Group items tagged

book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment in a publication called the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The roots of the decision remain murky. Within a few months after the first printing of the book, Ted Rockwell, a long time member of the Academy, started working to convince NYAS leaders that the decision to print was a grave error that was bad for science and posed a significant risk to the reputation of the Academy as a source of sound, peer-reviewed information. As part of his effort, he encouraged the current editor of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences to appoint reviewers and to post the results of those reviews.

NOTHING happend to the fuel in the pools at Fukushima. I would like to see some evidence other than the word of an activist who frightens kids for a living to support Gunter’s rant about peices of fuel being ejected miles away. From the looks of that video, the fuel didn’t move an inch. There is also a poll associated with the article. The poll discloses that it is completely unscientific, since it allows anyone to vote and is not based on randomly selected participants. However, I think that the results as of 0315 this morning are pretty amusing since the antinuclear opinion piece has been posted for nearly a week.

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.

“It took a really extraordinary event for 95 percent of the people in the world to know about it,” he said. “If they know about Fukushima, they know about Mark 1 reactors exploding in the air and releasing toxic radiation across the world and they know that’s not a good thing. Something has to be done to make sure that never happens again.” I could not let that one pass without a comment; I am quite sure that Mariotte has once again fallen victim to the fact that he surrounds himself with people who echo his own prejudices. Here is my response.

Marriotte makes an interesting statement by he claiming that “95% of the people in the world” know about Fukushima. That statement might be true about the people in the United States, where advertiser-supported television news programs covered the events with breathless hype for several months. I am pretty sure that you would have a difficult time finding anyone in China, central Africa, the Asian subcontinent, South America or the Middle East who can even pronounce Fukushima, much less know anything about GE Mark 1 containments. Most of them would not even know that they should be worried about radiation because they have never been taught to be afraid of something that they cannot smell, feel, taste, or hear especially when it occurs at levels that have no chance of making them sick within their expected lifetime. Mariotte, Gunter, Kamps, Katz and Bridenbaugh are all members of a vocal, but tiny group of people who have been carrying the water of the fossil fuel industry for decades by opposing nuclear energy, the only real competitor it has. They are victims of groupthink who believe that their neighbors in Takoma Park are representative of the whole world.

Just before making this comment, I voted in the unscientific poll associated with the article. 95% say that Oyster Creek should keep on powering New Jersey homes and businesses. They are not impressed by the Beyond Nuclear FUD; they like clean electricity.

We don't have a lot of experience in this area," said Eric J. Leeds, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. "It looks like we'll see a lot of each other over the next few weeks — hopefully not months."

Dominion Virginia Power is eager to get the plant, which can generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes, operating again. The Richmond-based company is the state's largest electric utility, serving 2.3 million customers.

The NRC began assessing the safety implications of increased plant earthquake hazards in 2005. According to the agency, the potential earthquake hazards for some nuclear power plants in the central and eastern U.S. may be slightly larger than previously estimated.

The earthquake appears to have produced a peak acceleration — its shaking force — of about 0.26 g approximately 24 miles from its epicenter, the NRC said. G is the unit of measurement for acceleration based on the force of gravity. North Anna's rock-based structures are designed to withstand 0.12 g. The power station is about 11 miles from the quake's epicenter. The plant experienced earthquake forces an average of 21 percent greater than it was designed for, according to Dominion Virginia Power. The strong motion passed quickly, lasting no more than 3.1 seconds and reducing its impact, the company told NRC officials Thursday.

North Anna can handle shaking forces higher than 0.12 g in the critical lower frequencies, Dominion Virginia Power said. Most of the plant's critical safety components can actually resist shaking of 0.3 g, the company said, and relatively less-sturdy structures can withstand 0.16 g. "Consequently, safe shutdown components are capable of surviving seismic accelerations in excess of the … design criteria," Eric Hendrixson, Dominion Virginia Power's director of nuclear engineering, told federal regulators.

Based on results to date, Dominion Virginia Power believes all tests and repairs will be completed on Unit 1 by Sept. 22, said Eugene Grecheck, the company's vice president for nuclear development. Unit 2 is going into a planned refueling outage, and the company hopes it could be restarted by Oct. 13. But, warned Jack Grobe, deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, "We're probably going to have to have a series of meetings. I guarantee you're going to get a lot of questions." Among the questions will be the shaking force of the earthquake on the plant.

Dominion Virginia Power still does not know exactly what caused the reactors to trip off-line, officials said Thursday. "There were diverse and redundant trips coming in in milliseconds," said N. Larry Lane, Dominion Virginia Power's site vice president for the power station.

Knowing precisely what prompted the shutdown is critical for validating the safety of the plant's design.

Most nuclear blogs have a “blog roll”which list other publishers of information on the nuclear energy field.  Areva has done this on its North American blog. Areva handles the issue of avoiding any appearance of endorsement by noting that the list with more than two dozen entries is one of “blogs we read.” Areva also has several years of experience reaching out to the nuclear blogger community with monthly conference calls. The blog of the Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI Nuclear Notes,  lists a wide range of nuclear blogs including this one as well as the blogs published by independent analysts.

Duke’s Web site is a completely modern effort set up like a blog, with new entries on a frequent basis. On the right column, the site has a list of other places to get nuclear energy information, including the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The Nuclear Information Center announces right at the top that “In this online space, you will find educational information on the nuclear industry and the nuclear stations operated by Duke Energy. We will feature insights into radiation, new nuclear, emergency planning and more . . . allowing readers to get an inside view of the industry.” That’s a big step for a nuclear utility. The reason is that like many publicly traded electric utilities, it generates electricity from several fuel sources, including coal, natural gas, solar, wind, and nuclear. Because these utilities have huge customer rate bases and supply chains, they are inherently conservative about the information they publish on their Web sites. Also, there are significant legal and financial reasons why a utility might or might not put information out there for public consumption. Press releases receive scrutiny from the general counsel and chief financial officer for very important reasons having to do with regulatory oversight and shareholder value.

Idaho National Laboratory, Areva, and recruiter CoolHandNuke.

Taken together, the four blogs that reported monthly page views represent 100,000 visits to online information pages on nuclear energy or an effective rate of well over 1 million page views per year. These are real numbers and the data are just for a small sample of the more than two dozen blogs on nuclear energy that update at least once a week. Another interesting set of statistics is who reads North American blogs overseas? It turns out that the international readership is concentrated in a small group of countries. They include, in alphabetical order for the same sample of blogs, the following countries: Australia Canada France Germany India Japan United Kingdom

Who reads nuclear energy blogs? So, who is reading nuclear blogs? On the ANS Social Media listserv, I asked this question recently and got some interesting results for the month of May 2011. Here’s a sample of the replies: Michele Kearny, at the Nuclear Wire, a news service, reports for the month of May 18,812 page views. Michele’s blog is a fast-moving series of news links that keeps readers coming back for updates. Will Davis, at Atomic Power Review, who has been publishing high quality, in-depth technical updates about Fukushima, reports 31,613 page views for the same month. Rod Adams, who recently updated the template at his blog at Atomic Insights, reported his numbers in terms of absolute visitors. He cites Google Analytics as reporting 10,583 unique visitors for May. Rod emphasizes commentary and analysis across a wide range of nuclear subjects. At my blog Idaho Samizdat, I can report 6,945 visitors and 24,938 page views for May 2011. The blog covers economic and political news about nuclear energy and nonproliferation issues. At ANS Nuclear Cafe, this blog uses WordPress to track readers, reporting 24,476 page views for the same four-week period as the other blogs. During the height of the Fukushima crisis on a single day, March 14, 2011, the blog attained over 55,000 page views as people poured on to the Internet in search of information about the situation in Japan.

5,000 people interact on LinkedIn, moderated by nuclear industry consultant Ed Kee. It is called “Nuclear Power Next Generation” and is one of dozens of such groups related to nuclear energy on the professional networking site.

Nuclear energy is not so widely represented on Facebook as on LinkedIn, despite its enormous popularity, and isn’t conducive to the kinds of technical dialogs that populate other nuclear social media sites. While the Facebook format is attractive to lifestyle information such as dating and the promotion of entertainment, sports, and consumer packaged goods, it doesn’t seem to work as well for business and engineering topics. It turns out Facebook is a good way to offer a “soft sell” for recruitment purposes to drive traffic to nuclear energy organization recruitment pages. It can answer the questions of what’s it like to work for an organization and the attractive amenities of life in the employer’s home town. Videos and photos can help deliver these messages.

On the other hand, Twitter, even with its limits of 140 characters, is enormously useful for the nuclear energy field. Twitter users who follow the output of nuclear bloggers number in the tens of thousands, and many nuclear energy organizations, including the major utilities such as Entergy, have invested in a Twitter account to have a presence on the service. The American Nuclear Society “tweets” under @ans_org and posts updates daily on the situation at Fukushima

Web sites maintained by NEI and the World Nuclear Organization had to make fast upgrades to their computer servers to handle millions of inquires from the media and the public and on a global scale. Getting out the facts of the situation to respond to these inquiries was facilitated by this online presence at an unprecedented scale. Even so, newspapers often had anti-nuclear groups on speed dial early in the crisis and their voices reached an unsettled public with messages of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. In response, ANS used technical experts on its social media listserv to information media engagements, which reached millions of views on network television and major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post.

This useful mix of free form communication on the listserv and excellent outreach by Clark Communications, working for ANS, made a difference in getting the facts about Fukushima to an understandably anxious public. Margaret Harding, a consulting nuclear engineer with deep experience with boiling water reactor fuels, was one of the people tapped by ANS to be a spokesperson for the society. She wrote to me in a personal e-mail that social media made a difference for her in many ways.

In summary, she said that it would have been impossible for her to fulfill this role without many hands helping her from various quarters at ANS. She pointed out that the ANS Social Media listserv group “provided invaluable background information . . that helped me keep up-to-date and ready for the question from the next reporter.” In fact, she said, she might not have even started down this road if the listserv hadn’t already proven itself as a source of information and expertise.

Another take on the news media’s shift into anti-nuclear skepticism following Fukushima comes from Andrea Jennetta, publisher of Fuel Cycle Week.  Writing in the March 17 issue, she said that this time the “bunker mentality” that has characterized communications in prior years by the nuclear industry gave way to something new. “But instead of rolling over, the nuclear community for once is mobilizing and fighting back. I am impressed at the efforts of various pronuclear activists, bloggers, advocates and professional organizations.

Challenging numbers Japanese investigators had already developed a detailed timeline of events following the 11 March earthquake that precipitated the disaster. Hours after the quake rocked the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, the tsunami arrived, knocking out crucial diesel back-up generators designed to cool the reactors in an emergency. Within days, the three reactors operating at the time of the accident overheated and released hydrogen gas, leading to massive explosions. Radioactive fuel recently removed from a fourth reactor was being held in a storage pool at the time of the quake, and on 14 March the pool overheated, possibly sparking fires in the building over the next few days.

But accounting for the radiation that came from the plants has proved much harder than reconstructing this chain of events. The latest report from the Japanese government, published in June, says that the plant released 1.5 × 1016 bequerels of caesium-137, an isotope with a 30-year half-life that is responsible for most of the long-term contamination from the plant2. A far larger amount of xenon-133, 1.1 × 1019 Bq, was released, according to official government estimates.

The new study challenges those numbers. On the basis of its reconstructions, the team claims that the accident released around 1.7 × 1019 Bq of xenon-133, greater than the estimated total radioactive release of 1.4 × 1019 Bq from Chernobyl. The fact that three reactors exploded in the Fukushima accident accounts for the huge xenon tally, says De Geer. Xenon-133 does not pose serious health risks because it is not absorbed by the body or the environment. Caesium-137 fallout, however, is a much greater concern because it will linger in the environment for decades. The new model shows that Fukushima released 3.5 × 1016 Bq caesium-137, roughly twice the official government figure, and half the release from Chernobyl. The higher number is obviously worrying, says De Geer, although ongoing ground surveys are the only way to truly establish the public-health risk.

Stohl believes that the discrepancy between the team's results and those of the Japanese government can be partly explained by the larger data set used. Japanese estimates rely primarily on data from monitoring posts inside Japan3, which never recorded the large quantities of radioactivity that blew out over the Pacific Ocean, and eventually reached North America and Europe. "Taking account of the radiation that has drifted out to the Pacific is essential for getting a real picture of the size and character of the accident," says Tomoya Yamauchi, a radiation physicist at Kobe University who has been measuring radioisotope contamination in soil around Fukushima. Click for full imageStohl adds that he is sympathetic to the Japanese teams responsible for the official estimate. "They wanted to get something out quickly," he says. The differences between the two studies may seem large, notes Yukio Hayakawa, a volcanologist at Gunma University who has also modelled the accident, but uncertainties in the models mean that the estimates are actually quite similar.

The new analysis also claims that the spent fuel being stored in the unit 4 pool emitted copious quantities of caesium-137. Japanese officials have maintained that virtually no radioactivity leaked from the pool. Yet Stohl's model clearly shows that dousing the pool with water caused the plant's caesium-137 emissions to drop markedly (see 'Radiation crisis'). The finding implies that much of the fallout could have been prevented by flooding the pool earlier. The Japanese authorities continue to maintain that the spent fuel was not a significant source of contamination, because the pool itself did not seem to suffer major damage. "I think the release from unit 4 is not important," says Masamichi Chino, a scientist with the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority in Ibaraki, who helped to develop the Japanese official estimate. But De Geer says the new analysis implicating the fuel pool "looks convincing".

The model also shows that the accident could easily have had a much more devastating impact on the people of Tokyo. In the first days after the accident the wind was blowing out to sea, but on the afternoon of 14 March it turned back towards shore, bringing clouds of radioactive caesium-137 over a huge swathe of the country (see 'Radioisotope reconstruction'). Where precipitation fell, along the country's central mountain ranges and to the northwest of the plant, higher levels of radioactivity were later recorded in the soil; thankfully, the capital and other densely populated areas had dry weather. "There was a period when quite a high concentration went over Tokyo, but it didn't rain," says Stohl. "It could have been much worse." 

"The market's background radiation was said to be about 39 CPMs. The two peaches, thus, had significantly high radiation contamination equaling over two times site background levels," stated reported EnviroReporter, the  independent news source created by Michael Collins and Denise Anne Duffield in May 2006 featuring work of Collins, a multi-award-winning investigative journalist who specializes in environmental issues and served sic years as a Director of the Los Angeles Press Club and five years as its Judging Chair

"What makes this discovery especially significant is that the 2X background radioactivity detected in these peaches was likely significantly attenuated by their water content; when eaten the exposure rate may be significantly higher. Even worse, it is likely that the detected radioactivity is from a longer half life radionuclide; which when eaten, would irradiate a person from the inside out for potential years to come." (@Potrblog, July 10th, 2011, at 8:05 pm, www.enviroreporter.com/2011/03/enviroreporter-coms-radiation-station/)

Pollet reviewed Iodine 131 numbers released by the Environmental Protection Agency last spring and reported to KING5 TV, "The level that was detected on March 24 was 41 times the drinking water standard." 

EPA says this was a brief period of elevated radiation in rainwater, and safe drinking water standards are based on chronic exposure to radiation over a lifetime, contrary to what independent radiation experts say, including persons such as Dr. Helen Caldicott, the international leading preventionist of nuclear injury, Joseph Mangano, Cindy Folkers, a radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear, Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, and Dr. Alexey Yablokov

In light of the ongoing failure of government to provide critically important Fukushima radiation news, each above named experts have recommended that to survive Fukushima, the public needs to seek information being provided by activists and by websites such as Beyond Nuclear and EnvrioReporter.

Apparently Noguchi was not aware of the fact that the radiation has to wash somewhere, and it is likely that wherever it ends up will end up accumulating from other hot spots, spreading to wider areas and concentrating in even greater hot-spots.  But the cesium in the dirt is a big problem when its undetected on sports fields where children play, because Noguchi doesn’t think  people will purposefully eat it, but who has ever gotten dirt in their mouth when playing baseball, or is that not ‘eating’ the dirt? Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan’s legally permissible level for compost.

And on Wednesday, civilians who tested the roof of an apartment building in the nearby city of Yokohama — farther from Fukushima than Tokyo — found high quantities of radioactive strontium. Japanese nuclear experts and activists have begun agitating for more comprehensive testing in Tokyo and elsewhere, and a cleanup if necessary. Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert and a former special assistant to the United States secretary of energy, echoed those calls, saying the citizens’ groups’ measurements “raise major and unprecedented concerns about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”

The reports of hot spots do not indicate how widespread contamination is in the capital; more sampling would be needed to determine that. But they raise the prospect that people living near concentrated amounts of cesium are being exposed to levels of radiation above accepted international standards meant to protect people from cancer and other illnesses. Source: www.clearingandsettlement.com, via Nuclear News | What The Physics?

‘Factually Incorrect’ The energy department’s statement said it “noted” an article published by the Mail & Guardian on Oct. 6. The newspaper listed potential bidders for a 1 trillion rand ($126 billion) tender to build six nuclear plants by 2030 as Areva SA, EDF SA (EDF), Toshiba Corp. (6502)’s Westinghouse Electric Corp. unit, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corp., Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEP) and Rosatom Corp. The report, which cited unidentified people in government and industry, is “full of statements that are not true and factually incorrect,” the Department of Energy said in its statement.

Areva is hoping to be part of the nuclear bid program in South Africa,” an external company spokesman said yesterday in an e-mailed response to questions.

So helpless were the plant's engineers that, as dusk fell after Japan's devastating March 11 quake and tsunami, they were forced to scavenge flashlights from nearby homes. They pulled batteries from cars not washed away by the tsunami in a desperate effort to revive reactor gauges that weren't working properly. The plant's complete power loss contributed to a failure of relief vents on a dangerously overheating reactor, forcing workers to open valves by hand.And in a significant miscalculation: At first, engineers weren't aware that the plant's emergency batteries were barely working, the investigation found—giving them a false impression that they had more time to make repairs. As a result, nuclear fuel began melting down hours earlier than previously assumed. This week Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, confirmed that one of the plant's six reactors suffered a substantial meltdown early in Day 1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322804576302553455643510.html

Lots of interesting information in this paper from TEPCO:http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_110525_01-e.pdfUnits 1-4 did not have RCIC.  They had isolation condensers.  Not only that, the isolation condensers were water cooled with 8 hours of water in the condenser reservoir. 

HPCI required DC power to operate.  The turbine lube oil pump was DC; it didn't have a shaft oil pump.  I think this may be common here too, anyone willing to verify that?That's why they had trouble so quick:  8 hours later and without AC power they had no way to get water to the pressure vessel.  About the same time the instruments died from a lack of battery power is about the time they lost the isolation condenser from a lack of water.They also verify that they didn't have the hardened vent modification.

Fukushima may have a group that could tackle the nuclear crisis looming over Japan. The Skilled Veterans Corps, retired engineers and professionals, want to volunteer to work in the dangerous conditions instead of putting younger generations at risk. More than 200 Japanese retirees are seeking to replace younger workers at Fukushima while the plant is being stabilized. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/307378

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) on June 6 revised the level of radioactivity of materials emitted from the crisis hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant from 370,000 terabecquerels to 850,000 terabecquerels. (from 10,000,000 curies to 22,972,972.97 curies)http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110606p2a00m0na009000c.html

The following article focus's on US spent fuel storage safety, Several members of Congress are calling for the fuel to be moved from the pools into dry casks at a faster clip, noting that the casks are thought to be capable of withstanding an earthquake or a plane crash, they have no moving parts and they require no electricity. but there is a reference to Fukishima's dry storage casks farther into the article.But Robert Alvarez, a former senior adviser to the secretary of energy and expert on nuclear power, points out that unlike the fuel pools, dry casks survived the tsunami at Fukushima unscathed. “They don’t get much attention because they didn’t fail,” he said.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/business/energy-environment/06cask.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=science

In 1967, Tepco chopped 25 meters off the 35-meter natural seawall where the reactors were to be located, according to documents filed at the time with Japanese authorities. That little-noticed action was taken to make it easier to ferry equipment to the site and pump seawater to the reactors. It was also seen as an efficient way to build the complex atop the solid base of bedrock needed to better protect the plant from earthquakes.But the razing of the cliff also placed the reactors five meters below the level of 14- to 15-meter tsunami hitting the plant March 11, triggering a major nuclear disaster resulting in the meltdown of three reactor cores.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303982504576425312941820794.html

Toyota was a key executive who was involved in the Fukushima No. 1 plant construction.It is actually common practice to build primary nuclear plant facilities directly on bedrock because of the temblor factor.Toyota also cited two other reasons for Tepco clearing away the bluff — seawater pumps used to provide coolant water needed to be set up on the ground up to 10 meters from the sea, and extremely heavy equipment, including the 500-ton reator pressure vessels, were expected to be brought in by boat.In fact, Tepco decided to build the plant on low ground based on a cost-benefit calculation of the operating costs of the seawater pumps, according to two research papers separately written by senior Tepco engineers in the 1960s.

If the seawater pumps were placed on high ground, their operating costs would be accordingly higher."We decided to build the plant at ground level after comparing the ground construction costs and operating costs of the circulation water pumps," wrote Hiroshi Kaburaki, then deputy head of the Tepco's construction office at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, in the January 1969 edition of Hatsuden Suiryoku, a technical magazine on power plants.Still, Tepco believed ground level was "high enough to sufficiently secure safety against tsunami and typhoon waves," wrote Seiji Saeki, then civil engineering section head of Tepco's construction office, in his research paper published in October 1967.

Engineers at Tohoku Electric Power Co., on the other hand, had a different take on the tsunami threat when the Onagawa nuclear plant was built in Miyagi Prefecture in the 1980s.Like Fukushima, the plant was built along the Tohoku coast and was hit by tsunami as high as 13 meters on March 11.Before building the plant, Tohoku Electric, examining historic records of tsunami reported in the region, conducted computer simulations and concluded the local coast could face tsumani of up to 9.1 meters.Tohoku Electric had set the construction ground level at 14.8 meters above sea level — which barely spared the Onagawa plant from major damage from 13-meter-high tsunami that hit in March.

Former Tepco worker Naganuma said many locals now feel they have been duped by Tepco's long-running propaganda on the safety of its nuclear facilities, despite the huge economic benefits the plant brought to his hometown of Okuma, which hosts the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Polish utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna S.A. (PGE) is still considering several reactor designs for the projects and Poland’s government expects to begin construction of its first nuclear power plant in 2016 and has targeted 2020 as the commercial date of operation (COD) for the first plant. The Generation III+ Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is GEH’s newest reactor design and offers the world’s most advanced passive safety systems. GEH’s Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) is the world’s only commercially proven Generation III reactor model.

Other preliminary project development agreements signed by GEH include: March 2011 with the Institute of Atomic Energy in Poland (POLATOM), a research institute located in Świerk that advises the government on nuclear energy issues. January 2011 Stocznia Gdansk, a leading Polish shipyard, for the potential manufacturing of nuclear components for GEH. RAFAKO S.A., Europe’s leading boiler equipment manufacturer, for the potential manufacturing of nuclear components for GEH. Gdansk University of Technology, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin University, and Koszalin University of Technology. May 2010 with global engineering services firm SNC-Lavalin Polska.

GE currently has more than 10,000 employees in Poland.

Helping Poland Develop Domestic Nuclear Workforce GEH is demonstrating its commitment to supporting Poland’s economy by helping the country create a sustainable, domestic pool of nuclear engineers by donating a number of valuable GateCycle ™ heat balance modeling software packages to several Polish universities. GEH’s customized GateCycle software is used to model nuclear steam cycles and is a powerful tool in teaching students advanced methods of plant modeling and troubleshooting to optimize plant performance. GEH also is hosting 14 engineering interns from Poland. The students recently began their summer internships at GEH’s U.S. headquarters in Wilmington, N.C. The 10-week assignment will expose them to many facets of the nuclear industry including engineering, finance, regulatory affairs and information management.

How else is the Energy Department working to bring better information about energy, renewable energies and energy technology to the public? Here are a few examples.

1. Your MPG

The “Your MPG” feature on the site lets you upload data about your own vehicle’s fuel usage to your “cyber” garage and get a better picture of how your vehicle is doing in terms of energy consumption. The system also aggregates the personal car data from all of the site’s users anonymously so people can share their fuel economy estimates. “You can track your car’s fuel economy over time to see if your efforts to increase MPG are working,” says David Greene, research staffer at Oak Ridge National Lab. “Then you can compare your fuel data with others and see how you are doing relative to those who own the same vehicle.”

In the works for the site is a predictive tool you can use when you are in the market for a new or used vehicle to more accurately predict the kind of mileage any given car will give you, based on your particular driving style and conditions. The system, says Greene, reduces the +/- 7 mpg margin of error of standard EPA ratings by about 50% to give you a more accurate estimate of what your MPG will be.

Solar Decathlon

In response to the White House’s Startup America program supporting innovation and entrepreneurship, the Energy Department launched its own version — America’s Next Top Energy Innovator Challenge. The technology transfer program gives startups the chance to license Energy Department technologies developed at the 17 national laboratories across the country at an affordable price. Entrepreneurs can identify Energy Department technologies through the Energy Innovation Portal, where more than 15,000 patent and patent applications are listed along with more than 450 market summaries describing some of the technologies in layman’s terms.

2. America’s Next Top Energy Innovator

3. Products: Smarter Windows

DOE funding, along with private investments, supports a number of companies including the Michigan-based company Pleotint. Pleotint developed a specialized glass film that uses energy generated by the sun to limit the amount of heat and light going into a building or a home. The technology is called Sunlight Responsive Thermochromic (SRT™), and it involves a chemical reaction triggered by direct sunlight that lightens or darkens the window’s tint. Windows made from this glass technology are designed to change based on specific preset temperatures.

Another DOE-funded company, Sage ElectroChromics, created SageGlass®, electronically controlled windows that use small electric charges to switch between clear and tinted windows in response to environmental heat and light conditions. And Soladigm has an electronic tinted glass product that is currently undergoing durability testing.

Once a company selects the technology of interest to them, they fill out a short template to apply for an option — a precursor to an actual license of the patent — for $1,000. A company can license up to three patents on one technology from a single lab per transaction, and patent fees are deferred for two years. The program also connects entrepreneurs to venture capitalists as mentors.

Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon has challenged collegiate students to develop solar-powered, highly efficient houses. Student teams build modular houses on campus, dismantle them and then reassemble the structures on the National Mall. The competition has taken place biennially since 2005. Open to the public and free of charge, the next event will take place at the National Mall’s West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. from September 23 to October 2, 2011. There are 19 teams competing this year.

Teams spend nearly two years planning and constructing their houses, incorporating innovative technology to compete in 10 contests. Each contest is worth 100 points to the winner in the areas of Architecture, Market Appeal, Engineering, Communications, Affordability, Comfort Zone, Hot Water, Appliances, Home Entertainment and Energy Balance. The team with the most points at the end of the competition wins.

Since its inception, the Solar Decathlon has seen the majority of the 15,000 participants move on to jobs related to clean energy and sustainability. The DOE’s digital strategy for the Solar Decathlon includes the use of QR codes to provide a mobile interactive experience for visitors to the event in Washington, D.C., as well as Foursquare checkin locations for the event and for each participating house. Many of the teams are already blogging leading up to the event and there are virtual tours and computer animated video walkthroughs to share the Solar Decathlon experience with a global audience. There will be TweetChats using the hashtag #SD2011 and other activities on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

The Future

In terms of renewable energies, the DOE tries to stay on the cutting edge. Some of their forward-thinking projects include the Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework (KDF), containing an interactive database toolkit for access to data relevant to anyone engaged with the biofuel, bioenergy and bioproduct industries. Another is an interactive database that maps the energy available from tidal streams in the United States. The database, developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology in cooperation with the Energy Department, is available online. The tidal database gives researchers a closer look at the potential of tidal energy, which is a “predictable” clean energy resource. As tides ebb and flow, transferring tidal current to turbines to become mechanical energy and then converting it to electricity. There are already a number of marine and hydrokinetic energy projects under development listed on the site.

Success at Vogtle could draw investors to other atomic projects on the drawing boards in Virginia, Florida and the Carolinas, Fanning said. Future Nuclear Development If Vogtle fails, Southern may prove that the time for massive nuclear reactors is over, moving the nation toward smaller modular reactors or away from atomic power altogether, said Chris Gadomski, lead nuclear analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“If the new projects are fumbled -- over-budget, behind- schedule -- then utilities will be much more hesitant to start new nuclear construction,” Gadomski said in a telephone interview. Southern and its partners have invested more than $3 billion into the site since 2009, Fanning said, receiving special dispensation from the commission to begin work on cooling towers and other structures not deemed essential to nuclear safety while they awaited final approval to build the reactors.

So far, Vogtle’s new reactors remain under-budget and on schedule to begin producing power in 2016 and 2017, Southern said in a Sept. 20 filing with Georgia regulators. Georgia consumers will pay $6.1 billion of the project’s costs through rate hikes, while the Obama Administration has pledged loan guarantees for another $8.3 billion.

Challenges Remain Vogtle still faces challenges. U.S. Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, on Sept. 23 called for scrutiny of federal nuclear loan guarantees following the collapse of solar panel-maker Solyndra LLC, which received a $535 million loan guarantee. Vogtle’s opponents worry it will suffer the same cost overruns experienced by other first-of-a-kind reactors in the U.S. when new units were being built a generation ago, Sara Barczak, program director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said in an interview.

She’s also concerned that Vogtle may have to be redesigned to comply with tougher seismic standards crafted following Fukushima and an August temblor in Virginia. “We want them to get it right, get it worked out, because all they’re going to do is cost ratepayers and taxpayers money,” said Barczak.

A Master Plan The 104 nuclear power plants built a generation ago in the U.S. were customized to each operator’s whims and built without a true master plan, said John Polcyn, a consultant and senior nuclear adviser who has worked on about two dozen plants in the U.S., Japan and China. “The one thing the industry has really gotten mature about is standardization,” Polcyn said. “Is it perfect? No. But I tell you we are eons better than we were the last go-round.”

Miller and Fanning have sophisticated software to monitor every element of the project and pre-fabricated construction that’s first being tested at two plants in China. Miller describes his management style as “Whac-A-Mole,” dealing with problems immediately as they arise and planning for every contingency. His approach has been tested as Southern and its partners deal with suppliers who haven’t built to nuclear construction’s exacting standards since the 1990s.