Category Archives: accident

Two years after Fukushima, ANS members at forefront

Posted on March 11, 2013 by pbowersox| 1 Comment

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 earthquake and 40-foot-high tsunami waves hit Fukushima, Japan. The impact on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was a call-to-action for members of the American Nuclear Society.

Corradini

“As leaders in the nuclear power industry, ANS members were—and remain to this day—at the forefront of assisting in the analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident and implications for the nuclear industry worldwide,” said ANS President Michael Corradini.

“Many of our members have advised the Japanese government and TEPCO [Tokyo Electric Power Company, the company that owns the nuclear power plant] concerning nuclear issues and the decommissioning of the reactor,” he said.

As nuclear safety experts, ANS members completed a comprehensive assessment of the events. Their results appear in Fukushima Daiichi: ANS Committee Report (2012). The report was written by the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima and co-chaired by Dr. Corradini and by Dr. Dale Klein, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The report explained, reviewed, and analyzed the technical aspects of the accident, safety issues, health implications, the required clean-up, risk communications, and crisis communications.

Klein

Klein, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas-Austin, is the chairman of the TEPCO Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee that0 advises the Japanese company on actions needed to improve plant safety, safety culture, clean-up, and remediation.

Corradini is the chairman of engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a member of the NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, and is elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

At the time of the March 2012 ANS report, the long-term effects of the radioactive materials release were unclear. However, a newly released 2013 World Health Organization (WHO) report concludes “the increases in the incidence of human disease attributable to the additional radiation exposure from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident are likely to remain below detectable levels.”

“As a result of the Fukushima accident, ANS made a commitment to provide public access to up-to-date information about nuclear science and technology,” said Corradini. “Our new Center for Nuclear Science and Technology website will launch in May. In the meantime, we will continue to share our expertise for the benefit of the public and especially, the people of Japan.”

American Nuclear Society President Michael Corradini discusses the ANS international topical meeting on Fukushima, some lessons learned, and the next steps for the American Nuclear Society.


 

 

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Fukushima

Fukushima Two Years Later

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Will Davis| 27 Comments

by Will Davis

At about a quarter to three in the afternoon on March 11, 2011, a gigantic and unprecedented earthquake struck just over 110 miles off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. The quake was followed, just over 40 minutes later, by the first of several rounds of tsunami, which inundated enormous areas and eradicated entire towns and villages. Over 19,000 people were killed or are still missing, and over 6,000 survivors were injured.

Central to most narratives on this cataclysmic natural disaster has been the story of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. While no deaths have been attributed to the nuclear accident itself, or to radioactive contamination released from the plant, and while deaths at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site proper have been very few (three persons were killed on the day of the earthquake and tsunami—one by falling from a crane, two by drowning), the story of the nuclear accident continues to dominate press worldwide.

As we approach the two-year anniversary of these events, it’s important to look back and ask some honest and direct questions about the nuclear accident and how it relates to us here in the United States. What do we know now that we didn’t in the early days? Can we say for sure what was happening, both on a large and on a minute scale? Could the accident have been prevented? What are we doing to ensure something similar never happens again? What about the radiation exposure to the public? We will try to answer these and other important questions as we look back at two years’ worth of study and analysis, recovery and cleanup, and planning and preparing.

(Above, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station under construction in 1971. To the left of the photo, Units 1 and 2 can be seen complete while Unit 3 is under construction; Unit 4 has not yet been started. Nearer the camera is the construction site for Units 5 and 6. Photo courtesy Will Davis collection.)

The Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami … and what we now know

As already described, the earthquake struck at 2:46 PM local time, and at that moment the three operating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi—Units 1, 2, and 3—detected the earthquake and were immediately shut down on a seismic scram signal. (The other units—4, 5, and 6—were shut down for maintenance.) Simultaneous with this event was a LOOP (loss of offsite power), caused by the electric distribution system outside the plant being damaged by the earthquake. At the Fukushima Daiichi station, the emergency diesel generators started as designed, and provided power to begin cooling down the three reactors that had been operating.

There has been speculation in some quarters that the earthquake caused damage to the plants and that this helped lead to the accident. In fact, all indications are that plant operations were nominal from the point of the seismic shutdown, LOOP event, and commencement of shutdown cooling at the three operating plants. As late as last November, presentations by the Tokyo Electric Power Company at the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting revealed no suspicion of material failures at the plants prior to the tsunami’s arrival, as corroborated by recorded plant parameters and operator statements.

Of course, the actual triggering event of the accident was the tsunami-derived inundation of the plant 40 minutes after the earthquake, which, because of the pressure of the violent inrush of water, caused more physical damage than an equivalent–depth slow flooding event. The tsunami flooded the plant because the protection was inadequate; the protection guarded against tsunami of nearly 20 feet while the actual event was almost 50 feet. It should be noted, though, that an unanticipated factor in the event was the fact that the coastline actually dropped several feet—thus negating a percentage of the tsunami protection.

The inundation of the plants meant that both the (mostly below ground) diesel generators and near-grade electric distribution equipment was rendered inoperable. This is the situation called SBO (station blackout), where no AC power is available at all. Generators were called for, and shipped from outside the plant, but the sheer damage to the site made bringing them in and moving them around exceedingly difficult. In addition, procedures for their use did not really exist. The total loss of AC power meant that only DC power, to operate some valves and instruments, was available—and even this was limited not only by the time until the batteries discharged, but also by damage as well. At that point, the plant was crippled by loss of power, serious physical damage, confusion on site due to communication problems (and continued aftershocks), and lack of solid emergency operating procedures in such events. This led to a loss of cooling for Units 1, 2, and 3 reactor cores, ultimately resulting in severe core damage. Failure of the containment function of the reactor buildings led to the release of radioactive material to the environment.

At the ANS 2012 Winter Meeting, Akira Kawano of TEPCO stated that spare seawater pumps (both portable pumps, and replacements for built-in or installed pumps destroyed by the tsunami), spare sources of electric power (of all three ranges—high voltage AC, low voltage AC, and DC—used at the plant) and spare pressure cylinders to allow operation of valves after loss of electric power would have been exceedingly helpful in the hours after the tsunami. TEPCO has gone far beyond provision of these items, though, in its plan for tsunami protection at nuclear plants in the future.

It is important to point out that Units 5 and 6 did not experience a long-term blackout because one of the above ground air-cooled diesel generators installed at that northern section of the site remained fully operable. This diesel was at Unit 6, but power was patched in from it to Unit 5 later. Air-cooled diesels did exist at the area of Units 1 through 4, but the destruction of the electric distribution network inside the plants by water coupled with the loss of fuel tanks rendered these useless. (In this case, “air cooled” means that the diesels used conventional radiators to dissipate waste heat to the air, unlike the large emergency diesel generators that required seawater systems to be operable in order to dissipate engine heat.)

Regarding this tsunami damage and its implications, TEPCO has addressed its future commitment to safety at its nuclear plants by designating three courses of action:  First, it will take what it calls “Thorough Tsunami Countermeasures,” which means large seawall protection, protection of buildings inside the seawall should the seawall be breached, and also provision of multiple backup power sources. Second of the triad is ”Securing Functions by Adopting Flexible Countermeasures,” by which it is meant that many varied backup power sources and sources of site assistance will be spread among many other sites. Finally, under “Mitigation of the Impact after Reactor Core Damage,” TEPCO plans to make serious preparations to control events, even should the first two steps fail. This includes, but is not limited to, installation of hardened, filtered containment vents that can be operated remotely under even accident conditions. Click here to see a brief TEPCO synopsis of its accident analysis report that contains these three steps.

Eventually, all operators of nuclear plants in Japan will take serious measures like those described above, and more, to prepare the sites and personnel against future events like this. Some have already begun; click here to see a detailed account of preparations at two different sites in Japan. These efforts are enormous; Chubu Electric Power has stated that it will invest 140 billion yen (about US$1.47 billion)  in its Hamaoka nuclear plant upgrades.

At left, view of Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 through 4 after the accident. Photo courtesy Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force.

Two of the reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi were severely damaged, and another partly damaged, by explosions of hydrogen gas that was generated by the damaged fuel while in contact with steam. This hydrogen got into the reactor buildings, built up in concentration, and later (quite famously, for both explosions were filmed from a distance) caused explosions in Unit 1 and Unit 3 reactor buildings. Evidence delivered by TEPCO at the ANS 2012 Winter Meeting now shows that the probable leakage point of the hydrogen into the primary containments and into the reactor buildings (after first getting out of the damaged reactor vessels) was through the drywell head flange at Unit 1, and also possibly at Unit 3. (Other papers delivered at that meeting hinted at other possible leak points; none can be assured until the plants are decommissioned.) Unit 4 experienced a hydrogen burn event as well; this is now known to have occurred because PCV (primary containment vessel) venting at Unit 3 allowed hydrogen to enter a common exhaust stack, and flow not only out the stack but into Unit 4′s reactor building. Delayed and/or difficult venting of the containments is the key factor in this portion of the accident; venting would have prevented overpressurization of the primary containments, allowing them to retain physical integrity.

Containment vents have become a major topic of discussion after the accident. At the ANS Winter Meeting, Sang-Won Lee, a representative of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power stated that all of its OPR1000 and APR1400 nuclear plants will have filtered containment vents installed by the year 2015 since KHNP considers  this the “final means to prevent an uncontrolled release of radionuclides to the atmosphere.” (Interestingly, all South Korean nuclear plants will fit or backfit seismic trip equipment as well.) Here in the United States, hardened vents, perhaps filtered, will eventually be fitted to all boiling water reactor plants with Mk I and Mk II containments; click here to see some detailed background on the decision-making process and on filtered vent systems at reactors in other countries. For more background on decision-making regarding filtered vents, click here.

Do we know all of the things that were going on at Fukushima Daiichi?

The answer to this question is a qualified “yes.” In the time since the accident, many reports have been developed by TEPCO (and many other bodies) to attempt to explain the accident progression. As these reports came out, each subsequent report has benefited from more and better detailed information on the actual minute-to-minute actions being taken by operators on site, and from more detailed records that have been released. As of November 2012, when TEPCO made presentations on the accident at the ANS Winter Meeting, there were no new announcements made about operator actions, equipment failures, and records—and TEPCO representatives stated on several occasions that it is thought that the full range of operator actions is as well known now as it will ever be.

In terms of what was happening mechanically, we might say, throughout the accident, the truth is less certain. The loss of most of the plant instrumentation and the inability to access parts of the reactor buildings (even today) means that the exact progression of events once serious core damage began isn’t known. It will not be known until the plants are more accessible (during defueling, years away) and not fully known until the plants are decommissioned and dismantled. It must be added that while these findings will eventually significantly add to our storehouse of knowledge, they’re not essential to setting up procedures and equipment to prevent any such accidents in the future.

For such detailed reports as mentioned above, you can click here to see the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations report on the accident; you can click here to see a massive 500 page report on the accident by TEPCO; you can also find the American Nuclear Society’s Fukushima Committee report here.

Could the Fukushima Daiichi accident have been prevented?

We could say “yes” at some, or many points along the way—for example, we might say (getting into details) that had the hydrogen explosion not occurred at Unit 1, there may not have been any serious core damage at the other units due to the site-wide problems caused by the Unit 1 hydrogen explosion. This is cherry picking, though; the best answer to the question is “yes, had the site been properly prepared for tsunami of the actual size experienced, and even if not, had it been prepared to respond both from inside the site and from outside to such a natural disaster.” I’ve provided a link earlier to show what’s being done in Japan to prevent such events; a clearly defined path for US nuclear plants to increase nuclear plant safety can be found in a document that the Nuclear Energy Institute calls “The Way Forward.”

Our first modern wake-up call in the United States to such events was 9/11, in the sense that this experience was applied to nuclear plants here; after this, what are called “B.5.b” enhancements to US nuclear power stations saw the provision of numerous pieces of equipment to help combat site emergencies that included physical damage. Since the Fukushima Daiichi accident, much more has been developed. The industry response to the accident is called FLEX, and it provides essentially the same sort of mobile backup responses that the Japanese are beginning to implement (for stations that will restart.) The FLEX response is by now well known; you can click here to see details of its implementation and progress.  There are also multiple documents available at NEI’s Safety First website, found here.

So, the answer to “could this accident have been prevented” is “yes”—which means that future occurrences can also be prevented. The important provisions are spelled out clearly in the FLEX plans, and in those fairly duplicate plans being pursued by the Japanese: prevent loss of all AC power (station blackout) and prevent loss of the ultimate heat sink (where heat from the reactors and spent fuel is ultimately deposited, be it water or even the atmosphere) and prevent core damage.

What about the radiation dose received by citizens off site?

The World Health Organization has just released a report that tells us that the dose received by persons not on the site was actually not dangerous—in fact, according to WHO, most persons in Fukushima Prefecture received no more than 10 mSv, although some received as much as 50 mSv effective dose. You can read the entire report by clicking here.

This is not to say that the trauma experienced by those evacuated from the prefecture is not real; it is. It is important to understand that prevention of future events like the Fukushima Daiichi accident will also prevent massive evacuations of people from their homes. What it does mean is that exposure received by most people is far less than what they normally receive through the course of daily living and travel in a year. Click here to calculate your dose rate where you live in order to compare it to the figures in the WHO report.

The Fukushima Daiichi accident has been given the same INES scale rating as the Chernobyl accident—a rating of 7, or “Major Accident.” This is because both accidents resulted in a release of radionuclides to the environment concurrent with reactor fuel damage. However, the release from Fukushima Daiichi was only about 10 percent that of Chernobyl; thus, the equivalent rating on the INES scale doesn’t tell quite the whole story.

Where do we go from here?

In terms of the Fukushima Daiichi site, the planned decontamination and decommissioning of the whole site might take as long as 40 years, according to TEPCO’s road map for site decommissioning. In the meantime, TEPCO will be performing a great deal of research on how to safely dismantle the nuclear plants, very likely with international cooperation.

Worldwide, each nation that either has nuclear plants or aspires to have them has made some hard decisions. In the case of a few, like Germany, the decision has been made to abandon nuclear plants entirely; Bulgaria recently decided not to build a nuclear plant, as well. In the cases of most nations, though, reviews and reports on ‘lessons learned’ from the Fukushima Daiichi accident have evolved into robust plans for action; this strategy applies to the United States, South Korea, and China as three of the foremost proponents of nuclear energy. Many other nations that did not have nuclear power prior to the accident but wished to have it are still on course to build nuclear plants; perhaps most well known of these is the effort underway in the United Arab Emirates. Many nations realize the need for electricity in order to have a more productive and safer society; in a number of cases, nuclear is the leading choice. (Also notable for entering into nuclear energy programs are Kenya, Vietnam, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.)

Indeed, it would seem that the greatly increased public dialogue and involvement after the accident on many varied aspects of nuclear energy (not just safety) has not led to widespread fear, shown by favorable poll numbers in the United States. Even as time goes on, the polls in favor of nuclear power hold up.

This has allowed the present-day general discussion about greenhouse gases and varied energy generating sources to, for the most part, include nuclear energy on an intelligent and rational basis. Much of that basis centers on the passive safety features of new nuclear plants such as the Westinghouse AP1000, which is designed to endure SBO events for 72 hours with no operator action whatsoever, and after that time and with some operator action to transfer water, can maintain core and containment cooling indefinitely. The reactor plant is also designed so that even in the event of a severe accident, the core will remain inside the reactor vessel—an important step in the prevention of release of radioactive material to the environment.

Nuclear plant operators and government regulators worldwide have responded to the Fukushima Daiichi accident with still-increasing vigilance, inspection, research, and action. It’s clear that such an accident must never be allowed to happen again—and by the actions being taken at least in the United States, it would appear that we are well on our way to ensuring that we can meet any and every challenge that future severe events might bring, for the safety of both the plant operators and the citizens they serve.

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Will Davis is a consultant to, and writer for, the American Nuclear Society. In addition to this, he is a contributing author for Fuel Cycle Week, and also writes his own blog Atomic Power Review. Davis is a former US Navy Reactor Operator, qualified on S8G and S5W plants.

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Posted in accident, BWRs, Earthquake, Fukushima, INES, lessons learned, Natural disasters, Radiation, reactor designs

Preparing to restart: Tsunami safety measures at Japanese nuclear power stations

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Will Davis| 2 Comments

By Will Davis

The approach of the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 finds nuclear energy in Japan at a crossroads. After the quake and resulting tsunami, the nuclear plants in Japan that did not shut down immediately eventually all had to shut down for their required, scheduled outages. Political pressures, for the most part, prevented any near-term chance of any of them restarting, it seemed at the time. When Tomari Unit 3 shut down in May 2012, Japan found itself with not one single operating nuclear power plant for the first time in decades. Since that time, only two nuclear units have restarted—Ohi Units 3 and 4 in July 2012. Other plants, rumored to be “next” to start up, have still not started up, although they may soon. The question that springs to mind is naturally, “When will the majority of the plants be allowed to restart?” The more insightful question, though, is, “What will have to be done in order to allow any plant to restart?” And how can we tell which will start first—is there any clue present now? Yes, there is.

Continued debate rages about the possibility of active faults being located beneath a number of plants—perhaps the most widely discussed being Tsuruga. For the plants experiencing this problem, restart is highly problematic—and highly politically charged. For the informed, it’s also no safe bet.

Other nuclear plants, however, are emerging as the “sure bets” of owner-operators who are pushing massive amounts of time, money, and material into them, preparing for restart whenever the Japanese government and the new Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) allows it. The sheer amount of work being put into two of these is our focus today as we look forward to the time when Japan will return to generating a fair portion of its electric power from nuclear energy.

The photograph above was taken in April 2011 by the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, and clearly shows the debris and tsunami damage on the sea side of Units 1 through 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powers station. This damage—physical derangement of installed equipment, and water inundation of facilities—was the direct cause of the accident. (The tsunami was preceded by a massive earthquake that caused enormous power outages due to transmission line damage and reactor plant shutdowns, but did not lead to unusual events at the plant in and of itself.) This photo makes fairly obvious the damage, but perhaps not as obvious the height of the water to be defended against.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa

At right, we see Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEOCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station. This station has for many years been the largest (highest total output) nuclear station in the world, with seven reactor plants on one site.  TEPCO (also owner of Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini) has been pouring money and material into facilities on and around this site in order to prepare it for certification to start up.

It must be said right off that the most important tsunami defense this plant has is its location; it’s on the opposite coast from Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini, and according to TEPCO the undersea faulting that does exist west of Japan is not thought to be able to generate tsunami at all. Even so, TEPCO has implemented massive works at the site; click on the following link to see a detailed video of the size and scope of the project. (The videos linked in this ANS Nuclear Cafe article are detailed and impressive, and are “must see” to understand the real scope of the efforts being exerted.)

TEPCO Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Tsunami Protection Enhancements

The provision of seawall protection is fully and redundantly backed up by the protection placed around the reactor buildings in TEPCO’s protection scheme; at Units 1 through 4, a large new artificial sea wall defending against even 15-meter tsunami is backed up by protection of the reactor buildings themselves by new added enclosures, also proof against 15 meters of water. All doors on the reactor buildings will be water-tight, and all openings below 15 meters will be shielded with covers to prevent water entry. On the other hand, the three newer units—Units 5, 6, and 7—already sit on higher ground and thus don’t require as high of a new seawall; further, these units were built having no low openings that water may enter through below 15 meters.

Also notable in the video is the installation of fixed structure to allow portable generating and pumping equipment to supply plant cooling needs in case of long-term station blackout (SBO) and even in the event of serious damage to the site. The portable equipment is located at a high elevation near the plant; it includes mobile generating trucks (using gas turbine engines instead of diesel engines), diesel powered skid-mounted fire pumps, fire engines, and mobile units containing water-to-air heat exchangers. According to TEPCO, the SBO/loss of ultimate heat sink survival time for this site after an earthquake and tsunami is said to be 196 days as a result of the additions and enhancements.

Construction of this new protection and provision of the new equipment is proceeding at a rapid pace; it is expected to be completed this year. A further detailed video, also well worth watching, shows more of the construction of the protection and its progress as of the middle of last year.

Tsunami Protection Enhancements at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa:  Progress, June 2012

The Kasiwazaki-Kariwa station has undergone a complete stress test at Units 1 and 7 (which should cover most eventualities at other units, generally), although it seems clear now that the NRA might be inclined to develop further requirements; the final result of NRA’s decision making is due mid-year. For what it is worth, TEPCO believes that the plant is also immune, after the implementation of seismic enhancements, even to very large earthquake accelerations (which is supported by the fact that none of the reports concerning Fukushima Daiichi has so far proven out any of the assertions that the quake itself led to crippling or even problematic system damage.) A TEPCO video covering the stress test can be seen here. The video describes the stress test steps clearly for anyone, even with no knowledge of nuclear energy. It is important to add though that the stress test video portion describing the spent fuel pool “cliff edge” for Unit 1 is actually describing the effect should water overflow the new, outer 15 meter tsunami sea wall and get inside the site.

Overall, the safety measures TEPCO is implementing at this plant are impressive, on a grand scale; comparatively, absolutely nothing of the sort has been done at its other undamaged nuclear power station, Fukushima Daini. This most likely reflects the Fukushima prefectural government’s repeated assertions that no nuclear plant will operate in its territory ever again—dooming the four reactor plants at Fukushima Daini and the two undamaged units (Units 5 and 6) at Fukushima Daiichi. Judging all advance indications (including TEPCO’s investments and the political atmosphere) if any of TEPCO’s nuclear stations would ever restart, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa would be first.

Hamaoka

Whereas it’s reported that TEPCO has spent as much as 70 billion Yen on enhancements at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, Chubu Electric Power Company has spent 100 million yen at its five-reactor Hamaoka nuclear power station, and has increased the estimated total amount required to 140 billion yen. It has also pushed the expected completion of physical construction/equipment acquisition back an entire year from the originally expected date, to July 2013. This nuclear station is located on the same side of the country as Fukushima, but is well to the south.

At right, Hamaoka nuclear power station, courtesy Chubu Electric Power Company. This station has five nuclear reactor plants; Units 1 and 2, nearest the right of the photo, are undergoing decommissioning, while the other three units are expected to operate in the future.

Preparations at Hamaoka, which comprise over 30 different construction projects, mirror those underway at TEPCO’s plant quite closely, through the provision of sea-side protection, backup power generating, and water pumping equipment, and of course all of the training required to implement the new procedures (using new and unfamiliar equipment). As stated by Chubu, the improvements to the site were begun before a full understanding of the experience at Fukushima Daiichi was widely known. The 40-billion-yen increase in cost, to be spread over several years, comes from alterations to the protection plan that were pointed up from real experience at Fukushima. For example, the design of reactor building doors to be fitted at Hamaoka was changed to a swinging design of watertight door to reduce the time required to shut and secure the doors. It has become clear that in emergency and disaster situations, minutes and seconds count.

Chubu Electric has also produced an excellent video (also in English) quite similar to those by TEPCO, showing the enhancements specific to its Hamaoka nuclear power station site. Click here to see it. Chubu offers the public an excellent PDF file report titled “Tsunami Countermeasures at Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station“ on site protection enhancements that is quite minute in detail.

In December 2012, Chubu Electric also announced additional “Severe Accident Countermeasures” to be taken at Hamaoka that are intended to do three things:  prevent an uncontrolled radiological discharge (during an accident), prevent damage to the containment vessels of the reactor plants, and provide increased DC power availability. Specific actions called out included installation of filtered PCV vents, installation of water spray lines in the reactor vessel pedestals (to ensure debris retention), enhanced containment spray (to knock down airborne contamination in event of release inside containment), special cooling for the PCV head (through which it is now believed that hydrogen gas escaped into the reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi), provision of upgraded storage batteries, and provision of alternative (and mobile) heat exchanger equipment for core cooling. These are all enhancements directly developed as a result of accident sequence events and site complications known to have occurred during the accident progression at Fukushima Daiichi.

The plans, and the future

Parallels between the TEPCO and Chubu Electric plans are fairly obvious—both are spending large amounts of money on presently shut down nuclear stations of large generating capacity in order to help ensure that they are allowed to restart. When they do, the companies will begin to earn revenue to pay for the disaster enhancements (and, in the case of TEPCO, to pay for many other things, including decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi and, in all probability, eventually Fukushima Daini) and in addition will help restart Japan’s economy. Both companies are relying on a complex mix of physical enhancements to site perimeters, reactor plants, and interconnecting infrastructure (such as new remote wires and pipes). Both are investing heavily in mobile equipment of many types. While the training required to integrate all of this new equipment hasn’t specifically been mentioned, we know that it is exceedingly complicated and will be very time-consuming to get right. Both companies continue to conduct drills on the use of this equipment, with site-wide timed ‘disaster scenarios.’

Another parallel that is important not to miss is that much of what TEPCO and Chubu Electric are doing is quite similar to the FLEX approach backed by the Nuclear Energy Institute and owner-operators in the United States.

One contrast between the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa and Hamaoka projects is that whereas the TEPCO plant, on the west coast, is being given 15m–high tsunami wall protection, Hamaoka, which is on the opposite coast, is being given 18m tsunami protection. This reflects the seismic environment of Japan, which as previously stated is much more likely to experience large tsunami on the eastern coastline of the nation.

It seems likely, given the Japanese public’s new well-publicized suspicion of nuclear energy (and particularly the Japanese government interrelations with the Japanese nuclear industry), that restarting plants in Japan will only come with a solid yet transparent combination of physical site protections, emergency backup plans, solid regulation and enforcement, and divorce of the regulator from industry interests. All of these are underway now, and as we’ve seen, at least two of the utilities owning nuclear plants are heavily investing on a nuclear future for Japan, even if the face it presents is very largely different to that it presented to a pre-Fukushima world.

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Will Davis is a consultant to, and writer for, the American Nuclear Society. In addition to this, he is a contributing author for Fuel Cycle Week, and also writes his own blog Atomic Power Review. Davis is a former US Navy Reactor Operator, qualified on S8G and S5W plants.

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Challenging scientific organizations to adhere to scientific methods

Posted on November 5, 2012 by radams| 2 Comments

By Rod Adams

Rockwell

For more than two years, I have been privileged to be included in correspondence about a battle for truth led by Ted Rockwell, one of the pioneers of nuclear energy and radiation protection. He continues to seek support of nuclear energy and radiation professionals in an effort to encourage the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) to do something that is apparently difficult for any large organization to do—apologize and take effective action to correct a continuing mistake.

NYAS book on Chernobyl effects rejects the scientific method

Here is a brief background of the error. It will be followed by a call to action.

The work selected as the December 2009 edition of The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) was an expansion and translation of a report originally published in Russian and later translated to English under the sponsorship of Greenpeace International. The NYAS book, titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment comes to conclusions about the effects of the accident that are in stark opposition to the conclusions reached by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).

Where the UNSCEAR report indicates that the total number of deaths caused by the accident through 2006 was less than 50, the book that the NYAS selected as its December 2009 Annals edition claims that there were 985,000 deaths attributable to the accident. It is difficult to comprehend the possibility that two scientific studies of the same event could differ by a factor of 19,700.

Fortunately, the authors of Chernobyl Consequences provide a reasonable explanation for the vast gulf between their conclusions and the conclusions reached by the scientific organizations that studied the accident’s effects. I am paraphrasing here, but the bottom line is that the authors, publishing sponsors and editors involved in the project had no intention of doing any scientific or statistical analysis. Instead they spent their time compiling as many anecdotes as they could find to support their preexisting mission.

Here are some quotes from Chernobyl Consequences that support my summary of their goals and methods:

(Causal thesis)
We believe it is unreasonable to attribute the increased occurrence of disease in the contaminated territories to screening or socioeconomic factors because the only variable is radioactive loading. Among the terrible consequences of Chernobyl radiation are malignant neoplasms and brain damage, especially during intrauterine development. (p. 2)
…
(Rejection of correlation requirements)
Why are the assessments of experts so different?
There are several reasons, including that some experts believe that any conclusions about radiation-based disease requires a correlation between an illness and the received dose of radioactivity. We believe this is an impossibility because no measurements were taken in the first few days. Initial levels could have been a thousand times higher than the ones ultimately measured several weeks and months later. (p. 2)
…
(Rejection of impact of other variables)
In independent investigations scientists have compared the health of individuals in various territories that are identical in terms of ethnic, social, and economic characteristics and differ only in the intensity of their exposure to radiation. It is scientifically valid to compare specific groups over time (a longitudinal study), and such comparisons have unequivocally attributed differences in health outcomes to Chernobyl fallout. (p. 3)
…
(Anecdote collection method)
The scientific literature on the consequences of the catastrophe now includes more than 30,000 publications, mainly in Slavic languages. Millions of documents/materials exist in various Internet information systems—descriptions, memoirs, maps, photos, etc. For example in GOOGLE there are 14.5 million; in YANDEX, 1.87 million; and in RAMBLER, 1.25 million citations. There are many special Chernobyl Internet portals, especially numerous for “Children of Chernobyl” and for the Chernobyl Cleanup Workers (“Liquidators so called”) organizations. The Chernobyl Digest—scientific abstract collections—was published in Minsk with the participation of many Byelorussian and Russian scientific institutes and includes several thousand annotated publications dating to 1990. At the same time the IAEA/WHO “Chernobyl Forum” Report (2005), advertised by WHO and IAEA as “the fullest and objective review” of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, mentions only 350 mainly English publications. (Preface p. xi)
…
(Rejection of statistical methodology)
It is methodologically incorrect to combine imprecisely defined ionizing radiation exposure levels for individuals or groups with the much more accurately determined impacts on health (increases in morbidity and mortality) and to demand a “statistically significant correlation” as conclusive evidence of the deleterious effects from Chernobyl. More and more cases are coming to light in which the calculated radiation dose does not correlate with observable impacts on health that are obviously due to radiation.

(Emphasis added.)

Though Greenpeace International and its favored authors are free to print any material they want and people are free to read that material to reinforce their existing belief that radiation at any level is harmful, it is the responsibility of the scientific community to provide accurate information and to submit its work for independent peer review. The normal process of challenging assumption, correlating causes and effects, performing valid statistical analysis and accounting for confounding variables is what allows reasonably correct decision making.

Electronic version of NYAS book available for download

Though the decision to publish Chernobyl Consequences took place more than three years ago, it should not be relegated to the category of old news. The NYAS might have stopped printing the paper bound book, but the electronic version of the publication remains readily available for purchase or downloading by NYAS members. The publication web site contains links to several reviews and responses that are only available to people with academic subscription services or to people who care enough about the issue to lay out $39.95 for each letter to the editor. Just one of the linked responses is available to the public without additional fees; it is a devastating review written by M. I. Balonov of the Institute of Radiation Hygiene in St. Petersburg, Russia.

I purchased the response from Yablokov and Nesterenko to the criticism of S. V. Jargin so you would not have to. It provides more fodder for my assertion that the authors have specifically challenged the notion that the scientific method is important, and it includes a veiled accusation that should offend nuclear energy professionals.

In the Foreword, the Introduction and in Chapter II, it is mentioned that obliteration of those publications is not acceptable both from a moral and an ethical (note that in general, medical practitioners could only add short statements about their studies in numerous scientific and practical conferences) but also from a methodological point of view (when the sample number is very large, there is no necessity to use statistical methods developed for a small number of samples).

In this respect, criticizing us with the fact that our conclusions are in disagreement with those of IAEA (2006) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR 2000) cannot but be surprising. The book itself was written as a counterpart to reports of official experts that may be connected to nuclear industry.

(Emphasis added.)

In response to Ted Rockwell’s sustained pressure, the staff of the Annals of the NYAS made some adjustments to the site hosting the book. They published what they described as a disclaimer that made it clear that the NYAS did not commission the book and that the opinions and conclusions are the responsibility of the authors, not the NYAS. However, the “disclaimer” also makes the statement that the book falls into the category of work deemed “scientifically valid by the general scientific community”.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences issue “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”, therefore, does not present new, unpublished work, nor is it a work commissioned by the New York Academy of Sciences. The expressed views of the authors, or by advocacy groups or individuals with specific opinions about the Chernobyl volume, are their own. Although the New York Academy of Sciences believes it has a responsibility to provide open forums for discussion of scientific questions, the Academy has no intent to influence legislation by providing such forums. The Academy is committed to publishing content deemed scientifically valid by the general scientific community, from whom the Academy carefully monitors feedback.

That phrase “has no intent to influence legislation by providing such forums” was apparently selected to protect the tax exempt status of the NYAS, but it has no meaning in this instance. There is no pending legislation that could be remotely influenced by an honest discussion that evaluates the scientific merit of the December 2009 edition of the Annals of the New York Academy of Science. The discussion and resulting evaluation, however, would partially restore the scientific integrity of the organization as one that acknowledges that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own set of facts.

Challenge to integrity of scientific and technical professionals

There are many correct ways to do good science, and there is a method and a process that should be generally accepted as the way to glean truth, gather evidence, and evaluate causation. It is the responsibility of everyone who has a professional interest in properly informing the public about their subject to challenge those who seek to portray fiction as fact. It is especially dangerous for the truth to allow anyone to publish direct challenges to science and the professional integrity of thousands of people under the imprint of an organization like the New York Academy of Sciences.

Quiet pressure from a long-time member of the NYAS has not resulted in any effective action. Perhaps individual letters to the NYAS leadership sent by dozens of qualified professionals will have more impact.

___________________________

Adams

Rod Adams is a nuclear advocate with extensive small nuclear plant operating experience. Adams is a former engineer officer, USS Von Steuben. He is the host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast. Adams has been an ANS member since 2005. He writes about nuclear technology at his own blog, Atomic Insights.

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ANS Nuclear Matinee: Fukushima and Chernobyl: Myth versus Reality

Posted on June 22, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

Facts vs. myths about the health effects of Fukushima and Chernobyl.  The conclusions of scientists studying health consequences may be startling to those exposed only to commonly held beliefs and traditional media (and Chernobyl Diaries!)

Also see the excellent article and discussion about the video at the Atomic Insights website.

 

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Posted in accident, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Radiation

Spent fuel at Fukushima Daiichi safer than asserted

Posted on May 16, 2012 by pbowersox| 184 Comments

By Will Davis

In recent days, a number of articles have been printed that assert that a grave danger exists at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear generating station. These articles claim that this danger exists due to the condition of the spent nuclear fuel at the site and the supposedly shaky condition of its storage and care. Two examples:

“The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Is Far From Over” by Robert Alvarez

“Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident” by Akio Matsumura

These articles are highly deceptive. The occurrence of a cataclysmic release of radioactive material as surmised is hinged upon the occurrence of so many statistically impossible events that it is certain to be a practical impossibility. Since the assertions continue to gain a wider audience, however, it is necessary to examine them and make a realistic assessment of their likelihood.

Assertion 1: The spent fuel pools, particularly at Fukushima Daiichi No. 4 plant (1F-4), are liable to collapse

Since shortly after the Tohoku quake and tsunami, TEPCO has continually inspected the buildings at the site for physical integrity. More importantly, TEPCO has conducted seismic safety studies of all the reactor buildings; the results of these studies are linked below, which show that the reactor buildings are safe in the event of further (even severe) earthquakes.

“Submission of Reports about the study regarding current seismic safety and reinforcement of reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station”

“Important Report from TEPCO” (particularly items dated April 5)

“At 11:04 pm on April 1, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake centered in the coast of Fukushima Prefecture occurred. Hama-dori of Fukusihma Prefecture registered intensity 5 lower on the Japanese seismic (intensity) scale of 7. No abnormalities were detected at facilities for water injection into the reactors, nitrogen gas injection, cooling of spent fuel pool, and the treatment of highly contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. They all operate normally after the quake. As for the degree of the shake of the reactor buildings, Unit 6′s reactor building’s foundation registered 40.7 gal in horizontal direction and 19.4 gal in vertical direction.

We, TEPCO, evaluate earthquake-proof safety by developing Design Basis Earthquake Ground Motion Ss as large-scale quake which would possibly occur in future. For example, the degree of shake of Unit 6′s reactor building’s foundation against the Design Basis Earthquake Ground Motion is 448 gal in horizontal direction and 415 gal in vertical direction (which is around 10 times large in horizontal way and around 20 times large in vertical way compared with the quake occurred on April 1, 2012). We assess that the level of this Design Basis Earthquake Ground Motion is almost same as the one recorded for the Tohoku–Pacific Ocean Earthquake. Based on the Motion, we simulated the damaged situation of the current reactor buildings of Unit 1 to 4, having implemented quake response analysis for the reactor buildings as well as equipments and pipes which are important in terms of safety. As a result, we confirmed that there are no negative signal, such as shear/twist of quake-proof walls of buildings, the fact that the stress of facilities/piping lowers the standard value, and the fact that buildings collapse and facilities/ piping lose their functions.”

NUREG /CR-4982, “Severe Accidents in Spent Fuel Pools in support of Generic Safety Issue 82,” Brookhaven National Laboratory, indicates that the likelihood of seismically induced spent fuel pool failure may be as low as 1 X 10-10 occurrences per reactor year, which is a statistically insignificant rate of occurrence.

From the above, it can easily be ascertained that further seismic damage to the buildings is not likely. It should be added that TEPCO is continuing to remove material (both debris and structural material) from the upper levels of the damaged reactor buildings—further reducing their mass, and the amount of mass at higher levels that could induce larger swaying moment. Thus, seismically induced collapse of the reactor buildings (as asserted in various articles penned by activists) is very unlikely. Assertion 1: False

Assertion 2: The spent fuel pool at 1F-4 is in particularly dire structural condition

TEPCO has continuously monitored the 1F-4 building for damage (having no damaged reactor in the building, it is the most widely accessible among 1F-1 through 1F-4, and thus most easily examined). TEPCO has also constructed, as a result of structural studies performed on the building, a steel-reinforced concrete support beneath the spent fuel pool at this plant. Photos are available at TEPCO “Completion of Installation of Supporting Structure…”

TEPCO estimates, in fact, that the seismic safety margin of the 1F-4 building’s spent fuel pool is now improved 20 percent over the original condition. Thus, there is no basis to assertions that 1F-4′s spent fuel pool is in a dire condition. Assertion 2: False

 

 

 

 

Assertion 3: The spent fuel in these plants’ spent fuel pools could ignite, leading to a massive radiological release

This assertion is patently false. First, it is important to understand that in order for the fuel to ignite, it has to get hot—and in its present condition, submerged in spent fuel pools with redundant cooling systems and filtration systems, constant remote temperature monitoring, backup generating and pumping systems in mobile units in place (on standby), and high reach concrete pump trucks on site (if necessary), there is no chance of the fuel heating up in any significant way while it is in the pools in the buildings.

We’ve seen already that it’s unlikely that the buildings would be damaged in a quake—and we can surmise, given the manpower and equipment on site, that even if any sort of equipment leak or malfunction temporarily suspended cooling for the spent fuel, that malfunction would be quickly detected and fixed. So, it’s just not likely at all that the fuel would even begin to get noticeably hot in the spent fuel pools as-is now. Temperatures of the water in the spent fuel pools is currently in the ~30 °C and under range.

In order for apocalyptic assertions of a “fuel clad ignition and fire” to occur, moreover, the clad itself would need to be heated to incredible temperatures, which just isn’t possible. Ignition of the cladding (Zircalloy-2) on those fuel elements can occur roughly at 900 ºC in the proper conditions, but it’s important to note that, depending on the surrounding conditions (presence or absence of water vapor and oxygen content of the surroundings), the material may not ignite at that temperature anyway. From NUREG /CR-4982:

“The cladding on such fuel will not ignite until 900 ºC (1652 ºF), while the fuel melting point for UO2 fuel is 2880 ºC (5216 ºF).”

An online video shows Zirc-2 tube being heated with a blow torch (probably over 2000 ºC) and not catching fire. In point of fact, while the chemistry of rapid oxidation /combustion of Zirc cladding is complex, it just would not be possible under the conditions at the site. Further, even under the wild assumption that the buildings somehow collapsed, all of the other resources on site, and remotely off site, are still available to move in and provide cooling for the fuel.

In addition, the rate of heatup of the fuel depends on how long it’s been out of a reactor. According to NUREG /CR-4982, unless the spent fuel is recently discharged from an operating reactor (within 180 days), ignition of the clad is completely impossible in any situation, regardless. Experts have calculated that the heat output presently from the hottest of the spent fuel is only on the order of several hundred watts per element—a very insignificant amount in comparison to heating the material to between 900 ºC–2000 ºC in order to ignite it.

In addition, in order for a “cataclysmic” spread of the radionuclides contained in this spent fuel to occur, we can see that a massive fire is needed to both release the material and provide a driving head (or “loft”) to spread it to the winds. It’s clear that no such fire is possible, given the above information. The assertions simply fall apart.  Assertion 3: False  

Conclusion

In fact, all three assertions, as we’ve seen, fall apart at every turn—there’s no basis to assertions of shaky buildings, or a structurally failed 1F-4 plant, or the chance of zircalloy cladding fire, or billowing of the released material to the entire earth. Realistic, practical analysis, performed by personnel on site (TEPCO/NISA), nuclear professionals here in the United States with decades of experience in both theory and practice, and official peer-reviewed studies and documents (e.g., NUREG /CR-4982) show that the predictions of apocalypse being spread now are just as unlikely to occur as those predictions of apocalypse that were made then at the time of the accident.

___________________________

The author expresses his gratitude for assistance in this analysis provided by John H. Bickel, Meredith Angwin, Margaret Harding, Leslie Corrice, Rod Adams, Cheryl Rofer, Bill Rodgers, Paul Bowersox, Rick Michal, Steve Skutnik, and Dan Yurman.

Will Davis is the author of the nuclear energy blog “Atomic Power Review,” and is a member of the American Nuclear Society.  A former US Navy reactor operator, Davis finds his calling to be presenting the public with information about nuclear energy technology and its history.

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Posted in accident, Earthquake, engineering, Fukushima, Natural disasters, nuclear opponents, Radiation, spent fuel

NRC/Fukushima hearing in US Senate on Thursday

Posted on March 12, 2012 by pbowersox| 3 Comments

A hearing titled “Lessons from Fukushima One Year Later: NRC’s Implementation of Recommendations for Enhancing Nuclear Reactor Safety in the 21st Century” will be held in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, March 15, at 10:00 AM EDT. The hearing will be a joint session of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety.

NRC Commissioners Magwood, Svinicki, Chairman Jaczko, Apostolakis, Ostendorff

Featured testimony will come from NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko and fellow NRC commissioners Kristine Svinicki, George Apostolakis, William Magwood, and William Ostendorff.  The hearing will be webcast at the website for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

In the aftermath of the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, the NRC formed a task force to reevaluate the safety and security of the 104 nuclear power plants in the United States, and develop a series of recommendations based on the lessons learned from Japan. The March 15 hearing will concern the orders, rules, and other actions from the NRC intended to enhance reactor safety and protect public health based on those task force recommendations.

The hearing is a follow-up to the Senate committee’s hearing 0n December 15, 2011, titled “Review of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Near-Term Task Force Recommendations for Enhancing Reactor Safety in the 21st Century,: which is archived here. The prepared opening statement of Chairman Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) for that hearing is here. The prepared opening statement of Ranking Minority Member James Inhofe (R., Okla.) is here.

Jaczko and the other commissioners have not always been in agreement on regulatory decisions facing the NRC, notably including a recent 4-1 vote to grant a license to build and operate two reactors at the Vogtle nuclear facility in Georgia.

__________________

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Posted in accident, Earthquake, Fukushima, lessons learned, licensing, Meetings, News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Radiation, spent fuel

ANS Fukushima press conference, March 8 at 10AM EST

Posted on March 7, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

The American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima will issue its full report on March 8 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, at 10AM EST. The press conference will be available for viewing via this link.

The event will also be live tweeted at the ANS twitter feed (@ans_org).

The release of the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima report offers the opportunity to hear an independent, scientifically, and technically informed view on the accident by world-class experts in nuclear science and technology. The leadership of the American Nuclear Society, a scientific and technical organization of 11,600 nuclear professionals, commissioned the Special Committee to provide a clear and concise explanation of what happened during the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and offer recommendations for the nuclear community, for citizens, and for policymakers based on lessons learned from their study of the event.

Special Committee members at the press conference will include:

  • Co-Chair Dale Klein, Ph.D., former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
  • Co-Chair Michael L. Corradini, Ph.D., vice president/president-elect, American Nuclear Society, Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of nuclear engineering and engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin
  • Regulatory Issues Lead Jacopo Buongiorno, Ph.D., professor of nuclear engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Study Director Paul Dickman, Senior Policy Fellow with Argonne National Laboratory

Topics addressed in the press conference and in the report will include risk-informed regulation, hazards from extreme natural phenomena, multiple-unit site considerations, hardware design modifications, severe accident management guidelines, command and control during a reactor accident, emergency planning, health impacts, and societal risk comparison.

The full report will be available for download Thursday morning at the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima dedicated website.

In addition, ANS Special Committee on Fukushima members Professor Akira Tokuhiro and Professor Hisashi Ninokata will hold a press conference at 3:30 – 4:30 Japan Time on Friday, March 9, at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo, Japan, concerning the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima report release. More information is available at this link.

Visit this ANS Nuclear Cafe post for interviews with the Special Committee Co-Chairs Klein and Corradini concerning the release of the report.

ANS President Eric Loewen and Special Committee Co-Chairs Klein and Corradini discussed the goals of the report in interviews at the 2011 ANS Annual Meeting:

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Earthquake, Education, Fukushima, knowledge transfer, lessons learned, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear events, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Publications, Radiation

Can we repeat facts about Fukushima often enough to overcome fears?

Posted on March 7, 2012 by radams| 15 Comments

by Rod Adams

We are within one week of the one year anniversary of the Great North East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. That powerful punch from nature slowly destroyed four out of six of the nuclear units at Fukushima Daiichi while the world watched with rapt attention.

However, as many nuclear experts predicted at the time of the accident, the defense-in-depth strategy worked well. The end results have been far better than were predicted using some of the fantasy-inspired “worst case scenarios” propagated by antinuclear activists and by researchers working several decades ago – before much data had been gathered and digested.

The painstakingly-gathered empirical data from this unfortunate theory-to-practice exercise have validated the recently released State of the Art Reactor Consequences Analysis, which computed a one in a billion chance that an accident at typical licensed nuclear reactors would harm anyone in the general public.

The total quantity of long-lived radioactive isotopes released from all three of the melted cores was approximately 11 kilograms. None of the material stored in the spent fuel pools was released. There has not been, and never will be, any injuries more serious than a mild sunburn to two workers, from the radiation released into the environment from the melted nuclear fuel inside the plant pressure vessels and containment structures.

Despite the lack of any negative radiation health effects, there are people who relish in stimulating as much fear, uncertainty, doubt and stress about radiation and nuclear energy as they possibly can. They are working overtime to obscure any good news and to label the people who share truthful information as nuclear industry PR hacks, apologists, or even worse.

While participating in discussion threads associated with recent reports published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time magazine and Scientific American, I have seen nuclear supporters accused of killing babies, being mere industry shills, and of being completely insensitive to the continued suffering of the Japanese people.

Unlike people who have been trained in nuclear sciences and engineering, facts do not matter as much to antinuclear activists as repeatedly telling the tale they want people to hear. Greenpeace has released a report titled Lessons from Fukushima featuring a chapter by Arnie Gundersen that claims that the nuclear industry is a prime example of regulatory capture, despite being one of the most tightly regulated industries in the US, Europe and Japan.

Karl Grossman, a man who has been making a living on the antinuclear lecture and book circuit since the Three Mile Island accident, continues to claim that Fukushima will be worse than Chernobyl. He also claims that Chernobyl has already killed nearly a million people, instead of the less than 100 reported by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation report as having died in the 25 years since the accident.

Like Helen Caldicott, Grossman continues to spout the belief that Yablokov’s thoroughly discredited book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment is the definitive work on the 1986 accident. In the imaginary world where Caldicott and Grossman spend their time, the thousands of other researchers who studied the accident and came to completely different conclusions were either misinformed, bought by the powerful nuclear industry, or just plain lying.

The antinuclear opposition also spreads fear by describing effects using unfamiliar, frightening units. Instead of saying that a total of 11 kilograms of material (out of approximately 60,000 kilograms of fuel per unit) escaped from the reactor pressure vessels, people who discourage the beneficial use of nuclear energy say that the plants “spewed” 36,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity. (A terabecquerel of Cs-137 has a mass of 3.2 grams.)

If that number does not scare people thoroughly enough, some nuclear opponents compare the cesium emissions from Fukushima to the cesium emissions from the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Hiroshima bomb produced its explosive power fissioning about 1 kilogram of U-235. The 6.3% fission yield for Cs-137 means that Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, produced a little less than 30 grams of Cs-137. (89 terabecquerels at 3.2 gms/terabecquerel).

In the eyes of people who hate nuclear energy, that means that the melted Fukushima reactors did not release a mass of radioactive cesium that is about half the weight of the backpack I routinely carry when I spend a weekend on the Appalachian Trail. Instead, those reactors released 400 times as much radioactive cesium as was released by The Bomb!

That is a great piece of propaganda. It sounds really bad while using very few words. Contradicting the scary statement with logical reasoning requires too detailed of an explanation to be useful to a newspaper or television show.

There is, however, reason to be hopeful that the end result of the Fukushima accident on nuclear energy will be less damaging to the ultimate success of the technology than the end result of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents.

Unlike the period following the Three Mile Island accident, the public conversation has broadened considerably. Discourse is no longer dominated by broadcast television networks or major printed newspapers. It is not dominated by the people who have been able to spend years working their way to the front of journalist contact lists by always being ready with pithy, if often false, quotes.

Instead, people who understand nuclear technology are supporting each other, using a wider variety of media access points and are participating in active public outreach campaigns.

On March 8 at 10AM EST, the American Nuclear Society, a professional society with 11,000 members, will be holding a news conference at the National Press Club to announce the release of its long awaited report on the lessons learned from the accident.

I am looking forward to reading that report and then cooperating with other nuclear professionals to ensure that its factual material is repeated as often as the tripe that emanates from the mouths and keyboards of Caldicott, Grossman, Wasserman, Gunter, Lovins, and so many other professional opponents of nuclear energy.

Like many of my colleagues, I feel a sense of personal responsibility to do something to alleviate the suffering of the victims who have a far greater probability of negative health effects from irrational radiation fears than they do from radiation itself. Spending some of my spare time to ease their fears, reduce their stress and enable their safe return to their ancestral homes is an investment worth making.

There has been one result from the accident that I never would have predicted. A year ago, I could not imagine that two countries (Germany and Japan) that were famous for their technological skills and rational decision making would have decided to shut down undamaged reactors in favor of spending a growing share of their national income to make the fossil fuel industry increasingly richer. If anyone can think of ways to influence the decision process in those two key countries, I am listening.

 

Adams

Rod Adams is a pro-nuclear advocate with extensive small nuclear plant operating experience. Adams is a former engineer officer, USS Von Steuben. He is the host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast. Adams has been an ANS member since 2005. He writes about nuclear technology at his own blog, Atomic Insights.

 

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Earthquake, Fukushima, lessons learned, Natural disasters, nuclear opponents, Publications, Radiation

Fukushima health effects

Posted on March 5, 2012 by pbowersox| 2 Comments

The American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima has been conducting a comprehensive study of the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the Great East Japan earthquake of 2011. The special committee was tasked with providing a clear and concise explanation of what happened during the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and offer recommendations based on lessons learned. A report from the special committee will be released at a press conference on Thursday, March 8, at 10AM EST. The press conference will be webcast at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=85244, and the report will be available for download at http://fukushima.ans.org/.

The report will include a detailed analysis and assessment of radiological health effects resulting from the accident.

The HPS Panel: Robert Emery, John Boice, Robert Gayle, Howard Dickson, Kathryn Higley, Richard Vetter

Meanwhile, the Health Physics Society (HPS) on March 1 held a press conference addressing Fukushima radiological health effects. Major online media coverage of the HPS conference included the New York Times Green Blog, Sizing Up Health Impacts a Year After Fukushima, and the Wall Street Journal Japan Realtime,  Fukushima Health Impact: Minimal?

What have been the basic findings, so far, of the HPS radiation experts? As paraphrased in the New York Times article: “Health impacts from the radioactive materials released in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns will probably be too small to be easily measured… And the area cordoned off by the Japanese government as uninhabitable is probably far too large.”

Caracappa

Peter Caracappa, chief radiation officer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, assisted the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima on radiological issues, and was interviewed in this very informative recent article in Scientific American: Japan’s Post-Fukushima Earthquake Health Woes Go Beyond Radiation Effects.

Radiation monitoring continues in Japan, and long-term studies are underway.

__________________

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Earthquake, Fukushima, lessons learned, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear events, Publications, Radiation

A Fukushima investigative scorecard

Posted on March 5, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

by Leslie Corrice

Since the Fukushima accident last March, several Japanese investigative groups have been created to try to establish what actually happened. As the number of groups has grown, some confusion has understandably emerged. Here’s a “scorecard” of the five primary Japanese investigative commissions, with a brief description of each.

  • Fukushima Nuclear Accident Investigative Committee This committee is comprised of in-house executives and managers from Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) home office in Tokyo. There are two sub-committees: (1) The “Investigative Committee” has eight members, chaired by Vice President Masao Yamazaki. Few members have actual nuclear engineering or operating experience. Most TEPCO executives are former bureaucrats recruited from the Diet (Japanese parliament). (2) The “Accident Verification Committee” is chaired by Professor Emeritus Genki Yagawa, supported by five university academics and an attorney. All six are unabashed advocates for nuclear energy. Their joint interim report, issued December 2, 2011, admits to insufficient tsunami protection and focuses on the technical aspects of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi. Nearly half of the report is about the Fukushima Daini nuclear power station, 10 km (abotu 6.2 miles) south of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, which essentially survived the tsunami unscathed.
  • The Investigative Committee on the Accidents at Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power Company This “committee” was established by then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan on June 7, 2011. Chaired by Chemistry Professor Yotaro Hatamura, the panel includes three academic administrators, one radiation expert, an attorney, a public prosecutor, a former Sapporo chief justice, one anti-nuclear author, and the mayor of Kawamata town (Fukushima Prefecture). The mayor is a staunch nuclear critic who has said, “I think it was a mistake that this dangerous thing was considered safe.” There are two technical advisers from Japan’s non-nuclear engineering academia. There appears to be no nuclear engineering or operations experience within the membership. The interim report’s executive summary of December 26, 2011, focuses primarily on blaming TEPCO for inadequate tsunami protection and poor information-sharing during the first months after March 11, the government’s inadequate disaster prevention program, and insufficient local community preparation. The committee has no legal power to subpoena or swear in witnesses.
  • Examination Committee on [the] Accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Established by Japan Nuclear Technology Institute (JANTI), this committee is comprised of 19 managers from the nine Japanese utility companies that operate nuclear power plants (excluding TEPCO), five managers and/or division heads from the three prominent reactor technology suppliers in Japan (Toshiba, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi), one safety official from Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited, one nuclear construction manager, and an operations official from JANTI. Operations manager Takeshi Takahashi of TEPCO is an “observer”. This committee’s report on the accident was issued January 25, 2012, containing detailed technical information including accident timelines for each unit, an analysis of accident causes, lessons learned, and recommendations for accident preparedness and operator emergency training. Based on the report’s conclusions, the JANTI committee has recently issued a formal criticism of Kan’s Investigative Committee’s December report, identifying four problems: (1) an accurate picture of the Fukushima accident is not given, (2) an insufficient investigation as to the cause(s) of the accident, (3) insufficient analysis of emergency actions and background, and (4) many proposals are not based on logical analysis and/or do not match reality.
  • The Independent Investigating Commission of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident This group was created on January 2, 2012, by the Japanese Diet under Japanese law and is buoyed by the legal power of the Diet. Witnesses can be sworn in, but only if it is deemed necessary by the group. The commission also has subpoena power. Chaired by Kiyoshi Kurokawa, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, the ~60 members are a mish-mash of politicians, private sector officials, attorneys, and at least one nuclear engineer. This commission is generally viewed as the most politically and ideologically neutral of the bunch. They were the first to “interview” Naoto Kan (former prime minister) on January 16, but unfortunately the session was behind closed doors and there is no formal report on what Kan told the commission members. The commission’s first report is due in late spring.
  • The Independent Investigation Commission of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) This commission is comprised of six academic members headed by attorney Koichi Kitazawa, and includes a former International Atomic Energy Agency official, a prosecutor, a corporate strategist, an economist, and an earth technologist, supported by 30 researchers and lawyers. This group is intended to gather information about the accident and subsequent public protective actions by interviewing the citizens of the Tohoku Region. The group says that it will collect information on all aspects of the situation. RJIF plans to issue a final report on March 11, 2012. There has been virtually no press coverage on the group or its progress.

The least agenda-tainted technical analysis is probably the JANTI commission’s report. Perhaps the commission that might most affect Japan’s nuclear energy issues will be the Diet’s Independent Investigation Committee, because it has the legal weight of the government body behind it to promote the appearance of honest testimony. Which of these groups might best soothe the current state of nationwide nuclear angst is anybody’s guess.

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Corrice

Leslie Corrice is a former Navy ELT (engineering lab technician) with 15 years of commercial nuclear experience, as well as 15 years as a high school teacher/tutor in math and science. Les operates the website http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/, including a popular thrice-weekly posting of Fukushima updates.

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Posted in accident, Earthquake, Fukushima, Irradiation, Natural disasters, Radiation

Priorities for 2012 in Vermont Politics

Posted on January 24, 2012 by lscheele| Comments Off

By Howard Shaffer

Vermont’s “Citizen Legislature” meets from January to May/June. During this term, the major issue is Hurricane Irene and its aftermath. The hurricane caused major devastation, but, thankfully, few lives were lost.

Vermont’s geography of steep mountains and narrow valleys makes heavy rains destructive. Many roads and bridges were washed out during the hurricane.  Homes, trailers, and propane tanks were carried away. Rivers changed courses, which changed some property lines. A few town halls and their records were flooded. Federal disaster assistance and private help were provided. Heroic efforts by citizens restored the roads and bridges by winter, and the economy picked up. Governor Peter Shumlin rightfully acknowledged these efforts in his Vermont State of the State speech.

The Legislature and Governor

Shumlin

The governor is working with a legislature dominated by his Democratic party, 22 to 8 in the Senate and 102 to 48 in the House. In the 2010 election, he credited 14 percent of his vote to the anti-nuclear power/Vermont Yankee vote, in his slim victory margin. An Associated Press local writer wrote a January 17  article “Vermont Settles in To One-Party Government.”

With all the major issues the legislature must face, and with the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s fate in the hands of the federal courts, it might be thought that there would be no time to devote to the “Great Anti-Nuclear Crusade,” local version. Not a chance of that happening in Vermont, however.

Another Lawsuit

The two privately-owned electric utilities in Vermont that are purchasing power from Vermont Yankee are now suing the plant for their extra costs. They claim reimbursement for the replacement power they had to purchase when the plant had to reduce power in 2007 and 2008. One cell in one of two eleven-cell forced draft towers collapsed, and the next year there was a problem with areas that had been repaired.

Vermont Yankee, with the forced draft cooling towers in the foreground.

Apparently, these two companies had no insurance for power lost in these events, nor did their contracts with Vermont Yankee call for reimbursement. The companies say that the contracts did call for “good utility practice.” There was no report of negotiations, or if there is a statute of limitations.

In a change in course, the local AP writer’s story on this lawsuit described how the towers work, and how they use river water. The story finally reports that the infamous picture of the collapsed cell, with water pouring on the debris from the collapse, was leaked to the New England Coalition, an opponent of the plant. The coalition passed the picture to the media, and it is on the internet and used nationally in articles about Vermont Yankee. The plant’s opponents trot it out at every opportunity, and use it in their literature, trumpeting the dangers of nuclear power.

Keeping the Money Flowing

In order to store used fuel in dry casks on its site, Vermont Yankee had to apply to the state’s Public Service Board for a Certificate of Public Good. In the Memorandum of Understanding signed to obtain the certificate, the plant agreed to contribute to the state’s Clean Energy Development Fund. Per the memorandum, the contribution will stop on the date when the plant’s original 40-year license, now extended for 20 years, ends.

Dry cask storage

A new revenue stream is needed. Bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate to tax the used fuel from nuclear power plants stored in the state. Vermont Yankee is the only nuclear plant in the state, and the representative introducing the bill, who chairs the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, is an ardent anti-nuke. It is not likely that he is contemplating any more nuclear plants in the state. If the tax targeted just one entity, however, it is believed it would be found illegally discriminatory.

The House version calls for an annual $2 million per dry cask. It also calls for an equivalent tax on the fuel in the storage pool, determined by a formula. This formula appears to have been originated by someone with limited knowledge of the plant and fuel details, and it is incorrect. It says to “divide $2 million by the volume of a dry cask and multiply by 50 percent.” The text implies this figure would be used to apportion the volume of used fuel in the pool (i.e. multiply by), but this is not in the formula. Engineers would use a logical per fuel assembly basis to easily achieve a correct answer.

Re-greening the Green Mountain State

The House bill taxing used fuel also initiates a “Postclosure Funding Tax” of $25 million per year. This tax starts when the bill becomes law. The purpose of the fund is to restore nuclear plant sites, which are “well-suited for electric generation and transmission” to “greenfield” condition, “without a long delay.” Greenfield is defined as “removal of all above- and below-grade structures, equipment, and foundations.”

The bill assumes decommissioning as required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take place first. It prohibits use of the funds for decommissioning unless all other funds have been exhausted. Just as with decommissioning, funds reimburse activities completed. The fund draws interest, and excess funds are returned to the owners. The tax stops when the Public Service Board determines that greenfield conditions have been met.

It will be interesting to see how the lawsuit and the tax bill fare.

Meanwhile the Vermont Yankee plant has been operating very well.

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Shaffer

Howard Shaffer has been an ANS member for 35 years. He has contributed to ASME and ANS Standards committees, ANS committees, national meeting staffs, and his local section, and was the 2001 ANS Congressional Fellow. He is a current member of the ANS Public Information Committee and consults in nuclear public outreach. 

He is coordinator for the Vermont Pilot Project.  Shaffer holds a BSEE from Duke University and an MSNE from MIT. He is a regular contributor to the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in accident, BWRs, cooling towers, Electricity generating capacity, engineering, Entergy, Fellows, financing, lawsuit, lessons learned, Natural disasters, nuclear opponents, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reactor designs, spent fuel, View from Vermont

Covert bombing kills another Iranian nuclear scientist

Posted on January 19, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

It is the latest in a series of deadly attacks

By Dan Yurman

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, inspects uranium enrichment centrifuges

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, inspects uranium enrichment centrifuges

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran on January 11 by a bomb that was magnetically attached to his car. A driver, who doubles as a body guard, was also killed in the blast.

The scientist was identified as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, age 32, who was a departmental manager at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.

According to media reports, a motorcycle rider and a passenger attached the bomb to the car in heavy morning commuter traffic. The attack occurred at 8:20 AM Tehran time. It is the fifth such attack in the past two years.

The attack came one day after it was reported that that Iran had launched uranium enrichment production at its underground facility at Fordow near the city of Qum. It is reported to be enriching the uranium to 20-percent U235, which is the boundary between commercial use and weapons use. Iran has been making 20-percent enriched uranium at Natanz, about 400 km south of Tehran (250 miles), since February 2010.

In a related development, the Wall Street Journal reported that two days later on January 13 that Iran agreed to allow a high-level team of International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors enter the country on January 28. The delegation will be headed by the agency’s chief weapons inspector, Herman Nackaerts.

It is not clear whether the Iranian government will let the inspectors visit is nuclear sites, underground uranium enrichment facilities, and interview officials that the United Nations agency believes may head a nuclear-weapons program.

The combination of three events occurring within a few days of each other indicates the intensity of the issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear programs.

U.S. denies involvement in blast

In Iran, government officials repeated their accusations that the United States and Israel are responsible for this and prior bombings. Top-level Iranian officials called for revenge.

The Obama administration rejected the accusation and also condemned the murder. In Israel, government officials were said to have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran, but did not say that the nation was directly involved in the most recent attack.

Pattern of prior attacks

Model of uranium hexafluoride (UF6)

The explosion in Tehran this week resembles four others, including two in 2010. It comes on the third anniversary to the day of the killing of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammandi, who also worked on uranium enrichment.

Several of those targeted have been high ranking officials. In a November 2010 attack, two separate car bombs killed Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Shahriari was a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shah Behesti University and did work for the Atomic Energy Organization.

Roshan, who died in the explosion this week, was described as a mid-rank manager in charge of procurement of materials and services for Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

In July 2011, Dariush Rezaeinejad was shot dead by persons unknown.  He worked at K. N. Toosi University of Technology in electrical engineering as well as the Atomic Energy Organization. These are conflicting reports about his connections to Iran’s nuclear energy programs.

The sophistication of these attacks indicates that whomever is carrying them out has an organization chart of key personnel in Iran’s nuclear programs and has tracked specific individuals in terms of where they will be on particular dates.

For instance, Roshan worked on procurement at Natanz, but was killed on his way to an office in Tehran. The attack suggests a long period of undetected intelligence gathering and surveillance of potential targets. It suggests that future bomb attacks may take place.

Other covert attacks on Iran that have delayed its nuclear programs include the Stuxnet worm, which resulted extensive mechanical failures of uranium centrifuges in 2009 and 2010. There are significant clues that point to the likelihood that Israel had involvement in the development of the Stuxnet computer worm.

A devastating explosion on November 12 at the Bid Kaneh missile R&D center killed a high ranking military official in charge of rocket development. Some analysts  have suggested that the explosion at the missile site resulted from an attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).  Iran has since displayed what it says is a U.S. surveillance UAV that it claims it captured after it crashed inside Iran’s borders.

Damaged Iranian missile site. Image: ISIS 11/12/2011

More information from ISIS about this image is available at its home page.

The explosion occurred shortly after Iran reported success with a test of the missile technology. It is seen as a big setback for Iran in terms of its ability to put a nuclear weapon payload on a medium range missile. A rocket with a range of 800 miles would be able to target many major cities in the Middle East.

What’s really going on?

Patrick Clawson, a national security expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the New York Times on January 11 that the covert attacks on Iran’s nuclear scientists appear to have two objectives.

First, they have a chilling effect on the nuclear workforce and they don’t provoke a nationalist reaction in Iran. A military attack from the United States or Israel would surely create one.

Second, Clawson said, “it allows Iran to climb down if it decides the cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon is too high.”

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

Gary Sick, a specialist on Iran at Columbia University, told the newspaper, however, that he does not believe the covert campaign will be effective in stopping Iran from its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Sick said that he thinks “Iran will double down” in its efforts because it enhances their feelings of being under attack by the West.

Charles D. Ferguson of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) told Reuters on January 17 that “such acts of terrorism” are unlikely to significantly delay or deter Tehran’s nuclear work.

“The resulting climate of insecurity feeds ammunition to hardliners in Tehran demanding reprisals,” he said.

U.S. government officials declined to discuss what security measures they will be taking to detect and deter possible retaliatory attacks by Iran on U.S. nuclear scientists. The U.S. Department of Energy is the largest employer of nuclear scientists in the United States, located at dozens of facilities across the country.

In Houston, Tex., this week, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, a medical student who has a long history of speaking out on human rights issues in Iran, was shot dead under mysterious circumstances. Her purse and cell phone were still in her car, which had crashed into a building near her home.

Iran is continuing its threats to block the Straights of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, adding a security premium to the price of oil. This move increases revenue for Iran and imposes costs on the U.S. economy. It is unclear whether or not Iran will actually take any military action, but even a single attack on an oil tanker could send oil prices skyrocketing.

Can Iran make a bomb?

It is also unclear whether Iran has the other capabilities to make a nuclear weapon including the metallurgy, trigger mechanisms, and delivery systems, e.g., missiles with a compact working warhead capable of hitting a specific target 800 miles away.

Diagram of a nuclear weapon using highly enriched uranium

To develop a conventional uranium-based atomic bomb, Iran would have to produce output of about 90-percent U235. Weapons experts say that if Iran wants to produce weapons grade at that level, there is little to stop them, technically speaking, from doing so.

Experts believe that Iran will eventually be able to produce enough weapons grade material to build four or five atomic bombs.  However, at this time, while Iran is enriching uranium to 20%, it isn’t clear that it has moved beyond that point to actually build a bomb.  On Jan 19 the Washington Post reported that the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency said Iran has “the resources and components” to build one.

“If the Iranians get together tonight and decide to secretly develop a bomb, then they have all the resources and components to do so,” Amos Yadlin was quoted Thursday as telling the Maariv daily.

The newspaper added that it was not clear whether Yadlin, who retired in November 2010, was referring to the mechanical elements of a bomb, or that the Iranians have weapons-grade uranium, that is, enriched to 90% U235.

Limited political options

Iran’s political objectives remain unshaken by the bombings of its nuclear scientists. Its clerical leadership is driven by a warped and paranoid world view that is bent on getting the West to recognize its role as a regional power. Unfortunately for Iran, its neighbors in the Middle East are as alarmed about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the United States and western Europe.

There is no workable roadmap at this time to convince Iran to stop its drive to produce a weapon. Ray Takeyh, a senior analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations, wrote in the Washington Post on December 9 that one of the reasons is that Iran’s defiance of Western powers plays well in terms of domestic politics despite the activity of opposition parties. He wrote:

Ray Takeyh, CFR

“A clerical oligarchy trapped in a mind-set conditioned by conspiracies and violent xenophobia paradoxically views both American entreaties and sanctions as an affirmation of its perspective.

Offers of diplomatic dialogue made in respectful terms are seen as indications of Western weakness and embolden the regime to sustain its intransigence.

Conversely, coercive measures are viewed as American plots to not just disarm the Islamic Republic, but also to undermine its rule. Armed with the ultimate weapon, the Islamists think, they may yet compel the West to concede to Iran’s regional aggrandizement.”

While the U.N. Security Council has imposed four rounds of economic sanctions against Iran for enrichment work, its members are divided on next steps. There is general agreement that enrichment to 20 percent exceeds the country’s civilian needs, since Russia is providing the fuel for Iran’s Bushehr commercial nuclear reactor.

Finding a path to bring Iran back into predictable diplomatic relations and to stand down from its pursuit of a weapons program remains a major challenge.

_______________

Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in accident, Department of Energy, IAEA, Iran uranium enrichment, National Laboratories, News, Nuclear events, PWRs, reactor designs, Russia

Nuclear News and the new year

Posted on January 17, 2012 by rmichal| Comments Off

The January issue of Nuclear News magazine is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (must enter ANS user name and password in Member Center). The issue contains the following stories:

  • The year ahead: This time for sure? by E. Michael Blake
  • 2012 Preview: Impact of Fukushima Daiichi on global prospects for nuclear, by Dick Kovan
  • 10-year D&D program under way at Zion plant, by Rick Michal
  • The index to 2011 Nuclear News content

There is also an in-depth report on the 2011 ANS Winter Meeting, along with side coverage of two topicals at the meeting: the first ANS Small Modular Reactor conference, and the Young Professionals Congress 2011 meeting.

Other news in the January issue:  NRC commissioner Jaczko votes to publish AP1000 certification final rule; revised emergency plan rule published in final form; study sees potential for small modular reactors to compete with gas-fired generation; is yellow inspection finding at Oconee an old design issue? Davis-Besse restart allowed while concrete studies continue; special inspection at Brunswick; NRC takes no significant action on four petitions; a status report on license renewal and power uprates; Fukushima-related motions in licensing proceedings continue to be denied; Levy site tour, limited statements scheduled; power reactor stress tests in the European Union said to be on track; European Union proposes additional €500 million to close Soviet-era reactors; fuel loading begins at Canada’s long-idled Bruce-1; Vietnam’s pact with Japan upheld, and new pact made with South Korea; three sites on short list for Poland’s first nuclear plant; United Kingdom chooses reuse as MOX to manage plutonium stock; nuclear research center opens in West Cumbria; and much more.

Past issues of Nuclear News are available here.

______________________

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Department of Energy, Earthquake, Education, engineering, Environmental Benefits of Nuclear, Fukushima, IAEA, knowledge transfer, lessons learned, Meetings, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Nuclear Literacy Project, Nuclear News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, PWRs, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, spent fuel, Vietnam

“Waste Management” in Nuclear News

Posted on November 15, 2011 by rmichal| Comments Off

The November issue of Nuclear News magazine, which contains a special section on waste management, is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (must enter ANS user name and password in Member Center). The special section contains the following stories:

  • What will we do with it all? by Ed Batts
  • Coupling repositories with fuel cycles, by Charles Forsberg
  • What does 1 million years mean to a regulator? by Edward D. Blandford, Robert J. Budnitz, and Rodney C. Ewing
  • Robert Sindelar: Extended spent fuel storage, interview by Rick Michal

The issue also contains a feature article on the inaugural ANS “live” webinar, with Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Gregory Jaczko as guest; and a report on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 55th General Conference.

Other news in the November issue: A Government Accountability Office report states that United States has limited ability to secure nuclear material overseas; the world’s largest open-air nuclear storage pool moves toward decommissioning; a site is chosen for Finland’s seventh power reactor; startup testing for Argentina’s Atucha-2 power reactor. is launched; Vietnam awards contract for power reactor feasibility study to Japan Atomic Power Company; Fluor, GE Hitachi sign memorandum of understanding for proposed power reactors in Poland; Cameco signs mining, milling deal; Areva’s Eagle Rock enrichment plant receives NRC license; the Department of Energy gives grants for nuclear-related university research and development, infrastructure.; Areva launches “learning tour” for partner and customer company employees; NRC commissioners conduct mandatory hearing for Vogtle-3 and -4; spent fuel pool instrumentation, Mark II containment venting added to NRC staff’s near-term post-Fukushima actions; NRC finds no vital quake damage at North Anna, but shutdown continues; public support for nuclear power lower than before Fukushima, but a majority still in favor; foreign control contention added to South Texas-3 and -4 hearing process; and more.

Past issues of Nuclear News are available here.

______________

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Department of Energy, Earthquake, Education, Fukushima, India, knowledge transfer, National Laboratories, News, Nuclear News, Radwaste Solutions, spent fuel, Yucca Mountain