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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.”

The NRC had declared delays in the new reactor approval process for AP1000 and ESBWR reactor designs. They NRC wants to complete their analysis on information from Fukushima Daiichi before moving ahead with the process to possibly approve either new design. Meanwhile Nuclear power companies are forging ahead with preparing sites for the reactors they hope to build. An interesting twist in that power companies can start a project before getting approval for the reactor they intend to build. This is then frequently used to pressure the NRC because work and spending is already underway. It was a key circumstance during the initial approval process at North Anna.

The Oyster Creek reactor in New Jersey, one of the oldest in the US has announced they will shut down for good in 2019. In 2010 Excelon threatened to close Oyster Creek unless a mandate requiring them to build cooling towers was removed. It appears that the cooling tower issues may have been a major factor in the decision to cease operations.  Containment corrosion and lawsuits over the lack of metals testing on the reactor were mounting against Oyster Creek. The people in the region and the state authorities were all working various angles to shut down the plant due to its many problems. They have succeeded. Now to just hope nothing bad happens at Oyster Creek before 2019.

At Davis Besse in Ohio, as they are replacing the reactor cap that has a pineapple sized hole in it, they discovered a long crack in the containment concrete. They had already sliced a hole in the containment dome to put the replacement reactor cap in. FirstEnergy claims none of this will degrade safety…..

A manufacturer of dozens of boiling water nuclear reactors in the country, including many on the East Coast, warned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year and reiterated last week that earthquakes could hinder its reactors from shutting down. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, which manufactured the boiling water reactors at Oyster Creek, Hope Creek and two plants in Pennsylvania, said that an earthquake could prevent rods that cool the reactor from being inserted. The rods cool the reactor down because they contain boron, which attracts neutrons. Without the rods, boron would be injected, a messier emergency solution.

"Earlier this week, they submitted the results of this evaluation they did and they found that friction that could result from an earthquake could impact the ability of control rods to insert all the way," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan Friday. "They serve a very important function and if there was a change of alignment in an earthquake and they could not insert all the way, it would be a problem." It’s not ideal to have a shutdown system fail at a moment of emergency, Sheehan said. "In a significant event like an earthquake, you would want to stop that from happening," Sheehan said, "because your safety systems could be challenged at the same time."

A spokesman for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said that when plants start up and shut down which amounts to about 1 percent of the time they run, added shaking from an earthquake could stop rods from easily sliding into the core. "There’s some friction," said spokesman Michael Tetuan. "They still insert, it’s just more friction than there would normally be." Last week’s NRC filing identified more than a dozen plants around the country that could be vulnerable, including Oyster Creek, Hope Creek and Limerick and Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania. Those plants were notified by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and recommended to participate in a surveillance program.

Earthquakes are routinely measured by magnitude, or energy released. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)requires the nation's 104 nuclear reactors to withstand a predicted level of ground motion, or acceleration — something called g-force. What does that mean, magnitude-wise?

"I don't have what that translates into … unfortunately," NRC spokesman David McIntyre says. The agency released a statement Thursday to clarify its "earthquake measurements and design criteria," but it does not say what ground motion each reactor can handle. This muddiness heightens the concerns of industry critics, who have urged stricter safety rules after reactors at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant nearly melted down due to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

A task force mandated by President Obama recommended in July that each U.S. plant be re-examined, given ongoing NRC research that shows the seismic risks for Eastern and Central U.S. nuclear power plants have increased. "The Virginia earthquake is now our local 911 call to stop delaying the implementation of stricter safety standards," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., wrote in a letter this week to the NRC.

The world's largest nuclear energy producer, the United States, Tuesday aired its first detailed public examination of whether stronger safety standards are needed in light of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.Although the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) task force concluded that the sequence of events that caused Japan's crisis was unlikely to recur in the United States, the panel has urged a new focus on preparing for the unexpected.(Related: "How is Japan's Nuclear Disaster Different?)Especially at issue is how to deal with "beyond design-basis" risks, events considered too unlikely to be factored in when the plants were being designed. The U.S. task force recommended that a framework of "extended design-basis" requirements be established for the 104 reactors in the United States. This is especially important, task force member Gary Holahan said, in light of the fact that "many of the older plants might have less robust seismic, flooding, and other features."

Part of the concept of the framework is for the NRC to articulate” expected safety requirements, and to test all plants, no matter their age or design, against that same standard, said Holahan, deputy director of NRC's office of new reactors.The post-Fukushima inspection reports that NRC ordered for all U.S. nuclear power plants provide a window into risks that the task force says the agency should address.

For instance, in their April visit to the oldest U.S. nuclear power plant, Exelon's Oyster Creek, near Toms River, New Jersey, close to the shore, the inspectors noted that if power were lost, emergency venting procedures "could result in hydrogen accumulation in the reactor building." Such a build-up is believed to have caused the explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, which, like Oyster Creek, had boiling water reactors with Mark 1 containment systems. Among the NRC task force's recommendations is that reliable hardened vent designs be required in such reactors. (Fukushima and most of the 31 U.S. boiling water reactors have hardened vent designs; the task force is urging steps to make them more reliable.)Here's a look at some of the other post-Fukushima concerns raised by inspectors at the ten oldest U.S. nuclear power plants.

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening standards or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regularly have decided original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.The result? Rising fears that these accommodations are undermining safety -- and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize nuclear power's future.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20 times the original limit. When cracking caused radioactive leaks in steam generator tubing, an easier test was devised so plants could meet standards.Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in AP's yearlong investigation. And many of them could escalate dangers during an accident.

Despite the problems, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended dozens of reactor licenses.Industry and government officials defend their actions and insist no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between industry and the NRC.Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance. Studies are conducted by industry and government, and all agree existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative."

The staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently produced a list of safety improvements that might be undertaken at American nuclear plants in light of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. On Tuesday, the nuclear industry focused on two elements that were conspicuous by their absence.

In a presentation to Wall Street analysts, Marvin Fertel, the president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, emphasized that spent fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had “survived the accident quite well.”Early in the crisis, which began with an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, American regulators feared that water in one of the pools had almost completely boiled off, and the American Embassy in Tokyo advised Americans to stay 50 miles away. But “the pools may turn out to be a much better story at Fukushima than people envisioned,’’ Mr. Fertel said.

Noting that fuel pools at American reactors have far more radioactive material in them than the ones at Fukushima, the accident focused new attention on the idea of moving spent fuel out of the pools and into dry casks, Something already done at most American reactors when they run out of space.That idea first came to prominence after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Scriba, NY -- Today, for the first time in four decades, workers who operate two nuclear power plants in Oswego County went on strike. At midnight Friday, when a shift ended at Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and Unit 2, Constellation Energy Nuclear Group managers relieved union co-workers at desks throughout the plants.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 97 called for 460 workers to go on strike in the plants owned by Constellation Energy Nuclear Group after a final contract negotiating session lasted just minutes Friday morning. CENG will temporarily run the two reactors in Scriba with management workers, said Jill Lyon, a company spokeswoman. “... We are prepared to safely run the facility,” Lyon said in a statement issued hours before the company’s contract with the IBEW expired.

Local 97 represents 590 of the roughly 1,000 workers at the plant, including control-room operators, radiation-protection personnel, emergency-response workers and others, said Theodore Skerpon, Local 97 president. About 460 of the workers will be on strike. IBEW-represented security officers are not permitted to strike. CENG has spent the past year devising its contingency plan and training managers to step in if necessary, Lyon said.

A nuclear reactor in Maryland has been shut down because of wind damage, while others were either taken offline or operating at reduced capacity as precautionary measures before the arrival of hurricane Irene on Sunday.A reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Lusby, Maryland, remained off-line on Sunday, after going into automatic shutdown when a piece of aluminum siding ripped from a nearby building damaged a transformer.Constellation Energy, which operates the Lusby plant, said the facility was safe and that a second reactor was operating at full capacity. No power outages were expected because of the shutdown.

Maryland state emergency agency said the plant would reopen after inspection. "Number one will stay offline until they have folks that will crawl over every inch of it," its spokesman, Quentin Banks said.It was the second complete shutdown caused by Irene, after authorities took a plant offline in New Jersey as a precaution before the storm.Exelon Corporation decided on Saturday afternoon to take its Oyster Creek generator offline as Irene blew in. "It's really as a precaution, a conservative action, because we do expect hurricane force winds," Marshall Murphy, an Exelon spokesman, told reporters.

Fourteen nuclear plants from North Carolina to New Hampshire were in Irene's path

On June 20 the Associated Press published the results of a year long investigative report on safety at nuclear reactors in the U.S. It is a major effort by an experienced journalist and will receive wide attention. Coming on the heels of the Fukushima crisis on Japan, the first of two article contains some strong allegations. AP's investigative reporter Jeff Donn writes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has watered down safety regulations in order to keep older reactors like Oyster Creek open beyond 40 years.

Is all this true? Or is it contrary to what many nuclear professionals know to be the case with regulation of the nation's 104 reactors? I turned to John Bickel, who's impeccable credentials include several decades of nuclear engineering experience backed by advanced degrees in the field

(Part 2 of the AP Story focuses on Tritium leaks) Nuclear expert says not so fast AP

American Energy Fields, Inc. (OTCBB:AEFI), formerly Sienna Resources, Inc. is a uranium exploration and development company based in Arizona. Their focus is uranium deposits in the United States. The Company’s three main projects (in which they have sole interest) are  the Coso and Blythe  projects in California, and Artillery Peak project in Arizona. All three properties have been previously explored and developed, and are currently in early exploration stages.  A 43-101 technical report for the Artillery Peak project is available for review on American Energy Field’s website. What we like about American Energy Fields, Inc: Over 9.2 million pounds U3O8 historic resources with 2.8 million pounds 43-101 verified More than $25 million in development work, by past operators, has been spent on AEFI’s current projects Committed to near term production of low cost U.S. Uranium

The Artillery Peak property consists of 1,777 acres of federal land and is located 112 miles northeast of Phoenix, Arizona. American Energy Fields’ historic records indicate 1.7 million pounds of uranium was previously identified through exploration on Artillery Peak. There has been significant exploration work completed on the property, including over 400 holes drilled by Jacquays Mining, Homestake Mining, Hecla Mining, Getty Oil, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Santa Fe Mining between the 1950s-1970s. A 1979 report by Central and South West Fuels, Inc. found that the northern portion of the property contains a historical resource of 1.7 million pounds U3O8 with an average grade of 0.113%. In 2007/2008 new exploration was conducted which included 34 additional drill holes to verify historic drilling and further delineate mineralization. In 1979, the Department of Energy conducted an evaluation of the Date Creek Basin and the Artillery Mountains where they estimated that the area could contain as much as 1,260,000,000 pounds of U3O8. The Company will begin a preliminary exploration program to verify the historic data reported by Central and South West Fuels Inc.

Coso – Inyo County – California The Coso project covers 169 federal mining claims and 800 state-owned acres and was previously developed by Western Nuclear, Pioneer Resources, Federal Resources, and Union Pacific Mining/Rocky Mountain Energy. An estimated U.S. $20,000,000.00 was spent on exploration and development of the project, including an engineered pit design, where exploration records indicate 5.5 million lbs. of uranium was identified with an average grade of 0.07 U3O8. American Energy Fields recently received its exploration permit for the 800 state-owned acres from the California Land Department and is currently developing an exploration plan to confirm the historic data with the goal of moving the project towards production. Blythe – Riverside County – California The Blythe project consists of 66 Federal mining claims in Riverside County, California covering 3 historic mines, the Safranek, the McCoy Wash, and the Little Ore Hill operated by Humbug Mining and Bokum Corporation. According to Bokum’s records during the years of 1963 to 1964, the Safranek Mine produced and shipped 1,400 tons of uranium ore averaging 0.80% U308 to the VCA mill in Salt Lake City, Utah for processing. These records also indicate the Safranek site currently contains 100 tons at 0.40% U3O8 and 4,000 tons at 0.30% U3O8 of stockpiled ore, while the McCoy Wash has 3,000 tons of stockpiled ore with a grade of 0.20% U3O8. Bokum Corporation drilled the property in the early 1970s and the results indicated approximately 153,000 lbs of U3O8 while outlining a further potential for an additional 2,000,000 lbs of U3O8. American Energy Fields aims to identify, expand, and develop the ore body with the goal of putting the past producing mines back into production. Management

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) “Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Accident” publicly released its 92-page well intentioned near-term review on the implications of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster for US reactors on July 13, 2011.  The federal agency proposes to improve its “patchwork of regulatory requirements” developed “piece by piece over the decades.” Beyond Nuclear remains concerned that many critical reactor safety areas are still dominated by industry “voluntary initiatives” where non-compliance continues to elude federal enforcement and  Capitol Hill pro-nuclear champions announced their resistance to any costly safety improvements

Of most concern, the NRC is still ignoring warnings as did its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission,  in 1972 from their senior safety officer, Dr. Steven Hanuaer to “discourage all further use” in the US of the Fukushima-style General Electric Mark I boiling water reactor. The federal regulators instead issued three more construction permits and eventually 16 more operating licenses in the 1970s for this same dangerous design. There are now 23 Fukushima-style reactors operating in the United States as part of a total of 32 Mark I’s worldwide---counting the smoldering radioactive rubble at Fukushima.   The NRC task force report does not fundamentally address the most critical issue coming out of the Fukushima catastrophe, namely, the design vulnerability of all Mark I containment structures to catastrophic failure during a severe accident

The NRC report further ignores that these same Mark I reactors, like Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek, are not currently in compliance with their operating licenses that were originally required to have a reliable "leak tight" containment structure. If the NRC were looking for the most significant and meaningful safety upgrade to the US reactors directly impacted by the Fukushima disaster they would require that all Mark I reactor operators restore containment integrity to the original licensed leak tight condition. Or order that they be shut them down, permanently.  All of the Mark I reactors voluntarily installed retrofits to vent all a substandard and undersized containment to save it from rupturing during a severe accident. The same experimental vent was installed at Fukushima in 1991. The same experimental fix failed on three containments buildings to prevent the uncontrolled releases of radioactivity to the air and water that are still occurring now four months after the accident.

As reported by Matt Wald of the New York Times, former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford strikes again, with a most apt metaphor bringing a dose of reality to the so-called Third Way/Idaho National Lab conference on nuclear power's future. Unmentioned in the reporting, however, is the irony of U.S. Senators Voinovich (R-OH) and Carper (D-DE) hosting the event. It was on Voinovich's watch that the Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo came within 3/16ths of an inch of a meltdown; Carper's political power base in Wilmington could suffer 100,000 "peak early fatalities," over 70,000 "peak early injuries," 40,000 "peak cancer deaths," and over $300 billion in property damage if any one of the three Salem/Hope Creek atomic reactors suffered a catastrophic radiation release, according to NRC's 1982 CRAC-2 study ("Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences"). Also unreported was the irony that, as Obama administration officials -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House climate and energy czar Carol Browner, NRC chairman Greg Jaczko -- rubbed shoulders with NEI President Marvin Fertel, GE-Hitachi Board Chair Jack Fuller, etc., the nuclear power industry's army of lobbyists worked Capitol Hill to attach a $7 billion nuclear loan guarantee onto the congressional lame duck session Continuing Resolution to fund government operations. NRC's homepage described the gathering as "28 nuclear leaders from government, industry and finance -- focused on long term policy for nuclear energy," but offered no explanation as to why its Chairman would attend an event seemingly largely devoted to nuclear power's promotion -- NRC is not supposed to promote nuclear power, but rather to regulate it in the interests of public health and safety and environmental protection