Group items tagged

Someone in Japan uploaded the notice from the Ministry to the people in charge of waste disposal in the municipalities, dated October 7, 2011. It is a questionnaire that the Ministry wants the municipalities to fill and send back to the Ministry via email, asking about the current status in the municipalities on their effort to accept disaster debris. The Ministry wants to know how much debris they can take in, what types of debris, what type of disposal available. The similar survey was done several months ago, but since then the local oppositions have grown. So the Ministry wants to persuade the wavering municipalities.The notice is not what the Ministry would put up on their website as "press release" because it is not a press release. Rather, it is a document only seen by local officials.

The notice is an outrage for anyone who oppose moving the radioactive debris to their cities and towns, particularly those in the western Japan where the radioactive fallout from Fukushima I Nuke Plant has been close to zero. (Internal radiation exposure is another matter, which is happening in the western Japan also.)Why?First:

When we announce the result of the survey, the names of the individual municipalities will not be disclosed.Unlike the earlier survey where all the names of the municipalities were disclosed and which led to the citizens' oppositions in those municipalities, the Ministry is assuring them their names won't be disclosed this time.Second, in the multiple choices on the current effort level at the municipalities, there is no choice to say "No" to the debris. There are three choices, and they are:

Following is an excerpt from the Government Accountability Office's description of the chronology of efforts in this direction:

Nuclear energy, which supplied about 20 percent of the nation’s electric power in 2010, offers a domestic source of energy with low emissions but also presents difficulties — including what to do with nuclear fuel after it has been used and removed from commercial power reactors. This material, known as spent nuclear fuel, is highly radioactive and considered one of the most hazardous substances on earth. The current national inventory of nearly 65,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored at 75 sites in 33 states and increases by about 2,000 metric tons each year.

In June 2008, DOE submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking authorization to construct a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. NRC has regulatory authority to authorize construction of the repository. DOE planned to open the repository in 2017, but later delayed the date to 2020.

AIKEN - Aiken County officials have filed suit against the federal government over its plans to pull the plug on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada.

The county is seeking a temporary restraining order to block plans to terminate the disposal site. At one point, more than 4,000 metric tons of waste from the Savannah River Site was to be shipped to Yucca Mountain.

"I am not sure of the reasoning. There's been a lot of talk about what Obama wants to do, but Obama has not said what his plans are. We just have to make our lawsuit or we'll become the depository."

The plan envisages the construction of twin nuclear "fast reactors" at Sellafield that can dispose of the plutonium directly as fuel to generate electricity while ridding the country of a nuclear-waste headache that has dogged governments for half a century.

Britain's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which is in overall charge of Sellafield, requested the study last year in a remarkable U-turn in its stated policy of dealing with the 112 tonnes of civil plutonium that has accumulated as a result of the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

The American company behind the proposal, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, still has a long way to go to convince experts that it can deliver reactors that can work as promised, as well as being delivered on time and to budget.

As part of the biggest, costliest environmental cleanup project in the nation's history - disposing of 53 million gallons of radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state - one thing was supposed to be sure: Waste stored in the sturdy, double-wall steel tanks that hold part of the toxic ooze wasn't going anywhere. But that reassurance has been thrown into question with the discovery of a 3-foot-long piece of radioactive material between the inner and outer steel walls of one of the storage tanks, prompting new worries at the troubled cleanup site. "We're taking it seriously, and we're doing an investigation so we can better understand what it is," Department of Energy spokeswoman Lori Gamache said

The discovery marks the first time material has been found outside the inner wall of one of the site's 28 double-shell tanks, thought to be relatively secure interim storage for the radioactive material generated when Hanford was one of the nation's major atomic production facilities. It opened in 1943 and began a gradual shutdown in 1964. Cleanup started in 1989. The $12.2-billion cleanup project eventually aims to turn most of the waste stored at Hanford into glass rods at a high-tech vitrification plant scheduled to be operational in 2019, assuming the formidable design and engineering hurdles can be overcome. In the meantime, plant engineers have been gathering waste stored in the facility's 149 aging, leaky single-wall storage tanks and redepositing them in the double0-shell tanks for safekeeping. Over the years, more than 1 million gallons of waste has leaked out of 67 single-wall tanks into the surrounding soil.

"There's been this presumption that the double-shell tanks at least are sound and won't fail, and they'll be there for us," said Tom Carpenter of the advocacy group Hanford Challenge. Several days ago the group obtained a memo from the cleanup site detailing discovery of the mysterious substance. "This changes everything. It is alarming that there is now solid evidence that Hanford double-shell has leaked," Carpenter said in a separate statement on the discovery. The 42-year-old tank, known as AY-102, holds about 857,000 gallons of radioactive and other toxic chemical waste, much of it removed several years ago from a single-shell storage tank where it was considered unsaf

An unstoppable tide of radioactive trash and chemical waste from Fukushima is pushing ever closer to North America. An estimated 20 million tons of smashed timber, capsized boats and industrial wreckage is more than halfway across the ocean, based on sightings off Midway by a Russian ship's crew. Safe disposal of the solid waste will be monumental task, but the greater threat lies in the invisible chemical stew mixed with sea water.

This new triple disaster floating from northeast Japan is an unprecedented nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) contamination event. Radioactive isotopes cesium and strontium are by now in the marine food chain, moving up the bio-ladder from plankton to invertebrates like squid and then into fish like salmon and halibut. Sea animals are also exposed to the millions of tons of biological waste from pig farms and untreated sludge from tsunami-engulfed coast of Japan, transporting pathogens including the avian influenza virus, which is known to infect fish and turtles. The chemical contamination, either liquid or leached out of plastic and painted metal, will likely have the most immediate effects of harming human health and exterminating marine animals.

Many chemical compounds are volatile and can evaporate with water to form clouds, which will eventually precipitate as rainfall across Canada and the northern United States. The long-term threat extends far inland to the Rockies and beyond, affecting agriculture, rivers, reservoirs and, eventually, aquifers and well water.   Falsifying Oceanography

For the first time in Canadian history, First Nations, whose territory encompasses the entire coastline of British Columbia, have publicly united to oppose the transport of tar sands crude oil through their land. Over 60 nations have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, which bans tar sands oil pipelines throughout the Fraser River watershed, an area that was never ceded to the Canadian government, and therefore not legally under the government’s control. “North or south, it makes no difference. First Nations from every corner of BC are saying absolutely no tar sands pipelines or tankers in our territories,” said Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik’uz First Nation, a member of the Yinka Dene Alliance. “We have banned oil pipelines and tankers using our laws, and we will defend our decision using all the means at our disposal.” The First Nations’ refusal to allow tar sands oil extraction or transport through their would make it legally impossible for the Canadian government to move forward with many high price oil production projects. Monday’s announcement – on the first anniversary of the Save the Fraser Declaration – comes in response to recent calls from the Harper government and oil executives to push through pipeline and tanker projects against the wishes of British Columbians and First Nations.

Ballot Initiative to Close Nuclear Plants Gets Go-Ahead for Signature Collection, San Clemente Times by Stacie N. Galang, Nov 22, 2011: California’s Secretary of State approved a ballot initiative November 18 that seeks the closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and the Diablo Canyon plant. The initiative was filed by Ben Davis Jr. [who] drafted this and an earlier petition that led to the closure of the Rancho Seco power plant in June 1989.

As drafted, the latest initiative parallels existing state law prohibiting the creation of new nuclear plants until the federal government finds a solution to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste and reprocess spent fuel rods. If enacted, the initiative would essentially shut down the state’s two remaining nuclear plants by stopping them from creating additional waste until a federal solution arrives. [...] Davis has until April 16, 2012 to collect the 504,760 needed signatures to allow the initiative to go the voters in the fall presidential election. He expected to start the signature drive after the Thanksgiving weekend.

During the 1970s and 1980s, at the peak of the nuclear reactor construction, organized groups of protestors mounted dozens of anti-nuke campaigns. They were called Chicken Littles, the establishment media generally ignored their concerns, and the nuclear industry trotted out numerous scientists and engineers from their payrolls to declare nuclear energy to be safe, clean, and inexpensive energy that could reduce America’s dependence upon foreign oil. Workers at nuclear plants are highly trained, probably far more than workers in any other industry; operating systems are closely regulated and monitored. However, problems caused by human negligence, manufacturing defects, and natural disasters have plagued the nuclear power industry for its six decades. It isn’t alerts like what happened at San Onofre that are the problem; it’s the level 3 (site area emergencies) and level 4 (general site emergencies) disasters. There have been 99 major disasters, 56 of them in the U.S., since 1952, according to a study conducted by Benjamin K. Sovacool Director of the Energy Justice Program at Institute for Energy and Environment  One-third of all Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant.

At Windscale in northwest England, fire destroyed the core, releasing significant amounts of Iodine-131. At Rocky Flats near Denver, radioactive plutonium and tritium leaked into the environment several times over a two decade period. At Church Rock, New Mexico, more than 90 million gallons of radioactive waste poured into the Rio Puerco, directly affecting the Navajo nation. In the grounds of central and northeastern Pennsylvania, in addition to the release of radioactive Cesium-137 and Iodine-121, an excessive level of Strontium-90 was released during the Three Mile Island (TMI) meltdown in 1979, the same year as the Church Rock disaster. To keep waste tanks from overflowing with radioactive waste, the plant’s operator dumped several thousand gallons of radioactive waste into the Susquehanna River. An independent study by Dr. Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina revealed the incidence of lung cancer and leukemia downwind of the TMI meltdown within six years of the meltdown was two to ten times that of the rest of the region.

Although nuclear plant security is designed to protect against significant and extended forms of terrorism, the NRC believes as many as one-fourth of the 104 U.S. nuclear plants may need upgrades to withstand earthquakes and other natural disasters, according to an Associated Press investigation. About 20 percent of the world’s 442 nuclear plants are built in earthquake zones, according to data compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The NRC has determined that the leading U.S. plants in the Eastern Coast in danger of being compromised by an earthquake are in the extended metropolitan areas of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chattanooga. Tenn. The highest risk, however, may be California’s San Onofre and Diablo Canyon plants, both built near major fault lines. Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, was even built by workers who misinterpreted the blueprints.  

Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.

TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of.

"They are pouring in water and the question is what are they going to do with the waste that comes out of that system, because it is going to contain plutonium and uranium. Where do you put the water?"

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on California's central coast has more than 1,300 tons of nuclear waste sitting on its back porch, waiting for pickup. The problem is, there's no one to pick it up

The 103 other reactors in the country are in the same bind — it has now been more than 50 years since the first nuclear plant was switched on in the United States, and the federal government still hasn't found a permanent home for the nation's nuclear waste

The two nuclear reactors at the plant generate steam that drives giant turbines, which in turn generate electricity that powers about 3 million households. Once the uranium rods that fuel the reactors are used up, they're removed and cooled down underwater, in temporary storage pools.

The latest reactor designs, now under construction around the world, build on over 50 years of technology development. The roadmap notes that these designs will need to be fully established as reliable and competitive electricity generators over the next few years if they are to become the mainstays of nuclear expansion after 2020

Almost one quarter of global electricity could be generated from nuclear power by 2050, making a major contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This is the central finding of the Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). Such an expansion will require nuclear generating capacity to more than triple over the next 40 years, a target the roadmap describes as ambitious but achievable.

Speaking from the East Asia Climate Forum in Seoul, IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said: “Nuclear energy is one of the key low-carbon energy technologies that can contribute, alongside energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon capture and storage, to the decarbonisation of electricity supply by 2050.” NEA Director General Luis Echávarri stated: “Nuclear is already one of the main sources of low-carbon energy today. If we can address the challenges to its further expansion, nuclear has the potential to play a larger role in cutting CO2 emissions.”

French energy group Areva has entered tentative talks with the Tennessee Valley Authority that could pave the way for TVA’s nuclear plants to use fuel made from retired weapons. On Friday, the company announced it signed a letter of intent with TVA to initiate discussions on the use of fuel from the Department of Energy’s Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. While it would not obligate TVA to use the fuel, the letter highlights the agency’s ongoing relationship with DOE in evaluating the fuel-from-weapons program

Scheduled to begin operating in 2016, the mixed-oxide facility at DOE’s Savannah River site in South Carolina will blend plutonium from disassembled weapons with depleted uranium oxide, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Using the fuel in commercial reactors would make the plutonium unfit for explosives and help meet a commitment made by the United States and Russia in 2000 to dispose of 68 metric tons of surplus plutonium. Shaw Areva MOX Services Llc. holds the contract to build and operate the South Carolina facility

According to NNSA, more than 30 commercial reactors currently use mixed-oxide fuel, including at plants in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland.

Watts Bar 2, the US's newest nuclear power plant, is being built in Tennessee and is expected to go online next year. It has a history of safety concerns that goes back decades. Nevertheless, many local people support nuclear power and are welcoming the reactor with open arms.

Mansour Guity was the chief witness against the American nuclear industry. He crippled entire power plants almost single-handedly. But now the 30-year war he has been waging is coming to an end. They are now putting the finishing touches on the second reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in the Tennessee River valley, less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Guity's house. After construction was stopped more than two decades ago and resumed in 2007, the reactor is now expected to go online next year. Mansour Guity isn't doing too well at the moment.

In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, he gradually discovered that so many shortcuts were taken, and some of the work was so shoddy, during the construction of the nuclear plants along the Tennessee River that it made a mockery of any notion of nuclear safety. Guity was a nuclear engineer at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a large, long-established government-owned company that operates the Browns Ferry, Sequoyah, Bellefonte and Watts Bar nuclear power plants. When the plants were built, there was talk of thousands of clear violations of plans and building regulations, with the most serious infractions occurring at Watts Bar.

When the governor of Fukushima started to say "post-nuke", I thought "OK, he must have found a new way to benefit from the close ties with the national government, other than nuke, or in addition to nuke."According to Yomiuri Shinbun, the latest and final version of the Kan administration's plan for recovery and reconstruction after the March 11 earthquake/tsunami for Fukushima Prefecture will include a host of government research institutions going to Fukushima, with the related industries - heavy electric, utilities, pharmaceutical, etc. - tagging along.

Dr. Shunichi "100 millisieverts are no problem" Yamashita is already in Fukushima, salivating at the unique, world-first opportunity to study the long-term effect of radiation on children. Also, Fukushima University and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, of Monju fame, have signed an agreement to cooperate in research and development of the world-class decontamination technology, among others. (Links are in Japanese.)That the government research institutions rushing to Fukushima makes me wonder if the whole plan is one gigantic experiment using the land, water, air, people, animals, crops, forests and mountains in Fukushima to develop world-class technologies in radiation medicine and decontamination, and renewable energy that the government and the industries can later capitalize on.

Yomiuri Shinbun (3:03AM JST 7/27/2011)

A ‘smoking gun’ article is one that reveals a direct connection between a fossil fuel or alternative energy system promoter and a strongly antinuclear attitude. One of my guiding theories about energy is that a great deal of the discussion about safety, cost, and waste disposal is really a cover for a normal business activity of competing for market share.

This weekend, I came across a site called Culture Change that provides some strong support for my theory about the real source of strength for the antinuclear industry. According to the information at the bottom of the home page, Culture Change was founded by Sustainable Energy Institute (formerly Fossil Fuels Policy Action), a nonprofit organization.Jan Lundberg, who has led the organization and its predecessor organizations since 1988, grew up in a wealthy family with a father who was a popular and respected petroleum industry analyst.

Lundberg tells an interesting story about his initial fundraising activities for his new non-profit group.Setting out to become a clearinghouse for energy data and policy, we had a tendency to go along with the buzzword “natural gas as a bridge fuel” — especially when my previous clients serving the petroleum industry until 1988 included natural gas utilities. They were and are represented by the American Gas Association, where I knew a few friendly executives. Upon starting a nonprofit group for the environment with an energy focus, I met with the AGA right away. I was anticipating one of their generous grants they were giving large environmental groups who were trumpeting the “natural gas is a bridge fuel” mantra.

Russia’s economy remains one of the world’s most energy-intensive.

Russia is an energy-dependent and energy-productive region.  Each unit of production in Russia is using roughly twice as much energy as it would in China and six times the amount in the United States, according to the U.K.’s Financial Times.  Bringing this number down would save the country billions while also creating big business for companies selling green technology. 

While it’s gotten a horrible rap in the months following the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated areas of Japan and killed thousands, damaging the nuclear power plant we all now know as Fukushima, from an environmental perspective, nuclear energy still can’t be beaten (and yes, it’d be good to build nuclear plants away from bodies of water in territories that aren’t plagued by tsunamis).