Category Archives: Fukushima

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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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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2012 ~ The year that was in nuclear energy

Posted on December 6, 2012 by dyurman| 5 Comments

Plus a few pointers to what’s in store for 2013

By Dan Yurman

Former NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo

On a global scale the nuclear industry had its share of pluses and minuses in 2012. Japan’s Fukushima crisis continues to dominate any list of the top ten nuclear energy issues for the year. (See more below on Japan’s mighty mission at Fukushima.)

In the United States, while the first new nuclear reactor licenses in three decades were issued to four reactors, the regulatory agency that approved them had a management meltdown that resulted in the noisy departure of Gregory Jazcko, its presidentially appointed chairman. His erratic tenure at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cast doubt on its effectiveness and tarnished its reputation as one of the best places to work in the federal government.

Iran continues its uranium enrichment efforts

The year also started with another bang, and not the good kind, as new attacks on nuclear scientists in Iran brought death by car bombs. In July, western powers enacted new sanctions on Iran over its uranium enrichment program. Since 2011, economic sanctions have reduced Iran’s oil exports by 40 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In late November, the U.S. Senate approved a measure expanding the economic sanctions that have reduced Iran’s export earnings from oil production. Despite the renewed effort to convince Iran to stop its uranium enrichment effort, the country is pressing ahead with it. Talks between Iran and the United States and western European nations have not made any progress.

Nukes on Mars

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover is a scientific and engineering triumph.

Peaceful uses of the atom were highlighted by NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover, which executed a flawless landing on the red planet in August with a nuclear heartbeat to power its science mission. Data sent to Earth from its travels across the red planet will help determine whether or not Mars ever had conditions that would support life.

SMRs are us

The U.S. government dangled an opportunity for funding of innovative small modular reactors, e.g., with electrical power ratings of less than 300 MW. Despite vigorous competition, only one vendor, B&W, was successful in grabbing a brass ring worth up to $452 million over five years.

The firm immediately demonstrated the economic value of the government cost-sharing partnership by placing an order for long lead time components. Lehigh Heavy Forge and B&W plan to jointly participate in the fabrication and qualification of large forgings for nuclear reactor components that are intended to be used in the manufacture of B&W mPower SMRs.

Lehigh Forge at work

The Department of Energy said that it might offer a second round funding challenge, but given the federal government’s overall dire financial condition, the agency may have problems even meeting its commitments in the first round.

As of December 1, negotiations between the White House and Congress over the so-called “fiscal cliff” were deadlocked. Congress created this mess, so one would expect that they could fix it.

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that if Congress doesn’t avert the fiscal cliff, the economy might slip into recession next year and boost the unemployment rate to 9.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared with 7.9 percent now. Even record low natural gas prices and a boom in oil production won’t make much of a difference if there is no agreement by January 1, 2013.

Japan’s mighty mission at Fukushima

Japan’s major challenges are unprecedented for a democratically elected government. It must decontaminate and decommission the Fukushima site, home to six nuclear reactors, four of which suffered catastrophic internal and external damage from a giant tsunami and record shattering earthquake. The technical challenges of cleanup are daunting and the price tag, already in the range of tens of billions of dollars, keeps rising with a completion date now at least several decades in the future.

Map of radiation releases from Fukushima reported in April 2011

  • Japan is mobilizing a new nuclear regulatory agency that has the responsibility to say whether the rest of Japan’s nuclear fleet can be restarted safely. While the government appointed highly regarded technical specialists to lead the effort, about 400 staff came over from the old Nuclear Industry Safety Agency that was found to be deficient as a deeply compromised oversight body. The new agency will struggle to prove itself an independent and effective regulator of nuclear safety.
  •  Japan has restarted two reactors and approved continued construction work at several more that are partially complete. Local politics will weigh heavily on the outlook for each power station with the “pro” forces emphasizing jobs and tax base and the anti-nuclear factions encouraged by widespread public distrust of the government and of the nation’s nuclear utilities.
  • Despite calls for a phase out of all nuclear reactors in Japan, the country will continue to generate electric power from them for at least the next 30–40 years.
  • Like the United States, Japan has no deep geologic site for spent fuel. Unlike the United States, Japan has been attempting to build and operate a spent fuel reprocessing facility. Plagued by technical missteps and rising costs, Japan may consider offers from the United Kingdom and France to reprocess its spent fuel and with such a program relieve itself of the plutonium in it.

U.S. nuclear renaissance stops at six

The pretty picture of a favorable future for the nuclear fuel cycle in 2007 turned to hard reality in 2012.

In 2007, the combined value of more than two dozen license applications for new nuclear reactors weighed in with an estimated value of over $120 billion. By 2012, just six reactors were under construction. Few will follow soon in their footsteps due to record low prices of natural gas and the hard effects of one of the nation’s deepest and longest economic recessions.

The NRC approved licenses for two new reactors at Southern’s Vogtle site in Georgia and two more at Scana’s V.C. Summer Station in South Carolina. Both utilities chose the Westinghouse AP1000 design and will benefit from lessons learned by the vendor that is building four of them in China. In late November, Southern’s contractors, which are building the plants, said that both of the reactors would enter revenue service a year late. For its part, Southern said that it hasn’t agreed to a new schedule.

The Tennessee Valley Authority recalibrated its efforts to complete Watts Bar II, adding a three-year delay and over $2 billion in cost escalation. TVA’s board told the utility’s executives that construction work to complete Unit 1 at the Bellefonte site cannot begin until fuel is loaded in Watts Bar.

The huge increase in the supply of natural gas, resulting in record low prices for it in the United States, led Exelon Chairman John Rowe to state that it would be “inconceivable” for a nuclear utility in a deregulated state to build new reactors.

Four reactors in dire straights

In January, Southern California Edison (SCE) safety shut down two 1100-MW reactors at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) due to excessive wear found in the nearly new steam generators at both reactors.

SCE submitted a restart plan to the NRC for Unit 2 in November. The review, according to the agency, could take months. SCE removed the fuel from Unit 3 last August, a signal that the restart of that reactor will be farther in the future owing to the greater extent of the damage to the tubes its steam generator.

The NRC said that a key cause of the damage to the tubes was a faulty computer program used by Mitsubishi, the steam generator vendor, in its design of the units. The rate of steam, pressure, and water content were key factors along with the design and placement of brackets to hold the tubes in place.

Flood waters surround Ft. Calhoun NPP June 2011

Elsewhere, in Nebraska the flood stricken Ft. Calhoun reactor owned and operated by the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), postponed its restart to sometime in 2013.

It shut down in April 2011 for a scheduled fuel outage. Rising flood waters along the Missouri River in June damaged in the plant site though the reactor and switch yard remained dry.

The Ft. Calhoun plant must fulfill a long list of safety requirements before the NRC will let it power back up. To speed things along, OPPD hired Exelon to operate the plant. In February 2012, OPPD cancelled plans for a power uprate, also citing the multiple safety issues facing the plant.

In Florida, the newly merged Duke and Progress Energy firm wrestled with a big decision about what to do with the shutdown Crystal River reactor. Repairing the damaged containment structure could cost half again as much as an entirely new reactor. With license renewal coming up in 2016, Florida’s Public Counsel thinks that Duke will decommission the unit and replace it with a combined cycle natural gas plant. Separately, Duke Chairman Jim Rogers said that he will resign at the end of 2013.

China restarts nuclear construction

After a long reconsideration (following the Fukushima crisis) of its aggressive plans to build new nuclear reactors, China’s top level government officials agreed to allow new construction starts, but only with Gen III+ designs.

China has about two dozen Gen II reactors under construction. It will be 40–60 years before the older technology is off the grid. China also reduced its outlook for completed reactors from an estimate of 80 GWe by 2020 to about 55–60 GWe. Plans for a massive $26-billion nuclear energy IPO (initial public offering) still have not made it to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.  No reason has been made public about the delay.

India advances at Kudanlulam

India loaded fuel at Kudankulam where two Russian built 1000-MW VVER reactors are ready for revenue service. The Indian government overcame widespread political protests in its southern state of Tamil Nadu. India’s Prime Minister Singh blamed the protests on international NGOs (non-governmental organizations).

One of the key factors that helped the government overcome the political opposition is that Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited told the provincial government that it could allocate half of all the electricity generated by the plants to local rate payers. Officials in Tamil Nadu will decide who gets power. India suffered two massive electrical blackouts in 2012, the second of which stranded over 600 million people without electricity for up to a week.

Also, India said that it would proceed with construction of two 1600-MW Areva EPRs at Jaitapur on its west coast south of Mumbai and launched efforts for construction of up to 20 GWe of domestic reactors.

India’s draconian supplier liability law continues to be an effective firewall in keeping American firms out of its nuclear market.

UK has new builder at Horizon

The United Kingdom suffered a setback in its nuclear new build as two German utilities backed out of the construction of up to 6 Gwe of new reactors at two sites. Japan’s Hitachi successfully bid to take over the project. A plan for a Chinese state-owned firm to bid on the Horizon project in collaboration with Areva never materialized.

Also in the UK, General Electric pursued an encouraging dialog with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to build two of its 300-MW PRISM fast reactors to burn off surplus plutonium stocks at Sellafield. The PRISM design benefits from the technical legacy of the Integral Fast Reactor developed at Argonne West in Idaho.

You can’t make this stuff up

In July, three anti-war activitists breached multiple high-tech security barriers at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 highly enriched uranium facility in Tennessee. The elderly trio, two men on the dark side of 55 and a woman in her 80s, were equipped with ordinary wire cutters and flashlights.

Y-12 Signs state the obvious

The intruders roamed the site undetected for several hours in the darkness of the early morning and spray painted political slogans on the side of one of the buildings. They were looking for new artistic venues when a lone security guard finally stopped their travels through the plant.

The government said that the unprecedented security breach was no laughing matter, firing the guards on duty at the time and the contractor they worked for. Several civil servants “retired.” The activists, if convicted, face serious jail time.

None of the HEU stored at the site was compromised, but subsequent investigations by the Department of Energy found a lack of security awareness, broken equipment, and an unsettling version of the “it can’t happen here” attitude by the guards that initially mistook the intruders for construction workers.

The protest effort brought publicity to the activists’ cause far beyond their wildest dreams and produced the predictable uproar in Congress. The DOE’s civilian fig leaf covering the nation’s nuclear weapons program was once again in tatters.

So long Chu

Given the incident at Y-12, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who came to government from the quiet life of scientific inquiry, must have asked himself once again why he ever accepted the job in Washington in the first place.

DOE Energy Secretary Steven Chu

Chu is expected to leave Washington. That he’s lasted this long is something of a miracle since the Obama White House tried to give him the heave ho this time last year after the Solyndra loan guarantee debacle, in which charges of political influence peddling by White House aides colored a half a billion dollar default on a DOE loan by a California solar energy company.

The predictable upswing in rumors of who might be appointed to replace him oozed into energy trade press and political saloons of the nation’s capital.

Leading candidates are former members of Congress, former governors, or just  about anyone with the experience and political know how to take on the job of running one of the federal government’s biggest cabinet agencies. It’s a short list of people who really can do the job and a long list of wannabes. With shale gas and oil production on the rise, having a background in fossil fuels will likely help prospective candidates.

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Dan Yurman published the nuclear energy blog Idaho Samizdat from 2007–2012.

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Posted in China, Department of Energy, Fukushima, India, Iran uranium enrichment, licensing, News, nuclear opponents, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Radiation, Russia, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Small modular reactors, Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Congress

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ANS 2012 Winter Meeting – Fukushima Topical Sessions

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Will Davis| 7 Comments

By Will Davis

The morning for us here in San Diego was filled with Opening Plenary Session events followed by an Attendee Luncheon in the Nuclear Technology Expo.  (During the luncheon I had the good fortune to meet Dillon Inabinett and Kallie Metzger, both Graduate Research Assistants at the University of South Carolina’s College of Engineering and Computing.)

The afternoon was filled, for me, with presentations on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.  While it’s not my purpose to reproduce this content in entirety, I will recount some of the highlights of the sessions.

Near and Long-Term Regulatory Changes

Two sessions were offered in the afternoon.  The first session was titled: “Near and Long-Term Regulatory Changes after Fukushima: Does the Accident in Japan Call for a Major Overhaul of Nuclear Safety Regulations?”  Presentations were made, followed by a panel discussion.

NRC Commissioner George Apostolakis pointed out that early on, the NRC felt that a similar sequence of events at any US site was unlikely, and that no imminent risk existed here of an accident duplicative of the (still evolving) Fukushima Daiichi event, so that continued operation of all nuclear plants was allowed.  He then briefly described the familiar sequence of review events that took place with the Near Term Task Force, and the three tiers of post-Fukushima recommendations.  As he did during the Opening Plenary, Commissioner Apostolakis pushed for the whole US nuclear industry and regulatory body to move toward a PRA-based system that can “manage the risks.”  His belief is that the present, mostly deterministic view of accident events needs to be replaced, or supplemented with, a probabilistic view, directing attendees to find and read NUREG-2150, “A Proposed Risk Management Regulatory Framework.”  Apostolakis believes that the NRC will move to add a “Design Enhancement Category” for modifications to cover BDBA (Beyond Design Basis Accident) events.

Giovanni Bruna, of IFSN (the French regulatory body’s technical arm) pointed out that France has not one, but four groups of operating reactors; EDF operates commercial power reactors, while three other bodies operate test or experimental types.  Bruna described the complications to regulatory action caused by many small differences in plants as-built, and further exacerbated by replacement or modified parts in following years.  He noted that it’s widely held that France has a totally standardized commercial fleet, but it isn’t quite; it has 30 900-MWe PWR plants based originally off of the Westinghouse license, another 24 1300-MWe PWR plants developed from the original smaller plant design, and 4 of the N4 type PWR’s.  Bruna’s points were many, but perhaps most striking to this author was the emphasis on the fact that many small modifications at a plant can add up to much more than a seemingly correlative effect in action and in accident progression, if their total operative effect, taken together, is not completely analyzed and understood.  Since each plant is thus unique, he said that such a regulatory situation – trying to enforce any post-Fukushima changes on the whole fleet – is “Unbearable.”  Standardization, and maintenance of that standardization, is a key safety point.

Nils Diaz followed, asking “How safe is safe enough?”  He noted that “every accident is preventable and correctable… viewed after the fact!”  His most important point was that the nuclear industry seems to not fully understand the socio-political ramifications of nuclear accidents, although he did quote a US Court of Appeals decision that stated about nuclear plants, that “the level of adequate protection need not, and almost certainly will not, be the level of zero risk.”

Lessons Learned

The second afternoon session was developed around lessons learned from not only Fukushima Daiichi, but Fukushima Daini and other plants.

Bal Raj Sehgal led off, and related his opinion that the well-known Reactor Safety Study, WASH-1400, ignored societal effects of evacuation and other ramifications now known to be highly significant to the public at large.  Interestingly, he feels that the West, and Asia, essentially ignored lessons to be learned from Chernobyl because of the radically different plant design, operator training and operational oversight structures which existed in the USSR at that time.

Along with several other speakers, Sehgal stressed a need for instrumentation in plants that can accurately tell operators parameters like reactor vessel temperatures and pressure, reactor vessel water level, and containment pressure, so that decisions can be made in the case of a nuclear station black out.  He also advocated filtered containment vents, as did the previous speaker.

Sehgal’s most provocative statement, perhaps, was that we should toss out the old “Design Basis Accident” thinking – and that a core melt accident really SHOULD BE the design basis accident.

Akira Kawano of Tokyo Electric Power Company gave a presentation on the effects of the tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini nuclear stations; he pointed out things operators wished they’d have had on site such as additional spare seawater pumps, multiple emergency power sources (both motorized AC and battery) and spare pressure cylinders for air and gas operated systems.

Dr. Salomon Levy shared his view that what really doomed the Fukushima Daiichi plant was three things working together:  estimates for tsunami height were too low; belief that a true Station Blackout wasn’t really possible, and inadequate accident response training.  He then went on to give a tour-de-force technical lecture on SBO event BWR cooling methods and calculations (too detailed for inclusion here).

Finally, Sherrell R. Greene told us about many BWR accident studies performed by Oak Ridge National Laboratories over a long (1980-1995) period, which essentially predicted what actually transpired at Fukushima Daiichi, at least as far as events were driven by and timed with SBO and then loss of battery power at each unit.  (Item:  in the Opening sessions, EPRI related that its MAAP5 code seems to be able to duplicate the effects the reactors experienced at Fukushima Daiichi pretty well.)  Greene says that we must go beyond what is expedient, and even beyond what the NRC requires, and apply new thinking.  Like others, he again repeated a strongly felt need for accident analysis instrumentation to be backfitted to all plants.

Today’s Fukushima sessions were fascinating and well worth-while; question and answer periods were filled with questions asked by participants from every corner of the globe.  On the other hand, during the Dresden tour in concert with the ANS Annual Meeting in June, I was then in a group including Mark Pierson, Ph.D. of Virginia Tech; and he sat right next to me during all of the Fukushima sessions today.  What a small world.

(Illustrations of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station and BWR in-core water level measurement courtesy Tokyo Electric Power Company.)

Will Davis is a former US Navy Reactor Operator, qualified on S8G and S5W reactor plants.  Davis performs Social Media services for ANS under contract, writes for ANS Nuclear Cafe as well as for Fuel Cycle Week, and also writes his own Atomic Power Review blog.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Fukushima, lessons learned, Meetings

Japan’s Non-nuclear decision

Posted on September 20, 2012 by dyurman| 3 Comments

Implementation of the energy policy announced last week will keep reactors running well into the second half of the 21st century.

By Dan Yurman

Japan Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda

Japan Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda announced on September 14 that his nation will end reliance on nuclear power by 2040. On paper it looks like a replay of Germany’s decision to scrap its reactors by 2022. In reality, it isn’t anything like that, plus the government plans to complete several reactors that are already under construction.

Unlike Germany, which immediately closed half of its aging fleet, Japan has already restarted two of its reactors shuttered following the Fukushima crisis and will like restart many of them by the end of 2013. The most urgent effort is Tokyo Electric Power Company’s work to restart the seven reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

The launch of an independent nuclear safety agency this month is expected to add credibility to the government’s plan to keep the lights on with nuclear energy.

The political motivation for Noda’s decision includes an obvious reading of the overwhelmingly anti-nuclear mood of the Japanese electorate that has lost the traditional trust of the government and the nuclear utilities that run the reactors. Elections expected to take place this fall, or certainly by early 2013, center on two issues–nuclear power and taxes. Pulling the teeth on one of them, the fate of the reactors, is seen as a tactic designed to improve the chances of Noda’s party to stay in power.

Noda’s party may still lose the election. The reason is that many in Japan see the decision to move away from nuclear energy as a smokescreen. Noda’s Democratic Party is, in any case, deeply unpopular, which suggests that the late arrival of the policy of appearing to pull the plug on the reactors may have little lasting political effect.

The policy leaves decades of time for future political decisions that would undo Noda’s policy. And there are plenty of reasons why that might happen.

Take for instance the views of Japan’s biggest corporations represented by the Keidanren business federation. It insists that the cost of replacement fossil fuels are crippling the country’s economy and forcing its members to consider moving their heavy industrial manufacturing operations offshore to countries like Vietnam.

There the government has committed itself to building eight new nuclear reactors to provide reliable electric power. Intel has opened a $1-billion computer chip manufacturing center, one of the largest of its kind, based on Vietnam’s reliable electricity and cheap labor.

And the United States isn’t happy either about Japan’s decision. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman said on September 14 that dropping reliance on nuclear energy in Japan could have negative impacts on fossil fuel markets, particularly regarding the current cheap prices for natural gas.

According to the Japan Times, Poneman told Japanese political leader Seiji Maehara that if Japan starts “snapping up” fossil fuels, energy prices will rise dramatically over the short term. Poneman is reported to have urged Japan to “exercise caution” in moving too quickly to shut down its reactors.

The energy policy announced by Maehar’s boss, Prime Minister Noda, calls for reactors to operate to the end of their 40 year life, but it offers a loophole to operate them for another 20 years if it can be proven they can do so safely. That loophole would allow a reactor that loads fuel for the first time in 2015 to have a decommissioning date of 2075.

Reactors already under construction will be completed, says Yukio Edano, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry trade minister. They are the No. 3 reactor at the Shimane plant (94- percent complete) in Matsue, capital of the Shimane Prefecture, which is operated by Chugoku Electric; a reactor at the Oma plant (38 percent complete) in Aomori Prefecture, which is operated by Electric Power Development; and, No. 1 reactor (10 percent complete) at the Higashidori plant also in Aomori Prefecture.

It should come as no surprise that Edano made his remarks in Aomori Prefecture. There provincial officials have also told the government that unless it starts up and operates a spent fuel reprocessing center located there, they will send the material back to wherever it came from. Japan has no deep geologic repository for spent fuel, nor a national interim storage site.

Edano’s other problem is what to do about Japan’s heavy industries that export nuclear components. The firms include Japan Steel Works, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and Hitachi. On September 3, Edano noted that he does not see a contradiction between ending reliance on nuclear power at home and exporting the technology overseas. The problem with that policy is that Japan’s nuclear exports have always relied on a robust domestic market. Take that away and there might not be enough business for some manufacturing operations to stay open.

Paradoxically, Japan is slated to build the second pair of Vietnam’s nuclear reactors. In doing so, it may enable the creation of exactly the conditions (reliable power) Japan’s current manufacturing firms, e.g., autos, electronics, and other durable goods, need to survive in a global market. An offshoring trend for these firms will add rising unemployment to Japan’s economic woes.

Proponents of the closure of nuclear plants argue that renewables such as wind and solar can make up the difference. This is delusional thinking. The intermittent nature of wind and solar requires baseload sources to keep the national grid stable.

But wait, Japan doesn’t have a national grid. Each electric utility has its own. Plus, Japan will have to build new natural gas plants to replace the power from shuttered reactors. Higher demand from Japan could push up gas prices and add to the cost of keeping renewable projects online.

Japan made it through a hot summer with no blackouts and just two reactors online. However, with an economy in the doldrums, electric power demand from industry was down which may have allowed the country to skip a seasonal energy crisis.

Prior to the Fukushima disaster, Japan relied on nuclear power for 30 percent of its energy and had plans to boost that number to 50 percent. Prime Minister Noda’s politically expedient decision to drive forward with a zero power option for nuclear energy throws cold water on any rational plans for the future of rational energy plans in his country.

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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 Fukushima, News

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The party platforms on energy–and nuclear

Posted on September 18, 2012 by pbowersox| 9 Comments

By Jim Hopf

Both the Republicans and the Democrats have recently released their party platforms. Here’s a look at what each platform has to say about energy and environmental issues in general, and on nuclear specifically.

Republicans on energy

The Republican party platform favors an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that involves responsible development of all our energy resources, and results in a domestic, secure energy supply that is stable, reliable, and affordable. Other general goals of the strategy include the creation of jobs, spurring economic growth, lower energy prices, and a strengthened domestic energy industry. The platform states that it does not support, however, policies that “pick winners and losers” through government intervention in the energy industry.

With respect to environmental regulations, the platform is generally opposed to federal environmental regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency, preferring regulation by the states as well as an approach to achieving environmental goals that is more cooperative (vs. punitive) with industry.

With respect to coal, the platform support the development of new “environmentally responsible” coal plants, as well as research and development into clean coal technology and technologies to convert coal into liquid fuel or gas (that can be cleanly burned). The platform states that it is opposed to President Obama’s “war on coal”, since there is no economic replacement for coal (the largest electricity source) and reductions in coal use will result in the loss of large amounts of jobs in that sector. It states that the GOP is opposed to any type of carbon dioxide–limiting legislation such as cap-and-trade. It also opposes the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases, and supports legislation that specifically bars the EPA from doing so. It also appears to be generally opposed to stricter limits on other coal pollutants as well.

With respect to oil and gas, the platform claims that the use of imported oil is undesirable in that some of the money sent overseas may wind up in the hands of nations, or other groups, that want to harm the United States. The main response, favored in the platform, is the opening up of offshore areas, federal lands, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. In addition to reducing oil imports and increasing energy security, the platform states that the resulting domestic oil and gas development will result in large numbers of new jobs. It also explicitly states its support for the Keystone XL oil pipeline (from Canada to refineries in the United States) for similar reasons, and it criticized Obama for opposing the pipeline. It also expressed support for natural gas fracking and opposed new federal regulations on the practice, saying that state regulations are sufficient.

The platform touched briefly on renewable energy, stating that it supports the development of renewable energy in general, but that it was opposed to government loan guarantees for renewable projects. It instead favors a “market based approach” to renewable energy development. (Not in the platform is that most Republicans also oppose extension of the wind energy tax credit, one of the most significant federal renewable energy subsidies.)

Democrats on energy

The Democratic party platform does not have a section on energy per se. Its policies related to energy can be found in the section on the environment. The discussion on energy is shorter in general than it is in the Republican platform, and it generally does not discuss specific energy sources.

The platform states that protecting the environment is a top priority for the party, and touts Obama’s investments in clean energy and the administration’s efforts to protect the environment. It states that Obama has made the most significant strides in decades to cut pollution, citing the increase in the fuel efficiency standard for vehicles as an example. It specifically talks about many of the pollutants that primarily arise from coal-fired power plants and states that they are a significant threat to health. It states that clean energy development will be a significant source of domestic jobs. It also highlights Obama’s (first time ever) proposed limits on CO2 for new power plants.

Much of the platform’s discussion relates to climate change (global warming). It affirms the party’s belief that global warming is a problem, calling it “one of the biggest threats of this generation–an economic, environmental and national security catastrophe in the making”. It says that the administration (and party) will combat global warming by exercising leadership on the issue abroad, while using “market and regulatory solutions” to reduce emissions at home. It argues that domestic reductions are necessary to show leadership on the issue, which is essential to getting a global agreement to reduce emissions.

Specifically, the platform states that the administration will continue diplomatic efforts to work toward an international agreement to limit/reduce emissions. At home, Obama and the Democrats will continue to invest in clean energy, and will take steps (both legislative and regulatory) to reduce domestic emissions. Regulatory measures include the (already passed) vehicle gas mileage standard and the (proposed) EPA regulations that limit CO2 from new power plants (effectively requiring CO2 sequestration for any new coal plant). Possible legislative efforts would include cap-and-trade, some kind of CO2 tax, or the proposed Clean Energy Standard for getting ~80 percent of electricity from “clean” sources by 2035. None of these legislative options are specifically mentioned in the platform, however, with discussion of specific CO2 limiting policies such as cap-and-trade being conspicuously absent.

In another section of the platform, it states that global warming also represents a “real, urgent and severe” national security risk, arguing that it will result in increased geopolitical conflicts over resources (e.g., water) and refugees, will result in suffering from drought and famine (creating potential instability in various regions), and increased frequency and severity of natural disasters.

Finally, the platform criticizes the Republican party (and candidate), stating that the GOP doubts the science of climate change and wants to roll back regulations protecting our air and water. It also states that the Republicans do not recognize the benefits of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and do not recognize the jobs created by clean energy development.

Nuclear energy

In a relatively brief (two paragraph) discussion, the Republican platform expresses support for nuclear energy, saying that it “must be expanded”. It calls for timely review of new reactor license applications by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It also raises the waste issue, stating that federal government’s failure to address storage and disposal of spent fuel has cost “the States and taxpayers” a lot of money. It calls for a “more proactive” approach for managing spent fuel, which includes the development of advanced reprocessing technologies. Mention of Yucca Mountain is conspicuously absent.

The Democratic platform is completely silent on nuclear energy. Although the platform generally does not mention specific energy sources (as I said earlier), it also does not touch on any policies or proposals that would affect nuclear in any way.

Who’s better for nuclear?

While the Republicans have generally had kinder words for nuclear than the Democrats, it’s less clear whether or not Republican policies would be more helpful to the industry. In general, it appears that while Republicans may be more helpful in the area of waste, Democratic policies such as CO2 limits (and stricter limits on fossil fuel pollution in general) would do more to make nuclear more economically competitive with fossil fuels.

Waste issues

In the area of waste, it would be hard to do worse than the Obama administration, with the shameful termination of the Yucca Mountain licensing process, and the (political) suppression of the results of the NRC staff’s essentially finished licensing review (which virtually everyone knows was about to approve the repository). The administration also appointed not one but two NRC chairmen whose opposition to Yucca Mountain was clearly the primary basis for their selection. On the other hand, would the Republicans be much better? Given that Yucca is not mentioned at all in their platform, it appears that they are not willing to stand up for the repository (or the completion of the licensing process, at least) either.

My view is that the waste issue does not impact nuclear’s competitiveness, since the cost of storing the waste, even over a long time period, is very small—on the order of 0.1 cents/kW-hr. The primary impact of the continued delay in resolving the waste issue is that it strengthens and extends the false notion, held by much of the public, that nuclear waste disposal is an intractable problem with no technical solution. This, in turn, results in increased opposition to the construction or continued operation of nuclear plants. For this reason, I’ve advocated the completion of Yucca’s licensing process, even if the project itself is not continued, since it will show the public that we had a technically sound solution. I personally doubt that alternative solutions—such as the reprocessing discussed by the Republicans, which involves going back to the drawing board and pushing resolution of the issue decades into the future—will have much positive impact.

All that said, it’s not clear that public opposition to nuclear over the waste issue is all that big a factor, in the grand scheme of things. It has not led to much increased opposition to specific projects, especially in the Southeast, where most new plants are proposed. The biggest obstacle to new nuclear plants is clearly economic competitiveness (with fossil fuels, especially gas).

Economic competitiveness

The Republicans made a vague statement about expediting the NRC review of new reactor projects, but specifics, and any real impact, remains to be seen. One would hope that now that the initial license applications (e.g., Vogtle and Summer) have been approved, follow-on applications would go pretty quickly. In any event, a somewhat faster approval process will not help nuclear’s competitiveness that much. (The cost of the licensing process is more of an issue.)

On the other hand, policies that would significantly reign in fossil fuels’ privilege of just dumping massive amounts of pollution (including CO2) into the environment, for free, would significantly increase nuclear’s competitiveness in the future. I’ve always believed that nuclear will never stand much of a chance if it is required to completely contain all of its wastes/toxins (with even the small possibility of release being something that has to be avoided, almost regardless of cost), while its competitors have nowhere near the same requirements.

Policies that would aid nuclear’s competitiveness (in addition to being the right thing to do) would be taxing or limiting CO2 emissions, reducing allowable emissions levels for other toxic pollutants (e.g., particulates, mercury, etc.), classifying coal ash/sludge as a hazardous material, and doing something to more adequately regulate gas fracking, which currently enjoys an exemption from the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts (I believe).

The EPA’s proposed policy that effectively bans new coal plants that don’t employ CO2 sequestration would have a huge impact over the long term. Although it would mainly result in the replacement of coal with gas over the shorter term, it would greatly help nuclear over the long term, since it would increase gas demand (leading to higher natural gas prices). I (and many others) also believe that the current gas glut will not last forever, and that renewables will never be capable of providing most (let alone all) of our power generation.

It’s clear which party would be better in this regard. Many in the Republican party are actually calling for pollution regulations to be rolled back, let alone be improved. The GOP platform clearly states that it will block any attempts to tax or limit CO2, prevent or reverse the EPA’s proposed policy on new coal plants, and oppose any regulations on gas fracking. With fossil fuels getting such a (continued) free ride, and the regulatory playing field remaining so unlevel and unfair, it is hard to see nuclear being competitive in the future.

Some may argue that global warming policies will not happen anyway, so having more reasonable treatment of nuclear in the waste area, as well as (perhaps) better NRC appointments, would make the Republicans better for nuclear, over the next presidential term. My personal view is that the EPA’s new coal plant rule alone, not to mention not having air pollution regulations rolled back, is more than enough to offset those benefits, in terms of the overall climate for nuclear.

Nuclear’s influence?

My general view is that the Republicans primarily support fossil fuels while the Democrats primarily support renewables. Both are now supporting gas, to some degree. Neither party supports nuclear to any significant degree.

This is due to a profound lack of influence in Washington by the nuclear industry, compared to other energy industries. Recently, some have tried to suggest that the industry (Exelon Corp., specifically) has had significant influence with Obama, due to campaign contributions and its presence in Illinois. This view is absurd. Here’s a question: What is the ONLY major energy source that was NOT mentioned at all in Obama’s Democratic convention speech? He (the Democratic candidate) even made brief mention of “clean coal”, but didn’t mention nuclear at all.

Due in large part to this lack of influence, the current regulatory playing field is heavily slanted against nuclear, with nuclear’s requirements being orders of magnitude more strict than those applied to fossil fuels (as measured by dollars spent per unit of public health and safety benefit, etc.). Five years ago, it seemed like things were finally moving in a more fair, balanced direction, with the prospect of CO2 limits, etc., but now things seem set to get even worse.

We have the NRC considering adding even more regulation, and arguing that current regulations are insufficient since the Fukushima event inflicted significant economic costs, even though the public health impacts have been very small—much smaller than what NRC had always assumed the consequences of a severe meltdown would be (i.e, current regulations were always based on the assumption that such an event would be vastly more harmful). Meanwhile, we hear calls from the right side of the political spectrum, to reign in or even eliminate the EPA, with no similar calls for the NRC. Humble proposals to merely reduce the ~20,000 annual deaths, in the United States alone, from fossil plant pollution are loudly decried, while nuclear requirements are being increased even further, in a quest to reduce even the chance of the release of pollution to even more negligible levels, without any fanfare or political resistance (even from the industry itself).

Nuclear’s complete lack of political influence, and the overly powerful influence of other sources such as coal, is starting to be examined in some quarters—a recent article by William Tucker being one example.

If our industry does not find a voice, its future does not look bright. We will continue to have policies such as Renewable Portfolio Standards (that mandate the use of large amounts of renewable energy, regardless of cost or practically) on one side, while continuing to allow fossil fuel plants to freely pollute on the other. The tremendously unlevel regulatory playing field between nuclear and fossil sources will remain, or get even worse.

_______________________________________

Hopf

Jim Hopf is a senior nuclear engineer with more than 20 years of experience in shielding and criticality analysis and design for spent fuel dry storage and transportation systems. He has been involved in nuclear advocacy for 10+ years, and is a member of the ANS Public Information Committee. He is a regular contributor to the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

 

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, DC Perspective, Fukushima, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Yucca Mountain

ANS video interview: Oxford Professor Wade Allison discusses radiation… and reason

Posted on September 14, 2012 by pbowersox| 4 Comments

At the ANS 2012 Annual Meeting, ANS Public Information Committee’s Dan Yurman caught up with Dr. Wade Allison, of Oxford University, UK.  They discussed radiation, health effects, Fukushima, Dr. Allison’s recent book Radiation and Reason, and Dr. Allison’s recent trip to Japan in this video interview.

Dr. Allison has been teaching physics at the University of Oxford for over 40 years (medical physics, radiation physics, nuclear physics, and associated disciplines).

Dr. Allison explains nuclear power and, especially, radiation in this must-read article posted just yesterday at the Nuclear Literacy Project: ”You can appreciate nuclear and its safety, just read and decide yourself.”  Take his advice, read, and decide yourself!

“A Tragedy of Misunderstanding: There was no major radiation disaster at Fukushima,” invited talk at 2012 ANS Annual Meeting.

Dr. Allison’s written evidence submitted to Britain’s Parliamentary Select Commitee on Science/Technology, regarding Risk Perception and Nuclear/Energy Infrastructure.

The Radiation and Reason website:

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Posted in Fukushima, Radiation

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Video interview with ANS Special Committee on Fukushima Co-Chair Michael Corradini

Posted on August 23, 2012 by pbowersox| 1 Comment

On Friday, March 11, 2011, one of the largest earthquakes in the recorded history of the world occurred on the east coast of northern Japan. The earthquake generated a major tsunami, causing nearly 20,000 deaths.

Electricity, gas, and water supplies, telecommunications, and railway service were all severely disrupted and in many cases completely shut down. These disruptions severely affected the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing a loss of all on-site and off-site power and a release of radioactive materials from the reactors.

The leadership of the American Nuclear Society commissioned the American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima to provide a clear and concise explanation of what happened during the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and offer recommendations based on lessons learned from their study of the event.

In this video interview, ANS President and ANS Special Committee on Fukushima co-chair Dr. Michael Corradini provides an update on the Special Committee’s work, including the release of the committee’s final report and an upcoming embedded topical meeting on Fukushima at the ANS Winter Meeting in San Diego.

The ANS Special Committee on Fukushima website.

Direct link to the Special Committee’s report.

FAQs, Q&As, accident timeline, and appendices to the report.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Fukushima, Publications

Implications of improved radiation protection standards for Fukushima evacuees

Posted on July 3, 2012 by radams| 28 Comments

By Rod Adams

The American Nuclear Society’s annual meeting for 2012 included a President’s Special Session titled Low-Level Radiation & Its Implications for Fukushima Recovery (Warning—the link leads to a 54 MB, 208 page PDF full of disruptive information that might change your opinion on the benefits of spending billions of dollars every year to keep radiation doses as low as unreasonably achievable).

The session was well attended and 200 printed copies of the 208-page compilation of presentations and papers were snapped up quickly. Unfortunately, I am not yet able to judge if the situation today is any more favorable to a rational reconsideration of current regulations than it was during the period between 1994–1999 when Jim Muckerheide, Ted Rockwell, Ted Quinn, Andy Kadak, and others arranged a sustained series of special sessions on the health effects of low level radiation at ANS annual meetings.

That series culminated in technical briefing papers that supported revised ANS and Health Physics Society (HPS) position statements in favor of taking new approaches to radiation protection and some acknowledgment by Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioners such as Greta Dicus that the science being gathered supported the need for a reevaluation of the linear no-threshold model (LNT) model and the regulations that use it as their basis.

Unfortunately, that effort came to naught after the officially selected Committee to Assess Health Risks From Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation from the National Academy of Sciences decided that the evidence of no or positive effects from very low levels of radiation was not convincing enough. They refused to overturn their long-held assumption that the linear relationship between dose and damage was valid enough for government regulations all the way down to a zero dose.

Little changed in the radiation protection field as a result of the multi-year effort and more billions of dollars were spent—and collected by the recipients of the spending—each year for more than another decade to protect people from doses that have never been shown to cause harm to people. The LNT is used to justify such absurd regulations as requiring that the high level waste repository in the United States must designed to ensure that annual doses to the most exposed person will be less than 15 mrem per year. That is 1/20th of the average background radiation in the United States.

My curiosity about the conclusion reached by the BEIR VII committee was strong enough when I first read the report. I had attended a number of the special sessions at ANS meetings, become a member of Radiation, Science and Health and developed a high level of respect for Jim Muckerheide, Myron Pollycove, Jerry Cuttler, Sohei Kondo, and John Cameron, among others. I could not understand why the information those highly qualified and courageous scientists and engineers were developing and presenting was being ignored.

However, while working in Washington and living in Annapolis, Md., I developed a friendship with a member of the Uniformed Public Health Service. He served a tour of duty in the office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that controls the expenditure of the funds that the U.S. government appropriates each year to support the Life Span Study (LSS) of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. He told me that the senior government service (GS) employees that controlled that funding had established a small fiefdom. They had decided that they would do everything in their power to make sure that the money kept flowing to people that supported the status quo assumption. They made no secret of the fact that the LSS was their career ticket during conversations in the office.

After hearing that story, I more fully understood why the BEIR VII committee was so sure that the Life Span Study of atomic bomb victims—whose doses were given in a very short period—was considered to be a gold standard. It can be difficult to argue with funding sources that have a preconceived notion about the answers they expect to receive as deliverables. The thing that still bothers me, however, is realizing that a tiny group of functionaries can selfishly hold so much power over so many for such a small thing as a government job.

During the intervening years since the last sustained effort to bring sense and science to regulations and emergency response criteria associated with low level radiation doses, I have engaged in numerous conversations with nuclear energy professionals who have resisted—sometimes quite strongly—the idea that there is such a thing as a safe dose of radiation. Some were shocked to hear me suggesting that science showed that it was possible that radiation might even be beneficial at certain doses. Those concepts go against so much of their training and indoctrination.

The report produced for the 2012 special session should help reach these skeptical professionals, especially the ones who have nurtured the important nuclear philosophy that they are learning professionals who must always maintain a questioning attitude that is open to change if given new, reliable information.

Even though it is a big file at 54 MB, the President’s Special Session: Low-Level Radiation & Its Implications for Fukushima Recovery should be spread widely and reprinted often. Far more nuclear professionals have unfettered access to high speed data networks now than they did in 1999. Though the Internet was available and papers from the ANS sessions were posted on web sites, the network was not very fast or very ubiquitous in the small towns that host the workers at most nuclear power plants and national labs.

I hope that the plight of the evacuated residents of the Fukushima prefecture will encourage interested observers to recognize the deleterious effects of maintaining regulations based on an inaccurate model in the name of “conservatism” or “precautionary protection”.  If sensible rules prevailed, nearly all of the Fukushima evacuees would be able to return home and rebuild their homes, villages, and lives.

So far, I am more hopeful than optimistic. Perhaps some of you can convince me that this time is going to be different, and we really will see a gradual shift toward more rational radiation regulations.

_______________________________

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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Posted in Fukushima, hormesis, Meetings, position statements, Radiation

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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

UC-Berkeley NE department receives ANS Presidential Citation

Posted on June 21, 2012 by lscheele| 1 Comment

The University of California–Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department has been awarded an American Nuclear Society Presidential Citation, ANS President Eric Loewen announced today. Loewen will present the award to UC–Berkeley nuclear engineering department representatives during the President’s Session of the ANS Annual Conference,  Nuclear Science and Technology: Managing the Global Impact of Economic and Natural Events, being held June 24–28 in Chicago, Ill.

“The efforts by UC-Berkeley nuclear engineering faculty and students to provide accurate and authoritative information to the public following Fukushima were outstanding and serve as a model to emulate,” said Loewen.

The Presidential Citation recognizes the following achievements:

Nuclear Engineering Department, UC–Berkeley: For serving at the leading edge of communication to educate California and the nation about radiological impact to the United States from the Fukushima incident. By collecting atmospheric-transported radiation samples from Japan, explaining the significance to the public via public forums and the UC–Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Air Monitoring Station website, the UC–Berkeley nuclear engineering department gained national recognition as a trusted source for rational, accurate and authoritative information about radioactivity and its potential impacts on the U.S. population.

UC–Berkeley nuclear engineering department

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Posted in ANS Student Sections, Fukushima, Honors & Awards, Nuclear events

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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

Freeze Pilgrim debate tonight: Follow on Twitter

Posted on April 25, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

This evening there will be a debate on a nuclear referendum that is on the town ballot in Plymouth, Mass. The referendum calls for a halt to relicensing the Pilgrim nuclear power plant, pending implementation of Fukushima lessons learned.

Dave Lochbaum, appearing on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, will be supporting the referendum. Russell Gocht, appearing on behalf of the American Nuclear Sociey, is a nuclear engineering graduate student at UMass-Lowell and will be opposing the referendum.

ANS has arranged live-tweeting of the debate via the ANS twitter feed @ans_org (https://twitter.com/ans_org).

This is the second of three nuclear-related public events in Massachusetts this week:

  1. Tuesday’s radio panel featured Meredith Angwin and Richard Schmidt
  2. Tonight’s FREEZE debate
  3. A forum on Thursday with Dave Lochbaum and others at MIT.

The Pilgrim plant

Please keep an eye on the twitter feed and take part in the social media conversations about the debate!

WHEN: Wednesday, April 25, 7-9 pm

WHAT: Freeze Pilgrim Forum. Plymouth, Mass.
http://freezepilgrim.org/news.html

WHERE: Plymouth South Middle School, Plymouth, Mass.

WHO: Russell Gocht, PhD student at UMASS Lowell, will be opposite David Lochbaum, of UCS. Lochbaum is expected to discuss UCS’s report on the NRC’s post Fukushima actions.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Attend or follow the ANS live twitter feed: @ans_org or https://twitter.com/ans_org

___________________________

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Posted in college colleges university universities, Education, Fukushima, general media, lessons learned, licensing, News, Nuclear events, nuclear opponents, reactor designs, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

ANS Vice President Corradini discusses ANS Fukushima report

Posted on April 3, 2012 by lscheele| 2 Comments

American Nuclear Society Vice President/President Elect Michael Corradini—co-chair of the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima—discusses the findings of the ANS Special Committee report and other Fukushima-related matters in this news clip, filmed in conjunction with a March speaking engagement at an Oak Ridge/Knoxville ANS Local Section dinner meeting.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Fukushima, general media, lessons learned, Local Sections, News