Category Archives: Earthquake

by E. Michael Blake

For a while in the early 1990s, my work at Nuclear News magazine included coverage of Washington, D.C. Eight or ten times a year, I’d spend two or three days in our nation’s capital, attending congressional hearings, interviewing bigwigs, pestering agencies to give me copies of arcane documents, and frantically taking notes in public meetings at the headquarters of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Two decades later, much of that scurrying around is no longer necessary, in large part because many NRC meetings can be accessed by phone or internet. This is fortunate, because in recent months the commissioners and staffers have held several public sessions of substantial importance, and this reporter has been able to watch them from his office as a normal workday activity (reducing both the cost to the American Nuclear Society and the travel-related aggravation of the reporter).

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2002

Many of the high-profile meetings this year have had to do with the NRC’s effort to learn from the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, or with the first few new reactor projects to reach the brink of receiving combined construction and operating licenses (COL). Nuclear News does not have room, nor do its readers likely have time, for all of what goes on at all of these events.

Here at the ANS Nuclear Cafe, however, it may be possible from time to time to mention isolated moments that don’t make it through to detailed coverage in the magazine. Because Fukushima Daiichi and new reactors will remain important issues for quite a while, it seems safe to conclude that this sort of webcast sampling will become a series here on the blog. And so it begins:

Jaczko

• In an August 30 commission meeting on the development of inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance criteria (ITAAC) for new power reactors, Chairman Gregory Jaczko stated early on that he had previously not looked closely at any ITAACs, and that he found the first one that he’d read carefully to be “surprisingly vague,” and that he didn’t think this “bodes well for our ability to work through these issues.”

Jaczko returned to the point often during the meeting. The ITAAC concerned the waterproof membranes and mudmats for the nuclear island foundations at Southern Nuclear Operating Company’s Vogtle-3 and -4; Jaczko asked whether the ITAAC’s statement—that the mudmat’s coefficient of friction will be tested—describes adequately what will be done by the applicant, how it would be examined by the NRC, and what would have to happen next if the goal is not met.

The chairman’s statements contrasted with the presentation of Laura Dudes, director of the division of construction inspection and operational programs in the agency’s Office of New Reactors, who said in her prepared remarks that ITAACs are a “good news story,” but later conceded (as did other speakers from the staff) that not all ITAACs thus far have been written as clearly and as objectively as perhaps they should have been; the staffers said that they’d work on this some more. Dudes did affirm, however, that every aspect of the work covered by an ITAAC would be inspected against the plant’s licensing basis, so there would not be an issue of the NRC not fulfilling its mission or allowing any unsafe practices to exist.

• Both the NRC and the Nuclear Energy Institute have recently referred to being guided, in their efforts to learn lessons from Fukushima Daiichi and to respond accordingly, by “living documents.” On the charter proposed for the NRC’s Long-Term Task Force on the accident in Japan, the staff told the commissioners in an August 26 paper that the charter would “live” in the sense that the staff would change it as needed, if information gleaned from the recovery of Fukushima Daiichi indicated that different lines of inquiry should be pursued. During a September 21 meeting with NRC staffers, industry representatives said that their own guidance document, titled The Way Forward, is intended to “live” as well, and for essentially the same reason: to keep open all options until after the damaged reactors have reached cold shutdown and more detailed examinations can be carried out by Japanese experts.

Apostolakis

• On September 14, the staff briefed the commissioners on the latter’s request for input on which of the recommendations from the Near-Term Task Force (NTTF) report on the Fukushima Daiichi accident should be acted upon without delay. One of the proposed actions is for information requests to be sent to current power reactor licensees to develop and carry out seismic and flooding walkdowns at their reactors. Commissioner George Apostolakis looked at the request for licensees to develop acceptance criteria for the process, and asked, “Don’t we know how to do walkdowns?” Martin Virgilio, NRC deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs, replied, “I would have thought so until I had a discussion with Jack Grobe,” a member of the NTTF. Because the walkdowns will be related to response to events beyond a reactor’s design basis, acceptance criteria must be developed and agreed upon by the licensee and the NRC, before these walkdowns can be carried out.

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Blake

E. Michael Blake is a senior editor of the American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear News magazine.

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Earthquake, Fukushima, knowledge transfer, lessons learned, Meetings, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reactor designs, U.S. Congress

ANS webinar with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko a success

Posted on October 6, 2011 by dyurman| 3 Comments

A collaborative effort between the American Nuclear Society and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission resulted in a successful 90-minute webinar on nuclear safety issues on October 4.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko (right) talks to ANS moderator Dan Yurman (left) at the Oct 4 webinar. Photo: Clark Communications

More than 60 people signed on to the webinar session when it started at 11 a.m. (Eastern time), and more than 40 were still with it when the event ended 90 minutes later. According to the NRC, another 15 people listened in through a toll-free 800 telephone number.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko took questions during the live, unscripted session on a wide range of topics including Yucca mountain, new reactor design reviews, and the NRC’s response to the Fukushima crisis.

Laura Scheele, ANS manager of Policy & Communication, noted that this was a first-of-a-kind effort by the two organizations. The project began last summer when NRC Public Affairs Chief Eliot Brenner approached ANS about the webinar idea.

“The ANS elected officers green-lighted the webinar as an opportunity for ANS to provide a virtual forum for ANS members and other nuclear professionals to ask NRC Chairman Jackzo about important nuclear energy issues,” said Scheele.

Webinar challenges

As the project took shape, the NRC agreed with Scheele that two separate sessions were needed—one for pro-nuclear bloggers and one for anti-nuclear organizations. Scheele also insisted, and the NRC agreed, that the moderator could ask follow-up questions. About a third of the questions asked were of the follow-up type.

While webinars are well-understood mechanisms in the high-tech industry, this was the NRC’s first experience with the process. There were a fair number of questions facing the organizations sponsoring the event. For instance, would nuclear bloggers agree to send in questions ahead of time? Would enough people sign up for the webinar to make it worthwhile?

The NRC chairman has been a lightning rod for controversy over his actions regarding Yucca Mountain. It was thought that some people who disagreed with the chairman’s actions might ask questions that went beyond the boundaries of civil discourse.

In the end, the print-out of questions submitted in advance was more than five pages long. Several overlapping questions were combined to make effective use of limited time.

While many of the questions were asked, and answered, many others—some highly technical—will be answered on the NRC blog. In addition, the NRC has posted a podcast of the webinar, a video, and a complete transcript (see links below).

Jaczko was pleasant, conversational, and well prepared for the session. He invested a lot of time in the event both before it and during the a 90-minute live, unscripted session. The result “exceeded all expectations,” the NRC’s Eliot Brenner told the New York Times.

Question highlights

In particular, Jaczko was asked about his congressional testimony on March 16 that Fukushima’s spent fuel pool at reactor #4 had lost much of its water and was a major source of high levels of radiation being released into the environment.

In response, he said, “The lesson we take from this is that we need adequate instrumentation to monitor the pools.”

In response to another series of questions about management of spent fuel, he said that dry cask storage is good for at least 60 years. He dismissed the idea of creating a single interim storage site for spent fuel, saying that it was safe to continue to store at reactor sites until a permanent solution could be found. Asked if the NRC could license a spent fuel processing facility today, Jaczko said technically that the NRC isn’t ready to review that kind of application.

On the subject of small modular reactors, Jaczko said that the NRC is comfortable reviewing designs based on conventional light water reactor technology.

Asked what keeps him awake at night, Jaczko said the fear is that there is some unknown factor that is being missed in the agency’s safety analysis of a situation at a reactor or in a license application.

The webinar questions were moderated by Dan Yurman, a nuclear energy blogger. He is a member of ANS and serves on the ANS Public Information Committee.

Links to NRC Video, Audio, and Transcript

Transcript – large PDF file
Audio – MP3 file format
Video – MPEG4 file format

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Posted in accident, American Nuclear Society, Department of Energy, Earthquake, Fukushima, general media, lessons learned, News, nuclear opponents, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Small modular reactors, spent fuel, Yucca Mountain

We Were Once Terrified of Fire, Too

Posted on October 5, 2011 by pbowersox| 22 Comments

By Steven B. Krivit

The discovery of fire a million years ago must have been terrifying to cave men and women. Since that time, many people have died and much damage to the earth has occurred as a result of chemical energy released through fire. Nevertheless, that chemical energy found its place in the world, providing great benefits, and most people take it for granted.

In stark contrast, humankind began to develop and use nuclear energy less than a hundred years ago. In 2010, nuclear energy provided 13.5 percent of worldwide electricity.

On March 11, 2011, several of the Fukushima-Daiichi, Japan, nuclear power plants were damaged from a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a 14 meter tsunami. The event dominated headlines and, with help from the mass media, re-sparked the public’s fears of nuclear radiation. Fifteen thousand people died as a direct result of the earthquake and tsunami. Nobody died from radiation exposure. Yet no governments have called for a moratorium on coastal development. However, some have on nuclear energy.

Some people wrongly believe that radiation has no place in a safe and healthy world. Yet radiation has always been around us. It comes from a variety of natural sources, and it is widely used in medicine.

The difference between radiation levels that pose a significant health risk and radiation levels that pose negligible or no risks has everything to do with emission rate, concentration, dispersion, distance from, and duration of exposure. Other key factors include the unique properties of each isotope, such as how it affects the body and how long it remains radioactive.

In light of the public’s fear, examining how nuclear energy has fared in terms of safety and environment is useful. Chemical energy and hydroelectric energy have caused their share of environmental damage and deaths.

The undercurrent of fear affects all matters related to this industry. It must be addressed. Doing so requires examining the risks and consequences of nuclear energy and comparing it to other energy technologies, for none is perfect.

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident – by far the worst – is most instructive. In 2006, the Chernobyl Forum published an authoritative analysis of the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of Chernobyl.

The report concluded that 31 emergency workers died as a direct consequence of their response to the Chernobyl accident. The Forum was unable to reliably assess the precise number of fatalities by radiation exposure. The best it was able to do was speculate based on the experience of other populations exposed to radiation. By 2002, 15 deaths were reported from among 4,000 people exposed to radiation and diagnosed with thyroid cancer. These data are in stark contrast to a number of other poorly referenced sources which have speculated on large numbers of radiation-related deaths from Chernobyl.

Clearly, the fears about nuclear energy are based on perceptions, imagined or engineered, and not on the consequences of actual events.

For example, in August 1975, the Banqiao hydroelectric dam in western Henan province, China, failed as a result of Typhoon Nina, 180,000 people died. Another example is that 1 billion gallons of oil from 21 disasters have been spilled in the oceans since 1967. A third example is that, in Nigeria, on Oct. 18, 1998, a natural gas pipeline explosion took the lives of 1,082 people.

Members of the public would benefit from scrutinizing the comparative safety and track record of clean, emission-free nuclear energy. The nuclear industry would benefit by helping the public learn the basic concepts and principles of nuclear technology. Nuclear energy can help achieve quality of life for those who don’t have it and help sustain it for those who do.

Steven B. Krivit is the senior editor of New Energy Times, an online magazine specializing in low-energy nuclear reaction research. He also is the editor-in-chief of the 2011 Wiley and Sons Nuclear Energy Encyclopedia.

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Posted in Chernobyl, Earthquake, Economic benefits of nuclear, Education, Fukushima, Natural disasters, Radiation

September 2011 Nuclear News is online

Posted on September 19, 2011 by rmichal| Comments Off

The September issue of Nuclear News 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 a variety of features, including:

An interview with Cliff Hamal, of Navigant Economics, on the expected cost increase in the coming decades of storing spent nuclear fuel at retired reactor sites.
A look at the Blue Ribbon Commission’s draft recommendations for spent fuel management.
Insights from the Fukushima Daiichi accident: Comments on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s near-term task force report.
An in-depth review of ANS’s 2011 annual meeting, which was held in Hollywood, Fla.

Hanford workers load a mixed LLW container onto a shipping platform.

Other news items in the September issue deal with: an NRC staff memo that addresses small modular reactor staffing issues; the summer heat that led to power level reductions at nuclear power plants; the commercial start of Watts Bar-2 being officially delayed until 2013; the NRC’s extending the time to apply for NFPA 805 amendments; the seismic studies scheduled for Diablo Canyon’s license renewal; the draft environmental impact statement issued for Seabrook’s renewal; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, European Commission teaming up to enhance security; first applications submitted for new reactor construction in United Kingdom; U.K. energy market reforms aim to attract nuclear investment; Sellafield MOX fuel plant closing as demand dips; Japan’s prime minister’s call for a nuclear phaseout; the arrival of the world’s first AP1000 reactor pressure vessel in China; the tsunami countermeasures planned for Japan’s Hamaoka nuclear station; India’s signing of a cooperation agreement with South Korea; the completion of a retubing project at South Korea’s Wolsong-1; the Department of Energy beating of deadlines for dealing with transuranic and mixed waste at the Hanford Site; investors extend deadline for USEC to obtain a DOE loan guarantee for the American Centrifuge Plant; the DOE awards $39 million for university-led nuclear R&D; 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, Meetings, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Publications, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, spent fuel

An Interesting Summer!

Posted on September 13, 2011 by rmichal| 1 Comment

By Howard Shaffer

Entergy, the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant (VY), has sued the state of Vermont in federal court. At the same time, VY is the subject of a suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in which intervenors claim that VY does not have a discharge permit required by the Clean Water Act.

This summer, VY also experienced the discovery of a fish with strontium-90; tritium (as tritiated water) detected at the edge of the Connecticut River; an earthquake; and a hurricane!

Vermont Yankee received a 20-year extension of its license from the NRC in March. (It received its license the day before Fukishima, as I recall.)

Vermont Yankee

The plant, however, does not have the state’s permission to operate. Entergy sued the state, claiming that the state is illegally trying to block operation of the plant beyond the end of its original 40-year license. The plant also filed for an injunction to prevent the state from acting to stop the plant while the lawsuit is in court. The injunction was turned down. The plant could be closed down while the lawsuit is in court. Would Entergy order new fuel for Vermont Yankee? Yes, and in fact the plant ordered new fuel for its upcoming outage.

But, as usual in Vermont, there is more than the lawsuit going on.

The Water Permit: Several intervenor groups have sued the NRC, claiming that the plant’s license extension was illegal, because the plant does not have the required state-issued discharge permit allowing use of the Connecticut River water for cooling. Regulations require that the NRC make sure that an applicant has all required licenses and permits before issuing a license or a license extension. The NRC and VY have said in the press that they have what is required through the current permit. One press report said that the current permit has no expiration date on it. I’ll let the lawyers and judges hash this one out. It’s “too much” for a mere engineer to figure out, that they are suing because the two sides have differing opinions on what is required, after a five-year license renewal process!

Shumlin

The Strontium Fish:One fish, taken as a control for plant monitoring, was caught nine miles upstream from the plant. It was found to have strontium-90 in its flesh. Governor Peter Shumlin immediately sent a letter to the plant, asking it to increase the number of monitoring wells. The letter was, of course, released to the press. It implied that the plant was somehow at fault. The next day at a press conference, Shumlin backed down, and his own Department of Health publicly disagreed with him. Finally, Shumlin asked for more frequent sampling of fish. As the head of the Department of Health said at the press conference while standing next to Shumlin, testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, which ended in the 1960s, is responsible for radioactive strontium in the world’s environment.

The Tritium in the River: Tritiated water was detected at just above the minimum detectable on the river shore alongside VY. Given the below-grade leak that occurred, and the use of monitoring and extraction wells, a low-level plume was expected to eventually reach the river. From reports, the sample was collected with a hose, apparently to prevent any dilution. Of course, it was an issue in the press, and plant opponents acted as if the “sky is falling,” for the umpteenth time. The state of New Hampshire’s samples did not detect any tritium.

The Earthquake Monitor: Then came the earthquake, centered in Virginia. It was felt in Vermont, and in Vernon, VY’s location. The plant’s seismic detector did not alarm, and it was so reported to the press. The plant kept on operating. Opponents were quick to imagine that the detector wasn’t working. Several days later, the local paper, the Brattleboro Reformer, contacted a geology professor who said that structures built on bedrock, such as the VY plant, would experience less shock than those built on soils that transmit the secondary earthquake wave. So the earthquake would have been felt at VY, but the shock would not have been enough to set off the alarm.

The Hurricane: Hurricane/tropical storm Irene wreaked havoc on the state of Vermont, as is being reported nationally. The governor had not declared a state of emergency before the storm, and was questioned about this on national television news (CBS). In truth, the only way to deal with the amount of water that fell would have been to have evacuated large sections of towns along rivers. The raging torrents could not have been controlled, nor could the damage have been prevented, or even minimized. When questioned about the VY plant and radioactive materials during the hurricane, the governor said, “We are in good hands.” (See Yes Vermont Yankee for video and transcript.)

Shumlin did, of course, repeat that this did not mean that the “old and leaky plant should not still shut down in March.”

Through all this, the plant has run without anything internal (no power-downs, no outages) to get it in the news.

Seabrook

Direct Action by Plant Opponents: The opponents scheduled a workshop at the Norwich Congregational Church, which fell on the Sunday that Hurricane Irene hit Vermont. The workshop was for those who want to take direct action against VY, and was sponsored by the Clamshell Alliance. The alliance originally formed to oppose the Seabrook nuclear power plant, and sponsored occupation of the site, and held rallies, and climbed fences. The alliance wound up with a contempt of court citation in New Hampshire, and went underground. The group plans a weekend camp in early September for “direct action training.”

The Trial: The three-day trial on the VY-Vermont lawsuit begins September 12.

Opponents prepare for fall and winter: Other opponents have a fund-raising concert on September 17. The opponents have held a few public meetings through the spring and summer on decommissioning, and are preparing action in the event that the plant continues in operation. The opponents also plan to be active in the legislature when it convenes in January.

On August 30, it was announced that the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will inspect the VY plant after the hurricane, and inspect the area to ensure that evacuation routes are clear. The state’s Emergency Management Agency has said the plant is okay.

Stay tuned!

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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 Earthquake, Education, Entergy, lawsuit, News, Nuclear Advocacy Network, nuclear opponents, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Radiation, training, View from Vermont

Japan’s search for nuclear export deals

Posted on September 1, 2011 by dyurman| 2 Comments

The hunt is on in Vietnam, Turkey, and elsewhere

By Dan Yurman

Yoshihiko Noda, new prime minister of Japan (Photo: Wikipedia)

The Japanese government, in close cooperation with some of the nation’s largest heavy industrial manufacturers, is seeking to export Japan’s nuclear technologies, products, and services despite the loss of six reactors on March 11 to a combination of a record earthquake and massive tsunami. The replacement of Prime Minister Naoto Kan with 54-year-old Yoshihiko Noda, a career politician and the current finance minister, may play a key role in achieving success.

Prime Minister Kan ended his term with a strong call for the nation to retreat from dependence on nuclear energy. At one point he also tried to shut down efforts to continue exports even though he had played a leading role inking a deal with Vietnam in October 2010 for two reactors.

When this policy tilt became apparent on August 5, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano prevailed on Kan to back off. The country’s industrial exports are needed to pay for its lack of agricultural self sufficiency, and it depends on high value deals like new reactors. According to the Wall Street Journal, Japan produces only 40 percent of the food it needs to feed its population. Basic economics demands that the country sell finished goods abroad to pay for food imports at home.

The problem of supplying the baseload power for manufacturing at home remains a major issue. Platts reported that as of September 1, 2011, only 11 (10 GWe) of Japan’s 54 (49 GWe) reactors were operating. The rest were closed for maintenance and safety checks. While some have completed those tasks, provincial officials are adamant about not letting them restart without assurances that they are safe. Politics, not technology, is pushing the country’s electric utilities into plans for rolling brownouts and possible blackouts.

Noda has said that the stable supply of electricity is the lifeblood of the economy. A combination of arm twisting and economic incentives may convince provincial officials to relent. Jobs associated with nuclear exports may be one of the tools in Noda’s hands. As a result, it appears that in addition to getting the reactors back online, the government is also focused on the multi-billion yen needed to build new reactors overseas.

For now, a key factor in Japan’s favor is that Japan Steel Works (JSW) is one of the world’s few companies capable of producing large forgings for new nuclear reactor pressure vessels. However, the multi-year backlog of orders has made the work an attractive target.

Mitsubishi plans to build its own large forgings plant so that it won’t have to wait in line at JSW. International competition comes from South Korea and Russia. The United Kingdom is said to be planning a large forgings plant, as is India. Both countries should be able to produce them within the next five years if their respective governments provide the necessary financial support.

Vietnam deal back on the front burner

Prior to the March 11 events, Japan had inked a deal with Vietnam to build two of its planned eight 1000-MW reactors. Japan has been training Vietnamese nuclear engineers for years in preparation for the project. Japan, however, is in second place in Vietnam when it comes to nuclear deals. Russia is building the first two plants and will provide all of the fuel for them as well as taking back the spent fuel at the end of each cycle.

Talks with Vietnam to execute the provisions of the deal and begin construction will restart this month. Government officials from both countries are scheduled to meet September 8 and 9 in Tokyo to layout project plans.

For its part, Vietnam pronounced itself happy the deal is back on the table. Vietnam’s ambassador to Japan Nguyen Phu Binh told the Manichi News on August 31 that he wants to see construction get underway in his country’s southern province of Ninh Thuan. He told the Manichi News, “I believe Japan will use the [Fukushima] crisis to learn important lessons and develop great technology.”

Turkey swaps negotiating tables, but keeps talking

Japan has been involved in off-and-on negotiations with Turkey to build that nation’s second nuclear power station at Sinop, some 440 miles east of Istanbul on the Black Sea coast. Paradoxically, Turkey’s first nuclear power station, a 4.8 GWe monster, is being built by the Russians at Mersin, about 600 miles southeast of Istanbul on the country’s Mediterranean coast. The Sinop site will be a similar size in terms of power generation capacity.

One would have thought that in terms of delivery of large components by sea, Turkey would put the Russians on the Black Sea and the Japanese on the Mediterranean, but that’s not how it worked out. The Japanese were never in the running for the first tender, which went to the Russians as the sole bidder.

Toshiba was involved in the first round of negotiations for the second site with Turkey last December, with TEPCO as its partner. Since March 11, that bid team has had to withdraw. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is now taking a crack at closing a deal by teaming up with Kansai Electric. It turns out that Turkey wants pressurized water technology, which makes Kansai a competent competitor due to its operational experience with this type of reactor in Japan.

The Toshiba/TEPCO team also withdrew from the South Texas Project in the United States, forcing NRG to stop all work on the development of twin 1350-MW ABWR reactors at a site south of Houston, Tex.

Lithuania looms in the future

Meanwhile, Hitachi, another industrial giant, is negotiating to build new reactors in Lithuania. Last July, Hitachi President Hiroaki Nakanishi said while traveling to promote the sale that his view is that the demand for new reactors will remain steady in foreign markets over the long-term. He noted that winning deals requires help from the government. There are opportunities for new reactors, fuel, operations and maintenance, and reprocessing of spent fuel.

The Russians view Lithuania as their provincial backyard and may put up a stiff fight to win the project. A similar battle is expected over the Czech Republic’s five-reactor Temelin new build, where Toshiba is competing against the Russians and Areva.

Middle East opportunities?

An interesting development is that Hitachi told Kyodo News in July that the company will keep to its goals for developing new nuclear reactor business in Asia and the Middle East, despite fears that the Fukushima crisis might deter some nations from going in this direction.

The business plan was drawn up prior to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The company says it sees no reason to change it.

Tatsuro Ishizuka, Hitachi vice president for business development, told the news service on July 20 that the company hopes to get orders for 20 new reactors in Asia and the Middle East.

“We will give priorities to negotiations with India, Vietnam, the U.S., and other countries with growing energy demand,” he said.

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is reported to be planning to build 16 nuclear reactors by 2030, with the first two operational by 2021. According to wire service reports, it plans to have 20 percent of its electricity come from nuclear reactors.

Forgoing uranium enrichment to fuel them would help tamp down the Middle East’s volatile politics by preventing the massive nuclear new build from setting off an arms race with other countries.

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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 Areva, Earthquake, Economic benefits of nuclear, Electricity generating capacity, Export Control, Fukushima, India, Japan Steel Works, Natural disasters, News, reactor designs, Russia, spent fuel, Spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, Vietnam

Fukushima on Young Members’ agenda

Posted on August 30, 2011 by rmichal| 2 Comments

By Elia Merzari

The American Nuclear Society’s Young Members Group, with the help of ANS’s Nuclear Installation Safety Division, is organizing a panel session at the Young Professionals Congress (an embedded topical at the 2011 ANS Winter Meeting) on the history of severe nuclear accidents.

A primary focus for the YMG is the transfer of knowledge, and this session will provide unique perspectives from individuals involved in the world’s most prominent nuclear events. The lessons learned from these front-line individuals will be invaluable for the new generation of workers in the nuclear power industry.

Before the events at Fukushima in Japan, the most recent severe accident took place more than 25 years ago at Chernobyl, making it reasonable for younger people to have a slim perspective on the impacts of severe events. In addition, young members may have a limited knowledge of past accidents and certainly won’t have direct personal experience. The panel session at the winter meeting will focus on the lessons learned from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and how these events have profoundly shaped our understanding of severe accidents. In particular, this session will also address how these lessons have been applied to the response to Fukushima.

With the help of Alan Levin, of Areva, we are able to bring together notable panelists who will tackle the issues from different perspectives:

Michael Corradini (University of Wisconsin, ANS Special Committee on Fukushima and ANS vice president/president-elect) will give a brief summary on the conclusions drawn by the ANS special committee.
Masanori Naitoh (Institute of Applied Energy, Japan) will discuss in detail the event sequence at Fukushima, and address the very important question, “Why did such a catastrophe occur, even after the lessons learned from TMI and Chernobyl?”
Dana Powers (Sandia National Laboratory) and Joy Rempe (Idaho National Laboratory) will discuss what was learned from TMI and Chernobyl. Powers also will discuss the history of the source term in the TMI accident, while Rempe will address insights from TMI’s accident progression. Rempe’s presentation will include videos related to the events immediately following the accident and the relocated debris and damaged internal structures within the TMI-2 vessel.
Brian Sheron (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) will discuss the regulator perspective on severe accidents with a focus on recent events.

We hope that you will attend this session at the 2011 Young Professionals Congress, scheduled in the morning on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011, at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington DC.

Merzari

Elia Merzari is the current YMG secretary. He works as a nuclear engineer at Argonne National Laboratory, where his research interests include nuclear thermal-hydraulics, modeling and simulation of nuclear reactors, and accelerator driven systems.
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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Areva, Earthquake, Education, Fukushima, knowledge transfer, lessons learned, Meetings, National Laboratories, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear Energy Narrative, nuclear opponents, training, workforce, Young Members Group

Safe shutdown achieved at Dominion’s North Anna site following 5.8 magnitude earthquake

Posted on August 24, 2011 by dyurman| Comments Off

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake (USGS data) shook much of the east coast at 1:51 PM eastern time today. Dominion’s North Anna reactors went off line safely and are on emergency power using four diesel generators. (See full text of NRC press release below)

The epicenter was reported the U.S. Geological Survey to be near Mineral, VA, (map) about 15 miles from the plant at a depth of about four miles below the surface. An aftershock was reported in the area at a magnitude of 2.8 on the Richter scale soon after.

Dominion reported its reactors shut down safely as a result of a loss of off-site power. The utility declared an “unusual event” to the NRC. The Wall Street Journal reported that the power loss was caused by problems in the reactor’s switch yard.

“Jim Norvelle, director of media relations for Dominion Resources Inc., operator of the North Anna plant, said its workers inspected the switch yard, through which electricity enters and leaves the installation, and believe problems there caused the nuclear plant to lose access to grid power. When the plant lost access to grid power, it automatically shut down.”

“We did lose on-site power, but all the diesel generators are up and running,” Dominion spokesman Richard Zuercher said 30 minutes after the quake. “Everything appears to be operating just fine.” Dominion is providing real time updates via its Twitter feed. @DomVAPower The first official press release from Dominion repeats this information.

NBC Nightly News reported at 18:45 HRs that one of the four emergency diesel generators did not start. Bloomberg Wire service reported one of the four diesel generators stopped working after startup, David McIntyre, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an e-mail.

Zuercher said North Anna’s operators were preparing to manually shut down the units after the quake when the power station’s operating system automatically powered down both units.

Zuercher told local reporters that diesel generators started as expected to maintain cooling. Dominion’s two-unit Surry nuclear power plant, also in the region, was not affected and continues to operate. Reuters reports that Dominion’s two reactors at its Surry plant in Gravel, VA, continue to operate normally.

Twelve other reactors in the northeast that measured earthquake effects also reported them to the NRC, but none of them shut down. None of them reactors reported any damage from the earthquake.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah told wire services the agency was not immediately aware of any damage at nuclear power plants in the southeast. The NRC reported that all other nuclear reactors in the northeast continued to operate normally.

The North Anna site is composed of two Westinghouse PWR units that generate approximately 1,800 MW of power.

Unit 1 began commercial operation in June, 1978 and Unit 2 followed in December 1980.

NRC Press Release 2011 08 23; issued 16:45 HRS eastern time, updated at 17:57 HRs

NRC MONITORING ALERT AT NORTH ANNA
FOLLOWING VIRGINIA EARTHQUAKE
No. 11-153
August 23, 2011

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission headquarters in Rockville, Md., is monitoring an Alert at the North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia, following today’s earthquake in central Virginia. The NRC is also monitoring Unusual Events, the lowest emergency classification, declared at several other Eastern U.S. nuclear power plants. In accordance with agency procedures, the NRC’s regional offices in King of Prussia, Pa., and Atlanta have activated their incident response centers. NRC resident inspectors at the affected nuclear power plants will continue to monitor conditions for the duration of the event.

North Anna declared its Alert, the second-lowest of the NRC’s four emergency classifications, when the plant lost electricity from the grid following the quake just before 2 p.m. Tuesday. Power is being provided by onsite diesel generators and the plant’s safety systems are operating normally. Plant personnel and NRC resident inspectors are continuing to examine plant conditions.

NRC staff in the Maryland headquarters felt the quake and immediately began checking with U.S. nuclear power plants. The NRC is in direct communications with North Anna and is coordinating its response with other federal agencies.

Nuclear power plants are built to withstand environmental hazards, including earthquakes. Even those plants that are located outside of areas with extensive seismic activity are designed for safety in the event of such a natural disaster. The NRC requires that safety-significant structures, systems, and components be designed to take into account the most severe natural phenomena historically reported for the site and surrounding area.

Plants declaring Unusual Events, which indicate a potential decrease in plant safety, include Peach Bottom, Three Mile Island, Susquehanna and Limerick in Pennsylvania; Salem, Hope Creek and Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, Surry in Virginia, Shearon Harris in North Carolina and D.C. Cook and Palisades in Michigan. All these plants continue to operate while plant personnel examine their sites.

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