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Meltdown is not the word you want to hear in relation to a nuclear power plant. Even the global financial Meltdown has potentially dire consequences for public safety over the long term. Even as the industry and Washington quite rightly have moved toward a new generation of nuclear plant construction, an analysis by the Associated Press raises troubling questions about the current generation. Nuclear plant operators are required to set aside enough money, over the course of a plant's life, to pay for its decommissioning and demolition. That process, for most plants, costs hundreds of millions of dollars. The AP analysis found that the Meltdown in the financial markets over the last two years has drained much of the money held by plant operators to safely decommission and demolish their plants. According to the analysis, operators of about half of the nuclear plants nationwide are not saving enough money for inevitable demolition projects. At the same time that the estimated costs of demolition has risen by $4.6 billion, the value of investments held by plant operators for that purpose has fallen by $4.4 billion, the AP reported. And, it found, the savings rates for demolition has declined for 80 percent of the nation's reactors. So far plant operators have reacted to the losses in two ways. In 19 cases they have won permission to delay decommissioning for as long as 60 years in order to allow their investments to recover. In more than 50 others, they have won permission to extend plant operations beyond their original permit expiration dates.

"You won't hear this a lot, but several reactors at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant have been in full meltdown for a while now. The authorities don't know how to cool the reactors or remove the massively radioactive fuel cores. This is very likely now the world's worst ever nuclear disaster. By SIPHO HLONGWANE. The Tokyo Electrical Power Company (Tepco), the owners and operators of the Fukushima nuclear plant recently admitted the accident had released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl in 1986, which would make it the worst nuclear accident ever recorded. The crisis at the plant followed a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit off the coast of Japan on 11 March 2011, followed by a tsunami and series of aftershocks. The natural disaster left 23,000 people dead or missing, but also severely crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The plant was hit by a barrage of tsunamis immediately after the earthquake, one measuring 14m, which caused a power loss in the plant and massive damage to low-lying generators and pumps. The plant's cooling facilities were crippled, leading to the overheating of the reactors."

Human error helped worsen a nuclear meltdown just outside Los Angeles, and now human inertia has stymied the radioactive cleanup for half a century. "During an inspection of fuel elements on July 26 at the Sodium Reactor Experiment, operated for the Atomic Energy Commission at Santa Susana, California by Atomics International, a division of North American Aviation, Inc., a parted fuel element was observed.

It was thirty years ago this week that the Unit 2 reactor of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant began a partial meltdown. As its fuel rods began to burn out of control, a hydrogen bubble formed, causing a small explosion. Christian Parenti: Thirty years after the Three Mile Island partial meltdown, the real nuclear power threat is the relicensing of old plants. During the accident, plant operators were myopically glued to their instruments, which were incorrectly indicating that a crucial pressure valve was closed. In fact, it was open and draining coolant from the plant's core, thus causing it to burn out of control. When the shift changed, someone on the new crew had the presence of mind to check the temperature on the reactor's effluent pipe. It was way too hot. That meant the crucial pressure valve--which read "closed" on the monitors--was actually wide open. The crisis was eventually brought under control. How narrow the margin of error. That accident was bad--43,000 curies of krypton radiation were released--but it could have been catastrophic.

"It's climate-friendly and creates jobs, but as the U.S. reconsiders atom smashing, old worries about nuclear waste, meltdowns and price tags persist. The United States is on the brink of a nuclear revival, fueled by fear of climate change, demand for electricity and distrust of renewable power. Combined with a festering recession, these modern woes are suddenly drowning out many of the older worries - such as meltdowns and radioactive waste - that plagued nuclear power's past. After a nearly 30-year lull in building new nuclear reactors, due largely to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, U.S. energy companies have applied to build more than two dozen in the last three years, and some advocates are calling for much more. President Obama touted the benefits of nuclear power during last month's State of the Union address, and in his 2011 federal budget, he proposed tripling government loan guarantees for new nuclear projects, raising the total to more than $54 billion."

The pro-nuclear Department of Energy is set to offer this month the first of nearly $20 billion in loan guarantees to a nuclear industry that hasn't built a plant since the 1970s or raised any money to do so in years. But although the industry is seeking to cash in on global warming concerns with $100 billion in proposed loan guarantees, environmentalists, scientists and federal investigators are warning that lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of the nation's aging 104 nuclear plants has led to near-meltdowns along with other health and safety failings since Three Mile Island - including what some critics say is a flawed federal health study apparently designed to conceal cancer risks near nuclear plants.

The pro-nuclear Department of Energy is set to offer this month the first of nearly $20 billion in loan guarantees to a nuclear industry that hasn't built a plant since the 1970s or raised any money to do so in years. But although the industry is seeking to cash in on global warming concerns with $100 billion in proposed loan guarantees, environmentalists, scientists and federal investigators are warning that lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of the nation's aging 104 nuclear plants has led to near-meltdowns along with other health and safety failings since Three Mile Island - including what some critics say is a flawed federal health study apparently designed to conceal cancer risks near nuclear plants.

"The largest toxic waste facility in the West rejected a proposal by Boeing Co. and NASA to accept tainted soil from the site of a partial nuclear meltdown. Chemical Waste Management, which operates the San Joaquin dump, sent a letter Tuesday to Linda Adams, head of the state Environmental Protection Agency, saying the facility would not accept the hazardous waste "because of the uncertainty and community concerns about levels of radioactive constituents in these materials." The dump just outside the tiny farming town of Kettleman City, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles where thousands of rockets were tested and a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959."

"Not only the pressure vessels, but the containment vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were probably damaged within 24 hours of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s analysis of the nuclear crisis. In a report on the analysis, the utility said it carried out minute calculations on internal pressure and other measurements in the nuclear reactors after the earthquake. The report was submitted to the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on Monday night. TEPCO said it found that an isolation condenser, a type of emergency cooling device, did not work properly at the No. 1 reactor. This caused the core meltdown to progress until it damaged the bottom of the pressure vessel about 15 hours after the earthquake. Along with the meltdown, the temperature inside the steel containment vessel, which contains the pressure vessel, rose until it reached 300 C in 18 hours after the quake, much higher than 138 C the vessel was designed for. It is believed the internal temperature continued to rise after that. Containment vessels are designed for a much lower temperature and pressure than pressure vessels, which can be exposed to temperatures close to 300 C and pressure reaching 70 bars when a reactor is in operation."

After the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, years passed before anyone took seriously the idea of a nuclear revival. Then our friend the atom started making a comeback. Rising demand for energy provided a boost. And the outpouring of concern about climate change put fossil fuels and their carbon emissions at center stage as environmental enemy No. 1. Utilities across the country began laying the groundwork for new reactors, following the lead of Europe and Asia. Yet talk of a "nuclear renaissance" has run into a financial meltdown.

After the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, years passed before anyone took seriously the idea of a nuclear revival. Then our friend the atom started making a comeback. Rising demand for energy provided a boost. And the outpouring of concern about climate change put fossil fuels and their carbon emissions at center stage as environmental enemy No. 1. Utilities across the country began laying the groundwork for new reactors, following the lead of Europe and Asia. Yet talk of a "nuclear renaissance" has run into a financial meltdown.

On the morning of July 14, 1959, Sodium Reactor Experiment trainee John Pace received the bad news from a group of supervisors who had, he recalled, "terribly worried expressions on their faces." A reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains had experienced a power surge the night before and spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere. "They were terrified that some of the gas had blown over their own San Fernando Valley homes," recalled Pace, who was 20 at the time. "My job was to keep radiation out of the control room."

Editor's note: This story originally appeared in Facing South, the online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies. For links to supporting documents, please see the original story. Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near It was April Fool's Day, 1979-30 years ago this month-when Randall Thompson first set foot inside the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. Just four days earlier, in the early morning hours of March 28, a relatively minor problem in the plant's Unit 2 reactor sparked a series of mishaps that led to the meltdown of almost half the uranium fuel and uncontrolled releases of radiation into the air and surrounding Susquehanna River.

"President Obama has big plans for the future of commercial nuclear energy but the industry still has to deal with the waste it's generated over the past 50 years. The administration has pulled the plug on the Yucca Mountain repository so, today, half a century of radioactive waste remains at power plants. That's costing taxpayers and ratepayers billions of dollars a year. Living on Earth's Bruce Gellerman investigates the flow of federal funds and nuclear waste in the second story in our series. YOUNG: You might call it a money meltdown. For decades the federal government promised to permanently bury that high-level nuclear waste in the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. And utility consumers paid the government billions of dollars to do that. But the Obama administration wants to pull the plug on Yucca Mountain - while at the same time promising 54 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees to build new reactors. That means nuclear utility companies have to continue to store the spent fuel rods on site - often in pools of water and increasingly in special dry casks."

Turns out Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is battling environmentalists and public fear of nuclear meltdowns on his new pro-nuke bill less than he's battling the lingering stigma that Homer Simpson and his scofflaw boss Mr. Burns generated at their Springfield nuclear power plant. homer simpson Where does this bit of wisdom on the hurdles facing the nuclear industry revival come from? From the staid Wall Street Journal, which Tuesday blogged about a Canadian professor who's been talking up the Simpson factor on north-of-the-border radio shows in the wake of the regulatory rejection of a nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan.

Turns out Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is battling environmentalists and public fear of nuclear meltdowns on his new pro-nuke bill less than he's battling the lingering stigma that Homer Simpson and his scofflaw boss Mr. Burns generated at their Springfield nuclear power plant. homer simpson Where does this bit of wisdom on the hurdles facing the nuclear industry revival come from? From the staid Wall Street Journal, which Tuesday blogged about a Canadian professor who's been talking up the Simpson factor on north-of-the-border radio shows in the wake of the regulatory rejection of a nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan.

Activists are protesting a decision by the California Department of Public Health that would allow the Boeing Co. and NASA to send contaminated dirt from a nuclear accident site to a waste facility in the San Joaquin Valley that is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has the final say, has sent a letter to the agency requesting more information on its decision that the dirt "does not represent a public health threat" and could be sent to the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959. The field lab was also used for rocket engine tests.

Activists are protesting a decision by the California Department of Public Health that would allow the Boeing Co. and NASA to send contaminated dirt from a nuclear accident site to a waste facility in the San Joaquin Valley that is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has the final say, has sent a letter to the agency requesting more information on its decision that the dirt "does not represent a public health threat" and could be sent to the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959. The field lab was also used for rocket engine tests.

"Regional water quality regulators have fined Boeing Co. $500,000 for contaminated stormwater runoff at a former nuclear and rocket engine testing facility in eastern Ventura County. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a consent judgment Thursday also ordering Boeing to pay $75,000 in attorneys fees and civil penalties for days when contaminants exceeded permitted limits at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Boeing spokeswoman Kamara Sams Holden says the judgment covers violations from 2007 through the end of 2009. The lab 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles was used for nuclear and rocket testing for more than four decades. A nuclear reactor had a partial meltdown at the 2,800 acre site in 1959."

Read the release that details how TMI will operate for an additional 20 years * Record Tracker blog: More on TMI's renewal, including links to documents. * York Town Square blog: Three Mile Island emergency indelibly written into memories. Thirty years after Three Mile Island Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown, a federal agency has approved its sister reactor to operate for an additional 20 years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed the operating license Thursday for TMI Unit 1 in Dauphin County. The new license will expire April 19, 2034. The reactor's original 40-year license was Read TMI's response to landing license renewal. set to run out April 19, 2014.

Read the release that details how TMI will operate for an additional 20 years * Record Tracker blog: More on TMI's renewal, including links to documents. * York Town Square blog: Three Mile Island emergency indelibly written into memories. Thirty years after Three Mile Island Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown, a federal agency has approved its sister reactor to operate for an additional 20 years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed the operating license Thursday for TMI Unit 1 in Dauphin County. The new license will expire April 19, 2034. The reactor's original 40-year license was Read TMI's response to landing license renewal. set to run out April 19, 2014.

Thirty years after the nation's worst nuclear power plant accident, the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, nuclear is back in the news. Polls show increased public support, and advocates tout its relatively clean, homegrown power potential. Georgia is at the forefront of the industry's hopes, with Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle near Augusta scheduled to put the first of two planned new reactors into service in 2016.

Thirty years after the nation's worst nuclear power plant accident, the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, nuclear is back in the news. Polls show increased public support, and advocates tout its relatively clean, homegrown power potential. Georgia is at the forefront of the industry's hopes, with Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle near Augusta scheduled to put the first of two planned new reactors into service in 2016.

The government says nuclear power is safe, but others say an airplane hit or frontal assault would be big trouble. BAY CITY, Texas (CNNMoney.com) -- At a nuclear power plant in Texas, two men dressed in combat gear are perched atop a steel-framed watchtower armed with assault rifles, firing on both moving and stationary targets some 300 yards away. This is only a drill, but the threat they're preparing for is very real. It's one of the worst disaster scenarios imaginable: Terrorists infiltrate a nuclear power plant and cause a meltdown.

The government says nuclear power is safe, but others say an airplane hit or frontal assault would be big trouble. BAY CITY, Texas (CNNMoney.com) -- At a nuclear power plant in Texas, two men dressed in combat gear are perched atop a steel-framed watchtower armed with assault rifles, firing on both moving and stationary targets some 300 yards away. This is only a drill, but the threat they're preparing for is very real. It's one of the worst disaster scenarios imaginable: Terrorists infiltrate a nuclear power plant and cause a meltdown.

A new report says nuclear power plants would take too long to build and are too expensive to make any impact on global warming. The report, released by Wisconsin Environment, an environmental advocacy organization, notes scientists believe developed nations must reduce emissions dramatically by 2020 to limit global warming. The report says the first new nuclear reactor in the United States probably won't be completed until at least 2016. Money that would go to new plants would be better spent on renewable sources. State Rep. Mike Huebsch, a West Salem Republican, has pushed to repeal Wisconsin's moratorium on nuclear power. He says groups like Wisconsin Environment are still living off the hysteria of 1970s meltdowns and will do anything to delay nuclear plant construction.

A new report says nuclear power plants would take too long to build and are too expensive to make any impact on global warming. The report, released by Wisconsin Environment, an environmental advocacy organization, notes scientists believe developed nations must reduce emissions dramatically by 2020 to limit global warming. The report says the first new nuclear reactor in the United States probably won't be completed until at least 2016. Money that would go to new plants would be better spent on renewable sources. State Rep. Mike Huebsch, a West Salem Republican, has pushed to repeal Wisconsin's moratorium on nuclear power. He says groups like Wisconsin Environment are still living off the hysteria of 1970s meltdowns and will do anything to delay nuclear plant construction.

"In the Polish village of Klempicz, less than an hour from the German border, Lech Wojcieszynski is hoping to bring the first atomic reactor to his country, overcoming the Chernobyl disaster's legacy. "I remember Chernobyl very well, but how long ago was that?" said Wojcieszynski, a local entrepreneur who arranged meetings with residents and government officials responsible for nuclear policy. "Technology has moved on to a completely different level." Nuclear power is back in vogue in Eastern Europe 24 years after the meltdown at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, the worst nuclear accident in history, which blanketed the region with radioactive dust and halted development of atomic power. Klempicz is second on a list of 27 sites competing for the $11 billion project. A decision will be made at the end of the year in the country where burning coal supplies 95 percent of energy. "