Group items tagged

A preliminary report from an IAEA advisory group says that a pragmatic approach to the Fukushima clean-up effort is needed, as World Nuclear News reports. Judging from that report, the Japanese government seems to want to reduce additional dose rates to one millisievert per year. That will of course lead to astronomical costs with no benefit. On the other hand, spending a couple of trillion dollars of public money on moving dirt around the country would certainly help the economy. I assume this would all be included when calculating GDP.

Any decision on the clean-up strategy should start with a real hard look at the underlying science of radiation protection. Once you are potentially talking about a trillion dollars cost, a bit more of scrutiny for the junk science “linear non-threshold” hypothesis is in order compared to the situation where it is just an academic exercise. Sort of like calling in the experts and really take a hard look at prior art once a billion dollar patent lawsuit has kicked off, instead of relying on the limited efforts of the original examiner who granted the patent in question in the first place. Of course, if you adopt the standard proposed by Wade Allison of 100 millisieverts per month as I do, all that is needed for the clean-up effort is a declaration that there is no need for any of it. I would rather prefer to have a couple of trillion dollars invested in solar panels and wind energy than to waste it on reducing radiation cancer risks by 0.0032 percent or some such number.

First, the video of Packbots' cleaning operation on November 18 of the guide rails to the Containment Vessel hatch in Reactor 3 reactor building 1st floor. As one Packbot wipes the rail and holds the towel up in the air, you see the water is dripping. The droplets look clear, and not sludge-like.

By the way, it is false information that the video was taken by a human worker on the scene. No way even TEPCO would knowingly send a carbon-based worker to videotape in 1.3 sievert/hr (as of November 14) environment. (Human workers entering and finding high-radiation spots is another matter.) One Packbot did the cleaning, while the other videotaped the effort by its colleague. Both were remotely operated by carbon-based colleagues from the PCs.And here's the video where Packbots went back the next day (November 19) to the guide rails to inspect the cleaning job and measure the radiation again. We know that they found out their cleaning operation didn't reduce the radiation levels along the rails; the levels went up (see yesterday's post). The guide rails, despite the cleaning operation, look wet:

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist , Politics of Nuclear Energy , Unreliables , Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk . If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be. Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.   On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuc

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk. If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.  On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.” Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article: If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.

On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants. Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.”

Nuclear power plants are located close to sources of water, which is used as a coolant to handle the waste heat discharged by the plants. This means that water contaminated with radioactive material is often one of the problems to arise after a nuclear disaster. Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water, resulting in clean water and concentrated waste that can be stored more efficiently. The new absorbent, which was developed by a QUT research team led by Professor Huai-Yong Zhu working in collaboration with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and Pennsylvania State University, uses titanate nanofiber and nanotube technology. Unlike current clean-up methods, such as a layered clays and zeolites, the new material is able to efficiently lock in deadly radioactive material from contaminated water and the used absorbents can then be safely disposed of without the risk of leakage - even if the material were to become wet.

When the contaminated water is run through the fine nanotubes and fibers, the radioactive Cesium (Cs+) ions are trapped through a structural change. Additionally, by adding silver oxide nanocrystals to the outer surface, the nanostructures are able to capture and immobilize radioactive iodine (I-) ions used in treatments for thyroid cancer, in probes and markers for medical diagnosis, and also found in leaks of nuclear accidents. "One gram of the nanofibres can effectively purify at least one ton of polluted water," Professor Zhu said. "This saves large amounts of dangerous water needing to be stored somewhere and also prevents the risk of contaminated products leaking into the soil." "Australia is one of the largest producers of titania that are the raw materials used for fabricating the absorbents of titanate nanofibres and nanotubes. Now with the knowledge to produce the adsorbents, we have the technology to do the cleaning up for the world," added Professor Zhu.

Without much going on recently that hasn’t been covered by other blog posts, I’d like to explore a topic not specifically tied to nuclear power or to activities currently going on in Washington, D.C. It involves an idea I have about a possible alternative means of having the electricity market account for the public health and environmental costs of various energy sources, and encouraging the development and use of cleaner sources (including nuclear) without requiring legislation. Given the failure of Congress to take action on global warming, as well as environmental issues in general, non-legislative approaches to accomplishing environmental goals may be necessary. The Problem

One may say that the best response would be to significantly tighten pollution regulations, perhaps to the point where no sources have significant external costs. There are problems with this approach, however, above and beyond the fact that the energy industry has (and will?) successfully blocked the legislation that would be required. Significant tightening of regulations raises issues such as how expensive compliance will be, and whether or not viable alternative (cleaner) sources would be available. The beauty of simply placing a cost (or tax) on pollution that reflects its costs to public health and the environment is that those issues need not be addressed. The market just decides between sources based on the true, overall cost of each, resulting in the minimum overall (economic + environmental) cost-generation portfolio

The above reasoning is what led to policies like cap-and-trade or a CO2 emissions tax being proposed as a solution for the global warming problem. This has not flown politically, however. Policies that attempt to have external costs included in the market cost of energy have been labeled a “tax increase.” This is particularly true given that the associated pollution taxes (or emissions credit costs) would have largely gone to the government.

Gemma Reguera at Michigan State University leads a team that found the normal digestive processes of a common type of bacteria – known as Geobacter – can reduce levels of uranium waste. She spoke with EarthSky:

geobacter

She said these bacteria don’t make radioactive material less radioactive. But they do immobilize it by converting it into a solid that’s more easily contained – so we can remove it and store it safely. Her group found that, when Geobacter come into contact with free-floating uranium – uranium dissolved in water, let’s say – the bacteria zap the uranium with small blasts of electricity. They do this naturally, as part of their digestive processes. This electricity causes the uranium to mineralize – in other words, they turn the uranium into something like a rock. Radioactive material is much less potent in this solid form, Reguera said, and easier to remove from the environment. She said:

Collectively, Texas eats more energy than any other state, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. We’re fifth in the country when it comes to our per-capita energy intake — about 532 million British Thermal Units per year. A British Thermal Unit, or Btu, is like a little “bite” of energy. Imagine a wooden match burning and you’ve got a Btu on a stick. Of course, the consumption is with reason. Texas, home to a quarter of the U.S. domestic oil reserves, is also bulging with the second-highest population and a serious petrochemical industry. In recent years, we managed to turn ourselves into the country’s top producer of wind energy. Despite all the chest-thumping that goes on in these parts about those West Texas wind farms (hoist that foam finger!), we are still among the worst in how we use that energy. Though not technically “Southern,” Texans guzzle energy like true rednecks. Each of our homes use, on average, about 14,400 kilowatt hours per year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It doesn’t all have to do with the A/C, either. Arizonans, generally agreed to be sharing the heat, typically use about 12,000 kWh a year; New Mexicans cruise in at an annual 7,200 kWh. Don’t even get me started on California’s mere 6,000 kWh/year figure.

Let’s break down that kilowatt-hour thing. A watt is the energy of one candle burning down. (You didn’t put those matches away, did you?) A kilowatt is a thousand burnin’ candles. And a kilowatt hour? I think you can take it from there. We’re wide about the middle in Bexar, too. The average CPS customer used 1,538 kilowatt hours this June when the state average was 1,149 kWh, according to ERCOT. Compare that with Austin residents’ 1,175 kWh and San Marcos residents’ 1,130 kWh, and you start to see something is wrong. So, we’re wasteful. So what? For one, we can’t afford to be. Maybe back when James Dean was lusting under a fountain of crude we had if not reason, an excuse. But in the 1990s Texas became a net importer of energy for the first time. It’s become a habit, putting us behind the curve when it comes to preparing for that tightening energy crush. We all know what happens when growing demand meets an increasingly scarce resource … costs go up. As the pressure drop hits San Anto, there are exactly two ways forward. One is to build another massively expensive power plant. The other is to transform the whole frickin’ city into a de-facto power plant, where energy is used as efficiently as possible and blackouts simply don’t occur.

Consider, South Texas Project Plants 1&2, which send us almost 40 percent of our power, were supposed to cost $974 million. The final cost on that pair ended up at $5.5 billion. If the planned STP expansion follows the same inflationary trajectory, the price tag would wind up over $30 billion. Applications for the Matagorda County plants were first filed with the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974. Building began two years later. However, in 1983 there was still no plant, and Austin, a minority partner in the project, sued Houston Power & Lighting for mismanagement in an attempt to get out of the deal. (Though they tried to sell their share several years ago, the city of Austin remains a 16-percent partner, though they have chosen not to commit to current expansion plans).

Why on earth would anyone choose to work at what’s left of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station? The job description probably goes something like this: - must spend day in full body suit, gloves, thick rubber boots and full-facial mask

- must endure extremely high temperatures in aforementioned suits - must work on badly damaged site containing the remains of 4 crippled nuclear reactors

- must brave dangerously high levels of radiation (you may feel like you a suffocating in full-facial mask but no, you cannot take it off).

(Reuters) - Japanese officials in towns around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant reacted guardedly to plans announced on Saturday to build facilities to store radioactive waste from the clean-up around the plant within three years.

Japan aims to halve radiation over two years in places contaminated by the crisis. To do so, it may have to remove and dispose of massive amounts of radioactive soil, possibly enough to fill 23 baseball stadiums.

Towns near the crippled nuclear plant have barely been able to start cleaning up until now because they have been unable to convince residents about where to store the radioactive waste.

The organism under consideration in this case is Geobacter, a bacterial type that shows presence in the soil. This bacterium has appendages, or small mobile parts outside its cellular body, also known as nanowires.

But in Geobacter, these appendages act as organs for cleaning up nuclear waste and formulators of electricity.

To boost the process, researchers have also given birth to an advanced strain of the bacteria which would contain greater number of appendages, thus fastening the process of clearing up nuclear wastes.

Some radioactive contaminants at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will threaten the Columbia River for thousands of years, a new analysis projects, despite the multibillion-dollar cleanup efforts by the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Energy projections come from a new analysis of how best to clean up leaking storage tanks and manage waste at Hanford, a former nuclear weapons production site on 586 square miles next to the Columbia in southeastern Washington.

Oregon officials say the results, including contamination projections for the next 10,000 years, indicate the federal government needs to clean up more of the waste that has already leaked and spilled at Hanford instead of capping and leaving it, a less-expensive alternative.

Focus will turn to restoring areas damaged in the oil spill, which the coast guard says represents an important milestone

BP will officially be off the hook for any deposits of oil that wash up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico – unless they can be traced directly to the Macondo well, it has emerged.Under a plan approved by the Coast Guard on 2 November, the oil company will end active cleanup operations and focus on restoring the areas damaged by last year's oil disaster.The plan, which was obtained by the Associated Press, sets out a protocol for determining which areas of the Gulf still need to be cleaned, and when BP's responsibility for that would end.

The plan "provides the mechanisms for ceasing active cleanup operations", AP said.It went on to suggest the biggest effort would be reserved for the most popular, heavily visited beaches. More oil would be tolerated on remote beaches. BP will be responsible for cleaning up thick oil in marshes – unless officials decide it is best to let nature do its work.The agency quoted coast guard officials saying the plan represented an important milestone in restoring the Gulf. BP has set aside about $1bn for restoration.The Obama administration has been indicating for some time that the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which began on 20 April 2010 with an explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers, was moving into a second phase.Earlier on Tuesday, the US government rolled out a new five-year plan for selling offshore drilling leases.The proposal was a radically scaled back version of the president's earlier plans for offshore drilling – put forward just a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blowout – that would have opened up the Arctic and Atlantic coasts for drilling.

The dose is still safe, says Tokonami. Gerry Thomas, a radiation health expert at Imperial College London, adds that radiation exposures from Fukushima were far lower than those from Chernobyl. "Personally, I do not think that we will see any effects on health from the radiation, but do expect to see effects on the psychological well-being of the population," she says. But Kodama says that residents of Namie and other towns inside the evacuation zone could have been better protected if the government had released its early models of the plume. Officials say they withheld the projections because the data on which they were based were sparse.

Hotspots Many questions also remain about the radiation now in the environment. The terrain around Fukushima is hilly, and rainwater has washed the fallout into hotspots, says Timothy Mousseau, an ecologist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia who recently travelled to the Fukushima region to conduct environmental surveys. The plant, located on the Pacific coast, continues to spew radionuclides into the water, adds Ken Buesseler, an oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. During a cruise in mid-July, his team picked up low-level radiation more than 600 kilometres away. Ocean currents can concentrate the fallout into hotspots something like those on land, making the effect on marine life difficult to gauge.

Gathering more data is a struggle, say researchers. Tokonami says that overstretched local officials are reluctant to let his team into the region for fear that it will increase their workload. Buesseler and Mousseau add that Japan's famed bureaucracy has made it difficult for outside researchers to carry out studies. Funding has also been a problem. To complete his cruise, Buesseler turned to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for a $3.5-million grant. Mousseau got a biotech company to sponsor his trip and has since found funding through the Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust.

Presence of subcontractors affiliated with crime syndicates and their employees     Two local newspapers in Fukushima Prefecture have recently reported that businesses affiliated with crime syndicates are involved in the clean-up operation at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. One of them is the Fukushima Min-yu Shimbun, which reported in its May 23 issue that on May 22 the Koriyama City police and the Futaba Gun (County) police arrested leading members of a gangster group affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate based in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture. According to the newspaper, they were charged with violation of the Temporary Staffing Services Law by dispatching five to six members of the group to the nuclear power station for the clean-up operation.

The environmental group took samples at and near three schools in Fukushima city, well outside the 20 km exclusion zone from Tokyo Electric Power's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan's northeast. "No parent should have to choose between radiation exposure and education for their child," said Kazue Suzuki, Greenpeace Japan's anti-nuclear project head.

The government had already taken steps to decontaminate schools in Fukushima prefecture, where the crippled plant has been leaking radiation since it was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Calling the measures "deplorably late and inadequate," Greenpeace said it had found average dose rates above the maximum allowed under international standards, of 1 millisievert per year, or 0.11 microsievert per hour.

Japan's education ministry on Friday set a looser standard, allowing up to 1 microsievert per hour of radiation in schools. Greenpeace said that inside a high school it tested, the reading was 0.5 microsievert per hour, breaching international standards even after the government's clean-up.

The calls these days for a technological “energy revolution” are widespread. But how do you spark breakthroughs when the natural bias of businesses, investors and governments is toward the here and now? In governance, politics creates a bias toward the short term. This is why bridges sometimes fall down for lack of maintenance. That’s also why it’s so hard to sustain public investment in the research and intellectual infrastructure required to make progress on the frontiers of chemistry, biology and physics, even though it is this kind of work that could produce leaps in how we harvest, harness, store and move energy. (This is why I asked, “Are Chemists and Engineers on the Green Jobs List?” back in 2008.)

To get the idea, you only have to look at the sputtering state of President Obama’s mostly unfunded innovation hubs, or look once again at the energy sliver in the graph showing America’s half-century history of public investment in basic scientific research. (There’s not much difference in research patterns in most other industrialized countries.) You can also look at the first Quadrennial Technology Review produced by the Department of Energy (summarized by Climate Progress earlier this week). The review was conducted after the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology wisely recommended regular reviews of this sort as part of its prescription for accelerating change in energy technologies.

This excerpt from the new review articulates the tension pretty transparently for a government report: There is a tension between supporting work that industry doesn’t— which biases the department’s portfolio toward the long term—and the urgency of the nation’s energy challenges. The appropriate balance requires the department to focus on accelerating innovation relevant to today’s energy technologies, since such evolutionary advances are more likely to have near- to mid-term impact on the nation’s challenges. We found that too much effort in the department is devoted to research on technologies that are multiple generations away from practical use at the expense of analyses, modeling and simulation, or other highly relevant fundamental engineering research activities that could influence the private sector in the nearer term.

the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent organization tasked by the executive branch to oversee public health and safety issues at the DOE's nuclear facilities. In a report addressed to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, DNFSB investigators wrote that "both DOE and contractor project management behaviors reinforce a subculture . . . that deters the timely reporting, acknowledgement, and ultimate resolution of technical safety concerns."

After reviewing 30,000 documents and interviewing 45 staffers, the DNFSB reported that those who went against the grain and raised concerns about safety issues associated with construction design "were discouraged, if not opposed or rejected without review." In fact, according to the DNFSB, one of these scientists, Dr. Walter Tamosaitis, was actually removed from his position as a result of speaking up about design problems.

It's not just the DNFSB that is concerned with the safety culture and management at Hanford. Seattle Weekly has obtained official documents revealing that the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional arm in charge of investigating matters relating to contractors and other public fund recipients, visited the Hanford site last month. In an outline sent to DOE personnel in advance of their visit, the GAO wrote that it will look into how contractors are addressing concerns over what they call "relatively lax attitudes toward safety procedures," "inadequacies in identifying and addressing safety problems," and a "weak safety culture, including employees' reluctance to report problems." Their findings likely will be made public in early 2012.