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Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California knocked offline by jellyfish-like creatures called salp
Diablo Canyon Power Plant / AP
This photo provided by the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on Friday shows salp, a gelatinous sea creature, at a nuclear reactor intake structure.
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By James Eng, msnbc.com
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In Japan, it was a monstrous earthquake and tsunami that brought down the Fukushima nuclear plant. In California, it’s a tiny, jellyfish-like sea creature called salp that’s causing problems at the Diablo Canyon atomic plant.
An invasion of salp has prompted Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to temporarily shut down a nuclear reactor at Diablo Canyon, in Avila Beach, San Luisa Obispo County, on the central California coast.
A giant swarm of the transluscent barrel-shaped organisms this week clogged intake screens that are used to keep marine life out of the seawater that is used as a coolant for the nuclear plant.
On Wednesday, PG&E officials reduced power output at the Unit 2 reactor, then decided to shut it down altogether “until conditions improve at the intake structure.” The plant’s other reactor, Unit 1, had already been shut down earlier in the week for a planned refueling and maintenance outage.
“Safety being the number one priority, there was such an influx of salp and you need ocean water to cool the reactors,” PG&E spokesman Tom Cuddy told msnbc.com on Friday. “At that point we made a conservative decision to safely shut down the unit.”
PG&E owns and operates the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, whose two reactors together produce approximately 2,300 net megawatts of electricity – enough to serve nearly 3 million northern and central California homes.
Cuddy said he wasn’t sure when the Unit 1 reactor would come back online.
“We’ll turn the unit on to full power when it’s safe to do so – when the salps leave,” he said. “The bottom line is we’re taking a methodical and conservative approach.”
Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees reactor safety and security, said the plant is not in any danger.
“It’s not a normal operation condition, but the plant is safe and all the systems operated as designed,” she said.
Salps are tiny, gelatinous organisms that move by contracting, thus pumping water throughout their bodies. They can reproduce and multiply quickly.
Though salps look a bit like jellyfish, they are actually more closely related to organisms that have backbones. They typically grow to 1 or 2 inches long and usually do not appear at the coast, says Larry Madin, a salp expert and research director at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
“They’re typically more of an offshore living organism," Madin says. He surmises that the swarm at Diablo may have been carried in on currents blown by wind.
Other than clogging the cooling system filters of a nuclear plant, the organisms pose no danger, says Bruce Robison, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif. They don’t sting, they don’t have teeth and they’re not poisonous.
Salps passively feed off tiny organic particles in the water and can reproduce sexually or asexually. “They can have their population size expand tremendously within a short period of time, which makes them very abundant. In a small space, they can take up all the space,” Robison says.
Madin said the slimy swarm at Diablo would probably go away in a few days, carried off by currents. Or, says Robison, they’ll quickly die off when their food supply runs out.
So the best bet, experts say, is for nuclear officials to just wait it out.
Despite the outage, California is not expected to experience any electricity shortages because it has ample reserves, said Stephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman California ISO, which operates the state's power grid and wholesale markets.
It’s not the first time that sea creatures have interfered with nuclear plant activity.
In 2008, a swarm of jellyfish led to a sharp decrease in power generation at Diablo Canyon, according to the Los Angeles Times. Similar jellyfish problems have cropped up at nuclear plants in the U.S., Japan, Israel and Scotland over the years, the newspaper said.
“It happens. It’s something you would expect along the coast,” Uselding said.
But Madin said this is the first time he’s heard of salps interfering with the operation of a nuclear plant.
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Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California knocked offline by... more
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California nuclear plant shut indefinitely amid hunt to find cause of problems
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 8:55 PM EDT, Fri April 6, 2012
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The power plant has been shut down since this winter...
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The San Onofre nuclear plant has been shut down since radioactive gas escaped
Officials have said there's no harm to the public health, but can't identify the cause
The head of the NRC says the plant won't restart until a cause and plan is put forward
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(CNN) -- A large Southern California nuclear plant is out of commission indefinitely, and will remain so until there is an understanding of what caused problems at two of its generators and an effective plan to address the issues, the nation's top nuclear regulator said Friday.
Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, refused to give a timetable as to when the San Onofre nuclear plant could resume operation. He said only that his agency had "set some firm conditions" as to when that could happen.
"We won't make a decision (to approve the facility's restart) unless we're satisfied that public health and safety will be protected," Jaczko told reporters. "They have to demonstrate to us that they understand the causes, and ... that they have a plan to address them."
The power plant has been shut down since this winter, when a small amount of radioactive gas escaped from a steam generator during a water leak. At the time, federal regulators said there was no threat to public health, though they could not identify how much gas leaked or exactly why it had happened.
The water leak occurred in thousands of tubes that carry heated water from the reactor core through the plant's steam generators.
Leaks occur periodically in older units, but plant owner Southern California Edison replaced the four steam generators at San Onofre in 2010 and 2011 as part of a $680 million project. They are in units 2 and 3 of the nuclear facility; unit 1 went out of service in 1992.
Each of the 65-foot-tall, 640-ton generators -- built by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- are packed with thousands of narrow tubes that carry hot, pressurized water from the reactors. The heat produces steam in a separate loop that drives the plant's turbines and generators.
"Tubes are vibrating and rubbing against adjacent tubes and against support structures inside the steam generators," the agency noted.
Eight of the more than 9,700 tubes in one of the unit 3 generators failed a pressure test, while six tubes in unit 2's reactor needed to be plugged, the NRC has found. Another 186 tubes in unit 2, which was shut down for refueling at the time of the leak, were plugged "as a precautionary measure."
In addition to driving the turbines to create electricity, the steam generators are "one of the barriers between the radioactive material in the reactor core and ultimately the external environment," Jaczko noted.
Located near San Clemente, the San Onofre nuclear plant's twin reactors are "Southern California's largest and most reliable sources of electricity," according to Southern California Edison's website. When operational, the facility -- which is owned by that utility, San Diego Gas and Electric, and the city of Riverside -- supplies power for 1.4 million households at any given time.
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CNN's Greg Botelho contributed to this report.
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California nuclear plant shut indefinitely amid hunt to find cause... more
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CAMERON, Ariz. — In the summer of 2010, a Navajo cattle rancher named Larry Gordy stumbled upon an abandoned uranium mine in the middle of his grazing land and figured he had better call in the feds. Engineers from the Environmental Protection Agency arrived a few months later, Geiger counters in hand, and found radioactivity levels that buried the needles on their equipment.
The abandoned mine here, about 60 miles east of the Grand Canyon, joins the list of hundreds of such sites identified across the 27,000 square miles of Navajo territory in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico that are the legacy of shoddy mining practices and federal neglect. From the 1940s through the 1980s, the mines supplied critical materials to the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
For years, unsuspecting Navajos inhaled radioactive dust and drank contaminated well water. Many of them became sick with cancer and other diseases.
The radioactivity at the former mine is said to measure one million counts per minute, translating to a human dose that scientists say can lead directly to malignant tumors and other serious health damage, according to Lee Greer, a biologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. Two days of exposure at the Cameron site would expose a person to more external radiation than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers safe for an entire year.
The E.P.A. filed a report on the rancher’s find early last year and pledged to continue its environmental review. But there are still no warning signs or fencing around the secluded and decaying site. Crushed beer cans and spent shell casings dot the ground, revealing that the old mine has become a sort of toxic playground.
“If this level of radioactivity were found in a middle-class suburb, the response would be immediate and aggressive,” said Doug Brugge, a public health professor at Tufts University medical school and an expert on uranium. “The site is remote, but there are obviously people spending time on it. Don’t they deserve some concern?”
Navajo advocates, scientists and politicians are asking the same question.
More at the linkCAMERON, Ariz. — In the summer of 2010, a Navajo cattle rancher named Larry... more
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Los Angeles Times
Breaking news
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Federal agency bars Edison from restarting San Onofre plant
Los Angeles Times | March 27, 2012 | 2:52 p.m.
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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, citing serious concerns about equipment failures at the San Onofre nuclear plant, on Tuesday barred plant operator Southern California Edison from restarting the plant until the problems are thoroughly understood and fixed.
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Federal agency bars Edison from restarting... more
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http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Federal-Inspectors-Investigate-Problems-at-San-Onofre-143431286.html
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Federal Inspectors Investigate Problems at San Onofre
Failed stress tests prompt inspection team to investigation the nuclear power plant, which leaked radiation in January
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By Dave Douglass and Antonio Castelan
| Monday, Mar 19, 2012 | Updated 9:08 PM PDT
A federal inspection team is beginning its examination of steam generator tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant. One of those tubes leaked in January, prompting a reactor shutdown, and more tubes failed during a series of tests last week. Antonio Castelan reports.
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A federal inspection team is beginning its examination of steam generator tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant. One of those tubes leaked in January, prompting a reactor shutdown, and more tubes failed during a series of tests last week. Antonio Castelan reports.
An inspection team from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began investigating faulty steam generator tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant Monday.
A series of failed tests last week involving steam generator tubes that are a key part of the plant's two reactors prompted the regulatory commission to send in a team of experts to find out why the vital energy source was failing.
The team plans to spend at least five days at the SoCal plant operated by Southern California Edison.
The trouble began in late January, when a tube in one of the reactors leaked.
That reactor was shut down, but not before a small amount of radioactive gas may have escaped into the atmosphere. Edison said neither plant employees nor the public was at risk.
Still, initial tests found that hundreds of steam generator tubes were showing signs of premature wear.
"We're seeing an unusual amount of wear in relatively new steam generators and, yes, that's unusual," said Victor Dricks with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The problems at San Onofre have residents in nearby San Clemente worried.
"This is a huge amount of risk for us to be living so close to," said resident Patty Davis. "It's a big concern."
The federal inspectors will be looking at the design and construction of the plant's steam generators, as well as their transport from Japan where they were manufactured.
Each reactor contains thousands of steam generator tubes. San Onofre's second reactor is also shut down right now for routine maintenance.
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http://media.nbclosangeles.com/images/654*368/9121595_N7PPKGSANONOFREINSPE_722x406_2212490620.jpg
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Report faults workers for ammonia leak at San Onofre nuclear plant
February 10, 2012 | 7:39 pm
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San Onofre nuclear power station
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Failure by workers to recognize and repair degraded equipment led to an ammonia leak that caused an emergency alert at the San Onofre nuclear plant in November, federal regulators said Friday.
The findings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, first reported by the Associated Press, faulted plant operator Southern California Edison for failing to follow its own procedures at San Onofre, the twin-reactor plant located just south of the Orange County border.
The commission concluded that that problem had "very low safety significance."
Edison conducted its own investigation and found the same contributing factors as the NRC, according to a company news release. The utility said that it has made changes to address the problem.
The NRC found San Onofre workers "failed to adequately identify, evaluate and correct a problem" in a water purification system, which led to the ammonia leak.
No one was injured because of the leak, although some workers were evacuated as a precautionary measure.
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Report faults workers for ammonia leak at San Onofre... more
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New nuclear reactors set to be OK'd for Georgia
By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoney
February 8, 2012: 3:33 PM ET
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to approve the construction of two new reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant, seen here. It would be the first new construction license for a reactor granted in over 30 years.
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) --
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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to approve licenses to build two new nuclear reactors on Thursday, the first approvals in over 30 years.
The reactors are being built in Georgia by a consortium of utilities led by Southern Co. (SO, Fortune 500) They will be sited at the Vogtle nuclear power plant complex, about 170 miles east of Atlanta. The plant already houses two older reactors.
Spokespeople for Southern Co. and the NRC were quiet on the matter Wednesday ahead of the vote set for Thursday at 1 PM ET. If approved, NRC staff would likely issue a construction and operating license within the next few days.
Although new nuclear reactors have been built in this country within the last couple of decades -- the last one started operation in 1996 -- the NRC hasn't issued a license to build a new reactor since 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. The reactors that have opened in the last decades were approved before 1978.
The combination of the Three Mile Island incident and the high costs of nuclear power turned many utilities away from the technology.
There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors at 64 plants across the country that provide the nation with roughly 20% of its power. Half are over 30 years old.
The utilities building the new Vogtle reactors submitted their application seven years ago. Prep-work at the site has been under way for some time, but the actual reactors can't be built until NRC issues the final license.
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How close is your home to a nuclear plant?
The new reactors are a Westinghouse design called the AP 1000. Together they are expected to cost $14 billion and provide 2200 megawatts of power, according to a spokesman for Southern Co. That's enough to power 1 million homes.
The plants are being built with the help of a conditional $8.3 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The loan guarantee is part of DOE's broader loan program that has been criticized for backing companies like Solyndra, the bankrupt maker of solar panels.
The Southern spokesman said the loan guarantee, combined with other regulatory measures, enable the project to receive cheaper financing that will ultimately save ratepayers $1 billion.
The first reactor is expected to come online in 2016 and the second one in 2017, according to Southern Co.
The AP 1000 is the newest NRC-approved nuclear reactor. This would be the first one built in the United States, although four are already under construction in China, said Scott Shaw, a Westinghouse spokesman.
Critics have said the containment walls of the AP 1000 aren't strong enough to withstand a terrorist attack, but Shaw says they were redesigned after September 11, 2001 and have held up during simulations.
He also said the design's passive cooling system makes it much safer than older designs. The AP 1000 uses gravity and condensation -- not electricity -- to cool the fuel rods.
It was the loss of electric power that led to the meltdown of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactors following the tsunami in 2011.
Still, a coalition of nine mostly regional environmental groups say the current design is not safe. They are asking the NRC to delay its decision Thursday until they can file a challenge in federal court.
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First Published: February 8, 2012: 2:20 PM ET
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to approve the construction of two new reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant, seen here. It would be the first new construction license for a reactor granted in over 30 years.
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New nuclear reactors set to be OK'd for Georgia
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NRC approves new nuclear reactor design
Associated Press
December 22, 2011, 10:11 a.m.
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WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have approved a nuclear reactor designed by Westinghouse Electric Co. that could power the first nuclear plants built from scratch in this country in more than three decades.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously approved the AP1000 reactor on Thursday. The certification, effective immediately, will be valid for 15 years.
NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said the newly approved design would ensure safety through simplified, passive security functions and other features. He said plants using the design could withstand damage from an airplane crash without significant release of radioactive materials — an issue that gained attention after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Approval of the design is a major step forward for utility companies in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas that have billions of dollars riding on plans to build AP1000 reactors in the Southeast. Without NRC approval, the utilities could not have gotten a license to build their plants.
Federal officials approved an earlier version of the AP1000 reactor in 2006, but it was never built in the United States. Four AP1000 reactors are now under construction in China.
Aris Candris, Westinghouse president and CEO, said the road to receiving design certification of the AP1000 "has been long and sometimes arduous."
The NRC vote brings the U.S "one step closer to constructing AP1000 units and putting thousands to work to ultimately provide future generations with safe, clean and reliable electricity," he said.
Utilities in Georgia and South Carolina have been waiting for the design certification so they can move ahead with applications to build two reactors in each state.
Atlanta-based Southern Co. applied to build the first two AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Ga. The $14 billion effort is the pilot project for the new reactor and a major test of whether the industry can build nuclear plants without the endemic delays and cost overruns that plagued earlier rounds of building years ago. President Barack Obama's administration has offered the project $8 billion in federal loan guarantees as part of its pledge to expand nuclear power.
Close on its heels is SCANA Corp., which is also seeking permission to build two reactors at an existing plant in Jenkinsville, S.C.
Other applications that use the AP1000 design include two plants in Florida, one and South Carolina and another in North Carolina. Each application is for two reactors.
Even with the design certification, it remains unclear when the Vogtle reactors will receive final approval — a major concern for Southern Co. since any delays could increase the cost of the project.
The biggest difference between the AP1000 and existing reactors is its safety systems, including a massive water tank on top of its cylindrical concrete-and-steel shielding building. In case of an accident, water would flow down and cool the steel container that holds critical parts of the reactor — including its hot, radioactive nuclear fuel.
An NRC taskforce examining the nuclear crisis in Japan said licensing for the AP1000 should go forward because it would be better equipped to deal with a prolonged loss of power — the problem that doomed the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart Energy Development, a nuclear industry consortium that has worked to demonstrate the design's effectiveness, said she was pleased to see the design move forward.
"The AP1000 is the reactor design that will set the foundation for the next generation of nuclear plants in the U.S.," Kray said.
A nuclear watchdog group called the vote disappointing, saying the NRC should have done a new analysis in the wake of the Japan crisis, which occurred after a March 11 tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant into meltdowns in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
A new study could have helped identify and correct any vulnerabilities based on lessons learned from Fukushima, said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"It would be more efficient and cost-effective to address problems that could be corrected at the design stage now, before any new plants are constructed," Lyman said.
After plants are built, any new safety requirements would have to be addressed through costly retrofits and other actions, Lyman said, adding that he was "far from convinced" that the AP1000's passive safety features would be effective in coping with severe accidents.
Under existing rules, a reactor design that commissioners have voted to approve must be published in the Federal Register for 30 days before it is legally effective. Southern Co. officials asked the NRC to make the design effective immediately after the vote, a request that was granted. Publication in the Federal Register is expected by Jan. 5.
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NRC approves new nuclear reactor design... more
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At a dinner in Washington celebrating his mother's birthday on March 26, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko received an urgent phone call: The nuclear crisis besetting Japan required him to be at Dulles International Airport in two hours to fly across the Pacific Ocean.
Jaczko proceeded to work for more than 24 hours on little sleep with NRC teams helping stabilize the post-tsunami nuclear emergency at the Fukushima plant. Then he flew 14 hours back to Washington in time for a March 30 congressional hearing.
"It's been a challenging year, for sure, and we've had a lot of issues," he says. "But I'm tremendously proud and impressed with the way the agency has responded. You always have plans for work over the next year, but what happened in Japan caused us to reevaluate and reorganize and retrench, so some things we wanted to do won't get done. The most important thing is that our safety focus on our existing plants, our materials licensees and our field cycle facilities continues at a tremendously high level."
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Despite Jaczko's priority of keeping NRC "a strong, credible regulator on nuclear safety," 2011 has been a year of scathing criticism. Some Republicans in Congress -- and even some NRC officials -- questioned his objectivity in implementing the Obama administration's 2009 decision to cancel long-in-the-works plans to store nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Media investigations and a Brookings Institution study charged that NRC is in "regulatory capture," a situation in which a regulatory agency becomes dominated by the industry it is charged with overseeing, and weak on enforcement. And NRC's inspector general in June reported that some managers are offended by Jaczko's temper outbursts.
"I'm a very passionate person, and I believe strongly in what I do," Jaczko says. "Everyone has their own style and personality, but anyone who knows will say I care deeply about what I do."
The issues around Yucca Mountain "have been challenging and contentious for the country for a long time," he says. "What I continue to be proud of is having an agency where people with strong views can go to Congress and express those views. It's a hallmark of our agency. Those are the people I want at this agency. That's how we do the right thing." Passions can be equally strong among employees performing reviews of applications for nuclear licenses. "Nuclear safety is not an easy issue, and regulation requires that kind of open exchange of ideas," he says.
Some see political bias in NRC's decision to end its evaluation of future prospects for the canceled Yucca project because the site is in the home state of Jaczko's former boss, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid. Jaczko counters that the agency's focus is safety, not politics. He says NRC doesn't make the decision to build (or not build) a facility.
"The Energy DeÂpartÂment no longer has a budget or program for Yucca Mountain so I don't think it would be a prudent use of taxpayer dollars for us to be working on a technical review for an application for a program that doesn't exist," he says.
Recent reports of low morale at NRC -- which has three times been named the best agency to work for by the Partnership for Public Service -- don't faze Jaczko. "As I walk through the halls and talk to people, most tell me they love working here," he says. "Those with issues tell me about them so we can make it an even better place. The NRC continues to perform at an incredibly high level, and that's a function of the fact that they come to work knowing the mission."
And the charge that America's chief nuclear regulator is in the pocket of the energy industry? "I come to work every day with 4,000 people dedicated to public health and safety," Jaczko says. "There will always be some people who think we do too much and others who think we do not do enough. It's the nature of being a regulator."At a dinner in Washington celebrating his mother's birthday on March 26, Nuclear... more
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Agency approves construction of nuclear plant in Alabama
By Tricia Escobedo, CNN
August 19, 2011 6:07 p.m. EDT
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(CNN) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority has approved construction on a nuclear plant in northeastern Alabama -- the first U.S. agency to do so since the Japan nuclear disaster this year.
The TVA board of directors -- which approved the $4.9 billion project Thursday night -- said the Bellefonte project could create 2,800 construction jobs in north Alabama as well as 650 permanent jobs once the plant is complete.
It estimates the plant will be online in 2020 and will provide enough megawatts to power about 750,000 homes in the region.
The TVA still needs approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can start construction at Bellefonte, a commission spokesman said.
"TVA still has work to prove they're in a position to start construction," commission spokesman Scott Burnell said. "But TVA's decision yesterday marks their formal re-entry into the process of completing the plant and bringing it online."
It could take months before the agency grants a full construction permit to the TVA.
The triple meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami was the worst nuclear accident in a quarter-century. It displaced more than 100,000 nearby residents, and engineers are still working to restore normal cooling in the three reactors that melted down.
The NRC has made "recommendations" for nuclear plant operators in light of Fukushima, but it has not yet made any "new or enhanced requirements," Burnell said.
Nevertheless, TVA said it is taking into account the "lessons learned" from the Japan nuclear disaster.
"As we build Bellefonte we will integrate safety modifications from the extensive review of the lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan," Tom Kilgore, TVA president and CEO, said in a statement.
Construction on the Bellefonte nuclear site began more than 37 years ago, and the facility is already 55 percent complete. It's near Scottsboro, Alabama, about 40 miles east of Huntsville.
Construction at Bellefonte was halted in 1988 because, according to the TVA, there wasn't a need for the increase in power at the time.
"Now because demand continues to grow, they (the TVA board members) are looking at other options and Bellefonte is one of them," TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci said.
CNN affiliate WAAY-TV in Huntsville reports that local business owners are excited that the new nuclear plant could help boost their sales.
"Well, I hope it will increase it about 25 percent," restaurant owner Miles Smith told WAAY. "That will be a big, big impact; it really will."
The project also has its opponents. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy warns that not only is there "compromised radiation containment in the unfinished reactor" at Bellefonte, but it would be a "financial gamble" to get any of the Bellefonte reactors back online.
"The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has serious concerns about TVA's push to complete the mothballed, abandoned Bellefonte reactors," Steven Smith, the group's executive director, said in a statement.
The NRC said the TVA has a lot of work to do before it can start new construction at Bellefonte.
"TVA is still in the information-gathering and information-providing phase prior to the NRC granting full authorization to grant construction," Burnell said.
The TVA board also approved a 2 percent rate increase starting on October 1 to pay for "nuclear safety modifications as a result of Fukushima" as well as cybersecurity measures and clean-air initiatives, it said.
The nearly 9 million customers indirectly serviced by the TVA will pay an average of $1.60 more a month on each 1,000 kilowatt-hour bill, the TVA said.
The price hike will not directly fund the Bellefonte project, according to Martocci.
She said the board is looking at paying for the project through "alternative financing" as well as borrowing through bonds.
"We'll look at that, and certainly anything we do comes from the revenue we get from the sale of electricity. We don't get any money from the federal government," Martocci said. "What we're trying to do is reduce the cost to our consumer as much as possible."
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Agency approves construction of nuclear plant in Alabama
By Tricia... more
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Floodwaters creep near nuke plants
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/23/nebraska.flooding/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
Officials monitoring rising floodwaters at Nebraska nuclear plants
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 23, 2011 2:06 p.m. EDT
The Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska is under an "unusual event declaration" because of floodwaters nearby.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Critical gear at two Nebraska power plants has been protected from flooding, the NRC says
Some of the grounds at the Fort Calhoun plant, shut down since April, are under water
Utility sets up "rumor control" page to battle false reports of flood damage
Photo: The Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska is under an "unusual event declaration" because of floodwaters nearby.
(CNN) -- U.S. nuclear regulators say two Nebraska nuclear power plants have protected critical equipment from the rising waters of the Missouri River even though flooding has reached the grounds of one of them.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is confident those safeguards will prevent a disaster at either plant even though the Missouri is expected to remain flooded for several weeks, NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said Thursday.
The Fort Calhoun plant, about 20 miles north of Omaha, was shut down for refueling in April. Parts of the grounds are already under two feet of water as the swollen Missouri overflows its banks. But the Omaha Public Power District, which owns the plant, has built flood walls around the reactor, transformers and the plant's electrical switchyard, the NRC said.
"They've surrounded all the vital equipment with berms," Dricks said.
Dricks said the NRC has sent additional inspectors to Fort Calhoun, which declared an "unusual event" -- the lowest level of alert -- on June 6 due to rising water. Six inspectors are now monitoring conditions there around the clock, Dricks said.
The Cooper Nuclear Station, about 80 miles south of Omaha, remains operating at full power. The plant issued an unusual event declaration on Sunday as water levels rose, but the current level is two feet below the plant's elevation, Dricks said.
The NRC will dispatch additional inspectors to the plant "if conditions warrant," Dricks said.
Heavy rainfall in Montana and North Dakota, combined with melting snow from the Rocky Mountains, have sent the Missouri urging downstream this summer. The river washed over and punched through levees in nearby northwestern Missouri over the weekend, spurring authorities to urge about 250 nearby residents to leave their homes.
The 6 to 12 inches of rainfall in the upper Missouri basin in the past few weeks is nearly a normal year's worth, and runoff from the mountain snowpack is 140% of normal, according to weather forecasters.
And CNN affiliate KETV reported Wednesday that, as a precautionary move, the Cooper facility is keeping dozens of staff members onsite around the clock. The station reported that about 60 people are sleeping on cots at the plant and that the staffers are being rotated out every two days.
It was catastrophic flooding from Japan's March 11 tsunami that knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, resulting in three reactors melting down and producing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. This year's Midwestern flooding has also led to a spate of rumors about the Fort Calhoun plant that Omaha Public Power and the NRC have been trying to knock down.
The utility has set up a "flood rumor control" page to reassure the public that there has been no release of radioactivity from the plant. An electrical fire June 7 did knock out cooling to its spent fuel storage pool for about 90 minutes, but the coolant water did not reach a boiling point before backup pumps went into service, it said.
"People are getting scared by a lot of the misinformation," Dricks said. "It's primarily coming from Internet bloggers rather than the mainstream media. None of them have bothered to check with us."
CNN's Matt Smith contributed to this report.Floodwaters creep near nuke plants... more
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Rolling Stone...
America’s Nuclear Nightmare
The U.S. has 31 reactors just like Japan’s — but regulators are ignoring the risks and boosting industry profits
The Davis-Besse nuclear generating station in Ohio, where a football-size hole overlooked by NRC inspectors nearly caused a catastrophe in 2002
Entergy Nuclear via the NRC
By Jeff Goodell
April 27, 2011 9:00 AM ET
Five days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, America's leading nuclear regulator came before Congress bearing good news: Don't worry, it can't happen here. In the aftermath of the Japanese catastrophe, officials in Germany moved swiftly to shut down old plants for inspection, and China put licensing of new plants on hold. But Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reassured lawmakers that nothing at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors warranted any immediate changes at U.S. nuclear plants. Indeed, 10 days after the earthquake in Japan, the NRC extended the license of the 40-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor — a virtual twin of Fukushima — for another two decades. The license renewal was granted even though the reactor's cooling tower had literally fallen down, and the plant had repeatedly leaked radioactive fluid.
Perhaps Jaczko was simply trying to prevent a full-scale panic about the dangers of U.S. nuclear plants. After all, there are now 104 reactors scattered across the country, generating 20 percent of America's power. All of them were designed in the 1960s and '70s, and are nearing the end of their planned life expectancy. But there was one problem with Jaczko's testimony, according to Dave Lochbaum, a senior adviser at the Union of Concerned Scientists: Key elements of what the NRC chief told Congress were "a baldfaced lie."
Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, says that Jaczko knows full well that what the NRC calls "defense in depth" at U.S. reactors has been seriously compromised over the years. In some places, highly radioactive spent fuel is stockpiled in what amounts to swimming pools located beside reactors. In other places, changes in the cooling systems at reactors have made them more vulnerable to a core meltdown if something goes wrong. A few weeks before Fukushima, Lochbaum authored a widely circulated report that underscored the NRC's haphazard performance, describing 14 serious "near-miss" events at nuclear plants last year alone. At the Indian Point reactor just north of New York City, federal inspectors discovered a water-containment system that had been leaking for 16 years.
As head of the NRC, Jaczko is the top cop on the nuclear beat, the guy charged with keeping the nation's fleet of aging nukes running safely. A balding, 40-year-old Democrat with big ears and the air of a brilliant high school physics teacher, Jaczko oversees a 4,000-person agency with a budget of $1 billion. But the NRC has long served as little more than a lap dog to the nuclear industry, unwilling to crack down on unsafe reactors. "The agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry," says Victor Gilinsky, who served on the commission during the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become captive of the industries that it regulates."
In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of the agency's inaction could be dire. "The NRC has consistently put industry profits above public safety," says Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear executive turned whistle-blower. "Consequently, we have a dozen Fukushimas waiting to happen in America."Rolling Stone...
America’s Nuclear Nightmare
The U.S. has 31 reactors... more
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission exists to police, not promote, the domestic nuclear industry -- but diplomatic cables show that it is sometimes used as a sales tool to help push American technology to foreign governments.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission exists to police, not promote, the domestic nuclear... more
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The New York Times...
PART ONE...
New Doubts About Turning Plutonium Into a Fuel
Shaw Areva Mox Services
Photo: THE VISION A plant being built near Aiken, S.C., would turn weapons-grade plutonium into a fuel called mox.
By JO BECKER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: April 10, 2011
On a tract of government land along the Savannah River in South Carolina, an army of workers is building one of the nation’s most ambitious nuclear enterprises in decades: a plant that aims to safeguard at least 43 tons of weapons-grade plutonium by mixing it into fuel for commercial power reactors.
THE PROBLEMS The cost has soared to nearly $5 billion, and the structure — as big as eight football fields — is half finished.
The project grew out of talks with the Russians to shrink nuclear arsenals after the cold war. The plant at the Savannah River Site, once devoted to making plutonium for weapons, would now turn America’s lethal surplus to peaceful ends. Blended with uranium, the usual reactor fuel, the plutonium would be transformed into a new fuel called mixed oxide, or mox.
“We are literally turning swords into plowshares,” one of the project’s biggest boosters, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said at a hearing on Capitol Hill last week.
But 11 years after the government awarded a construction contract, the cost of the project has soared to nearly $5 billion. The vast concrete and steel structure is a half-finished hulk, and the government has yet to find a single customer, despite offers of lucrative subsidies.
Now, the nuclear crisis in Japan has intensified a long-running conflict over the project’s rationale.
One of the stricken Japanese reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant uses the mox fuel. And while there has been no evidence of dangerous radiation from plutonium in Japan, the situation there is volatile, and nuclear experts worry that a widespread release of radioactive material could increase cancer deaths.
Against that backdrop, the South Carolina project has been thrown on the defensive, with would-be buyers distancing themselves and critics questioning its health risks and its ability to keep the plutonium out of terrorists’ hands.
The most likely customer, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has been in discussions with the federal Department of Energy about using mox to replace a third of the regular uranium fuel in several reactors — a far greater concentration than at the stricken Japanese reactor, Fukushima Daiichi’s Unit No. 3, where 6 percent of the core is made out of mox. But the T.V.A. now says it will delay any decision until officials can see how the mox performed at Fukushima Daiichi, including how hot the fuel became and how badly it was damaged.
“We are studying the ongoing events in Japan very closely,” said Ray Golden, a spokesman for the utility.
At the same time, opponents of the South Carolina project scored a regulatory victory this month when a federal atomic licensing panel, citing “significant public safety and national security issues,” ordered new hearings on the plans for tracking and safeguarding the plutonium used at the plant.
Obama administration officials say that mox is safe, and they remain confident that the project will attract customers once it is further along and can guarantee a steady fuel supply. Anne Harrington, who oversees nuclear nonproliferation programs for the Energy Department, noted that six countries besides Japan had licensed the routine use of mox fuel. She accused critics of “an opportunistic attempt” to score political points by seizing on Japan’s crisis.
“Mox is nothing new,” she said.
Even so, the critics say there is an increasing likelihood that the South Carolina project will fail to go forward and will become what a leading opponent, Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, calls a “plant to nowhere.” That would leave the United States without a clear path for the disposal of its surplus plutonium.
A cheaper alternative, encasing it in glass, was canceled in 2002 by President George W. Bush’s administration. The energy secretary at the time, Spencer Abraham, is now the non-executive chairman of the American arm of Areva, a French company that is the world’s largest mox producer and is primarily responsible for building the South Carolina plant.
After the cold war, the United States and Russia were left with stockpiles of plutonium, and the fear was that one or the other would reverse course and use the plutonium to make new weapons, or that, in what the National Academies of Science called a “clear and present danger,” thieves could make off with it.
Plutonium is easy to handle because the radiation it gives off is persistent but relatively weak. The type used in weapons, plutonium 239, has a half-life of 24,000 years and emits alpha rays. They make the plutonium feel warm to the touch but are so feeble that skin easily stops the radiation. If trapped inside the body, though, alpha rays can cause cancer.
At the same time, plutonium is preferred over uranium as nuclear bomb fuel because much less is needed to make a blast of equal size. And while it is difficult to work with, it does not need to undergo the complex process of purification required for uranium.
The 43 tons of surplus plutonium in the American stockpile could fuel up to 10,000 nuclear weapons and even more “dirty bombs” — ordinary explosives that spew radioactive debris. Alternatively, they could fuel 43 large reactors for about a year.
After studying a range of options, the Clinton administration decided to build a mox fuel plant to dispose of a portion of the plutonium, awarding a contract to a consortium now called Shaw Areva Mox Services.
The rest of the plutonium was to be mixed with highly radioactive nuclear waste and immobilized in glass or ceramic blocks, making it difficult and dangerous for any thief to extract. The government judged the mox route to be more expensive, but the dual-track approach was seen as insurance should either fail.
That strategy also helped persuade Jim Hodges, the Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1999 to 2003, to sign off on plutonium shipments to the Savannah River Site. When the Bush administration canceled the glass-block disposal program, Mr. Hodges was furious.
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CONTINUED...The New York Times...
PART ONE...
New Doubts About Turning Plutonium Into... more
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The New York Times...
April 9, 2011
Japan Orders Nuclear Plant Operators to Obtain More Emergency Generators
By ANDREW POLLACK and MATTHEW L. WALD
TOKYO — Radiation readings spiked sharply in one reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after a powerful aftershock late Thursday, according to data released by the government, a development that might indicate new damage to the already compromised reactor.
But the plant owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said the gauge used to measure radiation was most likely broken.
The high radiation was measured in the drywell of Reactor No. 1, directly below the reactor pressure vessel and part of the primary containment that is a crucial barrier preventing the escape of radioactive materials. The drywell reading raised the worrisome possibility that highly radioactive water had escaped, and perhaps even material from the nuclear core, although this was far less likely.
Experts said, however, that keeping water in the drywell could limit the damage from any leak.
On Tuesday the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission set off alarms when it said that such a leak might have happened in the No. 2 reactor at the plant, based on a high radiation reading in its drywell. But the agency has since appeared to step back slightly from that theory, emphasizing that its judgment was based on speculation because no one can get close enough to the reactor to judge what is really happening.
And on Saturday, Eliot Brenner, a spokesman for the commission, agreed with the power company’s assessment that the high reading in the No. 1 reactor was most likely in error because there had not been a sharp increase in pressure or temperature in the drywell.
The radiation readings, while still quite high, were down Friday from the highest level, which was recorded a half-hour after the 7.1- magnitude aftershock.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had expressed concern in a recent report that the damaged nuclear power plant could prove unusually vulnerable to aftershocks.
Peter Yanev, a longtime consultant specializing in the earthquake resistance of nuclear power plants, said that the aftershock late Thursday had not been strong enough to cause new damage to previously undamaged equipment. But the Japanese authorities have not released detailed information on the extent of damage from the initial earthquake nearly a month ago, he cautioned. “If you have something severely damaged, teetering, it can fall over” in a later shock, Mr. Yanev said.
The Japanese government, meanwhile, ordered reactor operators on Saturday to bring in additional emergency diesel generators, as the aftershock again demonstrated the potential for such events to shut down portions of the power grid.
The new government order came after problems were reported at two other nuclear power plants, both run by the Tohoku Electric Power Company. The plants suffered temporary losses of cooling to spent fuel pools, electricity cutoffs and problems with backup diesel generators after Thursday’s aftershock.
The Higashidori plant lost all outside power. Although it had three backup diesel generators, two were out of service for periodic maintenance. The remaining one worked for a while, but later, after some outside power was restored, it stopped because some of its oil spilled out.
At the Onagawa plant, three out of four outside power lines went down, but the plant continued to operate on the fourth line. Although diesel backup was not needed, it was discovered that one of the plant’s two diesel generators had been out of order since April 1.
“There was no problem this time,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which regulates the atomic energy industry, at a news conference. However, he said, nuclear plant operators will now be required to have more backup diesel generators available and working.
Mr. Nishiyama said his agency was also trying to find the causes for the loss of cooling to spent fuel pools. The cause of one stoppage seemed to be essentially a blown fuse, Mr. Nishiyama said.
Loss of cooling can allow spent fuel to heat up, which can lead to the release of radioactive materials.
The government also moved to ban the planting of rice in soil containing too much radioactive material, which has been released from the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the weeks since a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. Sales of some milk, vegetables and fish have been prohibited because of contamination, but the new measures affect the nation’s staple crop, a foundation of its culture as well as its diet.
The new policy on rice will ban planting of the crop in soil that has more than 5,000 becquerels of cesium-137 per kilogram of soil.
So far, radiation testers have found only two spots in northeastern Japan, both in the town of Iitate, 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, that has had cesium levels that high. Cesium-137 can damage cells and lead to an increased risk of cancer.
The national and prefectural governments are now hurriedly performing broader soil surveys to identify which areas would be off limits to planting.
With planting about to begin, “we don’t have so much time,” said Sumito Yasuoka, an official in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, who said farmers pressed the government to let them know if they could plant their crop. The government also wants to assure consumers that the rice they eat will be safe.
The level of 5,000 becquerels per kilogram was chosen because rice grown in such soil would be expected to end up with about 500 becquerels of cesium 137 in the rice. That is the existing limit for vegetables and some other foods, Mr. Yasuoka said.
Fukushima Prefecture is the nation’s fourth-largest rice producer, and rice is its biggest crop, so any ban on planting would cause financial hardship.
“It hurts terribly,” said Yoshinori Sato, an official of an agricultural cooperative in Fukushima Prefecture with 13,000 households as members. Mr. Sato said that about half the rice acres his co-op’s members hoped to plant this year might be off limits, either because of radiation or because of tsunami damage.
Mindful of the sensitivities, Michihiko Kano, the minister of agriculture, visited Iitate on Saturday and promised that farmers who were not allowed to grow rice because of soil contamination would be compensated.
Andrew Pollack reported from Tokyo and Matthew L. Wald from Washington. William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York and Yasuko Kamiizumi, Ken Ijichi and Kantaro Suzuki from Tokyo.The New York Times...
April 9, 2011
Japan Orders Nuclear Plant Operators to... more
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The New York Times
PART ONE...
April 5, 2011
U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan’s Nuclear Plant
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD
United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semimolten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.
In recent days, workers have grappled with several side effects of the emergency measures taken to keep nuclear fuel at the plant from overheating, including leaks of radioactive water at the site and radiation burns to workers who step into the water. The assessment, as well as interviews with officials familiar with it, points to a new panoply of complex challenges that water creates for the safety of workers and the recovery and long-term stability of the reactors.
While the assessment does not speculate on the likelihood of new explosions or damage from an aftershock, either could lead to a breach of the containment structures in one or more of the crippled reactors, the last barriers that prevent a much more serious release of radiation from the nuclear core. If the fuel continues to heat and melt because of ineffective cooling, some nuclear experts say, that could also leave a radioactive mass that could stay molten for an extended period.
The document, which was obtained by The New York Times, provides a more detailed technical assessment than Japanese officials have provided of the conundrum facing the Japanese as they struggle to prevent more fuel from melting at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But it appears to rely largely on data shared with American experts by the Japanese.
Among other problems, the document raises new questions about whether pouring water on nuclear fuel in the absence of functioning cooling systems can be sustained indefinitely. Experts have said the Japanese need to continue to keep the fuel cool for many months until the plant can be stabilized, but there is growing awareness that the risks of pumping water on the fuel present a whole new category of challenges that the nuclear industry is only beginning to comprehend.
The document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools above the reactors were blown “up to one mile from the units,” and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between two units and had to be “bulldozed over,” presumably to protect workers at the site. The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.
David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who worked on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan and now directs the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the welter of problems revealed in the document at three separate reactors made a successful outcome even more uncertain.
“I thought they were, not out of the woods, but at least at the edge of the woods,” said Mr. Lochbaum, who was not involved in preparing the document. “This paints a very different picture, and suggests that things are a lot worse. They could still have more damage in a big way if some of these things don’t work out for them.”
CONTINUED...The New York Times
PART ONE...
April 5, 2011
U.S. Sees Array of New Threats... more
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March 24, 2011, 5:15 pm
Report Faults Rules for Reporting Nuclear Equipment Problems
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
The inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warns in a new report that American nuclear power plants are not reporting some equipment failures to the government because of badly written or contradictory rules, Elizabeth A. Harris and Kim Severson report.
Rules Faulted For Poor Data On Failures At Reactors
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS and KIM SEVERSON
Published: March 24, 2011
Nuclear power plants in the United States are not reporting some equipment failures to the government because of badly written rules, the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned.
Those rules, which are often contradictory, leave the commission without the muscle to enforce the federal law requiring the reporting of such problems, the inspector general said in a report issued Wednesday.
From December 2009 to September 2010, the report said, the commission found 24 instances in which equipment problems were not properly reported. If the rules are not improved, it said, they “could reduce the margin of safety for operating nuclear power reactors.”
The commission, which operates independently of the inspector general, countered in a statement that it “has a variety of other regulations that effectively encompass reporting all defects.” It added, “The N.R.C. continues to conclude plants are operating safely.”
The inspector general’s office said it was concerned about equipment involving safety features — for instance, systems that measure pressure in a reactor’s coolant. But the report did not detail any specific lapses in reporting equipment problems.
R. K. Wild, a senior analyst in the inspector general’s office, said Thursday that full reporting of equipment defects was crucial to ensuring that problems were not duplicated at other plants. When a plant operator reports a problem, the government can take the information to the manufacturer and determine where similar parts are in use.
Nuclear power generation in the United States has come under more scrutiny since an earthquake and tsunami struck a nuclear plant in Japan, setting off a crisis that continues to unfold. At the request of President Obama, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted Wednesday to set up a task force to review the safety of the 104 nuclear reactors operating across the United States.
In another development, federal authorities announced Thursday that a subcontractor at the Watts Bar nuclear plant under construction in Tennessee had been accused of lying about making crucial measurements on cables that carry power to safety systems there. The contractor, Matthew David Correll, 31, was charged with making false statements, the United States attorney in Knoxville, Tenn., said.
The reactor, the second at the Watts Bar plant, is the only one now being built in the nation.
Elizabeth A. Harris reported from New York, and Kim Severson from Atlanta.March 24, 2011, 5:15 pm
Report Faults Rules for Reporting Nuclear Equipment... more
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Oldest US nuclear reactor: a ‘disaster’ in waiting?
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, March 24th, 2011 -- 5:11 pm
LACEY, New Jersey – A sleepy New Jersey town has popped onto people's radar screens because it has the oldest running nuclear power plant in the United States -- and, some say, the most dangerous.
Named for a Revolutionary War general, Lacey is the kind of American town that few from outside the seaside settlement knew much about before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan triggered a nuclear crisis.
Down the road from the 1950s-style diner and across from the bridge that locals use as a fishing pier stands the Oyster Creek nuclear plant.
It uses a GE Mark I Boiling Water reactor identical to those that lost power at Japan's Fukushima plant in the March 11 earthquake and then was struck by a tsunami that knocked out its backup generators, causing reactor cooling functions to fail.
US anti-nuclear activists and many residents of Lacey and surrounding Jersey shore townships worry that a similar nuclear disaster could happen at Oyster Creek, and it wouldn't need an earthquake or tsunami to trigger it.
Oyster Creek has been dogged by problems including a corroding liner in the carbon steel containment unit; leaks that allow radioactive tritium to seep into drinking water; and huge volumes of stocked spent fuel rods.
"We have 40 years of radiation on site -- two-and-a-half to three times more than in Japan," anti-nuclear activist Jeff Brown told AFP.
"You also have that tremendously stupid design to start with where the spent fuel rods are sitting on top of the reactor," he said, raising a fear among residents that the reactor could be an easy target for a terrorist attack.
"At the very least, we need a no-fly zone over Oyster Creek. We have a no-fly zone over Disney World but not here," said Peggi Sturmfels, a program organizer at the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
Oyster Creek is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation, which employs 700 people at the plant. The company disputes the charges by activists, insisting the reactor is safe.
"Nuclear power stations in general are the most hardened and well-protected industrial facilities in existence. Oyster Creek is no exception," Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbitt told AFP.
Half a million people live within what would be the evacuation zone if Oyster Creek were ever to have a radiation accident. In the summer, the population swells with beach-goers heading to the Jersey shore.
The town is 85 miles (137 kilometers) south of New York and 55 miles (88 kilometers) east of Philadelphia.
New Jersey is not in a seismically active zone but meteorologists say the coastal state is long overdue for a Category Five hurricane.
"One good storm surge, and Oyster Creek's backup generators are swamped. It's Japan all over again," Sturmfels said.
Nesbitt rejects such assessments, saying the plant is five miles (eight kilometers) off the Atlantic coast, protected by barrier islands, and 23 feet (seven meters) above sea level, far higher than the largest recorded storm tide of seven feet, in 1962.
He also said Oyster Creek "is constantly evaluated and improved," and that more than $1 billion has been spent on plant upgrades since operations began in 1969.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended Oyster Creek's license for another 20 years in 2009.
The NRC not only gives out nuclear licenses but is the industry safety watchdog. That's a conflict of interest, say critics who liken the situation to the regulation of the oil industry prior to last year's devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Under pressure from state officials, Oyster Creek's license was rolled back to 10 years, and the plant is now due to close for good in 2019.
Even that's too late, say some residents.
"I don't like it. They should close it sooner," retiree Barbara Murrofsky told AFP as she shopped at a local hardware store.
"What's happening in Japan has made us more aware of the problems we have in our own backyard," she said. "There are so many people who live near here that an accident would be a major disaster. They should shut it down now."
But another local, Rick Gifford, looked philosophically at Oyster Creek.
"It's been running for 40 years with no problem, there's no reason it should start having problems now," he said.
Greg Auriemma, a lawyer for the Sierra Club environmental group, said Gifford's stance was not unusual in Lacey.
"There's a sense of complacency because while the plant has had a lot of negative publicity, no major disaster has occurred. So people look at it and say, 'It's been running for 40 years, what's the big deal?'"
But, Auriemma said, as Japan showed, one tragic event can dramatically change the situation. "There's a potential disaster that could happen right here in our backyard," he told AFP.
Last week, President Barack Obama ordered a "comprehensive review" of US nuclear safety and vowed to learn lessons from Japan's atomic accident.
The NRC on Wednesday launched its review of the nation's 24 US reactors, saying a full report and recommendations will be published in six months.
A federal court hearing a case brought in 2009 by environmental groups against the NRC on Monday asked the nuclear watchdog to advise if Japan's unfolding crisis impacted "the propriety" of renewing Oyster Creek's license.
On the same day, the NRC extended for 20 years the license of another Mark 1 reactor, in the state of Vermont.
The Vermont Yankee reactor has had tritium leaks, a cooling tower collapse and even a fire in the plant's transformer.Oldest US nuclear reactor: a ‘disaster’ in waiting?
By Agence... more
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Small amounts of radiation headed for California, but no health risk seen
Very low levels of radioactive isotopes from the damaged Japanese nuclear plant are expected to reach California as soon as Friday, but experts say the amount will be well within safe limits. A network of radiation monitors is keeping close watch.
By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
March 17, 2011
Small amounts of radioactive isotopes from the crippled Japanese nuclear power plant are being blown toward North America high in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and will reach California as soon as Friday, according to experts.
A network of sensors in the U.S. and around the world is watching for the first signs of that fallout, though experts said they were confident that the amount of radiation would be well within safe limits.
Operated by the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. network known as Radnet is a system of 100 radiation monitors that work 24 hours a day, spread across the country in places such as Anaheim, Bakersfield and Eureka. In addition, a network of 63 sensors is operated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an international agency allied with the United Nations.
,NRC
Atmospheric experts said the material should begin showing up on the West Coast as early as Friday, though it could take up to an additional week for the 5,000-mile trip from Japan to Southern California. Although the organization has told its member countries that the first indication of radiation would hit on Friday, the plume from a North Korean nuclear test in 2006 took about two weeks to travel to North America, U.N. officials said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the U.S. nuclear industry, said Wednesday that it did not expect dangerous levels of radioactivity to hit the West Coast, Hawaii, Alaska or U.S. territories in the Pacific. But whatever levels reach the U.S. initially are likely to increase in subsequent days, because radioactive emissions from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have grown since the disaster began Friday. The NRC sharply raised its warning to American citizens in Japan, urging them to evacuate an area within 50 miles of the Fukushima complex. Japanese authorities have ordered an evacuation within about 12 miles of the plant.
The NRC released computerized projections showing that within half a mile of the plant, radiation levels were so high that one could receive a fatal dose, and that even 50 miles away one could receive more than 16 times the average annual dose all people are exposed to from natural sources.
Those numbers were sharply higher than ones the NRC released days earlier. But although the Fukushima reactors are leaking more radiation now, experts continued to say that the particles would wash out of the atmosphere before they could reach the U.S.
So far, Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima facility, and the Japanese government have not released any measurements or estimates of the total amount of radioactivity released by the accident. These numbers would be crucial to better project whether the material could affect other Asian nations, the Pacific islands or even the U.S.
Edwin Lyman, a specialist at the nuclear watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists, said that although it was true that the more radioactivity released in Japan the more could migrate away from the region, he did not think the U.S. was at serious risk.
"We can never say never," Lyman said. "My judgment is that there will probably be measurable radiation, but except for a few hot spots it is not something we should really worry about."
Lyman said that the NRC's warning Wednesday to Americans in Japan to evacuate 50 miles from the Fukushima reactors was a long-overdue admission that the agency's prior warnings of a 10-mile exclusion zone from U.S. reactors during an emergency was inadequate.
Key federal officials involved in the Radnet monitoring program have so far not disclosed their predictions for U.S. radioactive exposure. The projections are being developed by the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center operated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California. The center, part of the Energy Department, uses sophisticated models on supercomputers to project the movement of radioactive particles and other toxic substances through the atmosphere.
However, a computer model of atmospheric movements developed by the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy shows that the Fukushima plumes could travel across the Pacific, though the levels of radioactivity that could reach the West Coast of the U.S. remain unclear.
It appears that all of the models, however, are not based on measurements of radioactivity at the source and a projection of actual radioactive fallout in the U.S., but rather project a relative scale of radioactivity. Since Japanese authorities have said little about the amount of the releases at Fukushima, nobody can say how much radioactivity will hit California.
The models show that even with prevailing easterly winds, the plumes whip back and forth over a wide area of Japan's east coast, Russia's Kamchatka peninsula and Alaska's Aleutian Islands. It is unknown whether nuclear fallout is hitting the vast wilderness of northeastern Asia.
Of particular concern, however, is radiation emanating from Fukushima's No. 3 reactor. That reactor uses plutonium fuel, which poses a special health risk even in small quantities if the fallout were to reach U.S. shores.
A leading radiological health expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that the CDC was still confident that there would be no serious health consequences here. But CDC officials are watching the situation carefully.
"We have a saying: 'Modeling is OK, but measurement is everything,'" he said.
The Environmental Protection Agency said that it was watching the situation closely, but that its Radnet system had not yet detected radioactivity. It has added seven additional portable radiation monitors: two in Guam, three in Alaska and two in Hawaii.
PHOTO: A Radnet monitor on the roof of the Bay Area Air Quality Management building in San Francisco. (Associated Press)Small amounts of radiation headed for California, but no health risk seen
Very low... more
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