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D'coda Dcoda

In Sweden, A Tempered Approach To Nuclear Waste [28Jul11] - 0 views

  • At least two dozen countries around the globe get energy from nuclear power, yet not one has been able to pull off a permanent disposal site. Finding communities willing to live with such dangerous stuff has been a big sticking point. But in Sweden, two communities have stepped up, and are willing to take the country's waste. Like many countries, Sweden has had its share of political meltdowns over nuclear power. Protests stirred an uproar in the early 1980s when the Swedish nuclear industry simply decided where to begin testing for a possible geologic disposal site.
  • But today, instead of deflecting protesters, the nuclear industry shuttles visitors by the busloads for guided tours of facilities. More than 1,100 feet below the surface, exotic machinery and copper tubes wide enough to fit two men fill an underground cavern carved from crystalline bedrock. In this working lab in eastern Sweden, a private nuclear waste company tests methods for permanently storing used fuel. It plans to encase the fuel rods in copper capsules, then bury them 1,500 feet down in bedrock where it is supposed to sit for the next 100,000 years.
  • how did nuclear waste in Sweden go from a toxic topic to a field trip? People in the area said the industry needed to start over with things like public participation, a transparent, predictable process and trust. The industry took these lessons to heart. "We know that we have to meet people and communicate what we want to do, why we want to do it and how we will find a place for it," says Inger Nordholm, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, or SKB.
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  • Lilliemark says she learned a lot about the risks of not dealing with the used fuel. And it changed her thinking. "I can't just close my eyes and imagine that the fuel is not here, because it is," she says.
  • Oskarshamn was one of two communities in eastern Sweden that stepped forward after nuclear waste officials asked for volunteers willing to let them start geologic testing. Charlotte Lilliemark, who lives about 12 miles north of the town, was just the kind of person a nuclear power executive would want to avoid. The former Stockholmer moved to the country to raise dressage horses and didn't want a waste dump anywhere near her
  • "I couldn't see anything that was positive," she says. But then local government officials asked her to lead a community advisory group. She says they told her: "We think you could contribute to the work — we need to open all the questions and be clear and transparent, and we want you to participate if you want to." And she did.
  • This spring, Swedish nuclear officials applied for a licensing application to build a geologic vault in the municipality of Osthammar, about a two-hour drive north of Stockholm. If they get it, the facility could open in 2025. "We believe that it will not create a stigma, but on the other hand create an interest in how to solve this very difficult issue that people in Japan and California and Germany must solve in one way or another," says Jacob Spangenberg, the mayor of Osthammar.
  • The community will see some financial benefits: Besides new jobs and infrastructure, Osthammar negotiated a deal with the company to receive approximately $80 million for long-term economic development if the repository is approved
  • Already the community gets money from a national waste fund to help it chart an independent course. It has retained technical consultants and hired five full-time employees. Spangenberg says Osthammar learned how to ask tough questions, press for conditions and also to keep cool.
D'coda Dcoda

Interaction Between Social Media and Nuclear Energy [17Jul11] - 0 views

  • As blogger on nuclear energy for the past five years, I realize I’m writing on a niche subject that isn’t going to pull in millions of readers. Unlike some entertainment blogs, a site on nuclear energy is never going to be able to link the words “reactor pressure vessel” with the antics of a Hollywood celebrity at a New York night club. So, what can be said about the use of social media and how it has evolved as a new communication tool in a mature industry?
  • EBR-1 chalkboard ~ the 1st known nuclear energy blog post 12/21/51 on the Arco desert of eastern Idaho
  • Evidence of acceptance of social media is widespread, with the most recent example being the launch of the Nuclear Information Center, a social media presence by Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK). Content written for the Nuclear Information Center by a team of the utility’s employees is clearly designed to reach out to the general public. This effort goes beyond the usual scope of a utility Web site, which includes things like how to pay your bill online, where to call when the lights go out, and so forth.
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  • 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.
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    important one
D'coda Dcoda

Nuclear safety: A dangerous veil of secrecy [11Aug11] - 0 views

  • There are battles being fought on two fronts in the five months since a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. On one front, there is the fight to repair the plant, operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and to contain the extent of contamination caused by the damage. On the other is the public’s fight to extract information from the Japanese government, TEPCO and nuclear experts worldwide.
  • The latter battle has yielded serious official humiliation, resulting high-profile resignations, scandals, and promises of reform in Japan’s energy industry whereas the latter has so far resulted in a storm of anger and mistrust. Even most academic nuclear experts, seen by many as the middle ground between the anti-nuclear activists and nuclear lobby itself, were reluctant to say what was happening: That in Fukushima, a community of farms, schools and fishing ports, was experiencing a full-tilt meltdown, and that, as Al Jazeera reported in June, that the accident had most likely caused more radioactive contamination than Chernobyl
  • As recently as early August, those seeking information on the real extent of the damage at the Daiichi plant and on the extent of radioactive contamination have mostly been reassured by the nuclear community that there’s no need to worry.
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  • The money trail can be tough to follow - Westinghouse, Duke Energy and the Nuclear Energy Institute (a "policy organisation" for the nuclear industry with 350 companies, including TEPCO, on its roster) did not respond to requests for information on funding research and chairs at universities. But most of the funding for nuclear research does not come directly from the nuclear lobby, said M.V. Ramana, a researcher at Princeton University specialising in the nuclear industry and climate change. Most research is funded by governments, who get donations - from the lobby (via candidates, political parties or otherwise).
  • “There's a lot of secrecy that can surround nuclear power because some of the same processes can be involved in generating electricity that can also be involved in developing a weapon, so there's a kind of a veil of secrecy that gets dropped over this stuff, that can also obscure the truth” said Biello. "So, for example in Fukushima, it was pretty apparent that a total meltdown had occurred just based on what they were experiencing there ... but nobody in a position of authority was willing to say that."
  • This is worrying because while both anti-nuclear activists and the nuclear lobby both have openly stated biases, academics and researchers are seen as the middle ground - a place to get accurate, unbiased information. David Biello, the energy and climate editor at Scientific American Online, said that trying to get clear information on a scenario such as the Daiichi disaster is tough.
  • "'How is this going to affect the future of nuclear power?'That’s the first thought that came into their heads," said Ramana, adding, "They basically want to ensure that people will keep constructing nuclear power plants." For instance, a May report by MIT’s Center For Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (where TEPCO funds a chair) points out that while the Daiichi disaster has resulted in "calls for cancellation of nuclear construction projects and reassessments of plant license extensions" which might "lead to a global slow-down of the nuclear enterprise," that  "the lessons to be drawn from the Fukushima accident are different."
  • "In the United States, a lot of the money doesn’t come directly from the nuclear industry, but actually comes from the Department of Energy (DOE). And the DOE has a very close relationship with the industry, and they sort of try to advance the industry’s interest," said Ramana. Indeed, nuclear engineering falls under the "Major Areas of Research" with the DOE, which also has nuclear weapons under its rubric. The DOE's 2012 fiscal year budge request to the US Congress for nuclear energy programmes was $755m.
  • "So those people who get funding from that….it’s not like they (researchers) want to lie, but there’s a certain amount of, shall we say, ideological commitment to nuclear power, as well as a certain amount of self-censorship."  It comes down to worrying how their next application for funding might be viewed, he said. Kathleen Sullivan, an anti-nuclear specialist and disarmament education consultant with the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, said it's not surprising that research critical of the nuclear energy and weapons isn't coming out of universities and departments that participate in nuclear research and development.
  • "It (the influence) of the nuclear lobby could vary from institution to institution," said Sullivan. "If you look at the history of nuclear weapons manufacturing in the United States, you can see that a lot of research was influenced perverted, construed in a certain direction."
  • Sullivan points to the DOE-managed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California in Berkley (where some of the research for the first atomic bomb was done) as an example of how intertwined academia and government-funded nuclear science are.
  • "For nuclear physics to proceed, the only people interested in funding it are pro-nuclear folks, whether that be industry or government," said Biello. "So if you're involved in that area you've already got a bias in favour of that technology … if you study hammers, suddenly hammers seem to be the solution to everything."
  • And should they find results unfavourable to the industry, Ramana said they would "dress it up in various ways by saying 'Oh, there’s a very slim chance of this, and here are some safety measure we recommend,' and then the industry will say, 'Yeah,yeah, we’re incorporating all of that.'" Ramana, for the record, said that while he's against nuclear weapons, he doesn't have a moral position on nuclear power except to say that as a cost-benefit issue, the costs outweigh the benefits, and that "in that sense, expanding nuclear power isn't a good idea." 
  • The Center for Responsive Politics - a non-partisan, non-profit elections watchdog group – noted that even as many lobbying groups slowed their spending the first quarter of the year, the Nuclear industry "appears to be ratcheting up its lobbying" increasing its multi-million dollar spending.
  • Among the report's closing thoughts are concerns that "Decision-making in the  immediate aftermath of a major crisis is often influenced by emotion," and whether"an accident like Fukushima, which is so far beyond design basis, really warrant a major overhaul of current nuclear safety regulations and practises?" "If so," wonder the authors, "When is safe safe enough? Where do we draw the line?"
  • The Japanese public, it seems, would like some answers to those very questions, albeit from a different perspective.  Kazuo Hizumi, a Tokyo-based human rights lawyer, is among those pushing for openness. He is also an editor at News for the People in Japan, a news site advocating for transparency from the government and from TEPCO. With contradicting information and lack of clear coverage on safety and contamination issues, many have taken to measuring radiation levels with their own Geiger counters.
  • "The public fully trusted the Japanese Government," said Hizumi. But the absence of "true information" has massively diminished that trust, as, he said, has the public's faith that TEPCO would be open about the potential dangers of a nuclear accident.
  • A report released in July by Human Rights Now highlights the need for immediately accessible information on health and safety in areas where people have been affected by the disaster, including Fukushima, especially on the issues of contaminated food and evacuation plans.
  • A 'nuclear priesthood' Biello describes the nuclear industry is a relatively small, exclusive club.
  • The interplay between academia and also the military and industry is very tight. It's a small community...they have their little club and they can go about their business without anyone looking over their shoulder. " This might explain how, as the Associated Press reported in June, that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was "working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nationalise ageing reactors operating within standards or simply failing to enforce them."
  • However, with this exclusivity comes a culture of secrecy – "a nuclear priesthood," said Biello, which makes it very difficult to parse out a straightforward answer in the very technical and highly politicised field.  "You have the proponents, who believe that it is the technological salvation for our problems, whether that's energy, poverty, climate change or whatever else. And then you have opponents who think that it's literally the worst thing that ever happened and should be immediately shut back up in a box and buried somewhere," said Biello, who includes "professors of nuclear engineering and Greenpeace activists" as passionate opponents on the nuclear subject.
  • In fact, one is hard pressed to find a media report quoting a nuclear scientist at any major university sounding the alarms on the risks of contamination in Fukushima. Doing so has largely been the work of anti-nuclear activists (who have an admitted bias against the technology) and independent scientists employed by think tanks, few of whom responded to requests for interviews.
  • So, one's best bet, said Biello, is to try and "triangulate the truth" - to take "a dose" from anti-nuclear activists, another from pro-nuclear lobbyists and throw that in with a little bit of engineering and that'll get you closer to the truth. "Take what everybody is saying with a grain of salt."
  • Since World War II, the process of secrecy – the readiness to invoke "national security" - has been a pillar of the nuclear establishment…that establishment, acting on the false assumption that "secrets" can be hidden from the curious and knowledgeable, has successfully insisted that there are answers which cannot be given and even questions which cannot be asked. The net effect is to stifle debate about the fundamental of nuclear policy. Concerned citizens dare not ask certain questions, and many begin to feel that these matters which only a few initiated experts are entitled to discuss.  If the above sounds like a post-Fukushima statement, it is not. It was written by Howard Morland for the November 1979 issue of The Progressive magazine focusing on the hydrogen bomb as well as the risks of nuclear energy.
  • The US government - citing national security concerns - took the magazine to court in order to prevent the issue from being published, but ultimately relented during the appeals process when it became clear that the information The Progressive wanted to publish was already public knowledge and that pursuing the ban might put the court in the position of deeming the Atomic Energy Act as counter to First Amendment rights (freedom of speech) and therefore unconstitutional in its use of prior restraint to censor the press.
  • But, of course, that's in the US, although a similar mechanism is at work in Japan, where a recently created task force aims to "cleanse" the media of reportage that casts an unfavourable light on the nuclear industry (they refer to this information as "inaccurate" or a result of "mischief." The government has even go so far as to accept bids from companies that specialise in scouring the Internet to monitor the Internet for reports, Tweets and blogs that are critical of its handling of the Daiichi disaster, which has presented a unique challenge to the lobby there.
  • "They do not know how to do it," he said of some of the community groups and individuals who have taken to measure contamination levels in the air, soil and food
  •  Japan's government has a history of slow response to TEPCO's cover-ups. In 1989, that Kei Sugaoka, a nuclear energy at General Electric who inspected and repaired plants in Japan and elsewhere, said he spotted cracks in steam dryers and a "misplacement" or 180 degrees in one dryer unit. He noticed that the position of the dryer was later omitted from the inspection record's data sheet. Sugaoka told a Japanese networkthat TEPCO had instructed him to "erase" the flaws, but he ultimately wrote a whistleblowing letter to METI, which resulted in the temporary 17 TEPCO reactors, including ones at the plant in Fukushima.
  • the Japanese nuclear lobby has been quite active in shaping how people see nuclear energy. The country's Ministry of Education, together with the Natural Resources Ministry (of of two agencies under Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry - METI - overseeing nuclear policies) even provides schools with a nuclear energy information curriculum. These worksheets - or education supplements - are used to inform children about the benefits of nuclear energy over fossil fuels.
  • There’s reason to believe that at least in one respect, Fukushima can’t and won’t be another Chernobyl, at least due to the fact that the former has occurred in the age of the Internet whereas the latter took place in the considerably quaint 80s, when a car phone the size of a brick was considered the height of communications technology to most. "It (a successful cover up) is definitely a danger in terms of Fukushima, and we'll see what happens. All you have to do is look at the first couple of weeks after Chernobyl to see the kind of cover up," said Biello. "I mean the Soviet Union didn't even admit that anything was happening for a while, even though everybody was noticing these radiation spikes and all these other problems. The Soviet Union was not admitting that they were experiencing this catastrophic nuclear failure... in Japan, there's a consistent desire, or kind of a habit, of downplaying these accidents, when they happen. It's not as bad as it may seem, we haven't had a full meltdown."
  • Fast forward to 2011, when video clips of each puff of smoke out of the Daiichi plant make it around the world in seconds, news updates are available around the clock, activists post radiation readings on maps in multiple languages and Google Translate picks up the slack in translating every last Tweet on the subject coming out of Japan.
  • it will be a heck of a lot harder to keep a lid on things than it was 25 years ago. 
Jan Wyllie

Physician: International medical community must immediately assist Japanese - Radioacti... - 1 views

  • : Dr. Helen Caldicott
  • All areas of Japan should be tested to assess how radioactive the soil and water are because the winds can blow the radioactive pollution hundreds of miles from the point source at Fukushima. Under no circumstances should radioactive rubbish and debris be incinerated as this simply spreads the isotopes far and wide to re-concentrate in food and fish. All batches of food must be adequately tested for specific radioactive elements using spectrometers. No radioactive food must be sold or consumed, nor must radioactive food be diluted for sale with non-radioactive food as radioactive elements re-concentrate in various bodily organs. All water used for human consumption should be tested weekly. All fish caught off the east coast must be tested for years to come. All people, particularly children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age still living in high radiation zones should be immediately evacuated to non-radioactive areas of Japan. All people who have been exposed to radiation from Fukushima – particularly babies, children, immunosuppressed, old people and others — must be medically thoroughly and routinely examined for malignancy, bone marrow suppression, diabetes, thyroid abnormalities, heart disease, premature aging, and cataracts for the rest of their lives and appropriate treatment instituted. Leukemia will start to manifest within the next couple of years, peak at five years and solid cancers will start appearing 10 to 15 years post-accident and will continue to increase in frequency in this generation over the next 70 to 90 years. All physicians and medical care providers in Japan must read and examine Chernobyl–Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by the New York Academy of Sciences to understand the true medical gravity of the situation they face. I also suggest with humility that doctors in particular but also politicians and the general public refer to my web page, nuclearfreeplanet.org for more information, that they listen to the interviews related to Fukushima and Chernobyl on my radio program at ifyoulovethisplanet.org and they read my book NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER. The international medical community and in particular the WHO must be mobilized immediately to assist the Japanese medical profession and politicians to implement this massive task outlined above. The Japanese government must be willing to accept international advice and help. As a matter of extreme urgency Japan must request and receive international advice and help from the IAEA and the NRC in the U.S., and nuclear specialists from Canada, Europe, etc., to prevent the collapse of Fukushima Dai-ichi Unit 4 and the spent fuel pool if there was an earthquake greater than 7 on the Richter scale.As the fuel pool crashed to earth it would heat and burn causing a massive radioactive release 10 times larger than the release from Chernobyl. There is no time to spare and at the moment the world community sits passively by waiting for catastrophe to happen. The international and Japanese media must immediately start reporting the facts from Japan as outlined above. Not to do so is courting global disaster.
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    Like is the wrong word, totally! Will share, thanks for the heads up.
D'coda Dcoda

Easier Information Exchange Strengthens Emergency Response [21Sep11] - 0 views

  • A nuclear or radiological emergency presents complex public health, environmental and engineering challenges. A constant flow of detailed, reliable information is indispensable to be able to marshal and coordinate the needed response which includes the prompt mobilisation and dispatch of specialised human and equipment resources, as requested. The global focal point for such coordination and information exchange is the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre, or IEC. It is the IEC's task to inform many different official designated actors around the world as quickly as possible whenever a nuclear or radiological emergency occurs. A sustained and reliable information flow is one of the most important resources in effective incident and emergency response. New Platform
  • One of the IEC's tasks is to develop and improve the communication and coordination systems that deliver authenticated and verified information to the emergency responders who need it. During the emergency response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, the IEC launched a new, secure web-based communications platform, the Unified System for Information Exchange on Incidents and Emergencies, or USIE. The new system, which had been in development since 2009, replaces two existing communication systems, thus simplifying the emergency information exchange. "The new USIE system delivers a solution the emergency response community needed and requested from the IAEA," said Denis Flory, IAEA Deputy Director General for Nuclear Safety and Security. "When the IAEA's Member States respond to a nuclear incident or emergency, they need a single, secure, straight-forward system that easily adapts to their needs. That is exactly what USIE does."
  • Alert System Like its predecessor systems, USIE is a secure website to which registered users have access. Instead of monitoring two separate systems that previously reported on different types of incidents, users now receive alerts from the new USIE system when new information is issued about any type of incident, ranging from a lost radioactive source to a full-scale nuclear emergency. The platform delivers alerts, based upon the user's preferences, via text messages delivered to a mobile device, or via email, or via fax. The system tracks multiple events, issuing information that has been authenticated by the country reporting an accident or incident. The platform meets demanding security standards thus offering its users the assurance that the information received is reliable.
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  • Readiness Preparedness is an essential prerequisite for effective nuclear emergency management. International exercises are held systematically to determine whether the national systems in place are prepared and can respond swiftly and effectively. The USIE system is designed to support such exercises. "For the first time, this simple-to-use and effective system streamlines mechanisms for reporting and sharing information about incidents and emergencies in a secure information exchange channel," said Elena Buglova, the Head of the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre. This innovation strengthens international coordination, she noted, "which will improve the speed and effectiveness of the global response to nuclear and radiological emergencies of all types."
  • Background
  • Until the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, there was no information exchange system. Immediately following that accident, the IAEA's Member States negotiated the so-called Emergency Conventions to ensure that in the event of a nuclear accident, the country that suffers an accident would issue timely, authenticated information, while the Member States that could field technical support, would do so in a coordinated fashion, if such support is requested by the State concerned. When concerns regarding the malicious use of nuclear or radioactive materials grew, the IAEA established the IEC in 2005 to serve as a global focal point for emergency preparedness and response to nuclear and radiological incidents and emergencies. The IEC develops standards, guidelines and tools like USIE. The IEC staff provide support, training, global event reporting, information exchange and around-the-clock assistance to Member States dealing with nuclear and radiological events. Fundamentally, the IEC is a global coordinator for international expertise from the IAEA, as well as from other international organizations, such as the FAO, WHO, or WMO.
  • Before USIE's launch in June 2011, two secure websites were operated to provide emergency and support information: The Emergency Notification and Assistance Convention Website, or ENAC, was set up to exchange information on nuclear accidents or radiological emergencies. The Nuclear Event Web-based System, or NEWS, is a joint project of the IAEA, OECD/NEA and World Association of Nuclear Operators that provides authoritative information on nuclear and radiological events, using the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, or INES. See Story Resources for more information.
D'coda Dcoda

The nuclear power plans that have survived Fukushima [28Sep11] - 0 views

  • SciDev.Net reporters from around the world tell us which countries are set on developing nuclear energy despite the Fukushima accident. The quest for energy independence, rising power needs and a desire for political weight all mean that few developing countries with nuclear ambitions have abandoned them in the light of the Fukushima accident. Jordan's planned nuclear plant is part of a strategy to deal with acute water and energy shortages.
  • The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) wants Jordan to get 60 per cent of its energy from nuclear by 2035. Currently, obtaining energy from neighbouring Arab countries costs Jordan about a fifth of its gross domestic product. The country is also one of the world's most water-poor nations. Jordan plans to desalinate sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, then pump it to population centres in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa, using its nuclear-derived energy. After the Fukushima disaster, Jordan started re-evaluating safety procedures for its nuclear reactor, scheduled to begin construction in 2013. The country also considered more safety procedures for construction and in ongoing geological and environmental investigations.
  • The government would not reverse its decision to build nuclear reactors in Jordan because of the Fukushima disaster," says Abdel-Halim Wreikat, vice Chairman of the JAEC. "Our plant type is a third-generation pressurised water reactor, and it is safer than the Fukushima boiling water reactor." Wreikat argues that "the nuclear option for Jordan at the moment is better than renewable energy options such as solar and wind, as they are still of high cost." But some Jordanian researchers disagree. "The cost of electricity generated from solar plants comes down each year by about five per cent, while the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power is rising year after year," says Ahmed Al-Salaymeh, director of the Energy Centre at the University of Jordan. He called for more economic feasibility studies of the nuclear option.
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  • And Ahmad Al-Malabeh, a professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department of Hashemite University, adds: "Jordan is rich not only in solar and wind resources, but also in oil shale rock, from which we can extract oil that can cover Jordan's energy needs in the coming years, starting between 2016 and 2017 ... this could give us more time to have more economically feasible renewable energy."
  • Finance, rather than Fukushima, may delay South Africa's nuclear plans, which were approved just five days after the Japanese disaster. South Africa remains resolute in its plans to build six new nuclear reactors by 2030. Katse Maphoto, the director of Nuclear Safety, Liabilities and Emergency Management at the Department of Energy, says that the government conducted a safety review of its two nuclear reactors in Cape Town, following the Fukushima event.
  • The Ninh Thuan nuclear plant would sit 80 to 100 kilometres from a fault line on the Vietnamese coast, potentially exposing it to tsunamis, according to state media. But Vuong Huu Tan, president of the state-owned Vietnam Atomic Energy Commission, told state media in March, however, that lessons from the Fukushima accident will help Vietnam develop safe technologies. And John Morris, an Australia-based energy consultant who has worked as a geologist in Vietnam, says the seismic risk for nuclear power plants in the country would not be "a major issue" as long as the plants were built properly. Japan's nuclear plants are "a lot more earthquake prone" than Vietnam's would be, he adds.
  • Larkin says nuclear energy is the only alternative to coal for generating adequate electricity. "What other alternative do we have? Renewables are barely going to do anything," he said. He argues that nuclear is capable of supplying 85 per cent of the base load, or constantly needed, power supply, while solar energy can only produce between 17 and 25 per cent. But, despite government confidence, Larkin says that a shortage of money may delay the country's nuclear plans.
  • The government has said yes but hasn't said how it will pay for it. This is going to end up delaying by 15 years any plans to build a nuclear station."
  • Vietnam's nuclear energy targets remain ambitious despite scientists' warning of a tsunami risk. Vietnam's plan to power 10 per cent of its electricity grid with nuclear energy within 20 years is the most ambitious nuclear energy plan in South-East Asia. The country's first nuclear plant, Ninh Thuan, is to be built with support from a state-owned Russian energy company and completed by 2020. Le Huy Minh, director of the Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Centre at Vietnam's Institute of Geophysics, has warned that Vietnam's coast would be affected by tsunamis in the adjacent South China Sea.
  • Undeterred by Fukushima, Nigeria is forging ahead with nuclear collaborations. There is no need to panic because of the Fukushima accident, says Shamsideen Elegba, chair of the Forum of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies in Africa. Nigeria has the necessary regulatory system to keep nuclear activities safe. "The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority [NNRA] has established itself as a credible organisation for regulatory oversight on all uses of ionising radiation, nuclear materials and radioactive sources," says Elegba who was, until recently, the NNRA's director general.
  • Vietnam is unlikely to experience much in the way of anti-nuclear protests, unlike neighbouring Indonesia and the Philippines, where civil society groups have had more influence, says Kevin Punzalan, an energy expert at De La Salle University in the Philippines. Warnings from the Vietnamese scientific community may force the country's ruling communist party to choose alternative locations for nuclear reactors, or to modify reactor designs, but probably will not cause extreme shifts in the one-party state's nuclear energy strategy, Punzalan tells SciDev.Net.
  • But the government adopted its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for 2010-2030 five days after the Fukushima accident. Elliot Mulane, communications manager for the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, (NECSA) a public company established under the 1999 Nuclear Energy Act that promotes nuclear research, said the timing of the decision indicated "the confidence that the government has in nuclear technologies". And Dipuo Peters, energy minister, reiterated the commitment in her budget announcement earlier this year (26 May), saying: "We are still convinced that nuclear power is a necessary part of our strategy that seeks to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through a diversified portfolio, comprising some fossil-based, renewable and energy efficiency technologies". James Larkin, director of the Radiation and Health Physics Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, believes South Africa is likely to go for the relatively cheap, South Korean generation three reactor.
  • In the meantime, the government is trying to build capacity. The country lacks, for example, the technical expertise. Carmencita Bariso, assistant director of the Department of Energy's planning bureau, says that, despite the Fukushima accident, her organisation has continued with a study on the viability, safety and social acceptability of nuclear energy. Bariso says the study would include a proposal for "a way forward" for the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear reactor in South East Asia at the time of its completion in 1985. The $2.3-billion Westinghouse light water reactor, about 60 miles north of the capital, Manila, was never used, though it has the potential to generate 621 megawatts of power. President Benigno Aquino III, whose mother, President Corazon Aquino, halted work on the facility in 1986 because of corruption and safety issues, has said it will never be used as a nuclear reactor but could be privatised and redeveloped as a conventional power plant.
  • But Mark Cojuangco, former lawmaker, authored a bill in 2008 seeking to start commercial nuclear operations at the Bataan reactor. His bill was not passed before Congress adjourned last year and he acknowledges that the Fukushima accident has made his struggle more difficult. "To go nuclear is still the right thing to do," he says. "But this requires a societal decision. We are going to spark public debates with a vengeance as soon as the reports from Fukushima are out." Amended bills seeking both to restart the reactor, and to close the issue by allowing either conversion or permanent closure, are pending in both the House and the Senate. Greenpeace, which campaigns against nuclear power, believes the Fukushima accident has dimmed the chances of commissioning the Bataan plant because of "increased awareness of what radioactivity can do to a place". Many parts of the country are prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters, which critics say makes it unsuitable both for the siting of nuclear power stations and the disposal of radioactive waste.
  • In Kenya, nuclear proponents argue for a geothermal – nuclear mix In the same month as the Fukushima accident, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency approved Kenya's application for its first nuclear power station (31 March), a 35,000 megawatt facility to be built at a cost of Sh950 billion (US$9.8 billion) on a 200-acre plot on the Athi Plains, about 50km from Nairobi
  • The plant, with construction driven by Kenya's Nuclear Electricity Project Committee, should be commissioned in 2022. The government claims it could satisfy all of Kenya's energy needs until 2040. The demand for electricity is overwhelming in Kenya. Less than half of residents in the capital, Nairobi, have grid electricity, while the rural rate is two per cent. James Rege, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Communication and Information, takes a broader view than the official government line, saying that geothermal energy, from the Rift Valley project is the most promising option. It has a high production cost but remains the country's "best hope". Nuclear should be included as "backup". "We are viewing nuclear energy as an alternative source of power. The cost of fossil fuel keeps escalating and ordinary Kenyans can't afford it," Rege tells SciDev.Net.
  • Hydropower is limited by rivers running dry, he says. And switching the country's arable land to biofuel production would threaten food supplies. David Otwoma, secretary to the Energy Ministry's Nuclear Electricity Development Project, agrees that Kenya will not be able to industrialise without diversifying its energy mix to include more geothermal, nuclear and coal. Otwoma believes the expense of generating nuclear energy could one day be met through shared regional projects but, until then, Kenya has to move forward on its own. According to Rege, much as the nuclear energy alternative is promising, it is extremely important to take into consideration the Fukushima accident. "Data is available and it must be one step at a time without rushing things," he says. Otwoma says the new nuclear Kenya can develop a good nuclear safety culture from the outset, "but to do this we need to be willing to learn all the lessons and embrace them, not forget them and assume that won't happen to us".
  • Will the Philippines' plans to rehabilitate a never-used nuclear power plant survive the Fukushima accident? The Philippines is under a 25-year moratorium on the use of nuclear energy which expires in 2022. The government says it remains open to harnessing nuclear energy as a long-term solution to growing electricity demand, and its Department of Science and Technology has been making public pronouncements in favour of pursuing nuclear energy since the Fukushima accident. Privately, however, DOST officials acknowledge that the accident has put back their job of winning the public over to nuclear by four or five years.
  • It is not only that we say so: an international audit came here in 2006 to assess our procedure and processes and confirmed the same. Elegba is firmly of the view that blame for the Fukushima accident should be allocated to nature rather than human error. "Japan is one of the leaders not only in that industry, but in terms of regulatory oversight. They have a very rigorous system of licensing. We have to make a distinction between a natural event, or series of natural events and engineering infrastructure, regulatory infrastructure, and safety oversight." Erepamo Osaisai, Director General of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), has said there is "no going back" on Nigeria's nuclear energy project after Fukushima.
  • Nigeria is likely to recruit the Russian State Corporation for Atomic Energy, ROSATOM, to build its first proposed nuclear plant. A delegation visited Nigeria (26- 28 July) and a bilateral document is to be finalised before December. Nikolay Spassy, director general of the corporation, said during the visit: "The peaceful use of nuclear power is the bedrock of development, and achieving [Nigeria's] goal of being one of the twenty most developed countries by the year 2020 would depend heavily on developing nuclear power plants." ROSATOM points out that the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors and regulates power plant construction in previously non-nuclear countries. But Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), said "We cannot see the logic behind the government's support for a technology that former promoters in Europe, and other technologically advanced nations, are now applying brakes to. "What Nigeria needs now is investment in safe alternatives that will not harm the environment and the people. We cannot accept the nuclear option."
  • Thirsty for electricity, and desirous of political clout, Egypt is determined that neither Fukushima ― nor revolution ― will derail its nuclear plans. Egypt was the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to own a nuclear programme, launching a research reactor in 1961. In 2007 Egypt 'unfroze' a nuclear programme that had stalled in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. After the Egyptian uprising in early 2011, and the Fukushima accident, the government postponed an international tender for the construction of its first plant.
  • Yassin Ibrahim, chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority, told SciDev.Net: "We put additional procedures in place to avoid any states of emergency but, because of the uprising, the tender will be postponed until we have political stability after the presidential and parliamentary election at the end of 2011". Ibrahim denies the nuclear programme could be cancelled, saying: "The design specifications for the Egyptian nuclear plant take into account resistance to earthquakes and tsunamis, including those greater in magnitude than any that have happened in the region for the last four thousand years. "The reactor type is of the third generation of pressurised water reactors, which have not resulted in any adverse effects to the environment since they began operation in the early sixties."
  • Ibrahim El-Osery, a consultant in nuclear affairs and energy at the country's Nuclear Power Plants Authority, points out that Egypt's limited resources of oil and natural gas will run out in 20 years. "Then we will have to import electricity, and we can't rely on renewable energy as it is still not economic yet — Egypt in 2010 produced only two per cent of its needs through it." But there are other motives for going nuclear, says Nadia Sharara, professor of mineralogy at Assiut University. "Owning nuclear plants is a political decision in the first place, especially in our region. And any state that has acquired nuclear technology has political weight in the international community," she says. "Egypt has the potential to own this power as Egypt's Nuclear Materials Authority estimates there are 15,000 tons of untapped uranium in Egypt." And she points out it is about staying ahead with technology too. "If Egypt freezes its programme now because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster it will fall behind in many science research fields for at least the next 50 years," she warned.
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It's 2050: Do you know where your nuclear waste is? [09Sep11] - 1 views

  • Though nuclear power produces electricity with little in the way of carbon dioxide emissions, it, like other energy sources, is not without its own set of waste products. And in the case of nuclear power, most of these wastes are radioactive.1 Some very low level nuclear wastes can be stored and then disposed of in landfill-type settings. Other nuclear waste must remain sequestered for a few hundred years in specially engineered subsurface facilities; this is the case with low level waste, which is composed of low concentrations of long-lived radionuclides and higher concentrations of short-lived ones. Intermediate and high-level waste both require disposal hundreds of meters under the Earth’s surface, where they must remain out of harm’s way for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years (IAEA, 2009). Intermediate level wastes are not heat-emitting, but contain high concentrations of long-lived radionuclides. High-level wastes, including spent nuclear fuel and wastes from the reprocessing of spent fuel, are both heat-emitting and highly radioactive.
  • When it comes to the severity of an accident at a nuclear facility, there may be little difference between those that occur at the front end of the nuclear power production and those at the back end: An accident involving spent nuclear fuel can pose a threat as disastrous as that posed by reactor core meltdowns. In particular, if spent fuel pools are damaged or are not actively cooled, a major crisis could be in sight, especially if the pools are packed with recently discharged spent fuel.
  • Elements of success
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  • All countries with well-established nuclear programs have found themselves requiring spent fuel storage in addition to spent fuel pools at reactors. Some, like the US, use dry storage designs, such as individual casks or storage vaults that are located at reactor sites; other countries, Germany for one, use away-from-reactor facilities. Sweden has a large underground pool located at a centralized facility, CLAB, to which different reactors send their spent fuel a year after discharge, so spent fuel does not build up at reactor sites. Dry storage tends to be cheaper and can be more secure than wet storage because active circulation of water is not required. At the same time, because dry storage uses passive air cooling, not the active cooling that is available in a pool to keep the fuel cool, these systems can only accept spent fuel a number of years after discharge.6
  • The United States had been working toward developing a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada; this fell through in 2010, when the Obama administration decided to reverse this decision, citing political “stalemate” and lack of public consensus about the site. Instead, the Obama administration instituted the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future to rethink the management of the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.8 The US can flaunt one success, though. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP), located near Carlsbad in southern New Mexico, is actually the only operating deep geologic repository for intermediate level nuclear waste, receiving waste since 1998. In the case of WIPP, it only accepts transuranic wastes from the nuclear weapons complex. The site is regulated solely by the Environmental Protection Agency, and the state of New Mexico has partial oversight of WIPP through its permitting authority established by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The city of Carlsbad is supportive of the site and it appears to be tolerated by the rest of the state.9
  • France has had more success after failing in its first siting attempt in 1990, when a granite site that had been selected drew large protests and the government opted to rethink its approach to nuclear waste disposal entirely. In 2006, the government announced that it needed a geologic repository for high-level waste, identified at least one suitable area, and passed laws requiring a license application to be submitted by 2015 and the site to begin receiving high-level waste by 2025.
  • Canada recently rethought the siting process for nuclear waste disposal and began a consensus-based participatory process. The Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization was established in 2002, after previous attempts to site a repository failed. The siting process began with three years’ worth of conversations with the public on the best method to manage spent fuel. The organization is now beginning to solicit volunteer communities to consider a repository, though much of the process remains to be decided, including the amount and type of compensation given to the participating communities.
  • the most difficult part of the back end of the fuel cycle is siting the required facilities, especially those associated with spent fuel management and disposal. Siting is not solely a technical problem—it is as much a political and societal issue. And to be successful, it is important to get the technical and the societal and political aspects right.
  • After weathering the Fukushima accident, and given the current constraints on carbon dioxide emissions and potential for growth of nuclear power, redefinition of a successful nuclear power program is now required: It is no longer simply the safe production of electricity but also the safe, secure, and sustainable lifecycle of nuclear power, from the mining of uranium ores to the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. If this cannot be achieved and is not thought out from the beginning, then the public in many countries will reject nuclear as an energy choice.
  • Certain elements—including an institution to site, manage, and operate waste facilities—need to be in place to have a successful waste management program. In some countries, this agency is entirely a government entity, such as the Korea Radioactive Waste Management Organization. In other countries, the agency is a corporation established by the nuclear industry, such as SKB in Sweden or Posiva Oy in Finland. Another option would be a public– private agency, such as Spain’s National Company for Radioactive Waste or Switzerland’s National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste.
  • Funding is one of the most central needs for such an institution to carry out research and development programs; the money would cover siting costs, including compensation packages and resources for local communities to conduct their own analyses of spent fuel and waste transportation, storage, repository construction, operations, security and safeguards, and future liabilities. Funds can be collected in a number of ways, such as putting a levy on electricity charges (as is done in the US) or charging based on the activity or volume of waste (Hearsey et al., 1999). Funds must also be managed—either by a waste management organization or another industry or government agency—in a way that ensures steady and ready access to funds over time. This continued reliable access is necessary for planning into the future for repository operations.
  • the siting process must be established. This should include decisions on whether to allow a community to veto a site and how long that veto remains operational; the number of sites to be examined in depth prior to site selection and the number of sites that might be required; technical criteria to begin selecting potential sites; non-technical considerations, such as proximity to water resources, population centers, environmentally protected areas, and access to public transportation; the form and amount of compensation to be offered; how the public is invited to participate in the site selection process; and how government at the federal level will be involved.
  • The above are all considerations in the siting process, but the larger process—how to begin to select sites, whether to seek only volunteers, and so on—must also be determined ahead of time. A short list of technical criteria must be integrated into a process that establishes public consent to go forward, followed by many detailed studies of the site—first on the surface, then at depth. There are distinct advantages to characterizing more than one site in detail, as both Sweden and Finland have done. Multiple sites allow the “best” one to be selected, increasing public approval and comfort with the process.
  • he site needs to be evaluated against a set of standards established by a government agency in the country. This agency typically is the environmental agency or the nuclear regulatory agency. The type of standards will constrain the method by which a site will be evaluated with regard to its future performance. A number of countries use a combination of methods to evaluate their sites, some acknowledging that the ability to predict processes and events that will occur in a repository decrease rapidly with each year far into the future, so that beyond a few thousand years, little can be said with any accuracy. These countries use what is termed a “safety case,” which includes multiple lines of evidence to assure safe repository performance into the future.
  • Moving forward
  • France, Canada, and Germany also have experienced a number of iterations of repository siting, some with more success than others. In the 1970s, Germany selected the Gorleben site for its repository; however, in the late 1990s, with the election of a Red–Green coalition government (the Greens had long opposed Gorleben), a rethinking of repository siting was decreed, and the government established the AkEnd group to re-evaluate the siting process. Their report outlined a detailed siting process starting from scratch, but to date too much political disagreement exists to proceed further.
  • Notes
  • Nuclear wastes are classified in various ways, depending on the country or organization doing the classification. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) notes six general categories of waste produced by civil nuclear power reactors: exempt waste, very short-lived waste, and very low level waste can be stored and then disposed of in landfill-type settings; low level waste, intermediate level waste, and high-level waste require more complex facilities for disposal.
  • Sweden is currently the country closest to realizing a final solution for spent fuel, after having submitted a license application for construction of a geologic repository in March 2011. It plans to open a high-level waste repository sometime after 2025, as do Finland and France.
  • Some countries, such as Sweden, Finland, Canada, and, until recently, the US, plan to dispose of their spent fuel directly in a geologic repository. A few others, such as France, Japan, Russia, and the UK have an interim step. They reprocess their spent fuel, extract the small amount of plutonium produced during irradiation, and use it in new mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. Then they plan to dispose of the high-level wastes from reprocessing in a repository.
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The Pro-Nuclear Community goes Grassroots [12Oct11] - 0 views

  • In recent weeks I have been excited to witness several genuine grassroots efforts in support of nuclear energy emerging on the scene. Several have already been covered on this forum, like the Rally for Vermont Yankee and the Webinar collaboration by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the American Nuclear Society. Both of these efforts proved to be very successful in bringing together nuclear supporters and gaining attention from the mainstream media.
  • I’d like to share some information about another opportunity to actively show your support for nuclear. The White House recently launched a petition program called “We the People.” Here is the description of how it works: This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response. One of the first and most popular petitions on the website is a call to end subsidies and loan guarantees for nuclear energy by 2013. As I write this, it is only about a thousand signatures away from reaching the White House. In response to this petition, Ray Wallman, a young nuclear supporter and filmmaker, wrote a counter petition called “Educate the Public Regarding Nuclear Power.” It needs 4,500 more signatures before October 23 in order to get a formal response, and reads as follows:
  • Due to the manufactured controversy that is the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, perpetuated by a scientifically illiterate news media, the public is unnecessarily hostile to nuclear power as an energy source. To date nobody has died from the accident and Fukushima, and nuclear power has the lowest per Terra-watt hour death toll of any energy source known to man: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html The Obama administration should take better strides to educate the public regarding this important energy source.
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  • In addition to the petition for education, Gary Kahanak, of Arkansas Home Energy Consultants, released another one in support of restarting the Integral Fast Reactor program. This petition was inspired by an open letter to the White House with the same goal, written by Steve Kirsch, of the Science Council for Global Initiatives. The petition states:
  • Without delay, the U.S. should build a commercial-scale demonstration reactor and adjacent recycling center. General Electric’s PRISM reactor, developed by a consortium of major American companies in partnership with the Argonne National Laboratory, is ready to build now. It is designed to consume existing nuclear waste as fuel, be passively safe and proliferation-resistant. It can provide clean, emissions-free power to counter climate change, and will create jobs as we manufacture and export a superior technology. Abundant homegrown nuclear power will also enhance our nation’s energy security. Our country dedicated some of its finest scientific and engineering talent to this program, with spectacular success. Let’s finish the job we started. It will benefit our nation, and the world.
  • This brings me to my second reason for supporting these petitions: They represent a genuine change in approach for supporting nuclear energy. Throughout the history of commercial nuclear power generation, most of the decisions and support have come directly from government and corporate entities. This has resulted in a great deal of public mistrust and even distain for nuclear technologies. A grassroots approach may not translate directly into research dollars or policy change, but it has to the potential to win hearts and minds, which is also extremely important.
  • There has been some debate among my colleagues about the value of this approach. Some were concerned about the specific language or content of the petitions, while others did not feel comfortable signing something in support of a particular reactor that is not their preferred technology. Others have voiced that even if we get 5,000 signatures, the White House response will not have any impact on policy. While I understand and respect those points, I want to share why I decided to sign both petitions and to write about them here.
  • Those of us in the nuclear communications community ask ourselves constantly, “How do we inspire people to get involved and speak out in support of nuclear?” I see these petitions as a sign of success on the part of the nuclear community—we are reaching out and inspiring action from the ground up. Nuclear supporters who are not directly employed by the industry created both of these petitions. In my mind, that is a really wonderful thing. Members of the public are taking independent action to support the technology they believe in.
  • The release of these petitions was just in time to beat an increased threshold for minimum signatures, from 5,000 to 25,000. That means that if half of ANS members take the time to sign these petitions, we will get a formal response from the White House about their plans for increasing public education on nuclear energy, and moving forward with an important Generation IV technology.
  • And finally, there is power in symbolic action
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It's the "duty" of scientific community to reduce public's fear, anxiety about radiatio... - 0 views

  • SOURCE: German TV-channel ZDF talks with TEPCO-employees (german, english subs), October 8, 2011 At 5:55 in Fukushima prefecture health adviser (Shunichi Yamashita, MD, PhD. Dean. Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences): Those who smile will have no radiation damage, only those who make constant worry… At 6:10 in Less than 100 MICROsieverts per HOUR no danger to health, or 876 millisievert per year — over double Germany’s 400 millisievert LIFETIME exposure limit for nuclear workers…
  • And from an article today on the Energy Collective: [Emphasis Added]
  • Harold Swartz of Dartmouth Medical School [...] basically said that in the real events of Fukushima [...] the “worried well” are the major issue. Civilians will not experience exposure at a dose which would measurably increase their chances of getting cancer or limit their life-expectancy. At the same time, they will not believe any official reassurances that “everything is okay.” It would be the duty of the scientific community to explain that people are not in danger of cancer or early death. In other words, it would be the duty of the scientific community to reduce one of the major public health effects of any type of accident: fear and anxiety.
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95% disagree with "Beyond Nuclear". Let's make it 99% [23Oct11] - 0 views

  • 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.”
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  • 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.
  • Perhaps this October 12, 2011 post titled Oyster Creek Response that was published on Clean Energy Insight has something to do with the way the results are shaping up with 1029 out of 1080 respondents (95.3%) saying that Oyster Creek should not stop operating. Here is one more example of how inbred the group of antinuclear activists has become. I am talking here about the people who are so adamantly opposed to using nuclear energy that they do not even want existing nuclear plants to keep on producing clean, emission free, low cost electricity. Michael Mariotte of NIRS makes the following extraordinary claim: Ninety-five percent of the people in the world know about Fukushima, Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service said.
  • “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.
D'coda Dcoda

Cyber-security of continent's power grid 'chaotic,' report warns [16Nov11] - 0 views

  • The cyber-security of the North American power grid is "in a state of near chaos," according to a report by a respected U.S. energy consultancy monitoring the industry's transition to wireless digital technologies.The white paper by Pike Research reveals that a $60 smart phone application can bypass security measures and allow direct communications between the phone and some control systems (ICS) that regulate breakers, relays, feeders and the flow of electricity.The news comes on the heels of a warning from the cyber-security arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the hacker collective known as Anonymous appears intent on exploiting the ICS vulnerabilities within the energy industry.
  • In an unclassified October bulletin obtained by the website Public Intelligence, the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center believes the group has, "a limited ability to conduct attacks against ICS. However . . . Anonymous could be able to develop capabilities to trespass on control system networks very quickly."In July, Anonymous threatened to target companies involved with Alberta's oilsands.
  • North America's power supply has never been disrupted by hackers, though there have been numerous uneventful penetrations of the system, including at Ontario utilities.A chill went through the critical infrastructure industry last summer when a malicious computer worm called Stuxnet attacked Iran's uranium enrichment plants.
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  • Many ICS have lifespans of 30 years and mitigation and compensation measures to help them mesh with the newer technologies are creating additional weak links and vulnerabilities.
  • Another worrisome change involves tens of millions of wireless "smart meters" being installed in homes and businesses for faster, more efficient two-way communications with local utilities via the Internet. Utilities, in turn, are networked with the big transmission operators and bulk power generators. More than 300,000 smart meters are installed in Ottawa homes and small businesses.The concern is that they potentially expose the system to hackers and other cyber attacks.
D'coda Dcoda

Fukushima and the Doomsday Clock | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [11Aug11] - 0 views

  • When dreadful events occur, reporters, readers, and interested citizens contact the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists asking whether we will move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock. The alarming nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station on March 11 prompted e-mails and calls to our office seeking the Bulletin's reaction as well as accurate information about what was happening in Japan. The Bulletin responded by devoting its website to daily briefings from experts in Japan and to news from Bulletin writers on what they were hearing about this second-worst disaster in the history of the nuclear power industry. Additionally, the Bulletin will take deeper dives into the lessons and impacts of Fukushima in the September/October issue of its digital journal. Still, the larger question remains: Should we move the hand of the Doomsday Clock? What does the Fukushima event imply for humanity's future on the planet?
  • How do we determine the time? In annual Clock discussions, the Bulletin's Science and Security Board -- the keepers of the Clock -- reviews the trends and current events that reveal how well or how poorly humanity regulates the perilous forces unleashed by our own ingenuity and industry. Moving the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is a judgment, then, an assessment of the human capacity to control technologies that can lead to irreversible catastrophe -- to the end of civilization. With growing worldwide interest in nuclear energy for economic development, it's important to know how well firms and societies are handling this dangerous technology
  • Questions for a post-Fukushima world. The Bulletin's Board members are following the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan very closely. Questions about the continuing disaster range from the detailed and technical to the societal and ethical; the answers will have implications for any long-term commitment to nuclear power.
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  • On the technical end, it appears that the underlying cause of the three core meltdowns, the hydrogen explosions, and the subsequent release of radioactive material was the loss of coolant to the nuclear cores, which was ultimately due to the loss of electrical power to the reactors. Without power to circulate the water that cooled the fuel rods, nothing could have prevented the core meltdowns. In light of this failure, questions center on reactor design and handling of nuclear fuel. Can reactors be designed without a reliance on electrical power to maintain the proper core temperature? In the event of system failure, are there better alternatives to human intervention? Stronger safety designs have been proposed in the past -- ones that are more straightforward and less Rube Goldberg-like than the complicated systems currently used. Why haven't they been developed? Meanwhile, the handling of nuclear fuel continues to defy logic: Why is spent fuel still stored at power plants -- raising the odds of damage and the subsequent release of radioactive materials in accidents? What exactly are the obstacles to placing spent fuel in long-term storage repositories?
  • A second set of questions focuses on operations, regulation, and public knowledge about nuclear reactors. How can regulatory agencies maintain independence from the nuclear industry and enforce rigorous safety standards? What prevents the industry from being more transparent about operations, especially when leaks and mishaps occur? If existing regulatory arrangements appear inadequate, then could a different structure of economic incentives encourage utilities to make their nuclear power plants safer and more secure? In the United States, for example, current law limits industry liability in the event of an accident. Does the limit on legal liability in the event of an accident reduce firms' incentives not only to develop the safest designs possible but also to ensure the most rigorous oversight of maintenance and operations?
  • More broadly, how can societies and communities meet their energy needs with the least risk and the greatest payoff for economic development? Are there alternatives based on precautionary principles -- first do no harm -- that involve less peril to safety, health, and community than nuclear or fossil-fueled power? Are we locked into the current energy development path? How should we think about the trade-offs between injury and disruption from energy technologies and future injury and disruption from climate change?
  • But have we learned anything? These questions are difficult to answer and the trade-offs nearly impossible to calculate. Even harder, however, will be implementing policy recommendations in a world of vested interests tied to old technologies. Over the past 100 years or so, the world's "energy portfolio" did not diversify very much -- as electric and gas-fueled engines powered industrial development. Renewable energy technologies like wind, solar, and biofuels hold great potential, but require much more rapid development to substitute for fossil fuels and nuclear power in the near term. So it appears now that there are few good choices: Either warm the planet's atmosphere and oceans, with dire consequences for human societies as the climate rapidly changes, or place communities in jeopardy from nuclear plant accidents and releases of deadly radioactive materials. However, in January 2012, when the Bulletin deliberates about moving the hand of the Doomsday Clock, the most important question will be: What have governments, firms, and citizens learned from the Fukushima disaster about managing Earth-altering technologies? And will they act on what they have learned in time to avert future disaster?
D'coda Dcoda

The battle for the atom is heating up again [21Jun11] - 0 views

  • I have been rereading a 1982 book by Bertrand Goldschmidt titled “The Atomic Complex: A Worldwide Political History of Nuclear Energy.”
  • The two self-assigned homework projects are as part of a reflective effort to understand more about how human society moved from a period of optimism based on a vision of “Atoms for Peace” to a period where someone reading the advertiser supported press would believe that sensible people would logically consider giving up the whole technology out of fear of radiation and its health consequences.One of the hopeful lessons I have learned so far is that the initial conditions of our current fight to defend and expand the safe use of atomic energy are far different from those that faced the people engaged in the earliest battles against a well organized opposition to nuclear technology development. We have a much better chance of success now than we did then – and there are several reasons why that is true.
  • One condition that is vastly different is the ability of nuclear professionals to have their voices heard. No longer are most people who understand nuclear energy isolated in small communities with few media outlets. In the 1970s, a large fraction of nuclear professionals were located near remotely sited national laboratories or power stations. Today, though many still work at national labs or in small market communities like Lynchburg, VA, we are all globally connected to a vast network on the Internet. We have Skype, YouTube and blogs. Some of us know that major decision makers and journalists read or listen to our words on a regular basis. We are no longer shy about responding to misinformation and unwarranted criticism.
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  • For example, many of you have probably seen or read the Associated Press hit piece on the effort by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry to address the issue of aging nuclear power stations
  • The encouraging thing about that response is that it happened on the SAME DAY as the AP report was released. After Dan published his report, he notified the world via Twitter that the post was up. I have already had the opportunity to retweet his announcement and to share his link in a conversation related to a Huffington Post article titled U.S. Nuclear Regulators Weaken Safety Rules, Fail To Enforce Them: AP Investigation and in a conversation on Joe Romm’s Climate Progress titled AP Bombshell: U.S. Nuclear Regulators “Repeatedly” Weaken Safety Rules or are “Simply Failing to Enforce Them”.Think about that – it has been just 24 hours since the AP story hit the wires, yet nuclear professionals are already sharing a completely different side of the story without the filter of someone else deciding what is important.
  • However, the AP reporter, most likely someone who has never worked on an old car or repaired an old submarine, took a lot of stories out of context. He added a number of scary sounding inferences about the relationship between the regulators and the regulated. In response to the story, Dan Yurman, who blogs at Idaho Samizdat and was a professional journalist before he became a nuclear professional, reached out for real expertise.
  • He interviewed Dr. John Bickel, a man who has about 39 years worth of professional experience in plant aging, defense in depth and other safety related issues. You can read Dan’s excellent article at Associated Press Nukes the NRC on Reactor Safety.
  • It should be no secret to anyone that the average age of nuclear power plants in the US increases by almost exactly one year with every passing year. We are only officially building one plant right now, with four more that will enter that category as soon as the NRC issues the construction and operating licenses. It is also no secret that the NRC and the industry have been working hard to address aging as part of the effort to relicense plants for an additional 20 years, a process that is complete for more than 60 plants so far.
  • Another thing that is different about the fight over using atomic energy now, compared to the fight that happened in the late 1960s through the 1990s is that the opposition has a much less capable base of leaders. In the previous phase of the battle, the antinuclear movement grew out of a morally understandable effort to stop testing nuclear weapons in the earth’s atmosphere.
  • That effort was inspired by real world events like showering a Japanese fishing vessel with lethal doses of fallout from an ill-timed test in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It was led by some of the world’s most renowned atomic scientists, many of whom bore a deep moral guilt for their wartime efforts to build the Bomb in the first place.
  • When that effort succeeded in convincing the US, the UK and Russia to agree to stop atmospheric testing in 1963, some of the organizations that had been formed to do the heavy lifting saw substantial decreases in membership and contributions. After all, they could have easily hung up a large banner saying “Mission Accomplished” and closed up shop. Some did just that. Some persisted for a while with a variety of related issues like fighting against antiballistic missile installations and medium range rockets.
  • The groups organized against nuclear energy today are no longer led by world renowned scientists, though they do have some media celebrities with spotty professional histories and puffed up resumes. In many cases, they are grayer than I am and less well versed in the techniques of modern communications. Their fellow travelers on blogs and message boards routinely expose their own ignorance and sometimes their near illiteracy.
  • In contrast to the past, many of the renowned nuclear scientists and engineers in the profession today have no guilt at all. They did not participate in developing fearful weapons of mass destruction. Instead, they have spent their lives participating in an enterprise that provides massive quantities of emission free, low cost power to the people of the world. Seasoned professionals like Ted Rockwell, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin and Gail Marcus are out there blogging away and telling people what they know to be true about nuclear energy.
  • Enthusiastic younger people like Kirk Sorensen, Jack Gamble, and Suzy Hobbs are sharing optimistic visions for the future and explaining why they have chosen to support nuclear energy development, often in the face of numerous friends who disagree
  • I am encouraged. Atomic energy is alive and well; there is nothing that humans can do to eliminate its existence. We are entering a golden age of nuclear energy where facts and reality will overcome fictional tall tales spun by folks like Arnie Gundersen or Paul Blanche.
Dan R.D.

Private Fuel Storage Targets High-Level Radioactive Waste Dump at Skull Valley Goshute ... - 0 views

  • The tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation in Utah is targeted for a very big nuclear waste dump. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a limited liability corporation representing eight powerful nuclear utilities, wants to "temporarily" store 40,000 tons of commercial high-level radioactive waste (about 80% of the commercial irradiated nuclear fuel in the U.S. as of the end of 2004) next to the two-dozen tribal members who live on the small reservation. The PFS proposal is the latest in a long tradition of targeting Native American communities for such dumps. But there is another tradition on the targeted reservations as well–fighting back against blatant environmental racism, and winning.
  • NIRS, joining with allies such as Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth, has been privileged and honored to assist tribal members opposing dumps targeted at their communities for well over a decade. Of 60 Indian communities directly targeted by the nuclear power establishment, 59 have fended off the threat. But the Skull Valley proposal has advanced further than any other before, and could be granted an operating license by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sometime in early 2005. NIRS and Skull Valley Goshute tribal opponents to this environmental racism – and threat of irradiated fuel trains by the hundreds rolling through dozens of U.S. states as early as 2007 – need YOUR help today!
D'coda Dcoda

Risk below 100 mSv is so low you cannot measure it [23Oct11] - 0 views

  • Risk below 100 mSv is so low you cannot measure it by Rod Adams on October 15, 2011 in Health Effects, LNT, Nuclear Communications Share48 One of my favorite jokes about the difference between scientists and engineers is the one in which a scientist and an engineer are both put into a room with a pot of gold on the other side. They are given the rules of the challenge – the gold will be given to the person who reaches it first. There is one caveat – each contestant is limited to moving only half way to the goal with each turn. The scientist gives up and claims that the goal is unreachable because the distance to the gold will never be zero. The engineer walks across the room, picks up the pot of gold and says – “I may not be able to get here, but I can get close enough.” During the question and answer session following the presentations at the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) meeting on food safety, Dr. Allison, a life-long scientist, proves that some scientists recognize that close is often good enough. As he says in answer to a lengthy question from the audience, the risk from a dose of 100 mSv each year may not be zero. However, the life span survivor studies of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki show that it is so close to zero that it is impossible to measure. That study included a population of approximately 100,000 people monitored carefully for more than 50 years. It is difficult to conceive of a larger or more well followed study group.
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D'coda Dcoda

Dr Chris Busby turns on his attackers - YouTube [25Nov11] - 0 views

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 27 Nov 11 - No Cached
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    talks about efforts to discredit the anti-nuclear community
D'coda Dcoda

Report Assails Japan Response to Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident [26Dec11] - 0 views

  • From inspectors’ abandoning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it succumbed to disaster to a delay in disclosing radiation leaks, Japan’s response to the nuclear accident caused by the March tsunami fell tragically short, a government-appointed investigative panel said on Monday.
  • The failures, which the panel said worsened the extent of the disaster, were outlined in a 500-page interim report detailing Japan’s response to the calamitous events that unfolded at the Fukushima plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out all of the site’s power.
  • The panel attacked the use of the term “soteigai,” or “unforeseen,” that plant and government officials used both to describe the unprecedented scale of the disaster and to explain why they were unable to stop it. Running a nuclear power plant inherently required officials to foresee the unforeseen, said the panel’s chairman, Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus in engineering at the University of Tokyo. “There was a lot of talk of soteigai, but that only bred perceptions among the public that officials were shirking their responsibilities,” Mr. Hatamura said.
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  • Tokyo Electric had assumed that no wave would reach more than about 20 feet. The tsunami hit at more than twice that height.
  • Officials of Japan’s nuclear regulator present at the plant during the quake quickly left the site, and when ordered to return by the government, they proved of little help to workers racing to restore power and find water to cool temperatures at the plant, the report said.
  • the workers left at Fukushima Daiichi had not been trained to handle multiple failures, and lacked a clear manual to follow, the report said. A communications breakdown meant that workers at the plant had no clear sense of what was happening.
  • In particular, an erroneous assumption that an emergency cooling system was working led to hours of delay in finding alternative ways to draw cooling water to the plant, the report said. All the while, the system was not working, and the uranium fuel rods at the cores were starting to melt.
  • devastatingly, the government failed to make use of data on the radioactive plumes released from the plant to warn local towns and direct evacuations, the report said. The failure allowed entire communities to be exposed to harmful radiation, the report said. “Authorities failed to think of the disaster response from the perspective of victims,” Mr. Hatamura said.
  • But the interim report seems to leave ultimate responsibility for the disaster ambiguous. Even if workers had realized that the emergency cooling system was not working, they might not have been able to prevent the meltdowns. The panel limited itself to suggesting that a quicker response might have mitigated the core damage and lessened the release of radiation into the environment.
D'coda Dcoda

Problems Plague Cleanup at Hanford Nuclear Waste Site [19Jan12] - 0 views

  • Seven decades after scientists came here during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.The U.S. government is building a treatment plant to stabilize and contain 56 million gallons of waste left from a half-century of nuclear weapons production. The radioactive sludge is so dangerous that a few hours of exposure could be fatal. A major leak could contaminate water supplies serving millions across the Northwest. The cleanup is the most complex and costly environmental restoration ever attempted.And the project is not going well.
  • A USA TODAY investigation has found that the troubled, 10-year effort to build the treatment plant faces enormous problems just as it reaches what was supposed to be its final stage.In exclusive interviews, several senior engineers cited design problems that could bring the plant's operations to a halt before much of the waste is treated. Their reports have spurred new technical reviews and raised official concerns about the risk of a hydrogen explosion or uncontrolled nuclear reaction inside the plant. Either could damage critical equipment, shut the facility down or, worst case, allow radiation to escape.The plant's $12.3 billion price tag, already triple original estimates, is well short of what it will cost to address the problems and finish the project. And the plant's start-up date, originally slated for last year and pushed back to its current target of 2019, is likely to slip further.
  • "We're continuing with a failed design," said Donald Alexander, a senior U.S. government scientist on the project."There's a lot of pressure … from Congress, from the state, from the community to make progress," he added. As a result, "the design processes are cut short, the safety analyses are cut short, and the oversight is cut short. … We have to stop now and figure out how to do this right, before we move any further."
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  • Documents obtained by USA TODAY show at least three federal investigations are underway to examine the project, which is funded and supervised by the Department of Energy, owner of Hanford Site. Bechtel National is the prime contractor.In November, the Energy Department's independent oversight office notified Bechtel that it is investigating "potential nuclear safety non-compliances" in the design and installation of plant systems and components. And the department's inspector general is in the final stages of a separate probe focused on whether Bechtel installed critical equipment that didn't meet quality-control standards.Meanwhile, Congress' Government Accountability Office has launched a sweeping review of everything from cost and schedule overruns to the risks associated with the Energy Department's decision to proceed with construction before completing and verifying the design of key components.
  • The "design-build" approach "is good if you're building a McDonald's," said Gene Aloise, the GAO's director of nuclear non-proliferation and security. "It's not good if you're building a one-of-a-kind, high-risk nuclear waste facility."The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent federal panel that oversees public health and safety at nuclear weapons sites, is urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to require more extensive testing of designs for some of the plant's most critical components."Design and construction of the project continue despite there being unresolved technical issues, and there is a lot of risk associated with that," said Peter Winokur, the board's chairman. The waste at Hanford, stored in 177 deteriorating underground tanks, "is a real risk to the public and the environment. It is essential that this plant work and work well."
  • Everything about the waste treatment plant at Hanford is unprecedented — and urgent.The volume of waste, its complex mix of highly radioactive and toxic material, the size of the processing facilities — all present technical challenges with no proven solution. The plant is as big as the task: a sprawling, 65-acre compound of four giant buildings, each longer than a football field and as tall as 12 stories high.The plant will separate the waste's high- and low-level radioactive materials, then blend them with compounds that are superheated to create a molten glass composite — a process called "vitrification." The mix is poured into giant steel cylinders, where it cools to a solid form that is safe and stable for long-term storage — tens of thousands of glass tubes in steel coffins.
  • Once the plant starts running, it could take 30 years or more to finish its cleanup work.The 177 underground tanks at Hanford hold detritus from 45 years of plutonium production at the site, which had up to nine nuclear reactors before it closed in 1989. Some of the tanks, with capacities ranging from 55,000 gallons to more than 1 million gallons, date to the mid-1940s, when Hanford's earliest reactor made plutonium for the first atomic bomb ever detonated: the "Trinity" test at Alamagordo, N.M. It also produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II.
  • More than 60 of the tanks are thought to have leaked, losing a million gallons of waste into soil and groundwater. So far, the contamination remains within the boundaries of the barren, 586-square-mile site, but it poses an ongoing threat to the nearby Columbia River, a water source for communities stretching southwest to Portland, Ore. And, while the liquid most likely to escape from the older tanks has been moved to newer, double-walled tanks, the risk of more leaks compounds that threat.
D'coda Dcoda

Fukushima radiation worse than feared - experts [12Oct13] - 0 views

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    State of emergency should now be declared throughout world community" over Fukushima - Nuclear Expert: Molten corium related leaks into ocean have never stopped
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