Category Archives: Fukushima

Spent fuel at Fukushima Daiichi safer than asserted

Posted on May 16, 2012 by pbowersox| 23 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

Good and bad news stories for nuclear 2011/2012

Posted on March 22, 2012 by pbowersox| 8 Comments

By Jim Hopf

After giving a brief update on recent Fukushima-related events in the United States, I’d like to talk about some good (but relatively unpublicized) things that have happened during what has otherwise been a very challenging year for the nuclear industry. Then I’ll discuss what, to me, was the most disconcerting story in the past year.

NRC response to Fukushima

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission published a series of new requirements for U.S. nuclear plants, as a result of its evaluation of the Fukushima event. Requirements include seismic evaluations and upgrades (if necessary), the addition of portable pumps and generators (sited at multiple, protected locations), and enhanced monitoring capability for spent fuel pools. For many older boiling water reactors, hardened vents may be required (if not already in place). Another requirement being discussed is the ability to maintain operations (and cooling) without off-site power indefinitely (as opposed to the current requirement of 4–8 hours).

During Senate testimony, NRC Chairman Jaczko and other commissioners appeared to disagree over the amount of time that will be required for plants to make the proposed changes. Jaczko stated that some of the changes are likely to take until 2017–2019 (something that he said he was “concerned” about), whereas other commissioners thought that the changes will be in place by 2016.

Good news in 2011/2012

We’re all aware of the fact that the final NRC licenses were finally granted for construction of the new Vogtle reactors. It is also true that the project is within budget and schedule so far. Some lesser-known bits of good news are discussed below.

NRC Accident Consequence Statement

This is one potentially very positive thing that happened for the industry recently, without much publicity or fanfare. In part as a result of its evaluation of Fukushima, the NRC released a position statement concerning the potential consequences of (even worst case) nuclear plant accidents. The NRC (finally) acknowledged what many of us have known for a long time. It stated that the risk to public health, even from a severe accident, is “very small”. It also stated that the risk of short-term fatalities from acute exposure was “essentially zero,” and that the scenario of a large amount of radiation being released very quickly
(thus requiring a rapid evacuation) was unrealistic.

This is probably as close as we’re going to get to a formal retraction of the earlier analyses/assumptions that formed the basis of emergency response planning over previous decades. These grossly unrealistic analyses predicted thousands of immediate deaths from acute exposure, followed by tens of thousands of long-term cancers. Chernobyl had already shown those analyses to be completely unrealistic, and (I suppose) Fukushima, with its complete lack of health impacts, was the final nail in the coffin.

But, alas, I suppose I’m being unrealistic in hoping that this could lead to some relief with respect to emergency planning requirements. Indeed, many seem to be drawing precisely the reverse conclusion, asking whether evacuation zones should be increased (never mind that many other facilities that are actually more dangerous, such as chemical plants, oil refineries, etc., do not have similar evacuation zones).

This is a shame, given that these evacuation zones/plans have always been an albatross around the industry’s neck that has been used relentlessly by nuclear opponents (e.g., the Shoreham plant). They always argue about how rapid evacuation may not be practical. Well, we’ve just (finally) realized that it’s not necessary!

Fukushima also showed that, even with respect to longer-term impacts, significant effects of even a worst-case meltdown do not extend beyond ~20–25 miles of the plant (in any direction). And yet we still hear people talking about populations as far as 50 miles from plants (e.g., New York City from the Indian Point plant).

Clean Energy Standard Legislation

The Senate Energy Committee finally released a detailed legislative proposal for a Clean Energy Standard. The final proposal is the result of many years of analysis and negotiation. While it is unlikely to pass (or be considered) this year, it is considered more likely to pass than other options such as comprehensive global warming legislation. It has the potential support of several moderate Republicans.

The good news is that the final details of the legislation appear to be rational and even-handed, and fairly good for the nuclear industry. The Standard requires that 85 percent of U.S. electricity generation be from “clean” sources by 2035. While the final version does allow partial credit for fossil sources like gas, the amount of partial credit scales (inversely) with the level of CO2 emissions (relative to a coal plant). Thus, non-emitting sources like nuclear would retain a significant advantage over gas, particularly in the later phases of the program (when an all-gas generation profile would no longer be able to meet the requirements).

SMRs Move Forward

The U.S. Department of Energy recently decided to provide $452 million in funding for licensing of small modular reactors (SMRs), over the next five years. The DOE is also making plans to host three SMR demonstration projects on the Savannah River Site. The three selected reactors are the 45-megawatt (MW) NuScale Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), the 25-MW Gen4 Energy fast reactor, and a 140-MW PWR reactor from Holtec.

Hopefully, construction of the prototypes will speed the technological development of these reactors, although NRC licensing should occur in parallel. Use of the Savannah River complex may make siting these prototype reactors easier, which could speed licensing and deployment.

A New Low Level Waste Site (at last)

The Waste Control Specialists’ low level waste (LLW) site in Texas (near the New Mexico border) will soon begin operation. The site will take waste from 38 states. It will handle all types of LLW, including Class A, B, and C. Given the closure of the Barnwell site to out-of-compact waste, the Texas site is now the only site that accepts all classes of LLW from most states.

This represents a significant victory, given the level of difficulty the nation has had in siting new LLW disposal facilities, anywhere, for many decades. This is the first site to open in 30 years. For some time, the political task of opening new LLW sites was thought to be intractable.

It should also be noted that within the same general area (in southeast New Mexico), the local communities around the DOE’s WIPP repository are actively seeking to host the nation’s spent fuel and high-level waste as well. There is some indication that the state government is willing to consider the option.

Sanity Prevails in France

The French government recently released a new long-term energy options evaluation that concludes that the most economical and practical option is to extend the operating life of its existing reactor fleet from 40 years to 60 years.

In the past, French policy had always appeared to be to replace its reactors with new ones after ~40 years of life.  Given the long-standing position in the United States that light water reactors (LWRs) could be run safely for 60 or more years, I’ve always found the (old) French position to be puzzling. I wondered if it was, in part, just a means of creating extra work to keep its domestic industry employed and on top of its game, similar to U.S. Depression-era make-work programs.

In any event, it seems like they’ve finally come to their senses. Any new nukes should be used to increase, not maintain, capacity (i.e., be used to replace fossil fuels). The cost savings will be enormous. Perhaps this new position is partly a result of Fukushima. With political support for new reactor construction much lower, perhaps the French government concluded that the only way their nuclear capacity would be maintained would be through extended operation.

The biggest bad news story of 2011/2012

Despite the positive news stories discussed above, my level of optimism for nuclear’s future was deeply shaken last year, not by the Fukushima event itself, but by the public/media/political reaction to it, particularly in Japan.

Here in the United States, Fukushima is somewhat less significant. Polls show only small reductions in public support. New nukes remain highly popular in most regions/locations where new reactors are being considered. Also, in the United States, several other factors, including the lack of any global warming policies on the horizon, the fact that the economic downturn suppressed future power demand growth, and low natural gas costs due to the shale gas “miracle,” loom larger over nuclear’s future.

In the rest of the world, however, Fukushima has had a surprisingly large impact on public opinion in many, if not most nations. In addition to Japan and Germany, anti-nuclear opinion has surged in other nations with strong nuclear programs, such as France and South Korea. The reaction in Germany does not surprise or upset me much. They are merely returning to their usual long-standing anti-nuclear position (with the 2022 nuclear phase-out date actually being two years later than a long-standing 2020 phase-out date). I was (and am) utterly dismayed, however, by the public/political reaction in Japan.

Japanese Reaction

If one asks the question of how big a natural disaster (e.g., earthquake) a nuclear plant should be able to take, the rational answer is clearly not “infinite.” One quite reasonable answer given by many people is that the disaster should be sufficiently large that if it did occur, a meltdown would be the least of their problems. One would think that Fukushima would be a textbook case of this, with ~20,000 deaths from the earthquake and tsunami, no immediate deaths from the meltdown, and few if any projected future deaths. It is also true that the number of evacuees and lost homes due to the earthquake and tsunami is larger than that from the radiation release.

But then, we watched in horror as the world’s attention (media, etc.) focused mostly on the plant meltdown, as opposed to the earthquake and tsunami. Not only were the enormous impacts of the earthquake and tsunami (deaths, etc.) deemed less newsworthy than the plant meltdowns, but so were the vastly larger ongoing health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel generation. Apparently, such logical thinking on our part does not adequately consider various psychological and political factors.

According to the World Health Organization, fossil-fueled power generation causes hundreds of thousands of deaths, worldwide, every single year (i.e., on the order of 1000 deaths every single day). Even conservative estimates, based on the pessimistic linear-no-threshold assumption, predict less than ~1000 eventual deaths from Fukushima. Thus, in terms of health impacts, worldwide fossil fuel power generation is having an impact equal to (or worse than) having a Fukushima event occur every single day. And that’s before considering global warming.

Despite these facts, the people of Japan, and their political leaders, are apparently ready to shut down their nuclear plants and replace them with vastly more dangerous and harmful fossil fuel generation. They are willing to do this even through it will mean greatly increased air pollution and CO2 emissions, and will have a devastating effect on their economy. Japan has always had an export-driven industrial economy with large trade surpluses. For the first time in memory, however, Japan will be running a trade deficit, primarily due to the increased fossil fuel imports that are necessary to replace their nuclear generation. In addition to horrendous health and environmental impacts, the fossil generation will result in markedly higher power costs. Many of Japan’s heavy industries have threatened to move off-shore.

Double standard forever?

These reactions, in Japan and elsewhere, are leading me to believe that there is a deeply-ingrained prejudice against nuclear power as a means of power production; one that may never disappear. Whether it is the legacy of the bomb, or is due to enormous media/political influence of the world fossil fuel industry (who knows?), the fact is that minor impacts from nuclear are given far more attention, and are far less tolerated, than far larger impacts from fossil fuels and other technologies.

The double standard is also alive and well in the United States. Not only has the U.S. nuclear industry accepted the NRC’s new requirements without significant resistance, but they’ve even proactively pursued improvements on their own, without being legally required to do so. And yet, in congressional hearings
and elsewhere, many are not satisfied with the rate or amount of improvement,
saying that having to wait over five years is an unacceptable risk. Meanwhile, old “grandfathered” coal plants in the United States are still not meeting the requirements of the 1970 Clean Air Act, the result being tens of thousands of annual deaths. Despite the fact that the public health risks in question are orders of magnitude larger in the coal plants’ case, apparently taking over 40 years is okay for them, whereas five years is too long for nuclear’s Fukushima upgrades.

Nuclear has always been held to standards thousands of times as strict (in terms of dollars spent per life saved, etc.) than fossil fuels. Before Fuksushima, with all the attention being paid to global warming, I had thought that the playing field might start to become somewhat more balanced. Now, after Fukushima, nuclear requirements are becoming even more strict (with any notions of regulatory relief being put to bed), whereas attempts are now being made (in the United States, anyway) to reduce regulations/requirements on fossil fuels even further. Humble requests to reduce air pollution and/or CO2 emissions are met with calls to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency.

Thus, the spectacularly unlevel playing field will likely get even more unlevel. The Clean Energy Standard is the only hope left out there.

Our industry seems all too eager to accept unprecedentedly stringent requirements, for love of the engineering challenge, apparently. The most pertinent example is the acceptance of radiation dose rate limits (e.g., 100 mrem/yr) that are orders of magnitude lower than the levels for which any significant health impacts are seen. The fact is, in my view, that NO technology can survive (over the long term) while being on the receiving end of an enormous double standard (i.e., under a tremendously non-level playing field). Better technology (e.g., SMRs, etc.) is not the answer. We must ask ourselves what we can do to get policies enacted that will level the regulatory playing field, and how we can reduce the tremendous prejudice that society has against our technology. I have several thoughts on those issues, but I’ve run out of space for this column…

____________________

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 DC Perspective, Department of Energy, Fukushima, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Small modular reactors, South Korea, U.S. Congress

What a difference a prime minister makes

Posted on March 15, 2012 by dyurman| 2 Comments

Japan’s new political leadership represents a sea change in the post-Fukushima era

By Dan Yurman

Japan PM Yoshihiko Noda

Want to know what the difference is between the current Japanese prime minister relative to his predecessor? The answer is how he deals with the issue of nuclear energy and blame for the ways TEPCO and the government contributed to the Fukushima crisis.

Former PM Naoto Kan threw a temper tantrum in the TEPCO emergency center and in a statement that loosely translates as “off with their heads,” called for the permanent closure of all the nation’s nuclear reactors.

Current PM Yoshihiko Noda accepts that the government and TEPCO made serious mistakes, but says that the country can do better and he is committed to restarting the nation’s 54 reactors, which provide 30 percent of Japan’s electricity. He also must reverse the nose dive the country’s economy has taken and rebuild the communities shattered by the earthquake and tsunami.

Want third-party confirmation of that? Check out a major paper by James Acton and Mark Hibbs titled, “Preventing Another Fukushima.” The paper puts its lead emphasis on the need for an independent nuclear safety agency, something Japan didn’t have on March 11, 2011.

Nothing outside our imagination

Perhaps most important is the change in Japan’s world view when it comes to nuclear energy. It is that nothing is outside the possibility of imagination.

Prior to March 11, TEPCO repeatedly and negligently rejected sound technical advice about protecting its coastal reactors from tsunami and earthquakes, saying such disasters were “outside its imagination.” That’s no longer the case under PM Noda.

In a press conference held last week PM Noda said, “We can no longer make the excuse that what was unpredictable and outside our imagination has happened. Crisis management requires us to imagine what may be outside our imagination.”

In making this statement, Noda is acknowledging that the government shares the blame in part because its safety regulators and business leaders were “blinded” by the “false belief” in the country’s technological mastery.

“The government, operator, and academic world were all too steeped in a safety myth. Everybody must share the pain of responsibility,” Noda said.

Restarting Japan’s reactors

In laying out the view that there is no haven from accountability, Noda also is setting the stage for restart of the nation’s reactors. As of March 13, 52 of the 54 reactors are closed and the other two will close in April.

The economic effects are already cascading across the nation, with its first trade deficit in 30 years and a highly annoyed steel industry threatening to go offshore with production if the electricity from the reactors isn’t restored and soon.

Japan is less than 50-percent self sufficient on food production. This means that its high value heavy industrial exports, which require lots of electricity, are what keep its balance of payments from going in the red. Pull the plug on manufacturing exports and you’ve also yanked the rug out from under the economy. The key to all this is electricity, and with 30 percent of it coming from nuclear reactors, they can’t stay turned off for long.

Noda has committed to convincing provincial government officials to agree to the restart of the reactors. That will be a tough sell. In fact, the provincial government in Fukushima province is so hard over about the impact of the reactor crisis there that it wants the government to scrap the four undamaged reactors at the Fukushima Daini site. There is, of course, the delusional policy of his predecessor, PM Kan, who wanted all the reactors off right away. Japan is paying for that folly with huge bills for fossil fuel imports. It can ill afford to sustain that kind of buying spree.

Kan comes in for a roasting

PM Noda may have painted the word “accountability” with a broad brush, but various groups looking into the Fukushima crisis have a narrower focus. In particular, the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) has issued a 400-page report. In searing language, especially for face-saving Japan, the group wrote:

“Top government officials without expert knowledge and experience ordered haphazard countermeasures,” and . . . “orders from the prime minister’s office may have raised the risk of creating unnecessary confusion and worsened the accident further.”

The RJIF report leaves no doubt how hard the criticism is on the government and TEPCO.

“The emerging crisis at the plant was complex, and, to make matters worse, it was exacerbated by communication gaps between the government and the nuclear industry.

These players were thoroughly unprepared on almost every level for the cascading nuclear disaster. This lack of preparation was caused, in part, by a public myth of absolute safety that nuclear power proponents had nurtured over decades and was aggravated by dysfunction within and between government agencies and Tepco, particularly in regard to political leadership and crisis management.

The investigation also found that the tsunami that began the nuclear disaster could and should have been anticipated and that ambiguity about the roles of public and private institutions in such a crisis was a factor in the poor response at Fukushima.”

The report’s findings are based on interviews with over 300 government and nuclear industry leaders. One of the key findings is that trust between the prime minister’s office and the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency evaporated when hydrogen explosions took place at three of the Fukushima reactors. At that point the prime minister’s office took matters into its own hands, bypassing the safety agency. The report says that PM Kan “aggravated the situation” through micromanagement.

There are three other commissions investigating the Fukushima crisis. One of them, from the Japanese parliament, has subpoena power. What hasn’t been raised so far is whether or not charges of criminal negligence will be filed against TEPCO officials and some in the government. That may come in time from a panel being run by the Japanese parliament.

Kan’s legacy a drag on progress

PM Kan’s chief spokesman during the crisis, Yukio Edano, is now the head of the METI agency, which still houses the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency. He’s been a proponent of going slow in terms of restarting the reactors. Progress to reform the nuclear safety agency by making it independent have also dragged on. Rebuilding public confidence in restarting the reactors will require a thoroughly independent nuclear regulatory agency. The cabinet has approved a legislative package, but whether it will go anyway remains a question.

On the other hand, the current government manager of the Fukushima crisis, Goshi Hoshano, is a realist and has pushed back on Edano’s defense of his former boss’s policy of permanent shut down of the nation’s reactors. He’s pushed for safe decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima reactors and control of the huge volumes of radioactive water on the site.

The fact that Kan is out of power and Noda is in charge may be the real difference in getting the commercial reactors back in operation. That doesn’t mean it will happen quickly or without a lot of political arm wrestling.  Reuters reported on March 14 that 80 percent of those responding to a newspaper poll did not trust the government’s promises of improved safety for the nation’s nuclear reactors.

Kan is under fierce attack for his failings during the crisis, but that doesn’t translate into support for restart. The real challenge the government faces is to close the gap between deep public skepticism about nuclear power in general, which was created because of the “myths” of nuclear safety that pervaded the halls of power prior to March 11.

_____________

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

NRC/Fukushima Hearing in US Senate Today 10AM ET

Posted on March 15, 2012 by pbowersox| 2 Comments

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

A hearing titled “Lessons from Fukushima One Year Later: NRC’s Implementation of Recommendations for Enhancing Nuclear Reactor Safety in the 21st Century” will be held in the U.S. Senate this morning at 10:00 AM EDT.  Witnesses will include NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko and fellow NRC commissioners Kristine Svinicki, George Apostolakis, William Magwood, and William Ostendorff.

The hearing will be webcast live starting at 10:00 AM ET.  Watch hearing from beginning archived here.  The hearing will also be broadcast live on C SPAN cable television.  XM satellite radio subscribers can listen to the audio broadcast of the hearing on C-Span Radio on Channel 119. Please see this earlier Nuclear Cafe post for more details.

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Posted in Fukushima, News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Congress

NRC/Fukushima hearing in US Senate on Thursday

Posted on March 12, 2012 by pbowersox| 3 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANS Fukushima press conference, March 8 at 10AM EST

Posted on March 7, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

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

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

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

Special Committee members at the press conference will include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on March 7, 2012 by radams| 15 Comments

by Rod Adams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Adams

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

 

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

Marking Fukushima at one year

Posted on March 6, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

Retrospective and prospective views

Fukushima tsunami at moment of impact

A number of organizations are marking the one-year anniversary of the terrible tragedy that took place in Japan on March 11, 2011.

In the year that has passed, a lot of information has come out and many organizations have, or are, developing reviews of lessons learned from the damage to the nuclear reactor complex. This blog post lists a few events that will take place this week. Some are live and online.

See the ANS Nuclear Cafe for the announcement about the American Nuclear Society event on Thursday, March 8, 10AM EST at the National Press Club. A press conference will be webcast, and the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima report will be made available for download.

Background

The March 11, 2011, Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea event that occurred about 45 miles off the coast of Japan east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tohoku.

According to geologists, it was one of the most powerful known earthquakes ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since 1900. The earthquake triggered tsunami waves that reached heights of over 133 feet (40 meters) in Miyako in Tohoku’s Iwate Prefecture, and in the Sendai area, the wave traveled up to 6 miles inland.

The tsunami caused damage to the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex resulting in the partial meltdowns at three reactors and prompted  the government’s order of the associated evacuation zones affecting nearly 200,000 residents.

  • Three nuclear reactors suffered explosions of hydrogen gas that had built up within their outer containment buildings after cooling systems failure.
  • Residents were evacuated from within a 20 km (13 mi) radius of the Fukushima plant. In addition, the United States recommended that its citizens evacuate up to 80 km (50 mi) of the plant.

The Japanese National Police recorded approximately 16,000 dead, 6,000 injured, and another 3,300 missing and presumed dead from the combined effects of the earthquake and tsunami.

Here are some events taking place this week to review what has been learned from the events at the Fukushima reactor complex since last year.

Nuclear Energy Institute
March 6

The Nuclear Energy Institute will hold a news conference on March 6 to outline the actions taken in the year following the Fukushima Daiichi accident to improve every U.S. nuclear energy facility’s capability to respond safely to extreme events, no matter what the cause.

At a 9 a.m. media briefing in the Fourth Estate Lounge at the National Press Club, the industry will discuss its new equipment procurement initiative as well as the FLEX (flexible and diverse) strategy it developed to implement post-Fukushima safety enhancements quickly and effectively.

When: 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 6

Where: Fourth Estate Lounge, National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, DC

If you are unable to attend in person, please join by conference call.
Toll free: 800.732.8470  International: 212.231.2901

Speakers

Charles Pardee, chief operating officer, Exelon Generation Co. LLC,
chairman, Fukushima Response Steering Committee

Tony Pietrangelo, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, Nuclear Energy Institute

Contact NEI’s Steve Kerekes with any questions at sck@nei.org or 202.739.8073.

March 9

NEI will also have an online webinar on Friday, March 9. NEI will be hosting a conference call for bloggers with NEI’s Adrian Heymer on FLEX, the U.S. industry’s strategy to enhance safety at its nuclear energy facilities. The call will be conducted from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Friday, March 9, and will be hosted by Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat.

All participants must pre-register in order to dial in to the call. Please RSVP to the NEI email address at epm@nei.org by COB Thursday, March 8, in order to reserve your space.

For those of you who might not be familiar with Mr. Heymer, here’s a short bio. In the United States, there simply isn’t anyone with a better read on how the incident at Fukushima is impacting the way our industry does business than Mr. Heymer.

Adrian Heymer is the executive director, Strategic Programs, at NEI. In this position he serves as the industry’s point person in organizing an integrated response to the events at Fukushima Daiichi.

Other responsibilities at NEI have encompassed new nuclear plant deployment, electricity deregulation, plant performance improvement, risk-informed regulation and industry quality programs. Prior to joining NEI he worked in support of Nebraska Public Power District’s Cooper nuclear station, Nebraska; at Lloyds Register on technical certifications and inspections; and served in the Royal Navy.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
March 6

One Year On: Assessing Fukushima’s Impact

Speakers: James M. Acton, George Apostolakis, Omer Brown, Toby Dalton, Charles Ferguson, Marvin Fertel, Takuya Hattori, Mark Hibbs, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Richard Meserve, Chris Paine, George Perkovich

On March 11, 2011, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station was flooded by a massive tsunami that triggered a nuclear accident exceeded only by Chernobyl in its severity. Almost one year later, the plant itself may finally be under control, but the accident’s consequences are likely to be profound and long lasting.

In the United States, a serious debate about the adequacy of nuclear power regulation is underway. The prospects for nuclear energy, which was widely predicted to undergo global renaissance before the accident, now appear very uncertain.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will host a conference with some of the world’s leading nuclear power experts to examine Fukushima’s impact.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012 – Washington, D.C. 9:00 AM – 2:45 PM EST

Register to attend in person
http://carnegieendowment.org/events/forms/?fa=registration&event=3553

Agenda: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/Fukushima_Conference%20Agenda_Final.pdf

· Was the Fukushima accident preventable?
· What are the implications of Fukushima for the regulation of nuclear power?
· What are the implications of Fukushima for the future of nuclear power?

If you can’t attend in person, the meeting is being video taped and will be posted on the organization’s web site later this week.  The 50 page report issued by the think tank is online now.

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If you know of other events taking place this week, please post the information as a comment.

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Fukushima health effects

Posted on March 5, 2012 by pbowersox| 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

Caracappa

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

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

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

A Fukushima investigative scorecard

Posted on March 5, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

by Leslie Corrice

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

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

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

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Corrice

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

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

ANS Special Committee on Fukushima to issue report on March 8

Posted on March 2, 2012 by pbowersox| 2 Comments

Webcast event available from National Press Club

The American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima will issue its full report next week on Thursday, March 8.  A press conference will be held at 10 AM EST at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, and will be webcast at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=85244.

The special committee’s co-chairs are Dale Klein, Ph.D., former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Michael Corradini, Ph.D., Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of nuclear engineering and engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin.

Klein

“To prepare this report, we gathered from our membership some of the world’s leading figures in the nuclear science and technology community,” said Klein. “The report will look at all aspects of the events at the Fukushima plant after the earthquake and tsunami, and will include recommendations for the nuclear community, for citizens, and for policymakers as a result of the lessons we learned.”

Corradini

Corradini added, “This report will also serve as an historical document for reference by those who wish to know what really happened, from a scientific and technically informed perspective. We thank all of our committee members for their dedication, time, and service creating this report to help us understand these events and better plan for our future.”

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

The full report will be available for download Thursday morning.

ANS President Eric Loewen, Ph.D., Klein, and Corradini discussed the goals of the report in interviews at the 2011 ANS Annual Meeting:

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Earthquake, Fukushima, general media, lessons learned, Natural disasters, News, Nuclear events, Publications

Japan stressed out over future of its nuclear reactors

Posted on February 2, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

Safety checks by the IAEA haven’t boosted public confidence

By Dan Yurman

An International Atomic Energy Agency expert mission team to Japan arrived there the last week of January to check on so-called “stress tests” of the nation’s 54 reactors. While preliminary responses from the team are generally favorable, a final report, including proposed corrective actions, is still forthcoming.

In the meantime, the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), as well as Japan’s other nuclear utilities, find themselves tied up in knots about how to restart shut down reactors.

Japan’s nuclear energy industry continued a domestic downward spiral in January with only three reactors remaining on the grid. At the rate things are going, all of the country’s nuclear reactors will be closed by May. Japan gets 30 percent of its electricity from them. The lack of power, and fuel replacement costs, contributed in January to the nation’s first balance of payments trade deficit in more than three decades.

The IAEA team said in its preliminary report that the comprehensive safety assessments that are being carried out are generally consistent with the agency’s international standards. Japan’s nuclear utilities are conducting the reviews based on instructions from the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which is soon to be reorganized as an independent agency.

An incomplete grade?

Two areas of vulnerability highlighted in the IAEA preliminary report as missing pieces in Japan’s stress tests are seismic safety margins and severe accident management. In the diplomatic language of a United Nations agency, the IAEA wrote that NISA should address these topics in greater depth and soon.

James Lyons, leader of the eight-member IAEA team, told the New York Times on February 1, “there is room for improvement.”

IAEA spokesman Greg Webb clarified to the newspaper that the agency was not certifying the safety of Japan’s nuclear reactors.

Critics of the stress tests quickly latched on to this language. They said that the reviews ignore the potential for multiple natural disasters occurring simultaneously, which is what happened on March 11, 2011. Also, critics said that the tests don’t take into account the age of the reactors.

What’s significant about the criticisms is that they come from nuclear experts inside the industry. Masashi Goto, who says his expertise is in design of nuclear reactors, and is an adviser to NISA, told wire services that the stress tests are computer simulated and do not take into account operator errors and multiple failures of equipment causes by a cascade of natural disasters.

Hiromitsu Ino, a professor at Tokyo University, said that neither NISA nor the nuclear utilities updated the test protocols to take the Fukushima accident into account.

TEPCO responded that the comments from the advisory committee are valid and agreed to revise the simulation. However, according to Japanese English language media reports, TEPCO’s calculation aren’t comprehensive enough to satisfy critics who say that they also don’t take into account damage from hydrogen explosions, the resulting debris, leaking radioactive water, and other issues that hampered the emergency response for multiple reactors at Fukushima.

Rebuilding public confidence

Japanese nuclear utilities have hoped that the visit by the IAEA team would bolster public confidence in the restart of the reactors. Local communities around the reactors, which benefit from work force payroll, taxes, and other economic benefits, are anxious for the reactors to restart soon. However, the further away you get from the plants, the more anxious the population becomes about them. While provincial government officials have no legal power to stop the reactors from restarting, Japan Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said that he will take community feelings into account in his decision.

As part of his effort to boost public confidence in the government’s oversight role, Noda is reorganizing the nuclear safety function. Until the Fukushima disaster, NISA was located inside METI, the trade ministry. Many felt that this proximity created role ambiguity with both the promotion and regulation of the nuclear industry reporting to the same politically appointed minister. Under the new plan, NISA will be established as an independent agency with beefed up technical staff.

Another step in the direction of plant safety is to impose a cap on the duration of reactor operation. A cabinet draft legislative proposal issued this week could impose a 40-year life on reactors from their commissioning date. It would also allow for an extension of 20 years. Japan has no regulatory limit on how long a reactor can remain in service.

The cost of replacement fuel

As Japan pursues a race to the bottom in terms of having no reactors generating electricity, driven by public angst, fossil fuel costs are rapidly rising and contributing to economic stress. In December and January, Japan’s imports of crude oil and natural gas increased significantly according to the Federation of Electric Power Companies.

Fossil imports have pushed the Japanese economy into its first annual trade deficit in three decades. The primary reason is a 33-percent increase in oil imports from the Middle East. Japan’s need for oil also contributed to its tepid response to a U.S. call for an embargo of crude oil buying from Iran over its uranium enrichment activities.

Japan relies on high-value manufacturing exports to pay for its energy and food imports. When the lights go out at its factories, the trade deficit is the result. As this trend is accelerating, TEPCO is proposing a 17-percent increase in electricity rates, to take place in April, largely to cover the cost of replacement power as the reactors remain shut down.

Steelmakers have protested the steep rate increase saying it will force them to move production offshore. A spokesman for the Japanese Iron & Steel Federation said on January 28 that the electric furnaces used by its members can’t be kept running in Japan under the new rates. He said that the new rates would cost an additional 20 billion yen ($2.2 billion) a year.

Restructuring TEPCO

The Japanese government is trying to keep TEPCO afloat financially with a $13 billion bailout to cover cleanup, decommissioning, and compensation costs. In return, TEPCO will give the government a two-thirds equity stake, effectively nationalizing it.

Meanwhile, TEPCO is seeking to restructure its massive debt with the Japan’s leading banks. For their part, the banks have refused to accept a request from the government to forgive some or all of TEPCO’s loans. They want the firm to become profitable, pay off its debts to them, and issue new bonds to pay off the government loan.

TEPCO’s financial plan to return to profitability hinges on the restart of its nuclear reactors including the units at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the largest nuclear reactor complex in the world. In addition to a whopping 17-percent increase for industry, TEPCO is proposing a 10-percent rate increase for households.

In summary, proving the reactors can operate safely, so that they can be restarted, requires new and bigger stakes than just electricity supply. The country’s economy needs the electricity to avoid further negative impacts of fossil fuel replacement costs. Getting there isn’t going to be easy or quick.

The government’s action to effectively nationalize TEPCO offers a hint at its next action, which may be—taking national interest into account—to override provincial officials opposed to restarting the reactors. If it doesn’t, it will be a long, hot, and expensive summer in Japan.  Provincial officials will want to be assured that the reactors are safe. They may be willing to put up with some summer heat which could be peanuts compared to the political heat if they act without this confidence.

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Yurman

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

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Posted in Fukushima

ANS banner, donations support Fukushima workers

Posted on January 31, 2012 by pbowersox| Comments Off

A banner signed by American Nuclear Society members during the society’s Winter Meeting in Washington, DC, signifies the support and encouragement of ANS membership for the people of Japan and the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant who are rebuilding after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

In a letter to Eric Loewen, ANS president (page 1) (page 2), Tokyo Electric Power Company president Toshio Nishizawa thanked ANS for the banner and noted that donations totaling $240,000 have been collected through the ANS Japan Relief Fund to support the workers at the plant and their families. Nishizawa also noted that in December the Fukushima Daiichi plant was brought to a condition equivalent to “cold shutdown” and that it “entered into a new phase of mid- and long-term Roadmap for decommissioning of the reactors.”

Fukushima plant workers with ANS banner

 

Loewen said during the Winter Meeting, “We continue to honor the brave men and women of the Japanese nuclear community who are committed to the clean-up and rebuilding efforts after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We want them to know that we recognize their dedication and hard work. To do this, we created a banner to be signed by meeting attendees who can personally send encouragement and best wishes to demonstrate our continued support. Our Japanese colleagues know they are remembered through our financial support and the banner message.”

 

Banner message in English and Japanese

 

At the 2011 ANS Winter Meeting: President Eric P. Loewen and Vice-President Michael Corradini. Flanking the ANS officers are Loewen’s son and daughter, Hans and Zatha

 

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, Earthquake, Fukushima, Meetings, Natural disasters