cycle technology development that can help address the energy challenges facing future generations,” the statement from the six organizations says.

BRC Releases Final Report; Japan Invites in IAEA

2012-01-26T16:19:00.001-05:00

I’d give you a link to the final report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future at its site at brc.gov, but that has been flooded and is not responsive. But NEI has you covered. Go here to get a copy of the report.

The BRC says the report hews pretty closely to the draft report released last summer – our coverage of that is here with some useful links. We’ll have lots more to say about the final report, I’m sure, but for now, reading glasses on.

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The Japanese government has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop by and double check the stress tests it has been conduction on its fleet. Specifically, the Japanese want the IAEA to visit Oi, its third largest nuclear facility. Why have the IAEA do this?

Seeking to assuage public misgivings about nuclear-plant safety, government and nuclear industry officials have sought to use "stress tests" that gauge resilience to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. The invitation to the IAEA is part of Japan's campaign to validate those tests.

And there’s this, too:

Oi's four reactors have become a focal point in Japan's debate over nuclear energy as the hot and humid summer, with its seasonal peak in electricity demand, draws nearer. Kansai Electric, which supplies power to Kyoto and Osaka in western Japan, relies on its three nuclear plants for more than 40% of the electricity it generates. Oi alone provides about 20%.

Those are actually two different things – getting the plants running to stave off blackouts and regaining public trust. How the government will know that it done the latter is not mentioned in the story, but I guess polling and the opinions of the elected leaders in the towns around Oi and other facilities will act as the gauges.

“The stress tests as currently designed don't seem to factor in the type of worst-case scenario we saw in Fukushima," Mr. [Ryozo] Tatami, the mayor of Maizuru said. "We need evidence Oi's reactors will be safe even if a [Fukushima-scale] tsunami strikes because vague assurances just raise too many doubts in our minds."

Maizuru is about 18 miles from Oi.

One can have an opinion about this approach – it sounds like one the Japanese put stock into, which is good – and about whether Japan should or shouldn’t reopen its facilities – simply, yes – but whether it does or not, whatever the consequences, is up to its people. There’s nothing for us to do but wait and see – and respect the outcome.

The Washington Post has an interesting article about the Japanese decision making approach and its impact on reopening its nuclear facilities here. Long story short: the Japanese really like a broad consensus. Worth a read for insight into how another culture deals with big issues.

The Oi nuclear facility. If you say it enough times, you sound like an annoyed Brit.

New Report Falsely Claims Nuclear Plants Leaking Radioactive Materials Into Ground Water Supplies

2012-01-25T14:19:00.002-05:00

Sound the alarm bells—a new report by Environment America and U.S. PIRG wrongly claims that nuclear plants pose a threat to ground water supplies in the United States. The report, “Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water,” states:

With 49 million Americans drawing their drinking water from areas within 50 miles of nuclear power plants—and with three-quarters of all U.S. nuclear power plants already leaking radioactivity into groundwater supplies—it is time for the U.S. to move toward cleaner, safer and cheaper alternatives for our energy needs.

It comes as no surprise that four authors without environmental monitoring backgrounds are pushing their own agenda—to shut down all U.S. nuclear plants—and distorting the facts about the industry’s ground water protection initiatives to support their case.

Let’s review the facts:

First, the nuclear industry considers any unintended release of radioactive materials to be unacceptable. Period. This is why the industry has programs in place to monitor ground water and underground piping at all U.S. plant sites. It is also why every company operating an U.S. nuclear plant informs local, state and federal authorities of an unintended release, even if it is below the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s threshold for reporting.

The industry’s voluntary ground water protection and underground piping programs enhance the capabilities for early detection of tritium in ground water, and complement the redundant, protective measures set forth by the NRC. They also ensure that licensees are taking appropriate actions to stop the release and to make stakeholders aware of unintended releases at levels well below those deemed safe by federal authorities for public health and the environment. In the rare instances when higher-than-expected levels of tritium have been detected at nuclear plant sites, it has been these dual industry environmental monitoring and protection programs which have brought them to light. After careful review and examination of these instances, the NRC independently verified that the public has never been in danger:

The NRC recently identified several instances of unintended tritium releases, and all available information shows no threat to the public.

The industry’s extensive environmental monitoring programs have proven very effective. In the U.S. nuclear industry’s 3,500 combined reactor-years of operation, there is no scientific evidence that any member of the general public has ever been harmed by a radiation release from a U.S. nuclear energy facility, including tritium.

Second, there has not been an increase in harmful levels of tritium reaching drinking water supplies from nuclear plants. The report claims that an Associated Press investigation has found a greater number of tritium leaks in the last decade, stating:

Tritium leaks have occurred with great regularity at U.S. nuclear plants. An investigation by the Associated Press found that leaks have occurred at 75 percent of U.S. plants, and that a great number of them have taken place in the past five years. On at least three occasions, tritium leaks from nuclear plants have contaminated nearby well water.

As you may recall, we responded to the shoddy AP series last summer to correct a number of factual errors and misleading reporting in their news coverage. In particular, on the topic of tritium leaks into ground water, NEI had this to say:

There has been no known adverse impact on public health or safety from a tritium release at commercial nuclear power plants. As the AP acknowledges, no tritium is known to have reached public water supplies.

No drinking water supply has exceeded the allowable limit set by the EPA for tritium in the Safe Drinking Water Act. AP reporter Jeff Donn acknowledged this fact in a June 24 interview on “Democracy Now!” when he said, “The main danger from tritium, the main health danger, is if you were to drink it. The EPA sets a limit on how much can be in drinking water. None of the leaks have entered drinking water in amounts that would violate the EPA limits so far.”

The Environment America-U.S. PIRG report also claims that older nuclear plants are more likely to have ground water problems, another claim that simply is not true. The report states:

As plants have aged, the risk of tritium leaks has risen, since aging equipment has had more time to develop leaks and weaknesses.

However, in our same fact sheet that corrects the AP’s inaccurate news coverage, we also pointed out that older nuclear reactors are still subject to the same NRC requirements regardless of their age or condition.

U.S. nuclear power plants are subject to a rigorous program of NRC oversight, inspection, preventive and corrective maintenance, equipment replacement, and extensive equipment testing. These programs ensure nuclear plant equipment continues to meet safety standards, no matter how long the plant has been operating.

Despite Environment America and U.S. PIRG’s best efforts to scare the American public into thinking all U.S. nuclear plants are leaking radioactive materials into ground water supplies, they need to let the facts speak for themselves and not cite sources, like the AP, which have already been debunked.

Nuclear Up, Emissions Down: The EIA Outlook

2012-01-25T11:48:00.001-05:00

The U.S. Energy Information Administration sees incremental growth in nuclear energy capacity through 2035 in its Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (AEO 2012) reference case, which has just been released.

Nuclear generating capacity in the reference case increases from 101 gigawatts in 2011 to 112 gigawatts in 2035, with 10 gigawatts of new capacity due to 5 new plants, 7 gigawatts of uprates at existing plants and 6 gigawatts of retirements, according to the report. This is one gigawatt more than projected in the AEO 2011 reference case.

At the same time, it forecasts CO₂ emissions rising 0.2 percent per year during this period, or about 4.9 percent in total. While the rise in nuclear capacity is good news, the news about carbon emissions is a little disturbing, at least at first glance. A forecast – and there are a bunch of them, though this is the most prominent for U.S. policy makers - can be a little confusing the first time you tackle it.

That’s because, as these charts show, the Energy Outlook is not as useful in any given year as it is in aggregation. Seen as one in a series, the reports show the year-to-year variations in whatever metric you want to follow.

The Washington Post’s Brad Plumer expresses it this way:

Carbon-dioxide emissions plummeted after the financial crisis in 2008, and the EIA expects that greenhouse-gas pollution from the energy sector won’t recover back to 2005 levels anytime soon, as the chart [above] shows. The reasons? New vehicle fuel-economy standards; cheap natural gas that’s displacing dirtier coal-fired places; state-level laws that mandate renewable energy; and new environmental regulations on power plants from the EPA.

That’s about right, though EIA doesn’t use terms like “dirtier coal-fired plants” and it really doesn’t “expect” anything. The EIA, in its reference scenario, is interested only in taking account of legislation and regulation that has been passed and/or implemented, so it “expects,” if anything, that there will be no more legislation and regulation going forward and this is how things will look as a result. But of course, there will be more and that will be reflected in the 2013 forecast – and so on into the future. The EIA isn’t Nostradamus (heck, Nostradamus wasn’t all that good a Nostradamus.)

So if you look at a series of the forecasts, you can see whether some metrics are pointing upwards over time (in our case, nuclear energy capacity, of course, and renewables) and whether some are pointing downwards (carbon emissions, coal capacity). If they are – and, let me hasten to add, they indeed are – then we’re going in the right direction. How speedily we’re going in the right direction is something else again.

For example, though the report (and the above chart) shows CO₂ emissions in the electric sector growing by 0.2 percent per year from 2010 to 2035, this is less than in previous years. The AEO 2011 reference case forecasts CO₂ emissions rising by an average of 0.3 percent per year between 2010 and 2035. So the rise has been cut by a third by policy making, the activity of industry and other factors over the last year. That’s a significant number, especially in light of a recovering economy and concomitant recovering electricity market.

Are improvements in a given set of metrics moving too slowly over time or not getting us where we want to go 25 years hence? Maybe, maybe not, but if you think it is, it argues for more aggressive policies to encourage nuclear and renewable energy and discourage carbon emissions. And that’s usually the result of the EIA’s AEO. It provides information that can be used to show - well, a number of things – that can sharpen arguments for, say, new nuclear energy capacity.

Perhaps increasing nuclear capacity will bend that carbon emission curve downward and more quickly than the 2012 forecast shows – perhaps nuclear energy can do a quicker job on that curve than its renewable cousins can do – and so on. Pick your favorite energy source, poke through a few EIA reports to see if they support your view, then go to town. It’s a gold mine for energy wonks.

The full EIA report, due in April, will include a number of scenarios that do take account of potential policy changes and what they will mean for carbon emission reduction. So consider this a sneak preview.

Groundwater Study Co-Authors Lack Scientific Credentials

2012-01-24T10:45:00.005-05:00

Here at NEI, my colleagues and I have been batting around a press release from Environment America and U.S. PIRG claiming that nuclear power plants represent a threat ground water from leaks of tritium. The report is titled, , “Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water.”

From where we sit, the story seems a lot like one that the AP pushed out in June 2011 about the subject. The public needs to know that there has been no known adverse impact on public health or safety from a tritium release at commercial nuclear power plants.

While we'll have more on that later, it's also important to point out that the four co-authors of this study lack any scientific credentials.

Jennifer Kim of U.S. PIRG has a degree in history from the University of Michigan;

According to her own MySpace page, Courtney Abrams of Environment America graduated with a degree in Psychology from Wake Forest;
Her Environment America colleague Rob Kerth has a BA in history from Yale;

Sean Garren has a degree in Government from Dartmouth.

How this qualifies any of them to publish a study on groundwater is a puzzle to us. In any case, we'll keep an eye on reporting concerning the study, and provide updates if and when they're warranted.

DOE Moves Forward on Small Reactors

2012-01-20T17:10:00.001-05:00

Writer Reese Palley has quite a little rant going on at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Unfortunately, all the arguments for developing and licensing small, modular nuclear reactors fell on deaf ears at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The commission has no immediate plans even to begin assessing traveling wave or any other small nuclear technology.

It is not as if mini-nuclear technologies are experimental and unproven. [etc.]

Palley is the author of The Answer: Why Only Inherently Safe Mini Nuclear Power Plants Can Save Our World, which I haven’t read. He certainly wants you to know he’s all over those small reactors.

Unfortunately, though, his piece was published today. So was this, at the Department of Energy’s site:

The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the first step toward manufacturing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in the United States, demonstrating the Administration’s commitment to advancing U.S. manufacturing leadership in low-carbon, next generation energy technologies and restarting the nation’s nuclear industry. Through the draft Funding Opportunity Announcement announced today, the Department will establish cost-shared agreements with private industry to support the design and licensing of SMRs.

Palley was talking about the NRC, but if DOE is helping with the licensing process, then the NRC will be prepared to review those licenses. The seriousness of this effort was underscored by a quick-to-follow press release from Westinghouse:

"Westinghouse will apply for DOE's small modular reactor investment funds with a consortium of utilities. Access to this investment fund helps lower the barrier to market entry for American companies. Virtually all energy sources that feed the national grid have been developed through public investments in public-private research and development partnerships.

So the die is cast. I took a look over at Terrapower, which Palley touts in his article, but it doesn’t have a press release about this. NuScale hasn’t weighed in either. Babcock and Wilcox had this interesting bit of news – from last week:

Babcock & Wilcox is to restructure its commercial nuclear business, separating its small modular reactor operations from its other nuclear energy related businesses.

The company said that the move was in response to "changing market conditions, growth opportunities and the continuing progress of its small modular reactor (SMR) business."

So there’s that.

Palley’s article confused me because the DOE plan had been in the works for awhile. It’s just a coincidence that the details of the plan sprang forth the same day, but in any event, it’s pleasing to see work moving forward on small reactors. It ought to even please Palley.

A Win for Vermont Yankee

2012-01-19T17:14:00.001-05:00

Vermont Yankee wins:

Vermont’s only nuclear plant can remain open beyond its originally scheduled shutdown date this year, despite the state’s efforts to close the 40-year-old reactor, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

In February 2010, Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s owner, discover a tritium leak at the plant. Tritium is a mildly radioactive form of hydrogen that is incorporated into water molecules. It is found in nature and as a byproduct of fission processes. Health effects are minimal and present only if ingested in large amounts.

In any event, none leaked outside the plant nor was there any measureable amount in drinking water at the plant. Regardless, in March, the state legislature voted to close the plant due to the leak.

Now, that was controversial. In all instances, only the NRC can close a plant due to a safety concern. But Vermont and Entergy had signed an agreement that said the plant could operate only if the state issued a certain document – the March vote essentially withheld that document.

In March 2011, the NRC approved a 20-year license extension for Vermont Yankee – if Vermont failed to close it.

In April 2011, Entergy, through two subsidiaries, filed suit in U.S. District Court to prevent the closure contending that the action is preempted by federal law and violates both the supremacy clause and the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

And that is the suit that has now prevailed. The Washington Post story quoted above is light on details, but it does mention a few interesting tidbits:

Entergy argued that the state was moving to close Vermont Yankee out of concerns over plant safety, an issue that the state agreed is solely the NRC’s jurisdiction. The state maintained it had other reasons, including that Vermont Yankee didn’t fit in to its energy plan and was likely to be increasingly unreliable as it aged.

I had assumed that Vermont believed it could close the facility for any reason, but apparently, that isn’t true. And the story doesn’t really suggest if the judge decided that federal law trumped state law.

We’ll pass along more details as we have them. In the meantime, a win is a win.

The losing side in federal court was expected to appeal [U.S. District Judge J. Garvan] Murtha’s decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, though it was not immediately known whether the state would follow through with that.

And we’ll probably has a better sense of how Vermont will proceed in the days to come, too.

Vermont Yankee

Aftermath of Frontline's “Nuclear Aftershocks”

2012-01-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon Miles O’Brien, correspondent for Tuesday night’s FRONTLINE piece “Nuclear Aftershocks,” and producer Jon Palfreman held a live chat with the public on reactions to the documentary and overall opinions as to what the future holds for nuclear energy in the United States. What did the public decide? Well, according to an unscientific poll taken from the audience during the chat—keep building more nuclear plants!

Their opinions closely mirrored our October 2011 public opinion poll which found that 62 percent of respondents said they favor the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity in the United States.

The chat’s audience also said that their opinions about nuclear power were not influenced by Tuesday night’s documentary:

This survey result really only proves one thing—that people are generally distrustful of media reports, but interested enough in the subject matter to take part in an online chat at 1 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon!

During the chat, people posed questions on a variety of topics, including: building advanced reactors, how other countries (namely Japan and Germany) plan to meet their electricity demands and carbon reduction goals while reducing the number of nuclear plants, and how nuclear energy facilities prepare for emergencies. I took part in the one-and-a-half hour chat and provided several comments to help build on the discussion and add facts to the debate, but none of my comments were accepted or posted by the chat’s moderator. Although I am not surprised that my comments were not accepted (since I had “NEI” next to my name), I am hopeful that they will at least provide the reporters with more context to the bigger picture.

Below are a few areas where I think the discussion should have warranted a little more explanation/clarification.

1) The “Moribund” Nuclear Industry & Aging Nukes

There are two problems with this statement. First, I think it is unfair to call the industry “moribund” when there are currently 12 combined license applications that are under active review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build 20 nuclear plants and new designs have either been approved (Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000) or are still in the design stages in this country. Companies spend several years either designing new reactors or working to build reactors at a given site, so to equate the industry with “dying” or “inactivity” is simply untrue.

Second, and this is a point that we keep coming back to on the blog and on our website, it is important to understand that 40-year licenses for nuclear plants were never meant to be an indicator of a plant’s safe operation. The 40-year time period was simply chosen to parallel the financing amortization period for a plant. The NRC’s website explains:

The Atomic Energy Act and NRC regulations limit commercial power reactor licenses to an initial 40 years but also permit such licenses to be renewed. This original 40-year term for reactor licenses was based on economic and antitrust considerations -- not on limitations of nuclear technology.

Nuclear plants are continually undergoing maintenance and upgrades so that they are equipped—no matter their age—to meet all of the NRC’s safety regulations. So, whether it’s day one or day 14,600, rest assured that each of the nation’s nuclear plants are meeting the NRC’s stringent safety requirements or else they will be subject to federal disciplinary actions, including up to the shutdown of a reactor until safety improvements are made.

2) Germany’s Nuclear Energy Situation

The nation’s nuclear power plants are among the safest and most secure industrial facilities in the United States. See for yourself. But, if you do not agree with that statement, I still think it’s important to look at the facts before making a rash decision.

Just yesterday, Siemens, which built all of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants, estimated that an exit from nuclear energy could cost the European country’s energy consumers or taxpayers as much as 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030. Much of that estimate assumes a strong expansion of renewables, with feed-in tariffs being the biggest chunk of costs, a Reuters article reports.

Besides the high costs, cutting nuclear energy from the country’s energy portfolio will mean more carbon emissions. One of our recent blog posts quotes Laszlo Varro, the head of the gas, coal, and power markets division at the International Energy Agency, who estimates that a nuclear-free Germany could cause a 25-million-ton annual increase in CO2 emissions, mainly because of the large shift to coal power that would be needed to cover the shortfall. We also referenced a Breakthrough Institute report on our blog that predicts that Germany’s carbon emissions could rise by as much as 14 percent of the country’s 2008 total carbon emissions. These estimates do not bode well for a country that aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. (They also do not bode well for O’Brien’s argument because later in the chat he says that “anything is better than coal.”)

3) Small Reactors

According to some government officials and vendors I’ve talked to recently, small reactors are—the next “big” thing. Peter Lyons, the U.S. Department of Energy’s assistant secretary of nuclear energy, just yesterday said that research will be moving forward this year toward further development and design certification of small nuclear reactors. The Tri-City Herald reports:

If there is enough demand for the small plants, large numbers could be built in a factory and then one or more would be transported to sites for use, he said. More modules could be added as needed for electricity production.

The factory model has potential to be more economical, and quality could be more readily controlled in a factory, Lyons said.

If that’s not enough, Congress has certainly indicated with a restoration of $67 million in its 2012 budget that they are still interested in the development and licensing of small reactors. At NEI, we continue to see more interest in small reactors.

4) Energy Conservation

Although I don’t have any immediate statistics at my disposal, I can assure you that conservation efforts will never be enough to meet growing electricity demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration currently forecasts that electricity demand is growing at a rate of about 1 percent per year and that the United States will need 24 percent more electricity by 2035. To meet that demand, the electric utility industry must invest between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in new power plants, environmental controls, and transmission and distribution lines.

I do not think that unplugging our electronic devices, kitchen appliances, etc., will be enough to make up the difference in electricity supply. (I also personally don’t think the image of people wearing sandals and tee-shirts and using fans instead of A/C—like O’Brien describes that they are currently doing in Japan without the added electricity from their nuclear plants—will ever be a possibility in American culture.) However, I do think that we are on the cusp of a revolution where utilities are developing smarter ways for people to use electricity to reduce cost and alleviate daily demand through smart meters. Some are doing it very well (see a recent report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for examples).

5) Relationship Between NRC & Nuclear Industry

I think this comment distorts the important work that the NRC performs each day. It is an independent agency that strives for transparency. Its five commissioners are appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. They even have a page on their website that discusses their commitment to openness and transparency in their regulatory activities.

That being said, the nuclear industry’s high levels of performance, reliability and safety are all due to the strict regulatory oversight and function that the NRC serves. The NRC helps the industry to focus on safety, training, regulatory compliance and continuous improvement. The U.S. commercial nuclear industry is arguably one of the most strictly and thoroughly regulated industries in the nation, and the NRC is a model to other countries that are developing their nuclear energy programs.

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Altogether, I appreciated the fact that O’Brien and Palfreman held the chat to further discuss nuclear energy issues, but I felt that several of the assertions warranted further clarification (as previously explained). I really like the concept of holding these chat-type forums because I think they add context to some of the larger policy debates that are country currently faces.

Read the full transcript of the chat here. See our other blog posts on the FRONTLINE report here.

Germany and the Nuclear Self-Trap Conundrum

2012-01-18T16:51:00.003-05:00

Nuclear energy isn’t a trap for the unwary. When a country decides to invest in nuclear energy, it does so knowing the risks and benefits. If it invests heavily in nuclear energy – think France, Germany, Russia, China, The U.S. - it has done a good deal of study over many years to determine the value of the decision.

Public support for nuclear energy certainly took a significant hit after the accident at Japans’ Fukushima Daiichi plant, but even that has begun to moderate.

Public support for nuclear power appears to have bounced back in the UK after falling sharply in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, a survey showed today.

The Ipsos MORI poll of almost 1,000 adults across Britain revealed half of those questioned (50%) supported the building of new nuclear plants in the UK to replace the current generation of reactors which are being shut down.

That’s what makes Germany’s decision to close its nuclear energy facilities so fascinating. Of course, you’d expect nuclear energy advocates to consider it a bad move – we’ve had considerable fun with it on this blog – but with most other countries moving forward, after a pause, with their plans (From the above story: “The UK Government plans to build a series of new reactors on or next to existing nuclear sites to replace plants being phased out over the next few years, as part of plans to ensure secure electricity supplies and to help cut carbon emissions.”), what has become clearer is that Germany’s decision was quite precipitous, even radically so.

What made it also seem cynical was that it was overseen by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had previously recognized that exiting nuclear energy without a viable replacement plan in place was bad policy. In response to the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant but as likely motivated by a tough election, she pivoted by doubling down on a policy she considered bad.

But in doing so, did she make a trap of nuclear energy?

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Before the decision to close the plants, Germany was already in a pickle due to its decision to move heavily into renewable energy so it could exit nuclear energy by 2025, as this Economist article from late 2010 describes:

Renewables in Germany are growing more quickly than in almost any other EU state, but that is only because consumers pay a large subsidy, some €10 billion ($12.8 billion) last year. Energy taxes, already high, may be about to rise. In August energy companies and their supporters took out full-page newspaper advertisements arguing against tax rises and for a dismantling of bureaucratic barriers to investment. To secure cheap, climate-friendly power, the signers argued, nuclear and coal would have to remain part of the mix.
[…]
Yet to withdraw on schedule from nuclear power, which produces more than a fifth of Germany’s electricity, would be risky. The CDU [Christian Democratic Party, Merkel’s party] is divided, but leans towards extending the deadline. Many in the party see the decision as a test for a chancellor who prefers messy compromises to clear leadership. “It would be fatal to give up” a source of energy that is cheap, domestic and emits little carbon, says Joachim Pfeiffer, a CDU member of the Bundestag.

Between late 2010 time and the Japan accident, the government decided to extend the life of the plants to provide more time to put renewables in place. So nuclear energy need not be a trap, even when you want to do something else. (The Greens in this article make a really funny argument, though – because nuclear energy runs full tilt all the time, it’s tough to ramp it down to accommodate the intermittent nature of solar and wind energy. It’s really flips relative strength and weakness on their heads.)

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The response to Germany’s post-Fukushima decision has been – what you’d expect:

Utilities are less keen. They say high natural gas costs, still mostly tied to oil with its inbuilt geopolitical price premiums, and low power prices make gas plants an unprofitable business.
"The goals is very ambitious -- this will not be easy," said Juergen Grossmann, chief executive of Germany's No.2 utility RWE.

So there’s that.

One of the top priorities is the expansion of transport and distribution networks for power from renewables sources including wind and solar, Germany's new favored form of energy.
The task is being delayed by protests and overly long procedures to approve new grids and existing grid revamps, which in some cases take more than 10 years.

And that.

Siemens estimates that Germany's energy shift will cost up to 1.7 trillion euros ($2.17 trillion) by 2030, most of which will be borne by taxpayers and power consumers.

And – hey, ouch!

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Some of this might have been inevitable – nuclear plants have exceptionally low running costs – but other aspects are a function of flipping the off switch too quickly. All other factors being equal, Germany would be foolish not to consider all options.

The German government's 180-degree turn in nuclear policy has helped breathe new life into Europe's energy industry -- though not always to Germany's benefit. The country has gone from being an energy exporter to an energy importer practically overnight, which brings along with it a number of negative consequences for its economy, consumers and security.

And that can cause a grim, tight smile. Why?

Germany's decision to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022 has rapidly transformed it from power exporter to importer. Despite Berlin's pledge to move away from nuclear, the country is now merely buying atomic energy from neighbors like the Czech Republic and France.

That may seem a case of reaping what you sow , but it also raises the specter of hypocrisy.

So has nuclear energy trapped Germany into a costly, self-defeating energy policy? Not a bit – Germany self-trapped, so to speak, letting panic, short-sightedness and cynicism trump sound policy making – whether that policy would or would not have included nuclear energy.

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Speaking of other countries not following Germany’s course:

Ma Ying-jeou won 51.6 percent of the total votes to Tsai Ing-wen’s 45.63 percent, while voter turnout, at 74.38 percent, was less that the 76.33 turnout in the previous presidential election in 2008, though all the numbers won’t be finalized until a Central Election Commission meeting on Thursday.

Ma supports the expansion of nuclear energy in Taiwan. His opponent, Tsai Ing-wen, wanted to close all the plants. Nuclear energy was not a big issue in the election – economic ties to mainland China, which Ma initiated, was the determinative factor.

Still, no complaints here.

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Our Japan updates continue every Monday over on the Safety First web site. The site has more too, including, most recently, a great interactive graphic showing how American nuclear facilities weathered various natural hullabaloos surrounding them this year. Great to share with friends. Well worth a visit for more than just the Japan updates.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Frontline to Host Online Chat on "Nuclear Aftershocks" at 1:00 p.m. EST

2012-01-18T11:43:00.005-05:00

The team at Frontline is hosting a live online chat today about last night's airing of "Nuclear Aftershocks" at 1:00 p.m. today. Some details:

What’s the future of nuclear after Fukushima? Can the world’s faith in nuclear energy be restored? Or could another Fukishima-like disaster bring the nuclear age to an end? Is a nuclear plant near you at risk?

Veteran science reporter Miles O’Brien and producer Jon Palfreman have been digging into these issues for the past year. We asked them to join us for a live chat to discuss these questions and take yours.

Spencer Reiss, a contributing editor at WIRED who specializes in energy issues, will be our guest questioner.

Click here to join the chat.

Former Frontline Science Advisor Blasts "Nuclear Aftershocks"

2012-01-18T11:09:00.008-05:00

I've been perusing some of the comment strings over at Frontline since "Nuclear Aftershocks" aired last night, and I came across this comment from Neil Todreas, a professor at M.I.T who says he worked as a science advisor on last night's program. Todreas also served as co-chair of the Indian Point Independent Safety Evaluation Panel.

To say that his comment is illuminating would be a serious understatement. Please note I've inserted some line breaks in the copy in order to enhance readability:

The portion of the Frontline story which starts with the Fukushima accident is a worthwhile public service. However, as an initial scientific advisor to the team producing this show, I found the lack of accuracy and balance in the second half of the story covering the Indian Point reactor disturbing. The statement that that reactor lies "right on the faults" is not accurate, and the portrayal of the potential activity of the seismic faults by Professor Sykes is not balanced.

In 1972, the first fault was significantly studied when the Indian Point reactors were licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Earthquakes in the region were characterized as of minor magnitude and relatively trivial by the noted seismologist Charles Richter of Cal Tech, the originator of the Richter scale for characterizing earthquakes. The significance of the recently proclaimed second fault also has been disputed, most notably by Prof. Alan Kafka of Boston College. I made the producers aware of this information, but they chose not to disclose these counter opinions and only presented Professor Sykes’ views on the seismic issues.

Additionally, the story dialogue speaks of "the" evacuation route for residents near Indian Point, when in fact there are multiple routes in various directions from the plant. The producers could have balanced the correspondent's incredulous statements about the evacuation route by opinions of the surrounding county emergency response officials who have overseen the evacuation planning effort for the plant and have responsibility for its implementation should a need arise. This is a source of information I also pointed out to them.

Finally, the producers speak of the future of nuclear energy in America only in terms of the relicensing and eventual end of service of existing reactors. Balanced communication to the public would have been achieved by explaining that a new generation of reactors has been designed, certified as safe by the NRC (Westinghouse’s AP1000) and is being built in Georgia and South Carolina. Again, this was information I provided them in response to their request that I review the film prior to its airing.

Neil E. Todreas
KEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and
Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Emeritus)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Click here for a screen capture of the comment. I wonder what the producers of the program think about this?

On Frontline, Indian Point and the Ramopo Fault

2012-01-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

On tonight's program, we're hearing a lot about the Ramopo fault, but we're not hearing a lot from experts who disagree with Columbia University seismologist Lynn Sykes and his conclusions about earthquake risk around Indian Point Energy Center.

But back in March 2011, the Journal News did ask those questions:

But the U.S. Geological Survey — one of the nation's foremost research labs — said geologic evidence about the Ramapo Fault is "insufficient to demonstrate the existence of tectonic faulting or ... slip or deformation."

It didn't even include the fault in calculations of earthquake hazards in 2008.

Geology professor Alec Gates put it more succinctly: "The Ramapo Fault is dead," said Gates, chairman of Earth and environmental sciences at Rutgers University. "It was a big fault in the old days, but not anymore."...

What differentiates this region from more earthquake-prone areas, experts say, is that it lies in the middle of the North American Plate, a tectonic slab that encompasses North America to the Pacific Ocean, including Greenland, Cuba, the Bahamas, and parts of Siberia and Iceland.

"It's not a plate boundary; that's the primary reason you don't have activity and that it's hard to predict activity," said Paul Olsen, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. "The formation of the Ramapo Fault was at least 300 million years ago. Most of the earthquakes around here have nothing to do with it."

Viewers should question why these experts weren't mentioned at all in tonight's Frontline report.

Follow Us on Twitter During Frontline's Nuclear Aftershocks

2012-01-17T21:57:00.003-05:00

We're just sitting down to watch Frontline and its "Nuclear Aftershocks" report. We'll be following the conversation on Twitter in real time on our main NEI feed (@N_E_I) beginning at 10:00 p.m. EST. You can follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag, #Frontline. Please join in.

UPDATE: We've just finished watching the report, and you can take a look at what we tweeted by peeking at our timeline. Overall, Miles O'Brien and the Frontline team got some things right, especially when it came to the environmental and economic consequences of getting rid of nuclear energy on a global scale.

On the other hand, there were portions of the report where significant omissions were made in terms of emergency preparedness, license renewal and the proven slow-moving character of nuclear incidents.

As for next steps, I'm going home to watch the program one more time on my DVR to take some notes and then head to bed. Thanks to all our friends online who joined in the conversation tonight to defend the industry's record. Good night.

Transcript of Interview Between Entergy's Joe Pollock and Miles O'Brien of Frontline

2012-01-17T18:16:00.005-05:00

For those of you who are watching the Frontline report, "Nuclear Aftershocks," we wanted to share with you a transcript of an interview that Frontline's Miles O'Brien conducted with Joe Pollock on December 1, 2011 (click here to download).

At the time, Joe, who is now working here at NEI as a loaned employee, was working as Vice President of Operations for Indian Point Energy Center. The audio file the transcript was derived from comes in at just over one hour, so we clearly anticipate that not nearly everything that Joe said to O'Brien will be included in tonight's program.

Still, we thought it could serve as a handy guide to some of the sausage making behind news reporting. Feel free to peruse it at your leisure.

On Frontline, Nuclear Aftershocks and Renewing the Operating License at Indian Point

2012-01-17T13:44:00.006-05:00

Just picked up this clip from The Daily Courtland. In it, Frontline's Miles O'Brien repeats a common misconception about nuclear power plants:

“The reality is, Indian Point’s technology is not cutting edge, it’s old,” correspondent Miles O’Brien says in the documentary. The documentary shows scenes of the Village of Buchanan, Mayor Sean Murray and inside Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants, discussing the relicensing of the 40-year-old plants.

Again, I refer back to the transcript of the December 1, 2011 interview that O'Brien conducted with Joe Pollock, then Vice President of Operations with Indian Point Energy Center:

MR. O’BRIEN: 60 years seems like a long time to run a plant. And I’ve even heard some people say, hey, maybe we can go 80 years with some of these plants. First of all, did you take a position on that yet? Or are you still –

MR. POLLOCK: No, we have already – we’re working on 20 years. And when the plants were designed, they built for the 40 year life cycle. It was believed that the reactor vessel was the limiting addition. So at that time, when we built them, we put specimens in the vessel that we could take out every 10 years and measure the impacts and the influence from the neutrons from reactivity. And what we’ve found out, it was far less than what we had done in our calculations. So that’s how it came about, that we looked at and said: We could extend the life of these plants, at least from a reactor standpoint, and then be able to do the maintenance and the life extension on the other equipment that was part of it.

[...]

MR. O’BRIEN: So how can you assure – people are concerned when they think about a plant running as long as that. I guess what you’re saying is it really isn’t 60 years old. Is that – the way I look at it?

MR. POLLOCK: Well, it’s not 40 years old, you know. And you know, a lot of the equipment in here is not 10 years old. As you go through, we do total teardowns and rebuilds on emergency diesel generators, I believe, you got to see on your tour. We do complete teardowns and inspections over there of every refueling outage. We test them once a month. They have to start within 10 seconds, you know, without failure and be able to load up and be available. But the realities are they don’t run. So it’s like starting your car you have in your garage once a month to make sure it starts. And then, what we do is, after two years, we’ll go in there and tear apart and inspect it to make sure everything’s OK, and then we’ll go do an endurance run on it, you know. So then we’ll go take that long drive to make sure it’s going to work.

This is an issue that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also addressed:

A 40-year license term was selected on the basis of economic and antitrust considerations, not technical limitations.

And, as NEI mentioned in one of its fact sheets ...

The 40‐year term of a nuclear power plant license has nothing to do with aging plant components or a belief that safety needs to be reviewed on a 40‐year cycle. Instead, the period was chosen to parallel the financing amortization period for a plant. Exceeding federal safety standards is an ongoing activity for companies that operate nuclear power plants.

For more, I'll refer you back to this post from Victoria Barq, one where she made the case that the idea that Japan should shut down reactors once they reached the 40-year mark was wrongheaded for all sorts of reasons -- especially when there's absolutely no evidence that the incident at Fukushima Daiichi occurred because of the age of the plant.

As I've said previously, more updates as warranted.

Some Notes On Frontline, Indian Point and Emergency Preparedness

2012-01-17T11:30:00.006-05:00

Tonight, PBS will be airing a new episode of Frontline entitled, "Nuclear Aftershocks," a look at the world's reaction to the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. Here on the East Coast, the program will begin at 10:00 p.m. EST.

As we noted at NEI Nuclear Notes last week, the nuclear industry cooperated extensively with Frontline on the broadcast, and over the past few days, we've been getting a better idea on the direction of the program.

A good portion of the program deals with Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) and the question of whether or not the sort of incident that occurred in Japan could happen there.

Chief among the questions posed by reporter Miles O'Brien is whether or not the area around IPEC could be evacuated in time in case of an accident. As it turns out, that's a question that's been recently addressed by NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko. As Bloomberg reported in Decmember:

The New York City area may be safely evacuated in the event of a Fukushima-like disaster at the Indian Point nuclear plant because a crisis would unfold slowly, the top U.S. nuclear regulator said.

“Nuclear accidents do develop slowly, they do develop over time, and we saw that at Fukushima,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, 41, said in an interview today at Bloomberg's headquarters in New York. It's unlikely a nuclear accident would require prompt action beyond “more than a few miles,” where the highest radiation levels would be, he said.

That's a point that O'Brien ought to include in tonight's broadcast, because after all, he's already been told just that. Back on December 1, 2011, O'Brien interviewed Joe Pollock, then Vice President of Operations at IPEC. A representative of Entergy recorded that interview and we made a transcript:

MR. O’BRIEN: But because of all those people, it – the problem of evacuation, if something goes wrong, is a bigger challenge, isn’t it?

MR. POLLOCK: The evacuation is handled through the state and the counties, but the – at Indian Point we do a traffic study – emergency traffic study – every year. It’s required once every 10 years, but here we do that analysis, and we provide that to the state as well as the counties to implement evacuation. It considers ongoing weather; it considers a football game at West Point; so how would you handle the crowds on that day. So we continue to update that.

The key thing to remember – and it actually showed in Japan – these are not fast-moving events, you know, where you have to evacuate in two hours. In fact, there are days – a long time before they would be to a level that, should something happen, you would have to have that evacuation.

MR. O’BRIEN: So there’s – the notion of an instant event that would require everybody in a 50-mile radius to get out is hard to imagine?

MR. POLLOCK: It’s hard to imagine. Matter of fact, if you look at all the studies, all the analysis done by both the NRC, independent labs and the manufacturers, that there is not a scenario that’s an instant scenario.

We'll be posting that transcript on our Web site later today.

Here are some other points to keep in mind when considering IPEC and a potential evacuation:

Indian Point Energy Center —like other nuclear facilities—is designed with wide margins to withstand the toughest natural phenomena predicted for its area.
It has a very robust safety record, including during severe events. In 2011 alone, American nuclear facilities were able to withstand hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and even an earthquake. Click here to view the interactive graphic that recounts those events.
The EPZ standard for evacuation—created and approved by the NRC—is 10-miles. Indian Point is 24 miles from NYC.
The 2nd EPZ of 50 miles is for monitoring of radiation levels—not evacuation.

We have a number of resources available on this topic for readers who would like to know more:

NEI Web site: Emergency Preparedness;

NEI Fact Sheet: Emergency Preparedness and Nuclear Energy Facilities

NEI Fact Sheet: Nuclear Power Plant Emergency Preparedness: Protecting Our Neighbors in the Event of an Emergency

We'll have other updates throughout the day. Please stay tuned.

Consequential Elections

2012-01-13T16:32:00.001-05:00

There’s some good news:

China has 28 plants under construction, and India is building seven reactors and has plans for 20 more. And despite its proximity to Japan, South Korea, with 21 active nuclear reactors, is moving forward on 18 more. Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are all actively seeking to join the nuclear-power club.

But mostly bad:

When voters here choose a president and a new legislature on Saturday, their decisions will also determine whether Taiwan pulls the plug on a state-backed nuclear power industry that provides the country with a fifth of its electricity.

This is because the challenger Tsai Ing-wen has a good shot of unseating the current President Ma Ying-jeou. I was curious about this, because Ma has overseen a economic boom due to a financial rapprochement with mainland China. Tsai prefers no contact with the mainland. Of course, this is a key issue in any Taiwanese election – much more so than nuclear energy could ever be – and consequently, according to this story on CNN, many Taiwanese working on the mainland are returning home to cast votes:

"Because of the closeness of the race, this election has the highest ever number of returnees," says Professor Ray-Kuo Wu of Fu Jen University, adding that estimates could be as high as 250,000 returnees. "Corporate bosses have mobilized their employees to participate in these elections like never before.

"Hon Hai Precision is chartering six planes to get people back to vote and Formosa Plastics Group is another company that is helping employees return for the election."

If you think the U.S. is the heart of free enterprise, you clearly haven’t been to Taiwan. Anyway, Taiwan is essentially in the same spot as Japan when it comes to nuclear energy because it is an island devoid of oil, gas and coal reserves. That mean – well, why not let the New York Times make the argument?

Proponents of nuclear energy say all the talk of a nuclear-free Taiwan neglects one important detail: how to replace the power generated by the reactors. Taiwan produces about 1 percent of its energy supplies and relies on a mix of imports: oil from the Middle East, coal from China and Australia and natural gas from Indonesia and Malaysia.

And the answer, unfortunately, is a little desperate:

Ms. Tsai speaks of increased conservation and of shifting the Taiwanese economy away from power-hungry manufacturing. Part of her “2025 Nuclear-Free Homeland Initiative” also calls for the construction of gas-fired turbines and an expanded reliance on solar and wind power.

There you go – kill your economic base and plant wind farms on extremely limited land resources.

I took a look at the 2025 initiative referenced by Tsai. Here’s what it proposes in handy Q&A form:

How could Taiwan replace nuclear power?

(A) Increase the proportion of renewable energy: the DPP’s initiative calls for increasing renewable energy by about 6.5% of total electricity generation by 2025.

(B) Improve the efficiency of thermal power: In addition to increasing power generation efficiency, invest in thermal power plants in order to reduce the amount of carbon emissions.

(C) Construction of natural gas power plants as priority because natural gas is a cleaner energy, and future power plants should give priority to using natural gas.

What are other methods to reduce power consumption in the long-term?

(A) Energy Conservation: the Government can encourage people to use energy-saving products.

(B) Adjust industrial structure: instead of just focusing on economic growth, we should encourage green policies among energy-intensive industries.

(C) Liberalization of the electricity industry: the government should liberalize the electricity market, which not only alters the issue of Tai-Power’s monopoly, but it also encourages the development of the renewable energy industry.

Yikes.

Now, nuclear energy isn’t meant to be a trap from which there is no escape, but Taiwan, even more than Japan, really needs to think this out. Nuclear energy was a boon for its growth as an economic power – lots of clean electricity from a limited land mass – and a viable way to replace it would need very careful planning. This plan seems based on some very dubious premises.

Election on Saturday. We’ll check back next week.

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Tell me what you really think:

The authors—in their effort to support a crackpot theory— used data that is essentially useless.

This is Josh Bloom, a scholar at the American Council On Science and Health, commenting on the recent article by Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman that radiation from Fukushima Daiichi has been killing Americans pell-mell. Eric has done a series of posts on this over the last few weeks, so no need to go over it again; still, Bloom’s takedown is really fun.

In trying to make a case against nuclear power, the authors have succeeded only in embarrassing themselves.

Richly deserved.

Taipei at night.

Industry Presents New Strategy to Increase Safety, Address NRC’s Post-Fukushima Recommendations

2012-01-13T09:00:00.001-05:00

The industry will present a strategy to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission today on how it plans to enhance safety at the nation’s 67 plant sites to better equip them for unexpected events. The strategy—known as the “diverse and flexible mitigation capability,” or FLEX—addresses many of the recommendations set forth by the NRC’s Fukushima task force and takes into account some of the early lessons from the Fukushima accident on the need to maintain key safety functions amid conditions where electricity may be lost, back-up equipment could be damaged, and several reactors may be involved.

NEI’s Adrian Heymer, executive director for Fukushima regulatory response, held a media briefing Wednesday to explain the FLEX approach:

FLEX is a set of portable equipment that is located in diverse locations around the plant. We think there needs to be more than one set of equipment at diverse locations that can be quickly deployed and connected to provide injection and power supplies for instrumentation. What you want to do is inject water so that you keep the reactor [and spent fuel pools] cool. At the same time you want to know what is going on in the reactor—so it’s instrumentation for monitoring, for which you need power supplies.

FLEX will include equipment such as additional pumps, generators, batteries and chargers that will be located in diverse locations—for instance, on the east and west sides of the plant site. The equipment will be commercial-grade, but with program controls—which are still being defined—so that the equipment will be tested with results being subject to NRC oversight.

The strategy is “flexible” in that it does not dictate that permanent equipment be installed, but rather that the plant sites prepare portable equipment that could be used for any catastrophic event. The New York Times’ Matthew Wald explains:

A clear problem at Fukushima, he [Heymer] said, was that the tsunami was bigger than what the plant was designed for. If the operators had taken an approach based on specific hazards, he said, “instead of having a meter high barrier, they might have had a 10-meter high barrier,” although the actual tsunami was 14 to 15 meters high. The institute’s approach would be to take some general precautions rather than depend on the commission’s regular approach of determining probability before deciding what steps are needed.

Thus, the FLEX approach allows the industry to more quickly address high-priority safety concerns ahead of NRC regulations, which Heymer said could take time to implement due to the administrative analyses and technical reviews that would be involved:

Eventually there would be, we think, a rulemaking that would go in parallel. But this is a way of installing and achieving additional mitigation contingency in a shorter period of time. So, you get the same benefit, but rather than going through the normal process we try to expedite it by just getting on and installing the equipment and having a rulemaking to go in parallel.

In a blog post yesterday, the NRC acknowledged the industry’s FLEX plan as a step in the right direction:

The NRC staff believes this approach is a reasonable starting point, although more work is needed on defining these strategies. We also must ensure the NRC can inspect how plants put the strategies in place and that we can hold plants accountable for keeping those strategies ready and available.

The bottom line is that we believe these combined developments may enhance the agency’s approach to implementing the recommendations.

The FLEX approach is just one part of a larger industry response to the events at Fukushima. Heymer said that the FLEX strategy would allow for at least three days of keeping the nuclear fuel cool, and that regional response centers are also being pursued as yet another line of defense against a catastrophic event. As the various levels of safety enhancements are added, the industry plans to train and test its plant workers regularly so that they are well-equipped for emergency situations.

The FLEX concept is based on how the industry responded to the events of 9/11, in which additional security precautions—such as portable generators, water pumps, hoses and batteries—were put in place to mitigate against “beyond design-basis events,” or unlikely events that are considered outside the scope of what a plant should be designed or regulated to withstand.

Please note, this story was also cross-posted at NEI's Safety First microsite.

Saying No to Dr. No

2012-01-12T12:02:00.001-05:00

David Phillips, the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry, would like to share a theory with you:

Prof. David Phillips says that Dr. No, with his personal nuclear reactor, helped to create a "remorselessly grim" reputation for atomic energy.

Why?

Prof. Phillips says the popularity of the Dr. No movie from 1962 created an enduringly negative image of nuclear power - as something dangerous that could be wielded by megalomaniacs with aspirations to world domination.

I’d actually be surprised that people connect a James Bond villain to a serious view of nuclear energy. Do people remember that from Dr. No (1962) or the sight of Ursula Andress rising from the surf armed with shells. I vote for the latter.

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Nuclear energy has often been, in popular culture, if not exactly a fear engine in itself, the cause of fearful things. During the 1950s, this included a plethora of giant critters – ants, praying mantis’, grasshoppers - and bands of spies trying to export nuclear secrets. In the Mike Hammer movie Kiss Me Deadly (1955), our detective hero goes on the hunt for a box containing pure fission (whatever that might be) that has the capacity to destroy the world. How it got into the box and how you’d get it out safely and use it is not discussed.

So by the time Dr. No came out in 1962, nuclear energy had long been established as what Alfred Hitchcock called the McGuffin – that is, the mechanism that got the plot rolling but wasn’t that important in itself. (Hitchcock himself used uranium-stuffed wine bottles as the McGuffin in Notorious (1946)).

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But that’s enough belaboring. What Prof. Phillips is actually up to here is to use the 50th anniversary of Dr. No (and happily, Sean Connery and Ursula Andress are around to celebrate it, though sadly, not Joseph Wiseman, Dr. No himself) to make the point that nuclear energy should be freed of such associations:

"But the RSC asserts that nuclear power has to be part of the future national energy mix, in which it plays a major role, complemented by renewable sources. Fossil fuels have to be eradicated for people to live in a healthy environment."

"Let's say yes to nuclear and no to Dr. No's nonsense."

To be honest, while of course Prof. Phillips is absolutely correct on nuclear energy, the British Green Party’s view on Dr. No is also plausible:

This message [of Prof. Phillips] was not accepted by the Green Party - which argued that Bond movies reflected concerns rather than created them.

But is that really right?

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Consider: nuclear energy really isn’t that disliked, even in the shadow of Fukushima Daiichi, by Americans or Brits; the only movie I know of that uses a monster as a direct metaphor for nuclear energy is Godzilla (1954) – and who would quibble?; but most importantly, popular culture is always on the lookout for fearmakers – note that current end-of-the-world scenarios reference climate change (The Day After Tomorrow (2004)) or the earth itself rebelling (2012 (2009)).

But sociologists need something to do and reading public anxieties into movies is always a ripe subject. But such speculation, fun as it can be, often doesn’t mean a thing.

From top to bottom: Joseph Wiseman, Ursula Andress, both from Dr. No; Ant and Joan Weldon from Them! (1954); Maxine Cooper and Ralph Meeker from Kiss Me Deadly (1955); the wine bottles from Notorious (1946); and Godzilla (1954). Oops, forgot one:

Sean Connery, from Dr. No.

Five Minutes to Midnight

2012-01-11T18:20:00.001-05:00

Each year I wait with anticipation to find out whether the groundhog will see his shadow and winter will continue, or if he won’t see his shadow and spring will come early. Although I know it is just folklore, it is still interesting to see what weather patterns Punxsutawney Phil will predict.

Much like the groundhog tradition, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists conducts its own annual tradition of changing a metaphorical Doomsday Clock based on how well they believe the world is addressing nuclear nonproliferation and climate change. Each minute closer to midnight signals doom and this year the scientists have moved the clock forward yet another minute closer to midnight to 11:55.

The Bulletin explains:

Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.

The scientists point to a nuclear Iran, new leadership within North Korea, the continued threat of climate change, and last year’s Fukushima nuclear accident as some of the main contributors to their decision.

Lawrence Krauss, co-chair of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, comments on the decision:

As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity's survival in the 21st century is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, exposing people to loss of health and community, and without risking further spread of nuclear weapons, and in fact setting the stage for global reductions.

Given that nuclear energy is safe, emission free and stimulates the economy, it seems only reasonable that it would be included in energy policies that aim to both reduce the effects of climate change and boost economic development. Bill Sweet at IEEE Spectrum discusses this point with Robert Socolow, one of the Bulletin’s board members.

Together with climate modeler James Hansen of Columbia University's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Socolow emphasized that only nuclear energy can provide baseload electricity as a substitute for fossil fuels. Because of that, he emphasized the importance of keeping the nuclear power open. Yet his insistence on that point was tempered, even to a degree undermined, by his sense that more nuclear power means more proliferation of atomic weaponry.

That attitude, taking nuclear power to be essentially a good thing but dangerous because the technology is dual-use and can be turned to military ends, is characteristic of scientists who have worried about the atom in the post-war era.

Moving forward, Sweet encouraged a more measured look at the reality of the risks involved with nuclear power:

"Worldwide, there have been 582 nuclear power reactors that have operated approximately 14,400 reactor-years. Thus, to date, the historical frequency of core-melt accidents is about one in 1,300 reactor-years," Cochran said. Yet the Nuclear Regulator Commission, working from supposedly scientific probabilistic risk assessments, has put that frequency much lower, in the range of one to five per ten thousand reactor years (1-5/10,000).

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—to some degree—acknowledge Sweet’s point that nuclear reactor designs have been improving and getting safer over the past 60 years of operation, but with time running out on the Doomsday Clock, they still call for more safeguards:

Safer nuclear reactor designs need to be developed and built, and more stringent oversight, training, and attention are needed to prevent future disasters. A major question to be addressed is: How can complex systems like nuclear power stations be made less susceptible to accidents and errors in judgment?

Increasing safety at the nation’s nuclear plants is something that the industry aims to achieve each day. However, post-Fukushima safety improvements could result in additional costs to the utilities, The Bulletin said, which may open the door for other energy alternatives to meet the nation’s electricity and climate change goals:

In the United States, increased costs of additional safety measures may make nuclear power too expensive to be a realistic alternative to natural gas and other fossil fuels.

The hopeful news is that alternatives to burning coal, oil, and uranium for energy continue to show promise. Solar and photovoltaic technologies are seeing reductions in price, wind turbines are being adopted for commercial electricity, and energy conservation and efficiency are becoming accepted as sources for industrial production and residential use.

Regardless of The Bulletin’s moving target in reducing the effects of climate change and meeting nuclear nonproliferation goals, it is important to keep in mind that the Doomsday Clock serves just about as much utility as Punxsutawney Phil. Although The Bulletin warns us that, “The Clock is ticking,” I am pretty sure that continued research and development and advanced technologies will save us all before the clock strikes 12.

Just so you won’t have nightmares tonight, read this comforting note from The Los Angeles Times:

However, it may be heartening to hear that humanity has been closer to doomsday in the past and managed to come back from the brink of self destruction. In 1953 the board declared the time on the doomsday clock to be two minutes to midnight as the United States decided to pursue the hydrogen bomb, but by 1960 the time had moved back to six minutes to midnight as it became clear that both the U.S. and Russia were eager to avoid a nuclear conflict.

If that doesn’t relieve your anxiety about our impending doom, it may be time to curl up with some popcorn and Dr. Strangelove, or, of course, take a lesson from Tim Tebow…just a thought!

Photo credits: Robert Socolow sits alongside the Doomsday Clock. Courtesy of Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

On "Frontline" and "Nuclear Aftershocks"

2012-01-11T10:00:00.005-05:00

My colleague, John Keeley, asked that I share the following note with our readers:

On January 17, PBS’ "Frontline" program will air "Nuclear Aftershocks," a documentary which purports to examine “the hazards and benefits of nuclear power.” Former CNN science reporter Miles O’Brien, with 30 years of journalism experience covering space, science and technology, leads the investigation and analysis for the program. O’Brien is a solid journo with a reputation for resisting the melodramatic and sensational in favor of substantive and balanced pieces. Would that we’d seen more of that among O’Brien’s broadcast peers covering Fukushima last spring.

Still, there are focus points to the piece we already know about that cause concern. O’Brien – who has been tweeting about the production for a few weeks – and his documentary team visited Indian Point Energy Center ostensibly on the premise that what happened at Fukushima Diachii could potentially happen at the New York plant located on the Hudson River. Indian Point is very much a political piñata in New York, but few of its critics, I think, posit any likelihood of the plant being visited by a 48-foot tsunami. And in the U.S., we don’t locate our nuclear plants on subduction zones.

Know this: industry offered PBS inordinate assistance with this project. Both Exelon and Indian Point’s operator, Entergy, afforded "Frontline" generous access to their respective plant sites, and made executives available for reflection about industry in a post-Fukushima world. Exelon spent a full day with Frontline last August at its LaSalle site. The Frontline team was afforded a tour of the fuel pool/building, the B5b equipment stage areas, the cask loading area, dry cask storage, a working hydrogen recombiner, and a number of underground spaces where backup equipment, emergency fuel supplies, and submarine doors were visible.
Industry had hoped to preview this program in advance of its airing, but the representative of one of our member companies has yet to hear back from the producers of the program. We will be paying close attention to "Nuclear Aftershocks" to see if the show attempts to achieve some context for decisions made in both Germany and Japan to shutter nuclear plants, such as acknowledging that globally today more than 60 new nuclear plants are under construction. We do know that "Frontline" met with individuals outside of industry concerned by recent decisions by some countries to abandon nuclear power.
“We have not yet found a base-load electric power without carbon emissions, other than nuclear power,” NASA’s James Hansen informed O’Brien in an interview.
The program airs on PBS around the country beginning on January 17. Click here to check when it will air on your local PBS member station.

A Cat with Eighteen Half-Lives

2012-01-10T12:29:00.001-05:00

Speaking of uranium, who wants a can of uranium ore? You can buy a little tin of it on Amazon for about 40 bucks. The product description says it is useful for testing your Geiger counter, and I’ll take the vendor’s word for it. The main reason to bring this up here is not so much the uranium, but the fun the commenters have with the idea:

I purchased this product 4.47 Billion Years ago and when I opened it today, it was half empty.

Ran out of toothpaste, and remembered how you're supposed to be able to use baking soda to clean your teeth, so of course, I accidentally used this instead, and Wow! all I can say is, my teeth have never been cleaner! They sparkle, they tingle, and for some reason, they STAY clean now, no matter what. Highly recommended!

I put it on my cat's food and now it has 18 half lives.

I originally purchased this for powering the hovercraft on which my house sits, so when I want to move I can take my house with me.

And of course:

I bought this stuff to power my Delorian on a trip back to 1955. All went well until I got there. At first I was shocked it had all been used up on one trip but then I thought, "my bad, it was -50 years I was travelling, I'll just order some more". I was horrified to discover that they would not deliver to 1955.

Because, of course, the most popular use of nuclear energy will be in the flux capacitor.

There’s some non-proliferation and mutation humor, as you’d expect, but in general, the focus is on the surreal nature of owning a little trough of uranium. Comedy gold – or yellow, as the case may be - for the next Nuclear Energy Assembly.

J.R. Bray has a rather dicey, if still key, role in the history of animation. Pretending to be a journalist, he visited pioneering animator Winsor McCay in 1911 and McCay happily shared his techniques – which Bray promptly patented under his own name. (A later court case reestablished McCay’s interest.)

But Bray controlled the patents like a club and you’ll see “Bray-Hurd” (Ed Hurd was Bray’s business partner) on the credits of many early cartoons that licensed the patents. Bray himself lost interest in cartoons after World War I, moving on to live action shorts, but his company continued producing them until the end of the silent era – The Cat’s Nine Lives is from 1926.

Japan Discusses Policy To Shutdown 40-Year-Old Reactors

2012-01-09T18:08:00.001-05:00

Over the weekend, Japan’s government began discussing a new policy that would shut down the country’s nuclear reactors after they reach their 40th birthday. Some say the move stems from the fact that the Fukushima Daiichi reactors were built starting in 1967, implying that older reactors may not be as safe as newer reactors. Whereas others say the action stems from the government’s plan to eventually phase-out its nuclear energy facilities.

An editorial in The Daily Yomiuri takes the latter view:

Elsewhere in the world, it is rare for a country, except for those advocating abandonment of nuclear power generation, to stipulate by law the life span of a nuclear power station.

Meanwhile, discussion is still under way within the government as to what kind of power supply the nation should have in the future. It seems too abrupt for the government to come up with such a policy now.

Describing the new policy as “abrupt” may be right, given that there currently is not enough evidence to support Fukushima Daiichi’s age being a contributing factor to the reactor accident. The Associated Press explains:

It is unclear whether the age of the reactors was related to the nuclear crisis. The location of the generators, absence of alternative backup power and inadequate venting are believed to be more direct causes, but some critics have said the Fukushima plant showed signs of age, such as cracks in piping and walls.

Without factual basis, it seems premature for Japan to pursue a policy that would likely force many of its 54 reactors to shutdown. This action would likely result in a 36 percent gap in Japan’s power generating capacity by 2030 if alternative energy sources and solutions to cutting demand are not realized.

However, if the law mirrors the United States’ model for license renewals, as The AP indicates that it might, the country could be on a path to better ensuring that its plants are safer and more equipped to operate beyond the 40-year mark.

In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a systematic process that analyzes both the safety and environmental issues that are involved with certifying that a licensee can operate a nuclear plant for an additional 20 years beyond the original license of 40 years. The process takes on average two years to complete and costs the owners of the facility between $10 million and $20 million.

A common misperception that I hear from members of the public is that older nuclear plants are not safe. In fact, an article in today’s SmartPlanet substantiates this myth:

The problems arise from America’s aging nuclear infrastructure, where plants are operating decades past their intended lifespans.

The NRC debunks this claim on its website by stating that there was never a set lifespan for operating a nuclear plant and that the 40-year license is somewhat arbitrary:

A 40-year license term was selected on the basis of economic and antitrust considerations, not technical limitations.

NEI’s fact sheet on relicensing nuclear plants further explains:

The 40‐year term of a nuclear power plant license has nothing to do with aging plant components or a belief that safety needs to be reviewed on a 40‐year cycle. Instead, the period was chosen to parallel the financing amortization period for a plant. Exceeding federal safety standards is an ongoing activity for companies that operate nuclear power plants.

Of the 71 U.S. nuclear reactors that have been granted 20-year license extensions by the NRC, it is important to note that the regulatory agency at any time has the authority to shut down a reactor—regardless of its age—if it feels that the reactor is not fully meeting all of its safety standards. It is also worthwhile to note that the date a nuclear plant starts operating is not a reliable indication of its age or condition because the industry’s sustained maintenance and improvement programs help to routinely reconfirm the plant’s safe operation.

As more is learned about the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and the significance—if any—that the reactor’s age played, the global nuclear industry undoubtedly will incorporate those lessons into how they both operate and regulate today’s operating nuclear plants to ensure that a plant’s age is never a compromising factor to public health and safety.

Photo credits: The Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture will enter its 43rd year of operation this year. From The Asahi Shimbun.

A Bad Decision from Interior

2012-01-09T15:35:00.001-05:00

Not good news:

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced his decision to protect the iconic Grand Canyon and its vital watershed from the potential adverse effects of additional uranium and other hardrock mining on over 1 million acres of federal land for the next 20 years.

This is about the Arizona Strip, which straddles the north edge of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. Naturally, no one would support a move that would in any way damage these areas – doing so would bring major heat down on the mining industry – but no one has been able to show that mining there has damaged any aspect, physical or visual, of the neighboring canyon.

Both Arizona’s and Utah’s Congressional delegations argued against withdrawing the land. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who certainly has institutional knowledge, noted that legislation back in the 80s agreed to keep the strip active while withdrawing other lands in the area from consideration.

“The Obama Administration’s ban on uranium mining is a devastating blow to job creation in northern Arizona, particularly in Mohave County,” said Senator John McCain. “This decision is fueled by an emotional public relations campaign pitting the public’s love for the Grand Canyon against a modern form of low-impact mining that occurs many miles from the Canyon walls and in no way impacts the quality of drinking water from the Colorado River. It is deeply unfortunate that certain environmental groups have chosen to break faith with a 30 year-old compromise with environmentalists that successfully balanced conservation with mining and other commercial activities. The Administration has show that it is either careless enough to break this historic agreement or foolish enough to fall for these groups’ alarmist arguments. Either way, the Obama Administration's decision will cost Arizonans more high paying jobs under the false pretense of 'protecting' one of our national treasures, the Grand Canyon.".

The focus on jobs is au courant, but McCain is right on points.

And Utah’s Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) is no happier:

"Today's announcement by the Interior Department shows how much this Administration just doesn't get it,” said Senator Orrin Hatch. “Mining this land poses no environmental threat and is expected to create thousands of jobs, but the Administration continues to pander to extremist environmentalists who oppose one of the cleanest sources of energy we have. I wish I could say today's announcement comes as a surprise but sadly it's just another sign that the Obama Administration is one of the most anti-American energy presidencies in history."

The harsh tone is a sign, at the least, of how disappointed this decision has left some major figures. In the way government works, though, this decision retains some signs of compromise:

The withdrawal does not prohibit previously approved uranium mining, new projects that could be approved on claims and sites with valid existing rights. The withdrawal would allow other natural resource development in the area, including mineral leasing, geothermal leasing and mineral materials sales, to the extent consistent with the applicable land use plans. Approximately 3,200 mining claims are currently located in the withdrawal area.

NEI makes the case for energy security. Generally speaking, uranium is not secured from dicey places, but that’s not the point:

This decision actually makes more challenging the difficult struggle to reduce America’s dependence on imported sources of energy. The land covered by this prohibition contains as much as 375 million pounds of uranium, seven times current U.S. annual demand. Our nation’s ability to realistically pursue energy independence hinges in part on our ability and willingness to produce uranium supplies domestically. Thirty years ago, reactors here used U.S.-mined uranium for all of our electricity production, but the level today is less than 10 percent.

In this instance, I have no brief on “radical environmentalists” – decisions like this one take a lot of factors into account. But almost all the facts pointed to a responsible handling of the Arizona strip, the desire of people around it to keep it open to mining and grazing and a glaring lack of any evidence of environmental damage.

This is a notably terrible decision.

The Grand Cliffs along the Arizona Strip.

86th Carnival of Nuclear Energy

2012-01-09T09:51:00.001-05:00

Today we have the privilege of hosting the 86th carnival of nuclear blogs in its almost two year history.

To start off the New Year, Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk took on the press by criticizing the sensationalist headlines on nuclear issues and the misleading impressions they left in 2011. She blasted several outlets including AP’s blunder analyses and noted that there are plenty more examples that could be cited.

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Dan Yurman with his new look at Idaho Samizdat reviewed a book on the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) written by the two leading engineers at the Argonne National Laboratory -- Dr. Charles E. Till and Dr. Yoon Il Chang.

The IFR was a fast reactor system developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the decade 1984 to 1994. The IFR project developed the technology for a complete system; the reactor, the entire fuel cycle and the waste management technologies were all included in the development program.

The book makes a special point of being accessible to non-specialists and is a landmark in the sustainable energy literature.

…

Yurman was also at the ANS Nuclear Cafe and delved into the details of the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill for 2012 which was recently passed by Congress. Nuclear energy research at the Department of Energy was largely spared from major cuts and fared far better than some other high profile DOE programs. Meanwhile, in the UK, nuclear R&D funding is languishing, in the view of the House of Lords, prompting a stern report from the Science Committee.

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Meredith Angwin at Yes Vermont Yankee gave the breakdown on each of the lawsuits involving VY. As many are awaiting on the Judge's ruling on the major lawsuit, Yes Vermont Yankee reviewed all five legal cases that concern the plant. There's the main lawsuit, the operator's lawsuit, the state's lawsuit about the water permit, the Mark 1 contention (now settled), and the bill of attainder law that the state passed (unenforceable). Angwin summarized the issues and even amused about the absurd qualities of many of the contentions.

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Cheryl Rofer at the Nuclear Diner summarized Japan’s interim report on the Fukushima accident. The Investigation Committee, appointed by the Japanese government, issued a report which looked at communications failures and suggested how the reorganized nuclear regulator should operate. The report also contains some information on the accident sequence but the investigation is still incomplete.

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Will Davis at Atomic Power Review has tirelessly chased those who have deliberately misrepresented the facts of the Fukushima accident as well as blasted a few who just did it accidentally. Now, news of an upcoming symposium on the reporting of the accident offers him hope that things could change in the future.

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Rod Adams at Atomic Insights was reminded on his New Years Day of the great benefit of having abundant energy. While he was using fossil fuels to water ski, he noted that they will eventually all be consumed. Studies peg natural gas production in the U.S. drying up in 90 years which, when you look at the big picture, is just a brief period of human history. Other fossil fuels are estimated to deplete sooner. The alternative? A dense source of plentiful energy right in front of us: nuclear (see chart on right from Clean Energy Insight).

Here’s Rod:

We need more low cost power in this world. We have been gifted with an abundance of incredibly energy dense materials along with the knowledge of how to use them for the benefit of mankind. It would be a wonderful way to start a New Year if a growing number of decision makers recognized the incredible opportunities that God (nature if you will) has provided just when we need it the most.

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Last but not least, NEI’s Mark Flanagan detailed how France and the U.S. are upgrading and modifying their nuclear plants to improve safety after the Fukushima accident. Mark also discussed ways the World Association of Nuclear Energy is increasing its power as well as gave a brief mention of natural gas fracking that is causing small earthquakes, oy.

That is all for the week’s carnival, hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for next week’s at the ANS Nuclear Café.

French Frack Fried

2012-01-05T16:31:00.001-05:00

World Nuclear News Has up a story on how the French nuclear energy industry is responding to the accident in Japan:

In an accident situation the ASN [Autorité De Sûreté Nucléaire, essentially the French NRC] wants French reactors to be able to rely on what it calls a 'hard core' set of safety requirements. These arrangements would protect safety-critical structures and equipment to ensure that vital functions can be maintained in the face of demands beyond the design basis of the plant, such as earthquakes, fires, or the prolonged loss of power or emergency cooling. Among the 'hard core' set-up would be robust emergency centers, improved communication and hardened supplies of water, diesel generators and dosimetry supplies for workers.

The whole story is worth a read, but what struck me is that this sound much like the American industry’s FLEX approach (this is from NEI’s member newsletter):

In a series of meetings with NRC staff last week, the industry put forward its diverse and flexible (FLEX) approach to implementing the NRC’s directives on its staff’s Fukushima task force recommendations. FLEX is a comprehensive and integrated plan to mitigate the effects of severe natural phenomena at nuclear energy facilities while expediting the attainment of safety benefits.

And here’s what the FLEX approach includes:

Provides portable equipment to assure that multiple means of obtaining power and cooling water are available to support key safety functions for all reactors at a site. Equipment includes portable pumps, generators, batteries, battery chargers, compressors, hoses, couplings, tools, debris clearing equipment and other materials.
Provides reasonable protection of portable equipment to guard it from the severe natural phenomena predicted for that site by locating the equipment at diverse locations.
Creates procedures and provides guidance for emergency response personnel for the use of FLEX equipment and capabilities.
Provides for program controls to ensure regular maintenance and testing of FLEX equipment.
Trains personnel in FLEX capability and response.

And perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the French and Americans are moving in parallel – the French have been keeping tabs on what is happening over here:

The focus of additional safety in response to previous accidents was to develop universal excellence in nuclear operation, first across the USA as facilitated by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and then globally through its sister, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO).

WANO talked a bit earlier this year of taking a stronger regulatory hand in international nuclear safety (as did the IAEA), but issues of national sovereignty make that difficult to pull off. What seems more useful (at least, more likely to be widely accepted) is for WANO to further develop its standards for operational excellence and allow countries to apply them. That’s still the goal:

At the eleventh WANO Biennial General Meeting (BGM), the world’s nuclear operators approved a series of wide-ranging new commitments to nuclear safety, as WANO’s General Assembly unanimously approved a series of recommendations put forward by its Governing Board.

And these include:

Expanding the scope of WANO’s activities
Developing a world-wide integrated event response strategy
Improving WANO’s credibility, including important changes to WANO’s peer review process
Improving visibility
Improving the quality of all WANO products and services

There’s that word “integrated” again, as in “FLEX is a comprehensive and integrated plan.” It’s less a quirk or a nod to current thinking about accident mitigation than a simple recognition that everything that goes into mitigation should be thought about together so as to press out redundancies – to make a tight and austere yet thorough plan. It’s good to see that WANO is sharing that approach with the French, if that’s what’s happening.

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A cautionary tale"?

Barbara Scott had 21 solar panels installed last March on her house in Media, Pa. Scott's family was the first in the community, and she was prepared to evangelize, "We can have open houses and write newsletter articles and promote the idea of solar," she said. But that was before the economics changed.

With government rebates and tax incentives, Scott says, her family spent $21,000 to install the system. She figured it would take eight years to recoup that investment.

Barbara Scott and Mac Given in Media, Pa., had 21 solar panels installed last March. With government rebates and tax incentives, Scott says, her family spent $21,000 to install the system.

A lot of other people had the same idea at the same time, which sent the price of solar energy credits down sharply in Pennsylvania. Scott says that added another seven years to the payback period.

On top of that, Scott says, electricity rates aren't going up as quickly as she thought they would, thanks in part to low natural gas prices.

The idea here was to sell back unused electricity, which would defray the cost of the investment. And I imagine folks might hit three cherries if the timing is right – but for these folks right now, not so much. Well, it’s a long term investment and there are reasons to do this that do not include profit. Take your chances, take your risks.

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On the other hand:

The Northstar No. 1 disposal well stopped injecting brine and fracking fluids from natural-gas wells in Pennsylvania on Friday, about a day before a 4.0-magnitude quake shook Youngstown. It was the 11th such quake recorded in that area last year and the strongest to date.

The original injection pressure should force the brine back out of the well into 12 storage tanks, said Andy Ware, a deputy director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which oversees Ohio’s oil and gas industry. The hope is that will help stop the ground from shaking.

Imagine if a nuclear energy facility spontaneously generated earthquakes as well as electricity and one can see the problem here.

In case you thought nuclear energy was the one that carried risk.

Jumping Fences

2012-01-03T17:28:00.001-05:00

Don’t try this at home:

An emergency was declared at the McGuire nuclear plant in Huntersville early Sunday morning after a security breach, according to a report from Duke Energy.

The report states that security saw someone climb over a fence into an unauthorized area around 3:30 a.m. on January 1.

Uh-oh.

According to police, 18-year-old David Hamilton Drake Jr. was arrested for first degree Trespassing.

Oh. Well, I can remember annoying some trainmen while crossing the switchyard as a shortcut to school and getting chased now and then. The most that would have happened to me was likely a severe beating – those were pretty tough guys.

The bottom line is: this is something not to do. Security forces don’t treat this kind of thing more lightly than those trainmen did.

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Interesting article from the Yorkshire (U.K.) Post:

One third of all households in the UK will be in fuel poverty by 2030 unless the coalition Government rapidly moves to encourage and enable building of new nuclear plants, says a report released today.

The new report published by the Centre for Policy Studies, claims the number of homes in fuel poverty – defined as the need to spend more than 10 per cent of household income on fuel to maintain adequate warmth – could rise to nearly 8.5 million over the next 18 years, if nuclear energy generating capacity continues to fall as the Government delays approving new nuclear plants.

Fuel poverty. I don’t think I’ve heard that term before – if I had heard it, I’m not sure I’d have applied it to the British. The reason this would happen already implies how it will not happen – and unfortunately, that has nothing to do with nuclear energy:

Last winter, coal plants shouldered nearly 50 per cent of electricity demand and the report claims the coalition does not currently have the suitable plans in place to replace old coal and oil power supplies which will close by 2016 due to European Union rules.

Rules that don’t work don’t get implemented, so if the U.K. is threatened with “fuel poverty,” those coal plants will stay open.

Here’s the report, called The Atomic Clock. It’s very inside British energy. What I read sounds a bit like an industry wish list, or more generally a free trade screed like those produced by the Heritage Foundation here. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it leads to a somewhat blinkered view.

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Politico posted its 2012 Top 10 Energy Questions. Here’s the one about nuclear energy:

8) Is there a future for Yucca Mountain? A federal court in D.C. will hear arguments in a lawsuit led by Yucca supporters against the NRC over whether the agency can be compelled to complete its now-boxed review of the nuclear waste project without funding from Congress and with a president looking to nix it. If the court sides with Yucca supporters, the NRC might be forced — given the information already produced — into approving the project. But should the court side with the NRC, Yucca Mountain may actually stay dead.

“The NRC might be forced into approving the project.” The NRC would not be forced to do anything other than to finish reviewing the license application. It could choose then to approve or not approve it based on the application’s merits.

Though it’s not exactly unfair to call the lawsuit’s backers “Yucca supporters,” (they include the states of Washington and South Carolina, Aiken County, S.C., and several individuals), it’s not a fan club. The idea here is simply to enforce the law, specifically the Waste Policy Act of 1985, which names Yucca Mountain as the country’s used fuel repository. To change that legitimately, you need to change the law.

So you know, NEI filed a friend-of-the-court brief on this issue in December.

The President of Thorium

2011-12-30T12:02:00.001-05:00

Power from thorium:

This is [Bob] Greene's first time running [for President], and he's not sure if it's his last, but he certainly wants the world to know his position on thorium — a natural radioactive chemical element he hopes can change the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Why thorium?

This energy source is used to create nuclear energy, much like uranium. However, he said it is safer to use and produces a waste product with a shorter radioactive life span. Like nuclear power, thorium would not create a huge carbon footprint, such as burning coal or oil, he said.

The writer gets a little muddled about nuclear energy here, but Greene has his arguments for thorium down pat. But why a single issue candidacy revolving around thorium?

He said he doesn't think President Barack Obama is taking advantage of the possibilities of thorium.

"I see this as an issue of national security," he said. "We can stop oil wars if we do this. We can change our import economy to an export economy."

Not sure why this isn’t equally true of uranium, but who are we to quibble? As the first thorium-boosting Presidential candidate we know of, we can only salute him at this crossing.

Right now, he’s only on the Democratic primary ballot in New Hampshire – against President Obama – but if things go well, who knows?

His campaign web site is here.

---

When the Soviet Union ended, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney was asked what would become of the country’s nuclear arsenal:

"If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons and they are 99% successful, that would mean you could still have as many as 250 that they were not able to control."

The story by Huffington Post’s Graham Allison shows what actually happened to those 250 vulnerable missiles – and all the other missiles, too: nothing bad. This was due to two U.S.-Russia programs, one to help Russia gather all nuclear materials from the former soviet republics and a second, called Megatons to Megawatts, that downblended the gathered nuclear materials in those missiles to be used by domestic nuclear energy facilities. The missiles were not only rendered harmless, but their payloads were used for constructive purposes.

Nice to be reminded of programs that worked exactly as they should have.

---

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) may face nationalization:

Yesterday, shares in Tepco plunged to the lowest in at least 37 years after Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said the company needs to consider being nationalized. Edano, who served as chief cabinet secretary and government spokesman in the months following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, now runs the ministry overseeing the nuclear power industry.

That makes it sound voluntary. The story also suggests that how TEPCO moves forward will depend on an energy plan being worked on by the government.

The same day he spoke of a government takeover, Edano’s ministry said in a statement it was studying changing rules governing Japan’s electricity industry to make distribution networks independent of power generators to spur competition. Those studies will form part of a new national energy policy to be drawn up by summer.

The story doesn’t say that there would be any attempt to limit compensation to those affected by the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi facility.

Bottom line: there’s no evidence that nationalizing TEPCO would have any impact on the clean-up or on the work being done at Fukushima.

---

Happy New Year from your friends at NEI Nuclear Notes. 2011 proved to be two years in 365 days. The most impressive event – leaving the accident at Fukushima Daiichi in a category of its own – to me was the extremely thorough and diligent response to the accident by the industry, the NRC, the U.S. government.

No one – at least who didn’t speak deutsch - looked at the accident and said “That’s it. Pull the plug.” But no one said, “This can’t happen here” either, even if the specifics of the Japan accident were unique.

But everything stayed at a level – the value of nuclear energy was almost universally acknowledged, but the need to take every lesson that could be learned from Fukushima and apply them to the American industry took center stage. Even attempts by anti-nuclear energy advocates to seize the moment fell flat – if anything, they became more shrill not less.

So – a tough year with a fair measure of heartening moments.

Welcome, 2012.

Bob Greene

Gifts for the Winter Solstice

2011-12-23T11:52:00.001-05:00

2012 promises to be an extremely consequential year for American nuclear energy. In the grand tradition of sneak previews, the first news to hit made 2011:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved the amended design for the Westinghouse AP1000, a reactor that several power companies intend to use for building the first new U.S. nuclear plants in decades.

“The design provides enhanced safety margins through use of simplified, inherent, passive, or other innovative safety and security functions, and also has been assessed to ensure it could withstand damage from an aircraft impact without significant release of radioactive materials,” NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a statement.

And that means this in – we hope – the early part of next year:

The certification brings Southern Company subsidiary Southern Nuclear one step closer to receiving the first Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) for a U.S. nuclear plant.

"This is another key milestone for the Vogtle project and the nation's nuclear renaissance," said Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Thomas A. Fanning. "The NRC's action confirms the AP1000 design is safe and meets all regulatory requirements. The commission now has all of the technical information needed to issue the Vogtle COL.

Rapidly followed by this:

Once the AP1000 certification is complete, we expect the COL to be issued in short order for the … Summer project [in South Carolina]. Once the COL are issued, we'll begin a significant ramp-up in work ….

This is from the Shaw Group’s earnings call on December 21, so they were a day early. I captured the Summer part, but Shaw is working on Vogtle, too.

It’s like a gift, isn’t it?

---

And now a completely different kind of gift, from our friends at Russia’s Rosatom (click for larger):

Yes, they’ve taken some of their more athletic and beauteous workers – from the Siberian Chemical Combine, a used fuel reprocessing plant - and posed them after statues of Greek gods and goddesses for a calendar – at least, I think they’re workers. World Nuclear News doesn’t make this clear and neither does the Rosatom blog.

But – it’s fun to imagine that’s who they are – and why not? Russian nuclear facilities often tout the athletic achievements of their workers and this tilts that interest in another direction – toward beef- and cheesecake, true, but Rosatom also does a beauty pageant. It’s a cultural thing.

The statues – in the lower left of the photos - are mostly naked but the workers are at least as clothed as Poseidon there, so decide for yourself how safe-for-work this is before clicking through.

I wonder if this sort of thing is common throughout Russian industrial spheres.

The AP1000.

National Nuclear Science Week

2011-12-23T10:39:00.001-05:00

National Nuclear Science Week is coming up January 23 and The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History (which has a great slogan: “Reactions Welcome”) is gearing up for it. The museum is in Albuquerque – where Bugs Bunny often made wrong turns – and also near one of the Manhattan Project sites at Los Alamos.

Although the museum does not ignore nuclear weaponry and its role in the Cold War, the focus of National Nuclear Science Week is, as the title suggests, more scientific than historic, offering themes for each of the weekdays.

Monday is “Get to Know Nuclear Energy,” Tuesday, “Careers in the Nuclear Fields”, and then “Nuclear Energy Generation,” “Nuclear Safety,” and “Nuclear Medicine.”

Some of the days don’t appear to have agendas finalized yet. The web site, though, has a lot of materials for teachers and students, some fascinating audio and video clips – the audio of Einstein talking about the lately beleaguered theory of relativity is of particular interest – and plenty of links. All they need is an app.

The site is well worth a visit and if you stop in Albuquerque before making your wrong turn on the way to Pismo Beach, the museum should be on the agenda.

---

Energy Secretary Steven Chu sent a letter to commemorate the week. Here’s a bit which serves to remind that Chu and DOE are very fully engaged with nuclear energy:

The Department of Energy remains strongly committed to supporting graduate education, competitive research and advanced scientific tools in the areas of nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry and nuclear engineering. Through its National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy stewards the U.S. nuclear stockpile, provides oversight of the world's largest nuclear nonproliferation program, and bears responsibility for the U.S. Navy's nuclear propulsion program. We share your commitment to fostering a deeper public understanding about nuclear energy, nuclear education, nuclear medicine and all of the nuclear sciences.

Music to the ears.

The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. Need more to do? Los Alamos hosts the Bradbury Science Museum if you happen to head out that way.

Dr. Robert Emery Disputes Joe Mangano's Findings on Radiation and Fukushima

2011-12-23T10:03:00.002-05:00

Just a few minutes ago, I received the following statement from Dr. Robert Emery, Vice President for Safety, Health, Environment & Risk Management at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston concerning Dr. Joseph Mangano's recent study on fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility reaching the U.S.

“We aggressively monitored for the presence of environmental radioactivity in Houston following the Fukushima event and worked closely with local public health authorities in the event we detected any threat to public health. We never detected any elevated radiation levels. I don’t see any evidence to supports the assertion made by this report that the additional 484 deaths in Houston in 2011 could in any way be related to radioactivity from Fukushima - we never detected any.”

"Moreover the study bases its conclusion on the comparison of data from deaths in the U.S. in 2010 and 2011. Using this method you really can’t determine the specific cause of any increase in deaths over the two years. Perhaps the most important question is: what did the 148,395 U.S. citizens die of in 2010, the year before the Japanese earthquake? Most likely the overwhelming causes were heart disease, cancer, and stroke. I believe this is likely the case in 2011 as well. I also believe our finite public health resources are better spent on the issues we know are causing people to die rather than being diverted to explore hypothetical projections"

It ought to be clear by now that Mangano's claims are being broadly discredited by the wider scientific community. Click here, here and here for our recent posts on how independent 3rd party voices are warning the public to disregard Mangano's research.

Progressives and Nuclear Energy

2011-12-22T13:23:00.001-05:00

The Progressive Policy Institute offers strong support for nuclear energy in the post-Fukushima era, in a paper that bats down various myths that have taken hold about nuclear and other energy sources.
The paper links support for nuclear energy to progressive views.

As champions of reason and science, U.S. progressives have a responsibility to avoid panicky overreactions and instead undertake a clear-eyed assessment of the actual risks of nuclear energy.

Taking a swipe at environmentalists who oppose nuclear energy - and generally assumed to hold progressive views, though there’s plenty of conservative environmentalists - the paper says,

[S]ome environmental activists have tried to pose a false choice between ‘clean’ and presumably safe renewable fuels like wind, solar and geothermal energy, and ‘dirty’ fossil fuels or allegedly ‘unsafe’ nuclear power. This dichotomy has nothing to do with science.

The paper discusses the relative environmental risks of nuclear versus other forms of energy, citing coal as an example.

Coal-fired power plants release more toxic air pollutants than any other U.S. industrial pollution source, including mercury, arsenic, dioxin, hydrogen chloride, formaldehyde, and sulfur dioxide.

Generating nuclear energy releases no pollutants.

The paper calls it ironic that while coal-fired plants emit up to 100 times the radioactivity of nuclear plants, they are not held to the same regulatory standards on radiation.

The paper argues against other misconceptions about nuclear energy. For example, while acknowledging the high capital costs associated with building a nuclear energy facility, the paper also shows the relatively low total life cycle cost given the expected life of the plant and its low operating costs.

The conclusion?

[Nuclear energy] should play an expanding role in meeting America’s growing energy needs for the rest of this century and probably beyond.”

This is one of the best pieces of think tank advocacy we’ve seen on nuclear energy and benefits from maintaining a rigorous relationship with the truth. Its arguments can be debated honestly because its fact set is well-sourced and the writing uninflected with undue emotion. These are elements that are not as common as they should be among anti-nuclear energy advocates, as many of the posts below demonstrate.

The paper can be found at the Progressive Policy Institute’s website. It’s about 12 pages and well worth the read.

The Arizona delegation to the 1912 Progressive Party convention in Chicago. Progressive ideology in the U.S. as we understand it now – there have been “progressives” throughout human history, of course, however you choose to define it – began in the late 19th and early 20th century, essentially as a response to industrialization and the idea that it was crushing workers into mechanistic cogs. Over time, it has come to be understood as the opposite number to conservatism in the (American) political sphere, but that formulation gets too messy to try to explain. Maybe PPI has a paper about it.

Joe Mangano's Credibility Takes Another Body Blow

2011-12-21T17:16:00.002-05:00

This time, the sledgehammer is delivered courtesy of Barbara Feder Ostrov's Health Journalism Blog. Like plenty of other folks, she was shocked at Joe Mangano's claims -- ones that he backed off from when under questioning from MedPage Today -- so she talked to some long-time medical journalists.

Here's what Ivan Oransky of Reuters Health had to say about Mangano's research:

I do use impact factor to judge journals, while accepting that it's an imperfect measure that is used in all sorts of inappropriate ways (and, for the sake of full disclosure, is a Thomson Scientific product, as in Thomson Reuters). I find it helpful to rank journals within a particular specialty.

[...]

I looked up the journal in question, and it's actually ranked 45th out of 58 in the Health Policy and Services category (in the social sciences rankings) and 59th out of 72 in the Health Care Sciences & Services category (in the science rankings).

Here's Gary Schwitzer of Health News Review:

Journalists who live on a steady diet of journal articles almost by definition promote a rose-colored view of progress in research if they don't grasp and convey the publication bias in many journals for positive findings. Negative or null findings may not be viewed as sexy enough. Or they may be squelched prior to submission. While perhaps not a factor in this one case, it nonetheless drives home the point to journalists about the need to critically evaluate studies.

I'm afraid I have more bad news for Mangano. Who's going to tell Christie Brinkley?

The 2012 Budget for Nuclear Energy

2011-12-21T11:26:00.001-05:00

Congress voted on an omnibus appropriations bill that basically funds the entirety of the federal government for the next year. Naturally, our interest lies with the nuclear energy portion of the Department of Energy’s budget.

The executive summary is that the total is more than requested by the Obama administration earlier this year; the accident in Japan has been acknowledged in the budget but how to proceed has been largely left to processes already in place – the NRC’s Near-Term task force, for example; and Yucca Mountain, dead or alive, is not funded.

Here are the details:

The appropriations bill provides $769 million for nuclear science and technology, higher than the president’s $754 million and a sharp increase from the $584 million approved initially by the Senate.

Of particular note is the restoration of $67 million for small reactor development and licensing, which the Senate had earlier zeroed out. Under a cost-shared government-industry program, DOE will select two designs to shepherd through initial NRC technical reviews and licensing.

The legislation provides $187 million for fuel cycle research and development programs, almost $34 million more than originally requested by the president. These programs are likely to become more central to the industry as DOE acts upon the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which will in January finalize its report on managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

A last-minute DOE request for funding support for USEC’s American Centrifuge Plant in Ohio failed to be included in the final bill, despite support from the Senate and the president. DOE and both the state’s Senators had sought funding for further development work on the uranium enrichment facility.

Funding for USEC could be revisited when Congress reconvenes in January.

The bill provides $59 million for the Advanced Fuels Program, an increase of $12 million from 2011, to accelerate development of new cladding materials for nuclear fuel.

Many defense-related nuclear energy items received increases over 2011 in a year marked by more stringent budgeting priorities. For example, defense environmental cleanup would receive $5 billion under the bill, $11 million more than in 2011. Nuclear nonproliferation would receive $2.3 billion, $110 million above the 2011 level; and naval reactors would receive $1.08 billion, $141 million higher than in 2011.

The appropriation for DOE is $25.7 billion, $2.1 billion more than what was approved by the House, but $3.9 billion below the Obama administration’s request.

Other funding includes:

$40 million for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant. The House committee had budgeted $63.5 million for this program.
$5 million for the Integrated University Program for DOE and $15 million for NRC. The House committee had budgeted these amounts for this jointly administered program, but the Senate originally had eliminated the funds.
$155 million for Idaho National Laboratory, $5 billion more than the administration’s request.
$1.027 billion to the NRC, about $11 million less than requested by the administration. Much of the NRC’s funding is paid by fees collected from licensees. Some $2 million of the appropriation is for a National Academy of Sciences study on lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident, as recommended by the Blue Ribbon Commission. For the second year running, no funds have been allocated for the Yucca Mountain project.

Mike Moyer of Scientific American Debunks Joe Mangano Again

2011-12-21T09:00:00.003-05:00

Mike Moyer, the writer at Scientific American who so expertly debunked Joe Mangano's "research" in June, had a chance to read the latest Mangano study that claimed 14,000 deaths in the U.S. were linked to fallout from Fukushima.

The verdict: it's just another flawed study.

No attempt is made at providing systematic error estimates, or error estimates of any kind. No attempt is made to catalog any biases that may have crept into the analysis, though a cursory look finds biases a-plenty (the authors are anti-nuclear activists unaffiliated with any research institution). The analysis assumes that the plume arrived on U.S. shores, spread everywhere, instantly, and started killing people immediately. It assumes that the “excess” deaths after March 20 are a real signal, not just a statistical aberration, and that every one of them is due to Fukushima radiation.

Of course, as we pointed out yesterday, Mangano was forced to back off that last claim when pressed by a reporter from MedPage Today.

Back to Moyer ...

The publication of such sloppy, agenda-driven work is a shame. Certainly radiation from Fukushima is dangerous, and could very well lead to negative health effects—even across the Pacific. The world needs to have a serious discussion about what role nuclear power should play in a power-hungry post-Fukushima world. But serious, informed, fact-based debate is a difficult enough goal to achieve without having to shout above noise like this.

Amen, brother.

Counting Yen

2011-12-20T16:46:00.001-05:00

Japan does not have many options for electricity if it leaves behind nuclear energy and if limiting carbon emission remains a national goal. But what Japan decides to do about nuclear energy is something that is tough to gainsay.

So, the groundwork to lessen dependence on nuclear is being laid, though the results are imperfect:

Nuclear power generation in Japan is about 50 percent more expensive than estimated after factoring in the cost of paying for an accident like the Fukushima disaster, a government panel said.

Nuclear energy costs at least 8.9 yen (11 cents) per kilowatt hour, compared with a government estimate of 5.9 yen in 2004, the panel said in a draft report today.

Presumably it is still 5.9 yen if the accident is factored out, but okay: 8.9 yen it is. Why is that imperfect?

Coal is estimated to cost 9.5 yen per kilowatt hour, while liquefied natural gas and oil cost 10.7 yen and 36 yen respectively.

Another story put wind at 9.9 yen and solar at 33.4 yen.

Those are Japan’s choices – and everything has to be imported. Japan will produce more carbon emissions, pay more for the dubious honor, and has to build the plants and train the workers. There’s a lot of capital investment involved in this process.

Various accounts have shown Japan abandoning or reducing or sticking with nuclear energy. It’s almost a time of day thing. But if the trend is toward reducing nuclear energy output – because the accident rendered nuclear energy persona non grata - it’s a genuinely terrible outcome.

---

One of the dumber editorials. Our writer wants to signal disapproval for nuclear energy while voicing support for the Keystone XL pipeline:

But our nation does need power. For electricity, we need to open up desert space and urban rooftops for solar energy projects. But solar and wind will not be enough. That's why the Keystone Pipeline project - which is oil from a friendly country - may be the preferred alternative. At the very least, it would be better than building more nuclear power plants.

Solar and wind will not be enough for what? And if they are not enough, how might oil fill in?

Sheesh!

The lady on the 5000 yen note is Ichiyo Higuchi, a writer and poet who lived her brief life from 1872 to 1896. Much of her work focused on the people and social order in the Yoshiwara district (essentially, the red light district) of Tokyo.

Joseph Mangano Contradicts His Own Press Release on Fukushima Research

2011-12-19T17:44:00.003-05:00

Our readers will recall that on Friday afternoon that we were alerted to the impending release of a study authored by Joseph Mangano and Dr. Janette Sherman on the alleged effects of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi incident here in the U.S.

Earlier today, Mangano and company held a teleconference to announce their findings:

An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services.

Sounds scary, doesn't it? Then again, only a few hours later, Mangano admitted in an interview with MedPage Today that the results of his research weren't quite as definitive as his press release would have led folks to believe:

But he (Managno) told MedPage Today that the researchers can't rule out factors other than the Fukushima radiation that might have accounted for the excess.

"There are probably a variety of factors that could be linked to this excess of 14,000 deaths," he said.

Huh? In any case, it's clear that the scientific community doesn't think terribly much of Mangano and his study. As luck would have it, MedPage Today also talked to Richard L. Morin, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida:

On the contrary, any link between the deaths and the radiation released by the reactors is "very, very unlikely" simply because the levels are low, according to Richard Morin, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.

Morin told MedPage Today that such an acute effect would be unlikely, unless radiation levels were four or five orders of magnitude higher than those reported by Mangano and Sherman, and the whole body of the victim was exposed.

Typically, he said, the effect of low-level ionizing radiation doesn't appear until years after the exposure.

Morin, who is chair of the American College of Radiology's safety committee, said an earlier public report by the authors on the same issue -- preceding the journal article -- "has not been taken seriously by the scientific community."

He added it's important to remember that "association doesn't imply causation.

It's been more than six years since I wrote my first post on Mangano's antics. As I wrote at the time, eight states have investigated Mangano's claims and all eight refused to validate them. One wonders why reporters even bother to talk to him anymore when his work has been so thoroughly debunked.

NRC’s Post-Fukushima Recommendations Will Be Mandatory for U.S. Nuclear Energy Facilities

2011-12-16T16:56:00.001-05:00

Over the past few months, anti-nuclear groups have regularly attacked our industry for allegedly resisting implementing changes at our facilities in the wake of the incident at Fukushima Daiichi. While that’s simply not the case, it’s a perception that often gets reinforced in the press—and this morning’s mailbag contained yet another example.

Politico Pro posted an article this morning, “NRC Won’t Make Post-Fukushima Safety Recommendations Mandatory,” that is misleading and egregiously inaccurate. At issue is how the term “mandatory” is used to show how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will both implement and mandate its post-Fukushima recommendations.

The lede states:

The NRC on Thursday cemented a to-do list of post-Fukushima safety recommendations for U.S. nuclear plants but won't make them mandatory.

That caught the attention of Jason Zorn, NEI’s assistant general counsel, who made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that this is incorrect. I spoke with him this afternoon to explain why in further detail:

The story focuses on the commission’s decision that it was premature to conclude that the Fukushima-related lessons learned are “necessary for adequate protection.” However, a new requirement does not have to be based on "adequate protection" to be mandatory. As long as the NRC acts through a legally binding vehicle, such as an order or a rulemaking, the result will be legally binding. The commission's decision on "adequate protection" in the staff requirements memorandum (SRM) goes only to whether these recommendations will be subjected to a full regulatory analysis or not, and has nothing to do with them being "mandatory."

Zorn points to SECY 11-0137—the SRM that prioritizes how the NRC will respond to the Fukushima lessons learned—and said that the second paragraph cannot be taken out of context from the first.

The first paragraph clearly shows that the commission has approved the NRC staff’s post-Fukushima recommendations to impose many of the lessons learned through orders or rulemaking. Both orders and rulemaking impose legally binding and enforceable requirements. In other words, they all will become mandatory at some point; it’s just a matter of how you are going to get there that’s the difference.

He explains that the SRM’s second paragraph shows that the NRC has yet to decide what level of protection (either “adequate protection” or “‘extra’ adequate protection”) each recommendation will fall under before each is mandated. The paragraph states:

In the absence of a fully developed justification for a proposed new requirement, the Commission finds it premature to initiate actions on the Near Term Task Force recommendations under the premise of assuring or redefining the level of protection of public health and safety that should be required as adequate in accordance with the backfit rule. The Commission will evaluate the staff’s basis for imposing new requirements when documented in notation vote papers for any new requirements promulgated by orders or rulemaking.

The commission will need further evidence to support each recommendation being categorized as either “adequate protection” or “‘extra’ adequate protection” before being required. Zorn states:

The commission simply said that they want the staff to look at the underlying basis and do a full analysis of impacts and benefits where appropriate. In contrast, requirements imposed under an adequate protection basis can be imposed with essentially no meaningful regulatory analysis. The staff’s original recommendation to impose many of the recommendations through orders or rulemaking was left completely intact by the commission.

So what’s next? Zorn replies:

The details are far from final. The task force will come back to the commission in a few months with their analysis of each recommendation and the commission will vote whether each should fall under the “adequate” or “extra adequate” categories. The NRC has these processes in place to ensure that new requirements are adequately understood and justified before they are imposed.

I think Zorn “adequately” (pardon the pun) explained why the Politico Pro piece is misleading. Hopefully his explanation will make it to Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) who issued a press release yesterday with the same misinterpretation:

While I welcome the step the commission took today, I am disappointed that a majority of the Commissioners voted to reject the recommendation of the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima that the safety upgrades be made mandatory and not leave their implementation subject to a future cost-benefit analysis.

Inside Look at “Adequate Protection”

Since I had Zorn’s attention for a few minutes, I also asked him if he could explain the background on “adequate protection.” His explanation was fairly easy to understand.

The Atomic Energy Act authorizes the NRC to impose requirements (i.e. make them “mandatory”) by regulation or order. Once a regulation, order or license is issued, it is legally binding and enforceable, meaning the NRC can issue a penalty or take other enforcement action if a licensee violates the terms.

Separately is the fact that the Atomic Energy Act also basically allows the NRC to impose new requirements under one of two options: “necessary for adequate protection” or “‘extra’ adequate protection.” In a nutshell, it is within the NRC’s discretion to decide into which category a particular new requirement (i.e. the aforementioned regulations, orders or plant licenses) will fall.

The “necessary for adequate protection” category gives the NRC the authority to impose requirements that it believes are necessary for the adequate protection of public health and safety or common defense and security. It is important to note that this does NOT mean that the NRC’s requirements must achieve “absolute protection” (i.e. zero risk), which would be impossible to achieve. It also is important to note that the NRC cannot generally consider costs when deciding whether or not something is necessary for adequate protection.

If the NRC chooses to impose a new requirement as “‘extra’ adequate protection,” it must show that the requirement would have a substantial increase in the overall safety of the plant and the costs to implement are justified. This analysis is known as a “backfit analysis,” which is outlined in the NRC’s regulations at 10 C.F.R. § 50.109. This category requires substantial NRC research and cost-benefit analyses before being implemented. Examples of requirements that have been imposed in the past as “extra adequate protection” are the station blackout rule, aircraft impact assessment rule, and 1994 vehicle bomb rule.

But the bottom line is, once a new requirement is imposed by order or rulemaking—either under the “adequate” or “extra adequate” protection category—it is considered mandatory by the NRC and is both legally binding and enforceable.

Note to Reporters: Be Sure to Fact Check Joseph Mangano, Janette Sherman and Robert Alvarez

2011-12-16T16:41:00.007-05:00

Late this afternoon, it came to our attention that Joseph Mangano, Janette Sherman and Robert Alvarez will be holding a news conference on Monday morning (December 19) concerning a new study they've done about how Americans might be affected by radiation released into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan.

While we haven't seen the article as of yet and can't comment on it, our readers should know that reliable third parties have reviewed the work of all three authors in the past and found it to be fatally flawed.

Here's what the New Jersey Commission on Radiation Protection had to say about Mangano's "Tooth Fairy" project:

The Commission is of the opinion that "Radioactive Strontium-90 in Baby Teeth of New Jersey Children and the Link with Cancer: A Special Report," is a flawed report, with substantial errors in methodology and invalid statistics. As a result, any information gathered through this project would not stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific community. There is also no evidence to support the allegation that the State of New Jersey has a problem with the release of Sr-90 into the environment from nuclear generating plants: more than 30 years of environmental monitoring data refute this.

In June, Michael Moyer of Scientific American had this to say about a study by Mangano and Sherman on radiation and Fukushima:

[A] check reveals that the authors’ statistical claims are critically flawed—if not deliberate mistruths.

[...]

Only by explicitly excluding data from January and February were Sherman and Mangano able to froth up their specious statistical scaremongering.

This is not to say that the radiation from Fukushima is not dangerous, nor that we shouldn’t closely monitor its potential to spread (we should). But picking only the data that suits your analysis isn’t science—it’s politics. Beware those who would confuse the latter with the former.

As for Mr. Alvarez, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had this to say about one of his papers on the safety of spent fuel pools:

The NRC staff has reviewed the paper, "Reducing the Hazards from Stored Spent Power- Reactor Fuel in the United States," April 21, 2003, Robert Alvarez, et al., (published in Science and Global Security, spring 2003) and concludes that it fails to make the case for its central recommendation.

[...]

Our review of the paper indicates that it is a deficient study of the hazards associated with the storage of spent fuel. Many of the 114 cited references are NRC studies or NRC contracted studies conducted for a variety of purposes, and most are not applicable to terrorist attacks.

Members of the press should take care to challenge the findings announced on Monday, and to be sure to contact NEI or other third party experts to review the validity of the study, rather than simply rebroadcast its findings.

Fukushima Daiichi Achieves Cold Shutdown

2011-12-16T15:54:00.001-05:00

A happy day:

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshikhiko Noda said on Friday that the battle to stabilize the country's Fukushima nuclear plant had turned a corner, nine months after an earthquake and tsunami sent reactors into meltdowns.

"The reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have reached a state of cold shutdown," Noda said at a nuclear task force meeting in Tokyo. "Now that we have achieved stability in the reactors, a major concern for the nation has been resolved."

The "cold shutdown" refers to a condition where the water that cools nuclear fuel rods remains below boiling point, meaning that the fuel cannot reheat.

Still much to do. But a happy day.

---

An editorial from North Dakota features the views of Senate Candidate Duane Sand:

In a wide-ranging discussion Tuesday with The Forum’s Editorial Board, Sand outlined his proposal for a nuclear plant in North Dakota and nine more across the nation. A commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, Sand served on three nuclear submarines. He’s a student of nuclear energy – its pitfalls, myths and potential. He knows his stuff about the subject and sincerely believes eastern North Dakota would be an ideal site for the start of a new era of nuclear power.

The editorial lists four of Sand’s points about nuclear energy, all of which are agreeable and well-informed. We really like this one:

The myths associated with nuclear power’s dangers need to be exposed as mostly frauds.

More at the link. Let’s just say Duane Sand doesn’t hide his liking of nuclear energy under a bushel.

---

Does this mean I support Sand in his race?

Of course not – that’s for the people of North Dakota to decide and I have no idea what the local issues are there.

One issue voters – even those that favor nuclear energy – face much sorrow, so even if I could vote for Sand, I would hesitate until I knew more about his views and those of his opponent. Support for nuclear energy would not be determinative in deciding my vote, but it would be one item in Sand’s favor.

Fukushima Daiichi

Need A Little Soap To Clean Off the “Dirt”

2011-12-15T16:36:00.001-05:00

I came across an article this week penned by professor Benjamin Sovacool that purports to give readers “the dirt on nuclear power.” The article gives way to hasty generalizations and leaves readers with a false view of one of the nation’s safest industries, and I’d like to point out a few places where there are holes in his arguments.

The first problem: Sovacool lumps common industry terms, “incidents” and “accidents,” into one venti-sized category of “accidents.” Why does he do this? I’m guessing to add to the Armageddon-like anxiety he wants his readers to feel.

Sovacool states:

Incidents are unforeseen events and technical failures that occur during normal plant operation and result in no off-site releases of radiation or severe damage to equipment. Accidents refer to either off-site releases of radiation or severe damage to plant equipment. …

Under these classifications, the number of nuclear accidents, even including the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini, is low. But if one redefines an accident to include incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than $50,000 in property damage, a very different picture emerges.

He continues by providing additional examples of how everything falling under his redefined “accidents” category leads to death, destruction and demise. However, a couple of key points should be made before he submits his new definition to Merriam Webster.

First, “accidents” are NOT the same as “incidents,” and should not be treated the same way. Each term is distinctly classified because they each require different responses by involved government, regulatory and other agencies in how they are addressed. For example, if you look at auto insurance—your auto insurance company will treat a minor fender bender differently than an accident involving total demolition of the vehicle and injury to the driver (and possibly others). The reason for this is NOT because the auto industry is trying to cheat you, but rather because the auto carrier has to look at the overall picture—safety implications (establish fault—with the driver or equipment?), involved parties (emergency responders, hospitals, etc.), and overall costs of repair.

In the nuclear industry, “incidents” and “accidents” are treated similarly in that they are classified based on how they should be handled and what agencies should be involved. In fact, if you look at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), you will see that they have categorized the two types differently according to affects the incident or accident has on: people and the environment, radiological barriers and control, and defense-in-depth. This categorization serves an important purpose in establishing roles and responsibilities for managing the crisis and determining how to best address and fix the safety problem. For example, an incident involving a fire in one area of the facility not near the nuclear reactor will not warrant a full-scale international investigation, extensive radiation monitoring, federal responders, etc. However, if that fire sparked near the reactor and caused an “accident” at the site, those actions by the nuclear industry would probably be warranted and the global nuclear industry would be at the plant’s doorstep trying to take steps to prevent them from occurring at their own sites.

This is also not to say that the nuclear industry does not learn from “incidents” as well—or that they are any less important. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is revered as a model to countries around the world that are creating their own nuclear regulating bodies because of its strict regulatory oversight. The regulator’s role in an “incident” would be just the same as during an “accident”—to ensure that the plant is operating safely or to shut it down immediately. No questions asked. The industry takes safety incredibly seriously and has many layers of built-in protection in reactors’ designs and reinforces best operating practices through employee reporting mechanisms and other daily checks to ensure safety is always first.

Which brings me to another gaping hole in Sovacool’s argument: he clearly ignores the evidence about the nuclear industry’s strong safety record. In paragraph four, he states that the number of nuclear accidents “is low,” but chooses to ignore this crucial fact for the sake of his flawed argument.

Let’s look at the facts. In its 2010 safety and operations report, the World Association of Nuclear Operators, an international organization that consolidates best practices from operating nuclear plants worldwide, found on the topic of safety system performance:

For the 12th straight year, key backup safety systems concurrently met their individual availability goals more than 90 percent of the time. Nuclear power plants are built with multiple safety systems and backup power supplies so these systems are available, if needed, even when maintenance is being performed on a similar system or component. The three principal backup safety systems are two main cooling systems and back-up power supplies used to respond in the event of unusual situations. Each system at every plant has an availability goal just shy of 100 percent, and 93 percent of these backup safety systems met their individual goal, assuring that multiple layers of safety were in place as designed.

On the topic of industrial safety, the report also goes on to state that:

The nuclear industry is one of the nation’s safest working environments. U.S. nuclear plants continued to post a low industrial accident rate in 2010 with 0.09 industrial accidents per 200,000 worker-hours, the lowest level in a decade and well below the 2010 goal of 0.2. Statistics from other industries through 2009, as compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, show that it is safer to work at a nuclear power plant than in the manufacturing sector and even the real estate and financial sectors.

(See NEI’s press release for more information on the report.)

Coincidentally, Sovacool also mentions that the nuclear industry’s death rate—under his new definition of “accidents”—would be extraordinarily high—a claim that does not stand scrutiny if you examine the facts. A March post by Next Big Future gives the latest data in this regard, showing the nuclear industry to have the lowest average death rate per terrawatt-hour (0.04), lower than the coal, oil, natural gas, biofuels, solar, wind, and hydro industries.

Sovacool’s hasty generalizations extend beyond nuclear plants to include reprocessing facilities, and he also shares incredible, “dirty” stats on the nuclear industry:

To put a serious accident in context, according to data from my forthcoming book Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power, if 10 million people were exposed to radiation from a complete nuclear meltdown (the containment structures fail completely, exposing the inner reactor core to air), about 100,000 would die from acute radiation sickness within six weeks. About 50,000 would experience acute breathlessness, and 240,000 would develop acute hypothyroidism. About 350,000 males would be temporarily sterile, 100,000 women would stop menstruating, and 100,000 children would be born with cognitive deficiencies. There would be thousands of spontaneous abortions and more than 300,000 later cancers.

I’ll have to stay tuned to his latest book to see what kind of scientific basis there is to his figures and to investigate whether or not he includes the protective actions that would be taken by the utility or local/state/federal government in the event of an accident. But for now, I’d just like to point out that even in the case of Fukushima, there have not been any radiation-related deaths. The last of three deaths that NEI reported at the facility was not believed to be from radiation, and the other two workers died while trying to stabilize the plant during the tsunami.

Given that the overall premise of his argument is flawed and that none of his facts or stats are cited (or footnoted for that matter!), I’d caution everyone to think twice before believing his “dirt” on the nuclear industry.

Pictured: Benjamin K. Sovacool, from GoodPlanet.info.

Is Bloomberg Businessweek Censoring Comments?

2011-12-15T08:08:00.001-05:00

Suzy Hobbes over at Pop Atomic Studios makes the case.

AREVA in Funkytown: Bad Quarter or Harbinger of Industry Doom?

2011-12-13T16:13:00.001-05:00

Today, French nuclear company AREVA said it expected to post operating losses of about 1.4 to 1.6 billion euros in its 2011 year-end financial report, including a cash flow loss, before tax, of about 1.8 billion euros.

This story from AOL Energy News is rather bare on facts, substituting something very close to a bald assertion:

Only last week Washington DC-based think tank Worldwatch Institute released its Vital Signs Online (VSO) report noting that the world's nuclear power portfolio was quickly shrinking. Now nuclear power companies worldwide are posting numbers that reflect the trend.

Well, it’s one nuclear energy company and it wouldn’t seem to be reflecting this particular trend, if trend there be. (I haven’t looked at the VSO report – yet – and must admit I’ve never run into the Worldwatch Institute.)

This story, from the rather unbalanced Business Green, at least gets the details about this right:

The company announced yesterday that operating losses for this year could reach €1.6bn, primarily as a result of the Fukushima disaster on the value of its uranium mining operations.

But what does AREVA have to say about this? Let’s look:

In this context [the global demand for more electricity], the German decision [to close its nuclear facilities] remains an isolated case and the great majority of nuclear programs around the world have been confirmed. More conservative in its projections than the International Energy Agency, the group expects growth of 2.2% annually, reaching 583 GW of installed nuclear capacity by 2030, against 378 GW today. However, the Fukushima accident will lead to delays in launching new programs.

A little more:

The news was followed today by confirmation that Areva will suspend planned "capacity extensions" at four nuclear sites in France, halt work to extend its Eagle Rock enrichment plant near Idaho Falls in the US, and scale back planned investment at uranium mines in the Central African Republic, Namibia and South Africa.

Uranium again. I guess you could look for corporate spin there, but it’s generally transparent. in any event, AREVA has created a plan called Action 2016 to help it refocus the company:

"Action 2016" [will] consolidate AREVA's leadership in nuclear energy and become a leading player in renewable energy.

You can read more about Action 2016 at AREVA’s site. Here’s what AREVA says about Fukushima and its role in the nuclear energy industry in general:

Faced, like all its competitors, with the period of uncertainty in the wake of the Fukushima accident, AREVA can rely on the strength of its integrated business model, which makes it possible to take advantage of opportunities in each segment of the nuclear market.

Which means the company can manage a facility top to bottom or just some aspects of an operation – and ride out the bumps if countries delay nuclear energy projects.

None of this is to say that AREVA hasn’t hit difficulties or that the accident at Fukushima Daiichi hasn’t contributed to those difficulties. (Curiously, the global slowdown in electricity consumption and the continuing economic environment aren’t even mentioned. I’d hate to think we’re so used to them that we consider them a given.)

But it’s a little too easy to jump to the conclusion that the nuclear energy industry has entered a death spiral or even “reflects a trend',” even if one shy of evidence. A rough patch for one company doesn’t set the entire industry out on a plate for vultures. It’s lazy and dishonest to imagine it does.

---

For example:

China, the world’s biggest energy user, may resume approving new nuclear projects after the cabinet endorses draft safety rules prepared by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, an industry association official said.

Perhaps not fertile territory for AREVA, but this is the kind of thing it says it is waiting for. And it is happening.

---

I’m purposely ignoring the stories about the NRC currently making the rounds of news outlets. There’s a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee tomorrow at 10:00 am (EST) (you can watch the webcast here) at which the five commissioners will offer testimony and answer questions about possible discord at the agency. Let’s watch that first and then return to the subject. Until then, what you may read will remain a heap of gossip.

From USA Today:

Q: I never heard of Areva until I saw a TV ad recently and don't think I got the message. Just who is Areva and how are they going to influence my future? The commercial is catchy, and the little tune stays running around in your mind, but if people can't understand it, I don't think Areva is getting their money's worth.

A: Areva wants to power your future. It's a Paris-based industrial giant whose businesses include nuclear power and energy alternatives. It has U.S. operations in 45 locations in 20 states. The ad, which has aired previously, is part of a campaign started in May to make its name better known in the U.S. The animated TV ad, which you can see here, uses the 1980 Lipps Inc. classic Funkytown, a song that's also been in ads for FedEx, Ore-Ida's Funky Fries, Nissan and Volkswagen. Areva uses the opening lyrics for the song, which have a distorted sound through use of a voice box. They speak about moving to a town that's "groovin' with some energy." Areva marketers most care that you get the last few words: "Talk about it, talk about it, talk about it" (which is what they want you to do about them).

Weekly Japan Update

2011-12-12T16:50:00.001-05:00

The Fukushima updates are moving to a weekly schedule beginning today and continuing each Monday. Additional updates will be issued as needed to cover developing events.

Japan: Full Decontamination Efforts Will Begin in March

December 12, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

TEPCO said it will receive accident insurance from a Swiss company that will replace a consortium of insurers that will not renew its policies with the utility. TEPCO will pay about $258 million for a five-year policy, about 10 times the amount it paid to the consortium. The policy will cover claims related to Fukushima Daiichi.
Japan’s Environment Ministry said that a full-fledged effort to decontaminate areas with high radiation will not begin until at least March, as the ministry must receive permission from affected landowners and must acquire temporary sites at which to store contaminated soil.
Concentrations of cesium-137 in the ocean near Fukushima Daiichi peaked at 50 million times above normal, a study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Society found. However, the study said that the radiation diluted rapidly and poses little or no danger to human and marine life.

Media Highlights

A USA TODAY/Gallup poll found that 70 percent of Americans have become more concerned about the safety of nuclear energy because of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi. The poll found that 44 percent favor building new facilities, down from 57 percent from the last poll taken before the accident.
The Mainichi Daily News wrote in an editorial that carrying out decontamination work as an international project will be beneficial to Japan and the rest of the world. “There is bound to be technology and expertise abroad that we do not have in Japan,” the editorial said. “If we are able to take advantage of them, the work will proceed more efficiently. In return, Japan should be able to pass on the knowledge and lessons learned from the Fukushima crisis to the rest of the world.”

New Products

An article on NEI’s Safety First website outlines the response to the March 11 earthquake at the Fukushima Daini plant and details three key lessons the plant operator learned from the experience.

Upcoming Meetings

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold four public meetings this week to discuss with industry representatives proposals to implement individual recommendations from the NRC’s Japan near-term task force. Meeting agendas and further details on each meeting are available on a special NRC webpage.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing Dec. 15 titled “Review of the NRC’s Near-Term Task Force Recommendations for Enhancing Reactor Safety in the 21st Century."

NEI Press Release: Effective Regulation of Nuclear Energy Important for Public Confidence in NRC

2011-12-12T10:34:00.003-05:00

The following statement concerning the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is from the Nuclear Energy Institute’s president and chief executive officer, Marvin Fertel:

“Safe performance of nuclear energy facilities and the NRC’s credibility are the two most important factors for policymaker and public confidence in nuclear energy. As such, the industry is concerned with anything that threatens the credibility of either. We are confident that Congress and the White House will take the steps necessary to ensure that the NRC is an efficient, effective regulator that provides oversight of commercial nuclear technology.

“The issue that is of most concern is the question of a chilled working environment at the agency, including the possibility of staff intimidation and harassment, at a time when the senior management and staff are working on critical licensing activities and post-Fukushima safety recommendations. The industry takes safety culture issues seriously and we expect the same priority treatment of these issues by our regulator.

“The NRC functions best when it has a full complement of five capable commissioners to provide guidance and direction to the NRC staff. Safety is maximized when NRC and industry resources are focused on those matters that are most important to safety. It is important that the dynamics that exist within the commission be resolved professionally and expeditiously so that the important work of the agency can continue without interruption or distraction. The American people expect and deserve nothing less.

“The industry’s commitment to nuclear power plant safety is unwavering and we will not be distracted from this mission by events at the NRC. Of the top 20 performing plants in the world, 16 of them are American reactors. The industry exceeds federal safety standards and it is critical that our entire industry keep a sharp focus on safety. Furthermore, the industry is taking steps to make safe nuclear energy facilities even safer by applying the lessons learned from the accident in Japan at America’s nuclear power plants.”

Click here to find the full statement on NEI's Website.

On Politifact, President Clinton and Nuclear Costs

2011-12-09T11:16:00.002-05:00

You may recall that in November, President Clinton made the following statement about the relative costs of nuclear, solar and wind in an appearance on The Daily Show:

"Solar energy and wind energy ... would already be competitive with coal if you had to pay the extraneous costs of coal -- the health care costs and other things. And ... wind within two years and solar within five will be competitive in price with coal. They're both cheaper than nuclear right now."

In response, Lou Jacobson, a reporter with Politifact, took a closer look at Clinton's claim, and rated it half-true:

Clinton was correct about wind energy being "cheaper than nuclear right now," at least the onshore kind. But for now, nuclear beats the cheapest form of solar energy on price. So we rate his statement Half True.

That claim didn't sit well with NEI's David Bradish, who pulled apart the numbers and suggested that Politifact change its rating from "half true" to "mostly false":

As shown above, the low end of nuclear’s cost range ($109.70/MWh) is lower than the high end of wind’s cost range ($115/MWh); therefore wind is not always cheaper than nuclear.

Further, the amount of wind that can be built is limited to specific places in the U.S. that receive adequate wind flow (see map below).

A substantial amount of wind cannot be built in places such as the Southeast due to a lack of natural resources. Areas with low wind resources will produce less electricity from installed turbines which in turn cause higher levelized costs.

[...]

Currently, 104 nuclear reactors (101 gigawatts) generate 20% of the country’s baseload power at low operating costs. This compares to 40 GW of wind and 1 GW of solar generating 2.2% and 0.0003% of the country’s electricity, respectively, at intermittent times.

The folks at PolitiFact should reconsider their conclusion about former President Clinton’s statements and change it from Half True to Mostly False.

Back on November 22, I passed David's analysis along to Jacobson, and here's the response I got:

I apologize for not getting back sooner. I was gone for most of last week and now we're on a short week.

We are expecting to do a full Mailbag treatment on this topic, probably next week, since we have received many comments on the story. We are happy to run your comments (likely abridged for space) in that piece. We usually do not run names with the comments in our mailbag items, but your case would likely be an exception, assuming you'd like to be identified.

I will say that our comments have included many examples of complaints that we were too soft on nuclear (and too hard on renewables) and many that we were too hard on nuclear (and too soft on renewables). Given the complexity of analyzing this issue -- both nuclear and renewables have complaints about how they were treated by the DOE methodology -- I do not see an obvious reason for us to change our rating from the fairly neutral Half True. But that's not my call--the editors determine the rating, and the writers only make recommendations.

Thanks for writing....

Lou Jacobson

Well, it's now December 8, and I have yet to see an update to the original piece. I checked in with Jacobson again today, and he wrote back that they've been busy, but are still planning to do a follow up. While I'm happy to take him at his word, we promise to keep you updated as to if/when Politifact gets around to doing a deeper dive on the evidence. As far as we're concerned, we think their readers deserve it.

NRC’s Jaczko Responds to Rep. Markey on the Sr-90 Issue at Vermont Yankee

2011-12-08T16:56:00.001-05:00

It’s been a few weeks since I posted about Entergy responding to Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on the strontium-90 (Sr-90) issue at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko has since weighed in, on the NRC’s behalf, with a letter he sent to the congressman.

Of note, the chairman’s letter echoes what Entergy officials and the Vermont Department of Health (VTDH) have been saying all along:

Because there are multiple potential sources of Sr-90, including nuclear weapons testing by multiple countries in the middle of the last century, it is very difficult to draw conclusions about the source of any particular Sr-90 contamination that is found in the environment unless there is additional supporting evidence.

Because of this fact, Jaczko believes that Entergy’s Laurence Smith, manager of communications, is fair in one of his statements that “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Vermont Yankee is the source for the strontium-90.” He writes:

The quoted licensee statements in your question are not without foundation based on the above information.

The chairman also continues by explaining that the NRC’s methods of analyzing the data employ a somewhat different “band of uncertainty” than the VTDH, and concludes that:

The VTDH results are too close to the level of uncertainty to be considered by themselves a conclusive indication of the presence of Sr-90. When taken together, these factors lead us to conclude that there is no need for further study of possible Sr-90 contamination from Vermont Yankee at this time.

If there is ever an indication of Sr-90 releases above the legal limit or contamination at Vermont Yankee, the chairman reassures the congressman that the:

NRC will take action, as appropriate, at that time.

Given that the state’s department of health and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have come back to the congressman with similar explanations, I wonder if we can now consider this issue to be null?

Read the full letter here.

Wednesday Update

2011-12-07T18:26:00.001-05:00

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Contaminated Water Leaks Into Ocean Near Fukushima

December 7, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility, said about 40 gallons of water containing radioactive strontium drained into the ocean following a leak in desalination equipment. TEPCO said it is likely to have little effect on the environment.
More rice shipments have been banned from a district of Fukushima City after discovery of contamination. Inspections found radioactive cesium above the government-set safety limit in rice from the Watari district and blocked shipments from farms located there. Bans were previously imposed on another district of Fukushima City and two districts of Date City.
Fukushima Prefecture will spray radiation-absorbing agents onto farmland and scrape off the topsoil in an effort to remove low levels of contamination. Workers also will remove tree bark in orchards and clean the trees with jets of water.
The lower house of Japan’s legislature has voted approval for nuclear cooperation agreements with Jordan, Russia, Vietnam and South Korea. The legislation, which is expected to clear the upper house, would permit Japan to export nuclear energy facilities and transfer related technology.

Media Highlights

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility may have startled some in the U.S. industry, but no one in the industry was surprised the operator regained control of the reactors, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a meeting with the media on Tuesday. New York Times writer Matt Wald reports in the Green blog.
The cost of nuclear energy in Japan is predicted to double, including government subsidies, the Mainichi Daily News reports. That would put it on a par with other thermal energy sources.
A producer of milk powder in Japan has recalled product manufactured shortly after the nuclear accident after traces of radioactive cesium were detected, Bloomberg News reports. The level of cesium in the powdered milk, used in baby formula, is within government safety limits and would not result in health effects.

Upcoming Events

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and stakeholders will discuss the post-Fukushima task force recommendations on protection of equipment during an extreme event and adding equipment to accommodate a multi-unit event in a public meeting Dec. 8.

This is the last of the thrice weekly Fukushima Updates. A weekly edition will be published each Monday starting December 12. Of course, we’ll resume more frequent updates if events warrant.

Solyndra, Nuclear Energy and Loan Guarantees

2011-12-07T17:14:00.001-05:00

One of the things that struck me when reading about the bankruptcy of Solyndra and its implication for the federal loan guarantee program is that it seemed so small bore – beyond the entertainment value of any “scandal-worthy” elements attached to it – because it “only” realized the risks associated with the loan guarantee program. That doesn’t impact the social value of loan guarantees as a mechanism for promoting a desirable energy policy. Now, I’m not saying risk is nothing – and Solyndra’s bankruptcy is worth an investigation – but everyone knows that no business is a sure thing.

But, of course, Solyndra didn’t make nuclear facilities, so it was interesting here only insofar as its downfall might impact upon the loan guarantee program.

Still -

Solyndra had a use as Exhibit A for the argument that solar energy is always a bad investment, but that’s transparently false, so there’s nowhere really to go with that line of attack.

It has also been used as an argument against the loan guarantee program. Bloomberg Government lately has done a good job showing that this is also false:

The DOE’s 1705 loan guarantee program, valued at $16.1 billion, constitutes 1.7 percent of the federal government’s guarantee commitments across all agencies. Solyndra’s guarantee of $535 million is 3 percent of the portfolio.

You can read about 1705 here. Nuclear energy is not included in this program, which is limited to some renewable energy sources, electricity transmission projects and some biofuels. Nuclear energy is covered in the 1703 program (more here), which includes a long list of technologies. 1705 projects had to break ground by September 30, 2011; there is no such limitation on 1703.

But this explanation for 1705 in the Bloomberg report covers some of the bases for both programs pretty well:

The rationale behind loan guarantees in energy is that new-to-market companies or technologies need help overcoming the so-called “valley of death” — the financial predicament an energy company finds itself in when it is too established to receive
start-up venture capital yet not established enough to secure affordable debt financing.

So you can see them as a hedge against risk – not to the companies, which, like Solyndra, could fail, but to the banks providing loans. In exchange, promising technologies and projects move forward.

Solyndra appears to have failed for an exceptionally specific reason rather than because the solar panel market collapsed beneath it:

Solyndra’s silicon-free modules, while more expensive than traditional silicon solar panels, were more efficient and easy to install on rooftops. The company believed that the advantages of its modules would allow them to remain competitive, even against cheaper panels. The company didn’t foresee that a steep decline in silicon prices would lead the price of silicon solar panels to drop 40 percent in 2011, undercutting Solyndra's perceived advantage

While other solar energy companies didn’t suffer because they trade in “traditional silicon solar panels.”

Abound Solar Inc., which received a $400 million loan guarantee, says its thin-film panels are already competitive. The company expects to triple capacity by the end of 2012. SoloPower, which received a $197 million loan guarantee, also says it can succeed because its lighter, flexible panels are useful on commercial and industrial rooftops that can’t bear the weight of older, heavier technology.

Hmmm! I might have wanted a surer sense of how SoloPower differs from Solyndra – sounds awfully similar to me - but it’s probably that SoloPower is using silicon in its panels. There are other examples given of companies that say they are succeeding – I wouldn’t expect them to say otherwise - but you get the idea.

And what about nuclear energy loan guarantees? Well, the report does mention nuclear in several places, but really only in passing.

Most of the loan guarantee rules still apply, but there are some notable differences to consider: solar panel companies are manufacturers, not energy companies, and are often start-ups, not well-established entities; the technology and economics behind Gen III and III+ reactors is well-understood; and there are impressively large loan origination fees to the government that renewable energy sources don’t have to pay but nuclear energy sources do.

Bottom line: the government stands to make money from a nuclear energy loan guarantee. That’s a pretty good deal.

Otherwise, the two are much the same – oh, except that the failure of one solar panel company has no identified knock-on effect on other solar panel companies – except that they may pick up business now lost to Solyndra – much less on any nuclear energy project.

As you may have read, the world spewed out more carbon emissions last year than in any previous year. Nuclear and renewable energy sources did not contribute to any of that, so encouraging their use is both practical and existential.

Loan guarantees provide an effective and relatively inexpensive way to encourage clean technologies. There’s now no reason to believe the failure of Solyndra should change that.

I didn’t really grasp how Solyndra really captured its business in its name: “The design is made a certain manner. It wraps the photovoltaic copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) compound around a series of tubes until they resemble a row of black, fluorescent lights. Each module is rounded and to catch the maximum amount of light from any direction, so the panels don’t need angled in any way and secured like traditional PV panels.

MIT Recommends Single Agency to Manage Cyber Security Threats for Electricity Grid

2011-12-07T14:43:00.001-05:00

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a report on Monday that discusses the future challenges facing the U.S. electricity grid and several recommendations for how to best manage them. The researchers found that one of the most notable challenges facing the electricity grid is the threat of cyber attack.

MIT writes in the report:

Perfect protection from cyberattacks is not possible. There will be a successful attack at some point.

This is a huge threat to the grid because a cyber attack in one area has the ability to affect other areas very rapidly, which could greatly disrupt power supply all over the country. Cyber attacks are also considered by the Pentagon to be an “act of war,” said the MIT researchers at a National Press Club event this week.

To best manage this issue, MIT recommends that:

The federal government should designate a single agency to have responsibility for working with industry and to have the appropriate regulatory authority to enhance cybersecurity preparedness, response and recovery across the electric power sector, including both bulk power and distribution systems.

But which agency should be tasked with this authority? CNET’s Don Reisinger writes:

The Obama administration has argued in the past that the Department of Homeland Security should be charged with securing the electrical grid, while many members of Congress have called on the Department of Energy or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] to take over. So far, a decision hasn't been made, and MIT researchers didn't provide insight into which organization might be best.

Although the MIT researchers believe that a single agency should be tasked with overseeing these efforts, the nuclear industry believes that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extensive regulations already in place for protecting nuclear energy facilities from cyber attack and that regulatory oversight by other agencies would be “unnecessary and duplicate strict NRC oversight.” In response to the White House’s proposal for DHS to manage a cyber security program, NEI writes:

However, this proposal—along with recent efforts to legislate cyber security for critical infrastructure—is not needed for nuclear plants because NRC regulations and oversight of industry actions to respond to cyber threats. Additional regulation would be duplicative and risk creating inconsistencies in requirements.

Some of you may remember NEI’s cyber security expert Bill Gross who posted in October on the House Republican Cybersecurity Task Force’s recommendations. He had this to say about the MIT’s recommendation:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has mandatory cyber security requirements in place for all power plants. While there may be value in a central coordinating authority, the regulators of jurisdiction have the subject matter expertise to manage the cyber security issue. Any centralized role should be focused on minimizing the potential for dual or duplicate regulatory requirements across sectors.

The industry does agree with MIT, however, that cyber attacks are one of the greatest threats facing the electric power industry today. Exelon Nuclear’s President and Chief Nuclear Officer Mike Pacilio commented on current cyber security programs in place in the nuclear industry in a recent video interview at the 10-year anniversary of September 11.

All of our plants today, not only Exelon, but in the industry, have a very comprehensive cyber improvement program where we are essentially making our plants an island. Any of the controls that interface with the Internet, for example, that could possibly control the reactor are not connected.

See NEI’s website for more information on cyber security programs in the nuclear energy industry.

Among MIT’s other recommendations outlined in the report are:

To facilitate the integration of remote renewables, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should be granted enhanced authority to site major transmission facilities that cross state lines.
To improve the grid’s efficiency and lower rates, utilities with advanced metering technology should begin a transition to pricing regimes in which customers pay rates that reflect the time-varying costs of supplying power.
To improve utilities’ and their customers’ incentives related to distribution generation and energy conservation, utilities should recover fixed network costs through customer charges that do not vary with the volume of electricity consumption.
To make effective use of new technologies, the electric power industry should fund increased research and development in several key areas, including computational tools for bulk power system operation, methods for wire-area transmission planning, procedures for response to and recovery from cyber attacks, and models of consumer response to real-time pricing.
To improve decision making in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment, more detailed data should be compiled and shared, including information on the bulk power system, comprehensive results from “smart grid” demonstration projects, and standardized metrics of utility cost and performance.

For more information on MIT’s research, see the full report, “The Future of the Electric Grid.”

Image credits: From the Department of Homeland Security’s Web page on Cybersecurity.

Monday Update

2011-12-05T16:55:00.001-05:00

TEPCO Injects Nitrogen Into Reactors, Prepares for “Cold Shutdown Condition”

December 5, 2011

Plant Status

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has begun injecting nitrogen into the pressure vessels of Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 through 3. The action will reduce any buildup of hydrogen in the reactors as TEPCO prepares to announce, as early as next week, its achievement of what the company calls a “cold shutdown condition.” A new “Ask the Expert” page on NEI’s Safety First website explains how and why TEPCO’s definition of the term differs from common industry usage.
TEPCO reported today that about 45 metric tons of water containing radioactive strontium leaked from desalination equipment at a water decontamination facility used to recycle cooling water at the Fukushima Daiichi site. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has ordered the company to investigate the causes and report on the impacts should any water reach the ocean and to take steps to prevent future leaks.

Industry/Regulatory/Political

TEPCO said Saturday it paid farmers and livestock workers about $500 million in compensation for loss of livelihood after the Fukushima accident. The company has so far paid about $1.2 billion to farmers and will pay another $96 million by the end of the year.

New Products

An article on NEI’s Safety First website describes how the Electric Power Research Institute is collaborating with global utility, regulatory, research and engineering entities on projects to gain a deeper understanding of lessons learned from Fukushima.

Media Highlights

The Japan Times reports on a government pilot project to test the effectiveness of its decontamination procedures in Okuma town near the Fukushima nuclear energy facility.
The Wall Street Journal notes that some mayors in Japan have been pushing for the restart of nuclear reactors that have been shut down for inspection after the Fukushima accident, as taxes levied on operating nuclear energy facilities have provided a source of revenue to local municipalities.

The Leak at Fukushima

2011-12-05T16:54:00.001-05:00

No two ways about it:

Some 45 tons of highly radioactive water leaked Sunday from desalination equipment used to decontaminate the radioactive water in Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and it is unclear if any made it to the sea, a Tepco official said Monday.

This isn’t good. No radioactive anything should be flowing anywhere at this point and no excuse mitigates it.

Having said that, the threat seems low:

"Even if all 300 liters reached the sea, the radiation would be diluted, and the amount that escaped is tiny compared with what has already leaked into the sea (on earlier occasions)," said Genichiro Wakabayashi, a radiology professor at Kinki University, playing down the potential danger of the leak. "The leak (even if to the sea or to the groundwater) would not be enough to increase radiation levels in marine or agricultural products in the Tohoku region," he said.

He may be “playing down the potential danger” because that’s all the potential danger there is. But at least as of now, it is not known whether any of the water went into the ocean, if it contains radioactive strontium, and if it does, how much.

"We currently believe the leak will have no effect on the water circulation system or our judgment on whether we've achieved a cold shutdown of the reactors," said TEPCO plant location headquarters representative Junichi Matsumoto.

That’s not much of a response. The story still has too many “may haves” to be certain about it. The international media has been on the job, but details have been widely divergent. Check back on our Japan Updates this week for more on this.

You can check out the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum report about this here.

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An interesting story about nuclear energy in Indonesia – it’s planning two plants – contains some tidbits that aroused further curiosity. For example:

The cost of building a nuclear reactor, using the example of Vietnam, may reach Rp 20 trillion (US$2.1 billion). While initial investment is expensive, nuclear plants are cheaper to operate than oil-fueled power plants.

I don’t think most stories from elsewhere would use oil-fueled plants as a reference point, but that’s where Indonesia gets a lot (29 percent, with brown coal at 44 percent) of its electricity from. That’s rather – awful.

And consider this estimation of future electricity needs (form the World Nuclear Organization):

With an industrial production growth rate of 10.5%, electricity demand is estimated to reach 175 TWh in 2013 and 450 billion kWh in 2026. At present a low reserve margin with poor power plant availability results in frequent blackouts.

The nuclear facilities promise to generate a lot of electricity all at once.

Batan then looked for other possible locations for a nuclear power plant, eventually choosing Bangka-Belitung. The government currently plans to build a 10,000-MW reactor West Bangka and an 8,000-MW reactor South Bangka with a launch date of 2021 or 2022.

Batan is the National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan is an acronym for the agency in Indonesian – Badan Tenaga Nuklir Nasional – I like the spelling for nuclear – you can visit it here). Frankly, Batan could probably learn to get buy-in from an area’s residents before setting down a plant, but there you are.

In the future, Taswanda [Taryo, Batan’s research chief] said, Batan wanted to “improve communication” with the residents of Muria and Bangka and share with them how a nuclear power plant might improve their well being.

“Electricity from a nuclear power plant is very important for industries to expand their businesses, which in the end can absorb more workers,” he said.

So – live and learn. The story points out that Batan will not build any plant, just select a location. And no vendor to build a plant has been solicited much less chosen. So we’ll see if the country has a facility up and running by 2022.

In Bangka Indonesia. I volunteer to – do – anything there. To help the facility. Of course.

What Is “Cold Shutdown?”

2011-12-02T18:33:00.001-05:00

Several news articles late this week have reported that Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may be in “cold shutdown” by mid-December. Although the reports are mostly accurate, there is a difference between the traditional “cold shutdown” of a nuclear plant and what is happening at Fukushima.

First, what is cold shutdown? The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines it as:

The term used to define a reactor coolant system at atmospheric pressure and at a temperature below 200 degrees Fahrenheit following a reactor cooldown.

In non-nuclear speak, it basically means the conditions within the nuclear reactor are such that it would be impossible for a chain reaction to occur. This term usually comes into play whenever a reactor is shut down periodically for refueling or for the final time prior to the long-term before it is decommissioned. When a reactor is in cold shutdown, the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) can be safely opened with great care and additional water is added to the cavity above the vessel for shielding to permit safe handling of the fuel for refueling (replacing depleted fuel elements) or defueling (removing the entire core).

In Fukushima Daiichi’s case, achieving the strict definition of “cold shutdown” is not possible because the RPVs have been breached. This means that the RPVs will not hold water (currently the cooling water is flowing through them) and some of the melted fuel may not be in the vessel, but rather on the floor below, which is still within the primary containment. To clean up the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant’s owner and operator, will work with the Japanese government and other parties to develop a long-term plan that will include removing the damaged fuel.

TEPCO understood this important nuance to achieving “cold shutdown” early on this year when it developed its initial recovery plans and developed a new term, “cold shutdown condition,” which applies to how they are bringing the reactors to stable condition. Their definition is as follows:

Temperature of RPV bottom is, in general, below 100 degrees Celsius.

Release of radioactive materials from PCV is under control and public radiation exposure by additional release is being significantly held down. (Not exceed 1 mSv/y at the site boundary as a target.)

By their definition, the Fukushima Daiichi reactors will reach “cold shutdown condition” once they are below boiling point and are no longer releasing significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. This new definition, thus, has an important distinction between the more commonly used “cold shutdown,” which typically takes place at a nuclear plant under normal conditions.

Reaching “cold shutdown conditions” at Fukushima Daiichi, however, has been an extremely difficult task for TEPCO workers given the conditions at the site and is a very significant milestone in their recovery efforts. TEPCO expects to reach this condition in just a few weeks by the end of 2011.

Graphic: Schematic of Reactor Design at Fukushima Daiichi

Friday Update

2011-12-02T16:40:00.001-05:00

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Industry Proposes Integrated Approach on Post-Fukushima Activities

December 2, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

The industry on Dec. 1 urged the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff to consider an integrated and flexible approach toward meeting the NRC’s Fukushima task force recommendations, arguing that this approach would result in faster, more efficient implementation of the most safety-significant recommendations. The industry advocated enhancing the post-9/11 concept of using portable equipment to address loss of all AC power and loss of ultimate heat sink from a variety of natural phenomena. This enhanced mitigation action—called a “diverse and flexible mitigation capability”—could be supplemented by regional response centers that could provide additional hardware and equipment to further extend coping capability should there be a longer-term loss of power or cooling capability.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) today released its interim report on the March 11 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility, based on data and interviews with more than 250 workers since June. The report describes how a larger-than-expected tsunami knocked out all safety systems and led to fuel damage and the release of radiation.

New Products

A new employee profile on NEI’s Safety First website features Marty Wright, radiation protection senior engineer at the Diablo Canyon nuclear energy facility in California. Wright explains his daily duties, his work with state and federal agencies on monitoring, and initial monitoring results after the Fukushima accident.

Media Highlights

The Wall Street Journal reports that TEPCO’s latest analysis confirms the March 11 tsunami triggered the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility and that the plant met all earthquake safety standards. However, TEPCO acknowledged that many questions remain unanswered because continuing high radiation levels inside the facility, limiting extended access needed to complete a full assessment of the damage.

Google and Amazon–And Nuclear Power?

2011-12-02T16:38:00.003-05:00

Does America Online still exist? Why, yes it does, though it seems to have changed its business model considerably – it isn’t supporting the CD-manufacturing industry all by itself anymore, for one thing. It also has an energy site, at which we learn:

The headlines should come somewhere between December and March 2012 when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, if all goes as expected, will okay building up to four new nuclear reactors.
The licenses for two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle in Georgia, followed quickly by two more at SCANA's Summer station in South Carolina, will be the first granted since the 1970s.

The story following is notably positive.

One plus for new nuclear is new jobs. Both the Vogtle and Summer sites will employ thousands of construction workers, as well as hundreds of operational personnel when the units start up 2016-19. Fertel said that, while the largest reactor components have to be forged overseas since no facilities exist in the US, most of the multi-billion dollar projects are sourced here.

And stays fairly positive even with a peek in from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Worth a read.
---
While Vogtle and Summer will be the first new reactors in awhile, they won’t be the first new nuclear generation in North America:

Ontario nuclear power company Bruce Power said it had loaded the final uranium fuel bundle into the 750-megawatt Unit 1 at the Bruce A nuclear power plant in Ontario.

And this is the plan:

Bruce said in a release it expects to attach 750-MW Unit 2 to the Ontario power grid early in the first quarter of 2012 and start commercial operation later in the first quarter.

Bruce expects to connect Unit 1 to the grid in the second quarter of 2012 and go commercial during the third quarter.

You just knew a Canadian nuclear facility would be called Bruce. I wonder if there’s another one called Kevin. In any event, Bruce 3 and 4 have already been operating while 1 and 2 were shuttered in the mid 90s when it was decided not to upgrade them. Decision reversed, apparently.

---

Too much good news:

Fukushima fallout: Renaissance in nuclear power generation now a long way off.

That’s the title of a story at the Financial Times. Surprisingly, the story is not as gloomy as that title and has to admit:

The two responses [Germany and Lithuania] are proof that while atomic power has experienced a serious setback in the wake of Fukushima, it remains a chosen source of energy for many countries.

So – can we have our renaissance back?

---

Goofy:

Like the various nation-states of the world, Google vs. Amazon are also approaching their own nuclear war: both technology titans will have such growing energy demands that they will have to consider nuclear energy. And so, the key to understanding the growth opportunity of these companies is to assess their ability to use nuclear energy, and to use nuclear energy to build an infrastructure for an exponential improvement in data transmission across the Internet.

Leaving aside the awkward nuclear war metaphor, this article at Seeking Alpha seems rather peculiarly premised. Writer Simit Patel doesn’t stop there, either:

On the uranium side of things, I would love to see Google and Amazon support the growth of US-based uranium producers leveraging ISR [in-situ recovery] technology -- particularly Uranium Energy Corporation, a favorite of mine in the market.

I just have no idea.

The Bruce facility on Lake Heron.

On The Containment Vessel Damage at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1

2011-12-01T14:21:00.001-05:00

Early on Wednesday morning, the Dow Jones News Wire first reportedthe following from Japan, before the rest of the mainstream media got holdof the story today:

The melted nuclear fuel within the No. 1 unit at the FukushimaDaiichi power plant was of such intensity that it eroded through 2 meters ofthe 2.6 meter (8.5 feet) concrete base, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.said in a report issued on Wednesday.

Yesterday here at the office, we huddled with a representative ofTEPCO to get a better understanding of the report, and share some additionalfacts that puts this information into the proper context. What's been reported isa very conservative mathematical analysis that has yet to be physicallyconfirmed. In other words, this is a worst case scenario. And as we've seen inour industry, even in the worst case scenario, there is still a verysignificant safety margin.

A quick read ofthe article could give one the impression that the melted core was a littlemore than half a meter -- about 2 feet -- from reaching the externalenvironment. I think it’s important to note that according to the TEPCO analysisonly .7 meters (a little more than two feet) of concrete was actually eroded. In addition, as we've written before, plantshave multiple redundant safety systems in place to protect the public, andthat's exactly the case with Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1.

In addition to the2.6 meters (about 8.5 feet) of steel reinforced concrete inside the containmentvessel, underneath the steel shell of the containment vessel lies another 7.6meters (about 25 feet) of basemat reinforced concrete and steel. Altogether,that means there was 10.2 meters (about 33.5 feet) of reinforced concrete andsteel standing between the reactor core and the outside of the plant before theaccident.

Even if 2 meters (about6.5 feet) of that structure has been eroded, another 8.2 meters (almost 27feet) of reinforced steel and concrete lies between the melted fuel and the externalenvironment.

It’s also important to note that according to tests of air samplesfrom inside containment, it appears that the process of erosion – called coriuminteraction – has essentially ceased and no further damage is occurring at thistime. If that process is still continuing, it is doing so at such a slow ratethat TEPCO has more than enough time to develop a mitigation strategy.

Pilgrim, Blobs of Black Oil, Fusion Part 20

2011-11-30T16:16:00.021-05:00

We always have time for some good news:

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) denied a filing by Massachusetts to stop the relicensing of Entergy's 685-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts.

This had never seemed a good bet for Massachusetts, which had based its contention on events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. Since the NRC is working to apply lessons learned from Fukushima to the American fleet, the state’s contention seemed irrelevant. But – there are further steps to be taken:

The NRC said the state could appeal the ASLB ruling against its Fukushima contention to the five-member, presidentially appointed Commission that oversees the NRC.

The ASLB is is the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which handles these issues. It was the ASLB that created a minor tempest when it ruled the Department of Energy could not withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain from the NRC. This is smaller in scope, but an important step to (re)establishing where the state’s authority over nuclear facilities ends.

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A little news from Durban, South Africa, where the United Nation’s climate change conference (COP17) is taking place:

Blobs of black oil have mysteriously surfaced on the beaches north of Durban, threatening to spoil them for holidaymakers ahead of the festive season.

Residents began noticing pockets of oil on the shores of Zinkwazi, Salt Rock, Zimbali and Blythedale beaches.

Not very climate changey. Anything else?

As COP17 kicked off on Monday in Durban, several people were reported dead following flooding over the weekend.

The eThekwini Municipality said 10 fatalities were reported, with five of the cases having been confirmed following flooding that resulted in damage to property and infrastructure in Umlazi on Sunday.

The worst-hit area is the central region, with 19 reports of flooding affecting shacks at Quarry road and Puntan's Hill.

Any questions?

(h/t ThinkProgress)

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And now, for something completely different:

In the race against world governments and the wealthiest companies to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor, a small, innovative Canadian firm is hoping to bottle and sell the sun's energy.

In a laboratory in this Pacific Coast city [Burnaby, Vancouver], General Fusion physicists and engineers in bright red smocks are busy assembling an experimental reactor.

They hope to test a prototype in 2014 and eventually become the first to commercialize the technology, offering a safe, cheap, pollution-free and virtually inexhaustible source of energy.

Ah, sweet mystery of fusion, never to die. The main problem with fusion, as the story notes, is that it takes a cup full of electricity to produce a thimble full. Forget about economy of scale – there’s no economy whatever.

But you’ve got to admire people who look at the sun and think, I can do that, and then try to do that. The only drawback is that it leads to tears – again and again.

General Fusion admits its chances of success are slim -- but backers believe in its proposal, and are pouring CAN$30 million into the project.

Good work if you can get it. Can’t help but wish General Fusion well.

One detail in the story produced a sour burp:

"The central challenge is still that fossil fuels -- getting them out of the ground and burning them -- is still so cheap to do that there is not an adequate incentive to invest in renewables or other low carbon technologies," said Matt Horne, director of the Pembina Institute.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Pembina, a Canadian think tank – it doesn’t like nuclear energy very much, but you can’t have everything - but I do think there’s plenty of incentive to invest in low carbon technologies. In any event, it’s an odd argument from a Canadian outlet – the country generates almost 60 percent of its electricity from hydro. Go figure.

Blobs of black oil - in New Zealand, in this instance.

Wednesday Update

2011-11-30T16:03:00.001-05:00

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Japanese Government Increases Radiation Testing for Rice Crops

November 30, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

Fukushima Prefecture is stepping up its testing of rice crops, now that more radioactive cesium has been found in harvested samples. Government officials measured twice the allowable radiation limit in rice from farms in Date City, about 30 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. The prefectural government is expanding radiation testing to more than 2,300 nearby farms.
Researchers in Japan have created an academic society to provide recommendations for the removal of radioactive materials released by Fukushima Daiichi. Members of the society have backgrounds in nuclear energy, environmental restoration and other specialties.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima Daiichi facility, forecasts that it will generate enough electricity over the winter to meet demand, with a small reserve margin. The utility warned that unplanned shutdowns of generating stations and rapid changes in temperature could affect continuity of supply.

New Products

Nuclear energy facilities on the East Coast weathered Hurricane Irene by thoroughly planning for the August storm. Details are in a new article posted this week on NEI’s Safety First website.

Media Highlights

Dow Jones reports that a TEPCO analysis indicates the fuel in reactor 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility melted through the reactor pressure vessel and may have eroded part of the way through the concrete base of the containment. TEPCO officials said the erosion of the containment has stopped and the temperature is below the boiling point.

Upcoming Events

Staff of the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct its first meeting with stakeholders on strategies the agency is considering to address the recommendations of the near-term Fukushima task force. The meeting will be held Dec. 1 in the NRC’s Rockville, Md., offices. To view the meeting by webcast, visit http://video.nrc.gov.

Monday Update

2011-11-28T17:19:00.001-05:00

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Fukushima Town to Test Waste Reduction System

November 28, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

The town of Hirono in Fukushima prefecture plans to test a system that would reduce the volume of radioactive debris requiring disposal by up to a factor of 300. The equipment would heat-treat the materials in an oxygen-free environment and use a ceramic powder to absorb radioactive materials.

Plant Status

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is planning to address any buildup of hydrogen inside the pressure vessels of Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 through 3 by directly injecting nitrogen into the vessel. Nitrogen injection is expected to begin early December. Meanwhile, in order to increase the amount of steam in the vessels and decrease the relative buildup of hydrogen, TEPCO is reducing the flow rate of cooling water injection into the reactors. The temperatures within all three reactors are well below the boiling temperature, TEPCO reports.

Media Highlights

A pair of articles in the Japanese media analyzes the export market for Japanese nuclear components. Yomiuri Shimbun reports on Toshiba’s U.S. orders for turbine equipment for the nuclear energy facilities being built at the Vogtle site in Georgia and the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina. The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum notes that Japan Steel Works has forecast more than $640 million in orders from China and France for large forged components for nuclear power plants.
An article in The New York Times discusses how the post-Fukushima environment is changing national discussions on used nuclear fuel management.
Mainichi Daily News reports on the difficulty that Japan’s power industry is having in meeting its carbon dioxide reduction targets now that electricity production at nuclear energy facilities has dropped since the Fukushima accident. Kyodo News points out that Kansai Electric Power Co. is planning to restart an oil-fired plant that had been mothballed for 10 years.

“Nuclear plants are too inflexible… ?”

2011-11-28T16:52:00.001-05:00

A certain cognitive dissonance:

Building new nuclear power stations will make it harder for the UK to switch to renewable energy, said one of the top German officials leading the country's nuclear energy phase-out.

And why might that be?

Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Environmental Protection Agency in Germany, who advises the German government, said: "We are not missionaries, and every country will have to find its own way in energy policy, but it is obvious that nuclear plants are too inflexible and cannot sufficiently respond to variations in wind or solar generation, only gas [power stations] do."

“Too inflexible.” That’s a new one. What Flasbarth is trying to say is that nuclear energy doesn’t give renewable energy enough room to play a significant role in energy policy, but what he actually conveys is that nuclear energy provides many of the benefits of renewable energy, but can run at 90 to 92 percent capacity rather than the 30 to 35 percent capacity managed by renewables.

Leaving aside the other upsides and downsides of nuclear and renewable energy sources for a moment, Flasbarth is saying that nuclear energy, because it works virtually all the time, doesn’t need renewable energy sources. He knows this because Germany has until recently been a big supporter of nuclear energy.

Given Flasbarth’s formulation, you might not want nuclear energy on the same portion of the grid as renewable energy, but you can use natural gas instead and live with some carbon emissions in exchange for being able to use non-emitting renewable energy sources 35 percent of the time. You can then site nuclear energy facilities where renewable energy sources cannot function well. That’s fine.

But here’s the thing: Great Britain can organize its energy policy around these choices and use nuclear energy, wind and solar and gas wherever they work best. Germany, quite famously, can’t do this anymore.

Jochen Flasbarth – making the best of a bad situation. It’s almost a cry for help, isn’t it?

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You may want to know that COP17 is happening in Durban, South Africa right about now. The Guardian has up an informative Q&A about the United Nations’ climate change conference. A taster:

There seems little possibility that the summit will produce an emissions reduction agreement, meaning the world will soon lack any binding CO2 targets when Kyoto's first commitment period expires at the end of 2012. At best, diplomats will agree on other details, such as a "green climate fund" designed to channel billions from wealthy to poor countries to fund environmentally friendly economic development there. But with rich countries facing a financial crisis it is unclear where the money should come from.

But the burning question is: How much criminal activity has there been at this year’s conference? Very little, it turns out,

There were no climate change summit related crimes on Monday, police said on Monday afternoon.

"Everything is going smoothly so far. Not... a single conference-related crime report has been given to me today," Colonel Vish Naidoo said late on Monday afternoon.

Whew! The roving bands of climatologists have been quelled at long last. Their sociopathic behavior almost trashed Cancun last year. Speaking of sociopathic:

Climate scientists have mounted a robust defense of their work and debates over science after more than 5,000 personal emails were leaked onto the internet in an apparent attempt to undermine public support for international action to tackle climate change.

As Rocket J. Squirrel says to Bullwinkle J. Moose when the latter threatens to pull a rabbit out of his hat, “Aw, that trick never works.”

Although the conference is not expected to carry much significance for the outside world – that would take a successor to Kyoto - the issue of climate change is no longer vulnerable to dirty tricks. Denying it at this point is just a self-indulgence.

The COP17 logo. Meant to evoke the big tree in Avatar? That didn’t end well for the big tree.

Wednesday Update

2011-11-23T14:58:00.001-05:00

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Japan Legislature Passes $156 Billion for Rebuilding, Decontamination

Nov. 23, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

Japan’s Diet passed legislation to provide $156 billion in disaster reconstruction aid, the third time since the March earthquake that legislators have approved supplemental funding. Of the total, $3 billion is earmarked to fund radiation decontamination efforts, with the majority of the money to be used to rebuild areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami and to help companies build new manufacturing plants.
Fukushima Prefecture held elections delayed from April because of the earthquake and tsunami. Toshitsuna Watanabe, the incumbent, won the mayoralty race in Okuma, the town nearest the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. Watanabe favors rebuilding the town in place while his main opponent, Jin Kowata, advocated moving the entire town further inland. Evacuees from the prefecture were allowed to vote, but the total vote count was low.

Media Highlights

The Financial Times reports that American investor Warren Buffett visited Iwaki, a Japanese town in Fukushima Prefecture and pronounced the area’s recovery “amazing.” The Times said the trip, Buffett’s first to Japan, acted as a tonic to Japan’s business environment.
The Columbia Journalism Review took the Associated Press to task for needlessly alarmist reporting about cancer risk from radiation exposure near the Fukushima Daichi facility. In a blog post at the organization’s science blog, David Ropeik wrote, “Journalists often play up the dramatic and alarming aspects of the information they’ve found, and play down or leave out the ameliorative, neutral, or balancing aspects that might help do justice to the truth, but which could “weaken” the story. The AP’s article illustrates what this looks like.”

New Products

NEI’s Safety First website continues its ongoing focus on practices that enhance nuclear safety. This week, the site features an article about the Fort Calhoun nuclear energy facility, which found itself in the middle of the Missouri River earlier this year when the river flooded. The story looks at the steps taken and equipment used to ensure the integrity of the facility. Fort Calhoun is expected to return online early next year

Powering Space; Radical Oppositions

2011-11-23T14:55:00.001-05:00

From Digital Journal:

Engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center installed a nuclear power source Thursday onto the Mars rover set to launch this month. The rover, named Curiosity, is the latest in unmanned missions to Mars, and is expected to provide new evidence about Mars history, including clues as to whether the Red Planet ever harbored life.

Worth a read. This bit gave us an evil tingle:

The nuclear source is also less affected by weather and daylight conditions on Mars, factors that have hampered previous missions, as when the twin Mars Exploration Rovers encountered dust storms that covered their solar panels while operating on Mars from 2004 to 2011.

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The New York Time’s Green blog tries some pushback on Curiosity:

One alternative is to develop a better way to convert heat into electricity in space. The National Academy report said that the method NASA uses now is only about 6 percent efficient. A Stirling Engine system could produce five times as much electricity from each unit of heat, reducing the need for plutonium, but it has many moving parts and has not been adapted to space use.

But the response so far has been to use solar cells whenever possible. Steven W. Squyres, a professor of astronomy at Cornell who is the chief scientist for the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, said: “You always use solar when you can; it’s simpler, cheaper, just easier to do. You only use nuclear when you have to.’’

And one of those instances where you have to use nuclear is in Curiosity, because it is heavy (as in, one ton heavy) and equipment-packed and needs considerably more electricity to operate than its smaller predecessors – more than solar power can generate. (Plus there are those dust issues.) It almost feels like the pro-con debates that solar and nuclear advocates have on terra firma transferred to the depth of space.

But, well, earlier probes like Spirit and Opportunity performed well enough on solar energy and I expect Curiosity will be fine with nuclear energy (actually, the heat from plutonium-238 will be directly converted to electricity). Everybody gets a chance to shine.

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Agence Presse-France has an interesting enough article about protests against used nuclear fuel from Germany being carted over to France. We’ve covered that before here and there isn’t a lot new in the article, but this caught my eye:

France produces a higher proportion of its power in reactors than any other country in the world, and its electricity bills are around 25 percent cheaper than in its neighbors, a boon to industry.

“A boon to industry?” Well, probably so, but it seems odd to leave out “a boon to every user of electricity in France.”

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From the same article:

"Beyond the danger that this waste poses, we're demonstrating our radical opposition to a means of production that means we'll always need more power. We're against endless growth," said 24-year-old Anna, from Paris.

Okay. Efficiency fan, I guess.

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See, if you don’t give your annoying relatives the power to annoy you, then you won’t be annoyed by them. You can eat as much as you want, zone out in front of the TV in grandma’s comfiest chair, play games with your little nephews and nieces (which almost always involve their bouncing off your stomach somehow), bicker with your old Republican cousin on how Stevenson was robbed in the ‘56 elections, and dream of all those sales you’ll want to avoid on Friday. And be happy. And give thanks.

Curiosity on the left, Spirit on the right.

Are U.S. Navy Diesel Engines Used at Nuclear Plants?

2011-11-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

Investigative journalism. Works well when reporters do their homework, but is questionable when they make up their own facts.

This week I ran across an article in the San Diego Reader on an interview with Greg Palast – “corporate fraud investigator turned investigative journalist.” For those of you who always buy into anything under the veil of “investigative journalism,” I’m here to point out where it can sometimes get iffy.

In the interview with Palast, The Reader says:

Diesel engines take time to warm up before they reach full power-generating capacity. But these massive engines, with base horsepower ratings well into the thousands (and subsequently doubled by strapping on a turbocharger), need to be online and running at full capacity in 10–12 seconds after a failure occurs in order to avert disaster. Frequently harvested from retired cruise ships, the engines simply aren’t capable of firing up as required.

Frequently harvested from retired cruise ships? What? I know the industry works closely with former U.S. Navy nukes, but I didn’t think they were THAT close.

I immediately took his claim to NEI’s Principal Engineer Vijay Nilekani who straight out called it FALSE. Here’s his response:

All diesel engines in U.S. nuclear plants come from just three manufacturers (Fairbanks Morse, TransAmerica and I think the third one is General Motors). Although it is true that the same manufacturers do make diesel engines for ships, the diesels supplied to the nuclear industry are “nuclear quality grade,” which means they are very high quality and cost many times more. Also, all spare parts for maintenance are nuclear quality grade as well, coming from the original manufacturer. Unauthorized substitution of parts if not permitted by Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations.

What about their reliability? Are they really as faulty as Palast claims? Nilekani’s answer:

Even though diesel engines are rarely used in the real world for an actual electrical emergency because the transmission systems in the U.S. are very reliable, they still undergo rigorous preventive maintenance per manufacturers’ recommendations (and usually every two years are replaced with new parts). All diesel engines are tested every month to make sure that they start within the required time, load the emergency buses, etc. Even the diesel fuel is inspected and tested to make sure that it is very high quality. There is also a lot of predictive maintenance performed, such as lubricant analysis or vibration analysis, which have helped to keep their reliability in the upper 90th percentile.

Whew! So basically, it looks like Palast’s personal agenda of “exposing” the nuclear industry for putting profit before safety has hindered his ability to actually investigate the topic and report the truth. Go ahead and count me out for buying his latest book, although, I’m sure that it would make for some very interesting reading….

Photo: Greg Palast featured in San Diego Reader

CJR Criticizes AP for Reporting on Fukushima and Radiation

2011-11-23T08:16:00.001-05:00

Our readers may recall that at the end of September the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) published a critique of an Associated Press (AP) series on nuclear plant safety. Overnight, CJR took the AP to task again, this time for alarmist reporting about radiation releases in Japan as the result of the incident at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear facility.The critique was published over at The Observatory, CJR's science blog edited by David Ropeik. Here are a few choice quotes:

With a long-term population study of the impact of just getting under way, the AP set out to do a bit of enterprise reporting, asking what it might find with regard to cancer rates. The answer: “cancers caused by the radiation may be too few to show up” in such studies because “the ordinary rate of cancer is so high, and our understanding of the effects of radiation exposure so limited.” As the AP reported, “that could mean thousands of cancers under the radar in a study of millions of people, or it could mean virtually none.” Yet overall, its article is clearly structured to induce at least a modicum of fear. After all, scary stories sell papers.

But that's not all ...

It’s also interesting to note that, buried down in the twenty-fifth paragraph, the story cites Japanese officials as saying “mental health problems caused by excessive fear of radiation are prevalent and posing a bigger problem than actual risk of cancer caused by radiation.” Excessive fear of radiation?! I wonder where that might have come from?

It all makes for a very interesting article. Read it all right now.

NEI Confronts Politifact on Clinton Statement on Nuclear Costs

2011-11-22T11:43:00.000-05:00

Last week, David Bradish posted his take on President Clinton's statement concerning the costs of electricity generated by wind, solar and nuclear energy. After looking at the numbers, David concluded that an analysis by Politifact that rated Clinton's statement as "half-true" was flawed and needed to be updated to "mostly false."

Earlier today, ~~John Keeley of NEI's media team~~ I shared a copy of David's analysis with reporter Louis Jacobson and editor Martha Hamilton. If and when we get a response, we'll let you know.

Monday Update

2011-11-21T16:49:00.001-05:00

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Japan Cabinet Approves Decontamination Protocols

Nov. 21, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

The Japanese cabinet has approved “basic policies” to clean up radioactive contamination resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Based on recommendations made in 2007 by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, areas contaminated to dose levels within two rem per year above background will be cleaned up to reduce adult doses by 50 percent within two years and 60 percent for children, and to a long-term level of 0.1 rem/year above background radiation levels. Two rem is about the same amount of radiation exposure a patient would receive from a full body CT scan. Areas where the annual dose levels are above two rem/year will be given priority in scheduling decontamination activities.
The Japan Nuclear Technology Institute has published a report reviewing the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum said the analysis of the accident is based on published facts, operational experience and knowledge of the plant design, and includes recommended safety protection measures “to prevent and mitigate severe accidents.”

Media Highlights

The Salt Lake Tribune quotes Adrian Heymer, NEI’s executive director of the Fukushima regulatory response, on how some of the safety lessons from the Japan accident already have been incorporated in the features of new nuclear reactor designs.
An Associated Press article explains the difficulty of measuring future health effects of the low doses of radiation resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
A Washington Post article describes the areas around the Fukushima Daiichi plant that have remained evacuated since the March accident following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Utah – the Place for Nuclear Energy?

2011-11-21T16:42:00.001-05:00

Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert talked about the importance of nuclear energy during his State of the State address earlier this year – then the accident at Fukushima happened – then -

“The lessons we learn from that horrific situation [in Japan] must not be lost as we discuss any possible future nuclear power generation here,” he said during the release of his 10-year energy plan in March. “The disasters in Japan, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island will not preempt the debate of nuclear power — but they certainly will influence it.”

That seems sensible enough. A little more surprising:

While noncommittal about the proposed Utah project, Herbert insists that nuclear power is “safer than ever” and still up for discussion in his state.

Or maybe not so surprising:

Approximately 82 percent of the electricity produced in Utah in 2008 was from coal-fired generation, with six plants active statewide, according to the Utah Geological Survey. Natural gas accounted for the second-largest proportion at 15.6 percent. Hydroelectric provided 1.4 percent, while geothermal and petroleum each comprise less than 1 percent of net generation of electricity in Utah.

So, in Utah, the renewables and nuclear energy stand on the same patch, but at least this gives the state a lot of options going forward.

The first article linked above mentions a company called Blue Castle Holdings that wants to build the first nuclear facility in the state. Blue Castle has hired former NRC Chairman Nils Diaz to help out, so its has potent assistance in the public relations game.

We wish Blue Castle good fortune. Herbert’s support for the atom is more subdued than before but still present – which is politic - and Utah could do with broadening its electricity portfolio. Utah just might be the place.

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CNET takes a look at the MIT Finance Forum and is surprised to find that nuclear energy still has the nerve to shove its nose through the door. Why?

"Our investors have a very long time horizon and the reason they supported it is the long-term societal implications and the potentially significant returns from that (so) we haven't seen any wavering of support," said Tyler Ellis, a project manager at TerraPower.

So that’s why there’s been no wavering of support. Writer Martin LaMonica focuses on small reactors, probably because CNET covers a lot of tech news and Microsoft’s Bill Gates is an investor in TerraPower. So it all fits together.

LaMonica provides a nice overview of the benefits of small reactors. I’ve always found some of the offered reasons a little thin:

Although none has actually been built, modular plants have a slight advantage in terms of cost: simply, financiers don't need to raise as much money, said Bob Percopo, a project finance expert who works at the energy division of AIG. "On balance, small modular reactors probably have a leg up on the financing side," he said.

In addition to being quicker to build, the smaller plants require fewer operators, which lowers the operations costs, [NuScale Power CEO Paul] Lorenzini said.

True statements all – well, the one about financing is unknown at this point. But I wonder if small reactors will be sold ultimately as an alternative to their full size peers or as supplements used for different purposes.

That isn’t completely clear yet, but I do think the better argument isn’t their cost effectiveness – though that’s a selling point – but that they can be used in all kinds of situations where full scale plants might be too ambitious – providing power to military bases when they’re cut off from the grid, providing process heat for industrial processes, etc.

After all, the flux capacitor ran a car, so if you’ve got a different form factor, devise a different use case (and admittedly, most of the small reactor companies have done this – LaMonica just didn’t pick up on it.)

Visit NuScale here and TerraPower here for more on what they can do.

From the Utah state song, Utah – This Is the Place:

Utah! People working together; Utah! What a great place to be; Blessed from Heaven above; It's the land that we love; This is the place!

Thoughtful Indian Columnists

2011-11-18T16:07:00.001-05:00

This struck me as a little funny:

The Dec. 14 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will look at how well the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working as it tackles high-profile reforms in the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster -- and the long-standing issue of what to do with toxic nuclear waste.

"There have been reports and information that the commission is not always working well together," a committee aide said.

No comment on the substance of the hearing, but perhaps NRC could return the favor and hold a meeting on how well Congress is getting along.

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Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt have stalled their plans because of heightened safety concerns triggered by the Fukushima meltdown caused by a 9-magnitude earthquake and a 49-foot tsunami.

Well, that makes sense – hey, wait a minute there!

But they have also been hit by the pro-democracy uprisings that have plunged the Arab world into political turmoil and an uncertain future.

Well, there’s that, too.

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Mind you, this comes from an Indian site called Oil Price:

Nor are the Kudankulam protests New Delhi’s only headache. In Maharashtra, locals are demonstrating against the proposed 9,900 megawatt Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant. Even worse, the costs of such projects are coming under scrutiny, as thoughtful Indian columnists are now questioning the need for foreign reactors that are four times more expensive than indigenous ones.

Love to see those numbers.

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Russian pragmatism at its very best (probably through Google Translate):

"Anyway, it is impossible to be expecting a global refusal from nuclear energy, as both Europe and we have winter, and everyone wants to leave (live?) with heating and light," Khaitun said.

That’s Head of the Centre of Energy Policy at the Institute of Europe of Russia's Academy of Sciences Alexei Khaitun. I must admit, there are better arguments out there.