Group items tagged

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.

28,079 Abandoned Wells in Gulf of Mexico In an explosive report at Sky Truth, John Amos reveals from government data that “there are currently 24,486 known permanently abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and 3,593 ‘temporarily’ abandoned wells, as of October 2011.” [6] TA wells are those temporarily sealed so that future drilling can be re-started. Both TA wells and “permanently abandoned” (PA) wells endure no inspections.

Not only cement, but seals, valves and gaskets can deteriorate over time. A 2000 report by C-FER Technologies to the Dept. of Interior identified several  different points where well leaks can occur, as this image (p. 26) reveals.  To date, no regulations prescribe a maximum time wells may remain inactive before being permanently abandoned. [13] “The most common failure mechanisms (corrosion, deterioration, and malfunction) cause mainly small leaks [up to 49 barrels, or 2,058 gallons]. Corrosion is historically known to cause 85% to 90% of small leaks.” Depending on various factors, C-FER concludes that “Shut-In” wells reach an environmental risk threshhold in six months, TA wells in about 10-12 years, and PA wells in 25 years.  Some of these abandoned wells are 63 years old.

Leaking abandoned wells pose a significant environmental and economic threat. A three-month EcoHearth investigation revealed that a minimum of 2.5 million abandoned wells in the US and 20-30 million worldwide receive no follow up inspections to ensure they are not leaking. Worse: “There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells. Many—likely hundreds of thousands—are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally altered. Aquifers are being destroyed. Some of these abandoned wells are explosive, capable of building-leveling, toxin-spreading detonations. And thanks to primitive capping technologies, virtually all are leaking now—or will be.” [11] Sealed with cement, adds EcoHearth, “Each abandoned well is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The triggers include accidents, earthquakes, natural erosion, re-pressurization (either spontaneous or precipitated by fracking) and, simply, time.”

Over a year ago, the Dept. of Interior promised to plug the “temporarily abandoned” (TA) wells, and dismantle another 650 production platforms no longer in use. [7] At an estimated decommissioning cost of $1-3 billion [8], none of this work has been started, though Feds have approved 912 permanent abandonment plans and 214 temporary abandonment plans submitted since its September 2010 rule. [9] Over 600 of those abandoned wells belong to BP, reported the Associated Press last year, adding that some of the permanently abandoned wells date back to the 1940s [10].  Amos advises that some of the “temporarily abandoned” wells date back to the 1950s. “Experts say abandoned wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken,” reports AP.

As far back as 1994, the Government Accountability Office warned that there was no effective strategy in place to inspect abandoned wells, nor were bonds sufficient to cover the cost of abandonment. Lease abandonment costs estimated at “$4.4 billion in current dollars … were covered by only $68 million in bonds.” [12] The GAO concluded that “leaks can occur… causing serious damage to the environment and marine life,” adding that “MMS has not encouraged the development of nonexplosive structure removal technologies that would eliminate or minimize environmental damage.”

The AP noted that none of the 1994 GAO recommendations have been implemented. Abandoned wells remain uninspected and pose a threat which the government continues to ignore. Agency Reorganization The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) last May after MMS drew heavy fire for malfeasance, including allowing exemptions to safety rules it granted to BP. An Office of Inspector General investigation revealed that MMS employees accepted gifts from the oil and gas industry, including sex, drugs and trips, and falsified inspection reports. [14] Not only was nothing was done with the 1994 GAO recommendations to protect the environment from abandoned wells, its 2003 reorganization recommendations [15] were likewise ignored.  In a June 2011 report on agency reorganization in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, the GAO reports that “as of December 2010,” the DOI “had not implemented many recommendations we made to address numerous weaknesses and challenges.” [16] Reorganization proceeded.  Effective October 1, 2011, the Dept. of the Interior split BOEMRE into three new federal agencies: the Office of Natural Resources Revenue to collect mineral leasing fees, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) “to carry out the offshore energy management and safety and environmental oversight missions.” The DOI admits:

“The Deepwater Horizon blowout and resulting oil spill shed light on weaknesses in the federal offshore energy regulatory system, including the overly broad mandate and inherently conflicted missions of MMS which was charged with resource management, safety and environmental protection, and revenue collection.” [17] BOEM essentially manages the development of offshore drilling, while BSEE oversees environmental protection, with some eco-protection overlap between the two agencies. [18] Early this month, BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich spoke at the Global Offshore Safety Summit Conference in Stavanger, Norway, sponsored by the International Regulators Forum. He announced a new position, Chief Environmental Officer of the BOEM:

This person will be empowered, at the national level, to make decisions and final recommendations when leasing and environmental program heads cannot reach agreement. This individual will also be a major participant in setting the scientific agenda for the United States’ oceans.” [19] Bromwich failed to mention anything about the abandoned wells under his purview. Out of sight, out of mind. Cost of the Macondo Blowout

On Monday, the GAO published its final report of a three-part series on the Gulf oil disaster. [20]  Focused on federal financial exposure to oil spill claims, the accountants nevertheless point out that, as of May 2011, BP paid $700 million toward those spill claims out of its $20 billion Trust established to cover that deadly accident. BP and Oxford Economics estimate the total cost for eco-cleanup and compensatory economic damages will run to the “tens of billions of dollars.” [21] On the taxpayer side, the GAO estimates the federal government’s costs will exceed the billion dollar incident cap set by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (as amended). As of May 2011, agency costs reached past $626 million. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund’s income is generated from an oil barrel tax that is set to expire in 2017, notes GAO.

With Monday’s District Court decision in Louisiana, BP also faces punitive damages on “thousands of thousands of thousands of claims.” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied BP’s appeal that might have killed several hundred thousand claims, among them that clean up workers have still not been fully paid by BP. [22] Meanwhile, destroying the planet for profit continues unabated. It’s time to Occupy the Gulf of Mexico: No more oil drilling in our food source.

detected the small quantity at 4 places of south Soma city. Being maximum, water 1 liter (kilometer) to hit and but with 14.7 Becquerel, below provisional regulation value (1 kilo- hit, 200 Becquerel) of the public welfare Ministry of Labor, the new reference level (same 10 Becquerel) which aims April toward of next year enforcement was exceeded at 3 places. To investigate at 1317 places of the same city and Hirono Cho and Naraha Cho 10, in November, as for the other self-governing community and the like of the same area in the midst of continuation. At 1 places of the same Ku Kitahara as 2 places of south Soma Ichihara Cho Ku Kita Nagano, per 1 liters 11.4~14.7 Becquerel, 1.3 Becquerel were detected with the same Ku 萱 beach. As for detection lower limit value with 5 Becquerel, as for the other well it was non- detection. According to the environmental ministry you say that there is a possibility the earth near the cesium is attached blending. The well with private possession, has informed about the result, almost there is no possibility many people drinking.

Low wages

The relationship between the cause of Mr. Osumi's death and radiation exposure is unknown. However, it is still the radiation exposure that is most worrisome for the workers who work at Fukushima I Nuke Plant to wind down the accident. The radiation exposure limit was lowered back to the normal "maximum 50 millisieverts per year" and "100 millisieverts in 5 years" on December 16 last year. It was done on the declaration of "the end of the accident" by Prime Minister Noda that day.

The radiation exposure limit was raised to 250 millisieverts per year right after the accident, as a special measure. The Ministry of Health and Labor argued that the number was based on the international standard for a severe accident which was 500 millisieverts. But the real purpose was to increase the number of hours that can be put in by the workers and to increase the number of workers to promptly wind down the accident.

However, as the prime minister wanted to appeal "the end of the accident", the limit was lowered back to the normal limit.

According to TEPCO, the radiation exposure levels of workers exceeded [annualized?] 250 millisieverts in some cases right after the accident, but since April it has been within 100 millisieverts.

However, the workers voice concerns over the safety management. One of the subcontract workers told the newspaper:

He also says the safety management cannot be fully enforced by TEPCO alone, and demands the national government to step in. "They need to come up with the management system that include the subcontract workers. Unless they secure the [safe] work environment and work conditions, they cannot deal with the restoration work that may continue for a long while."

From Tokyo Shinbun (1/27/2012):(The first half of the article is asbout Mr. Osumi, the first worker to die in May last year after the plant "recovery" work started. About him and his Thai wife, please read my post from July 11, 2011.)

Then the workers start working at the site. But there are not enough radiation control personnel who measure radiation levels in the high-radiation locations, and warn and instruct the workers. There are too many workers because the nature of the work is to wind down the accident. There are workers who take off their masks or who smoke even in the dangerous [high radiation] locations. I'm worried for their internal radiation exposures."

In the rest area where the workers eat lunch and smoke, the radiation level is 12 microsieverts/hour. "Among workers, we don't talk about radiation levels. There's no point."

The worker divulged to us, "For now, they've managed to get workers from all over Japan. But there won't be enough workers by summer, all bosses at the employment agencies say so." Local construction companies also admit [to the scarcity of workers by summer.]

"Local contractors who have been involved in the work at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant do not work there any more. It's dangerous, and there are jobs other than at the nuke plant, such as construction of temporary housing. The professional migrant workers who hop from one nuclear plant to another all over Japan avoid Fukushima I Nuke Plant. The pay is not particularly good, so what is the point of getting high radiation to the max allowed and losing the opportunity to work in other nuclear plants? So, it's mostly amateurs who work at the plant right now. Sooner or later, the supply of workers will dry up."

As to the working conditions and wage levels of the subcontract workers, TEPCO's PR person explains, "We believe the subcontracting companies are providing appropriate guidance." As to securing the workers, he emphasizes that "there is no problem at this point in sourcing enough workers. We will secure necessary workers depending on how the work progresses."

However, Katsuyasu Iida, Director General of Tokyo Occupational Safety and Health Center who have been dealing with the health problems of nuclear workers, points out, "Workers are made to work in a dangerous environment. The wage levels are going down, and there are cases of non-payment. It is getting harder to secure the workers."

As to the safety management, he said, "Before you start working at a nuclear power plant, you have to go through the "training before entering radiation control area". But in reality the training is ceremonial. The assumptions in the textbook do not match the real job site in an emergency situation. There were some who could not read, but someone else filled in the test for them at the end of the training."

Memo from the desk [at Tokyo Shinbun]: Workers at Fukushima I Nuke Plant are risking their lives. Some are doing it for 8000 yen per day. A councilman who also happens to work for TEPCO earns more than 10 million yen [US$130,000] per year. Executives who "descended from heaven" to cushy jobs in the "nuclear energy village" are alive and well. To move away from nuclear power generation is not just about energy issues. It is to question whether we will continue to ignore such "absurdity".

Well said. Everybody in the nuclear industry in Japan knew that the industry depended (still does) on migrant workers who were (still are) hired on the cheap thorough layer after layer of subcontracting companies. Thanks to the Fukushima I Nuclear Plant accident, now the general public know that. But there are plenty of those who are still comfortable with the nuclear power generated by the nuclear power plants maintained at the expense of such workers and see nothing wrong with it.

But a preliminary report issued in late October, whose chief writer is Mr. Andreas Stohl of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, estimates that the accidents released about 36,000 terabecquerels of radioactive cesium 137 from their start through April 20. It is more than three times the estimate by Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission and 42 percent of the estimated release from Chernobyl. On the basis of measurements by a worldwide network of sensors, the report says that 19 percent of the released cesium 137 fell on land in Japan while most of the rest fell into the Pacific Ocean. It holds the view that a large amount of radioactive substances was released from the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor, pointing out that the amount of radioactive emissions dropped suddenly when workers started spraying water on the pool.

The report reinforces the advice that local residents in Fukushima Prefecture should try to remember and document in detail their actions for the first two weeks of the nuclear disaster. This will be helpful in estimating the level of their exposure to radiation. But it must be remembered that sensitivity to radiation differs from person to person. It may be helpful for individuals to carry radiation dosimeters to measure their exposure to radioactive substances. As for internal radiation exposure from food and drink, the Food Safety Commission on Oct. 27 said that a cumulative dose of 100 millisieverts or more in one's lifetime can cause health risks. But when it had mentioned the limit of 100 millisieverts in July, it explained that the limit covered both external and internal radiation exposure. Its new announcement means that the government has not set the limit for external radiation exposure. It also failed to clarify whether the new dose limit is safe enough for children and pregnant women

The day after the commission's announcement, health minister Yoko Komiyama said the government will lower the allowable amount of radiation in food from the current 5 millisieverts per year to 1 millisieverts per year. The new standard will be applied to food products shipped in and after April 2012. The government will set the amount of allowable radioactive substances for each food item. The health ministry estimates that at present, internal radiation exposure among various age groups from food in the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 accidents is about 0.1 millisieverts per year on the average and that if the new standard is enforced, the lifetime radiation dose will not exceed 100 millisieverts. It is important for the central and local governments to establish a system to closely measure both outdoor radiation levels and radiation levels in food products and to take necessary measures. In areas near Fukushima No. 1 power plant, many hospitals' functions have weakened because doctors and nurses have left. Urgent efforts must be made to beef up medical staffing at these hospitals.

Regulations are loosened, and reactors are back in compliance."That's what they say for everything ...," said Demetrios Basdekas, a retired NRC engineer. "Every time you turn around, they say, 'We have all this built-in conservatism.' "The crisis at the decades-old Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility in Japan has focused attention on nuclear safety and prompted the NRC to look at U.S. reactors. A report is due in July.But the factor of aging goes far beyond issues posed by Fukushima.

Commercial nuclear reactors in the United States were designed and licensed for 40 years. When the first were built in the 1960s and 1970s, it was expected that they would be replaced with improved models long before their licenses expired.That never happened. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, massive cost overruns, crushing debt and high interest rates halted new construction in the 1980s.Instead, 66 of the 104 operating units have been relicensed for 20 more years. Renewal applications are under review for 16 other reactors.As of today, 82 reactors are more than 25 years old.The AP found proof that aging reactors have been allowed to run less safely to prolong operations.

Last year, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to reactor vessels -- for a second time. The standard is based on a reactor vessel's "reference temperature," which predicts when it will become dangerously brittle and vulnerable to failure. Through the years, many plants have violated or come close to violating the standard.As a result, the minimum standard was relaxed first by raising the reference temperature 50 percent, and then 78 percent above the original -- even though a broken vessel could spill radioactive contents."We've seen the pattern," said nuclear safety scientist Dana Powers, who works for Sandia National Laboratories and also sits on an NRC advisory committee. "They're ... trying to get more and more out of these plants."

Sharpening the pencilThe AP study collected and analyzed government and industry documents -- some never-before released -- of both reactor types: pressurized water units that keep radioactivity confined to the reactor building and the less common boiling water types like those at Fukushima, which send radioactive water away from the reactor to drive electricity-generating turbines.The Energy Northwest Columbia Generating Station north of Richland is a boiling water design that's a newer generation than the Fukushima plants.Tens of thousands of pages of studies, test results, inspection reports and policy statements filed during four decades were reviewed. Interviews were conducted with scores of managers, regulators, engineers, scientists, whistleblowers, activists and residents living near the reactors at 65 sites, mostly in the East and Midwest.

AP reporters toured some of the oldest reactors -- Oyster Creek, N.J., near the Atlantic coast 50 miles east of Philadelphia and two at Indian Point, 25 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River.Called "Oyster Creak" by some critics, this boiling water reactor began running in 1969 and is the country's oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant. Its license was extended in 2009 until 2029, though utility officials announced in December they will shut the reactor 10 years earlier rather than build state-ordered cooling towers. Applications to extend the lives of pressurized water units 2 and 3 at Indian Point, each more than 36 years old, are under NRC review.Unprompted, several nuclear engineers and former regulators used nearly identical terminology to describe how industry and government research has frequently justified loosening safety standards. They call it "sharpening the pencil" or "pencil engineering" -- fudging calculations and assumptions to keep aging plants in compliance.

Cracked tubing: The industry has long known of cracking in steel alloy tubing used in the steam generators of pressurized water reactors. Ruptures have been common in these tubes containing radioactive coolant; in 1993 alone, there were seven. As many as 18 reactors still run on old generators.Problems can arise even in a newer metal alloy, according to a report of a 2008 industry-government workshop.

Neil Wilmshurst, director of plant technology for the industry's Electric Power Research Institute, acknowledged the industry and NRC often collaborate on research that supports rule changes. But he maintained there's "no kind of misplaced alliance ... to get the right answer."Yet agency staff, plant operators and consultants paint a different picture:* The AP reviewed 226 preliminary notifications -- alerts on emerging safety problems -- NRC has issued since 2005. Wear and tear in the form of clogged lines, cracked parts, leaky seals, rust and other deterioration contributed to at least 26 of the alerts. Other notifications lack detail, but aging was a probable factor in 113 more, or 62 percent in all. For example, the 39-year-old Palisades reactor in Michigan shut Jan. 22 when an electrical cable failed, a fuse blew and a valve stuck shut, expelling steam with low levels of radioactive tritium into the outside air. And a 1-inch crack in a valve weld aborted a restart in February at the LaSalle site west of Chicago.

* A 2008 NRC report blamed 70 percent of potentially serious safety problems on "degraded conditions" such as cracked nozzles, loose paint, electrical problems or offline cooling components.* Confronted with worn parts, the industry has repeatedly requested -- and regulators often have allowed -- inspections and repairs to be delayed for months until scheduled refueling outages. Again and again, problems worsened before being fixed. Postponed inspections inside a steam generator at Indian Point allowed tubing to burst, leading to a radioactive release in 2000. Two years later, cracking grew so bad in nozzles on the reactor vessel at the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio, that it came within two months of a possible breach, an NRC report said, which could release radiation. Yet inspections failed to catch the same problem on the replacement vessel head until more nozzles were found to be cracked last year.

Time crumbles thingsNuclear plants are fundamentally no more immune to aging than our cars or homes: Metals grow weak and rusty, concrete crumbles, paint peels, crud accumulates. Big components like 17-story-tall concrete containment buildings or 800-ton reactor vessels are all but impossible to replace. Smaller parts and systems can be swapped but still pose risks as a result of weak maintenance and lax regulation or hard-to-predict failures.Even mundane deterioration can carry harsh consequences.For example, peeling paint and debris can be swept toward pumps that circulate cooling water in a reactor accident. A properly functioning containment building is needed to create air pressure that helps clear those pumps. But a containment building could fail in a severe accident. Yet the NRC has allowed safety calculations that assume the buildings will hold.

In a 2009 letter, Mario V. Bonaca, then-chairman of the NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, warned that this approach represents "a decrease in the safety margin" and makes a fuel-melting accident more likely.Many photos in NRC archives -- some released in response to AP requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act -- show rust accumulated in a thick crust or paint peeling in long sheets on untended equipment.Four areas stand out:

Brittle vessels: For years, operators have rearranged fuel rods to limit gradual radiation damage to the steel vessels protecting the core and keep them strong enough to meet safety standards.But even with last year's weakening of the safety margins, engineers and metal scientists say some plants may be forced to close over these concerns before their licenses run out -- unless, of course, new regulatory compromises are made.

Leaky valves: Operators have repeatedly violated leakage standards for valves designed to bottle up radioactive steam in an earthquake or other accident at boiling water reactors.Many plants have found they could not adhere to the general standard allowing main steam isolation valves to leak at a rate of no more than 11.5 cubic feet per hour. In 1999, the NRC decided to allow individual plants to seek amendments of up to 200 cubic feet per hour for all four steam valves combined.But plants have violated even those higher limits. For example, in 2007, Hatch Unit 2, in Baxley, Ga., reported combined leakage of 574 cubic feet per hour.

"Many utilities are doing that sort of thing," said engineer Richard T. Lahey Jr., who used to design nuclear safety systems for General Electric Co., which makes boiling water reactors. "I think we need nuclear power, but we can't compromise on safety. I think the vulnerability is on these older plants."Added Paul Blanch, an engineer who left the industry over safety issues, but later returned to work on solving them: "It's a philosophical position that (federal regulators) take that's driven by the industry and by the economics: What do we need to do to let those plants continue to operate?"Publicly, industry and government say that aging is well under control. "I see an effort on the part of this agency to always make sure that we're doing the right things for safety. I'm not sure that I see a pattern of staff simply doing things because there's an interest to reduce requirements -- that's certainly not the case," NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko said in an interview.

Corroded piping: Nuclear operators have failed to stop an epidemic of leaks in pipes and other underground equipment in damp settings. Nuclear sites have suffered more than 400 accidental radioactive leaks, the activist Union of Concerned Scientists reported in September.Plant operators have been drilling monitoring wells and patching buried piping and other equipment for several years to control an escalating outbreak.But there have been failures. Between 2000 and 2009, the annual number of leaks from underground piping shot up fivefold, according to an internal industry document.

ince June 2010, we have illustrated many physics of impossibilities concocted by BP. Two years later, it seems the world has not awaken from its ignorantly blissful slumber. This disaster is more than just a disastrous mega oil spill. If the world's foremost scientists and investigators cannot figure out the many fundamental flaws in the simple “3 leaks-3 wells” fairy tale, how can there be any hope of ever solving problems beyond kindergarten level? Forget the carbon tax, the ban on hazardous gas emission and just about any anti-pollution measures designed to improve the global environment. All these schemes have sinister undertones with profiting on mass miseries of others.

In the Gulf disaster, you have the biggest environmental polluter in human history. The punishment for a crime of mass destruction that could have been averted, was just a slap on the wrist? If this is not the clearest proof of corruption at the highest level and biggest HSE (health, safety & environment) farce, then what is?

It was not the failure of safety regulations but the enforcement of regulations. The government admitted this much by sacking MMS's director and changing it to BOEMRE. It was not the failure of technology but the devious use of technology to cloak unfair business practices or safety farce at the very least. But would shrewd corporate criminals risk billions of investment dollars just to skimp on some daily operation expenses and safety devices? Just like the fairy tale of the 3 leaks, this was just the red herring. The oil industry will start on its decline just as the coal industry did, after its replacement by alternative cheaper and cleaner energy sources (The Future of Free Energy).

Giant global oil corporations may not have the next 10 years to recover their mega billion dollar investments. With the writings on the wall and their failures to control (prevent) the advent of free energy, the oil oligarchs had to devise emergency exit schemes before oil independence becomes public knowledge. High crude oil prices cannot be manipulated too high or long enough to recoup their billions of investment dollars globally. They risk becoming economic dinosaurs.

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. 

Cumulative radiation dose is neither an accurate nor an appropriate measure of cancer induction risk for protracted or fractionated ionizing radiation exposure except for describing the virtual threshold for various exposures; and Cancer promotion risk for ongoing lifetime biological processes is a relative process as seen in the RERF (Radiation Effects Research Foundation) studies of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors for brief high dose-rate exposures to ionizing radiation. It cannot be used to estimate cancer induction risk from protracted or fractionated ionizing exposures over long times and at low dose rates.

RecommendationsThe current ICRP radiation protection recommendations certainly provide a high level of safety and protection for radiation workers and the public. Radiation safety has been the most important goal of the ICRP, and their recommendations have met that goal with distinction. However, the ICRP risk estimates and response models for protracted or fractionated ionizing radiation exposures and long-lived internal emitters seriously overestimate the risks of low doses. Reasonably accurate cancer induction risk estimates are needed to avoid expensive over-regulation and to bolster the scientific foundation of radiation safety regulations and analysis. Many of the current environmental radiation safety standards are inappropriately low and prohibitively expensive to enforce.

The current ICRP models of radiation carcinogenesis can be misleading. Revision of the radiation safety standards is needed that clearly distinguishes between radiation cancer promotion as observed in the atomic bomb survivor studies and radiation cancer induction as observed for long-lived internal emitters. In particular, the ICRP needs to revisit and revise the standards currently recommended for ionizing radiation-induced cancer. Recommended standards should be considered that are based on lifetime average dose rate to sensitive tissues in the case of internally-deposited, relatively long-lived radionuclides and other protracted or fractionated exposures rather than on cumulative or committed dose.

Instead of trying to explain the basis for those statements more fully, I’ll try to encourage people to consider the motives of people on various sides of the discussion. I also want to encourage nuclear energy supporters to look beyond the financial implications to the broader implications of a less reliable and dirtier electrical power system. When the focus is just on the finances, the opposition has an advantage – the potential gains from opposing nuclear energy often are concentrated in the hands of extremely interested parties while the costs are distributed widely enough to be less visible. That imbalance often leads to great passion in the opposition and too much apathy among the supporters. Over at Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman has written about the epic battle of political titans who are on opposing sides of the controversy regarding the relicensing and continued operation of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. Dan pointed out that there is a large sum of money at stake, but he put it in a way that does not sound too terrible to many people because it spreads out the pain.

In round numbers, if Indian Point is closed, wholesale electricity prices could rise by 12%.

A recent study quoted in a New York Times article put the initial additional cost of electricity without Indian Point at about $1.5 billion per year, which is a substantial sum of money if concentrated into the hands of a few thousand victors who tap the monthly bills of a few million people. Here is a comment that I added to Dan’s post:Dan – thank you for pointing out that the battle is not really a partisan one determined by political party affiliation. By my analysis, the real issue is the desire of natural gas suppliers to sell more gas at ever higher prices driven by a shift in the balance between supply and demand.

They never quite explain what is going to happen as we get closer and closer to the day when even fracking will not squeeze any more hydrocarbons out of the drying sponge that is the readily accessible part of the earth’s crust.The often touted “100 – year” supply of natural gas in the US has a lot of optimistic assumptions built in. First of all, it is only rounded up to 100 years – 2170 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2010 divided by 23 trillion cubic feet per year leaves just 94 years.

Secondly, the 2170 number provided by the Potential Gas Committee report includes all proven, probable, possible and speculative resources, without any analysis of the cost of extraction or moving them to a market. Many of the basins counted have no current pipelines and many of the basins are not large enough for economic recovery of the investment to build the infrastructure without far higher prices.Finally, all bets are off with regard to longevity if we increase the rate of burning up the precious raw materia

BTW – In case your readers are interested in the motives of a group like Riverkeepers, founded and led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., here is a link to a video clip of him explaining his support for natural gas.http://atomicinsights.com/2010/11/power-politics-rfk-jr-explains-how-pressure-from-activists-to-enforce-restrictions-on-coal-benefits-natural-gas.html

The organized opposition to the intelligent use of nuclear energy has often painted support for the technology as coming from faceless, money-hungry corporations. That caricature of the support purposely ignores the fact that there are large numbers of intelligent, well educated, responsible, and caring people who know a great deal about the technology and believe that it is the best available solution for many intransigent problems. There are efforts underway today, like the Nuclear Literacy Project and Go Nuclear, that are focused on showcasing the admirable people who like nuclear energy and want it to grow rapidly to serve society’s never ended thirst for reliable power at an affordable price with acceptable environmental impact.

The exaggerated, fanciful accident scenarios painted by the opposition are challenging to disprove.

I just read an excellent post on Yes Vermont Yankee about a coming decision that might help to illuminate the risk to society of continuing to let greedy antinuclear activists and their political friends dominate the discussion. According to Meredith’s post, Entergy must make a decision within just a week or so about whether or not to refuel Vermont Yankee in October. Since the sitting governor is dead set against the plant operating past its current license expiration in the summer of 2012, the $100 million dollar expense of refueling would only result in about 6 months of operation instead of the usual 18 months.Meredith has a novel solution to the dilemma – conserve the fuel currently in the plant by immediately cutting the power output to 25%.

Those connections “run pretty deep,” said Kevin Kamp with the watchdog group Beyond Nuclear. “That begins to explain his policy.” Exelon has had ties to some of Obama’s closest advisers.

That would come on top of the .5 billion currently set aside as part of the loan guarantee program started under President George W. Bush’s Energy Policy Act of 2005. Some critics have charged that Obama’s support for nuclear power Dewalt DC9091 drill battery can be traced to his political rise in Illinois, home to Exelon, the nation’s biggest operator of nuclear plants.

Nuclear power already accounts for 20 percent of overall electricity in the United States, and makes up the vast majority of carbon-free energy. But because the cost of building a new reactor is so high — and Wall Street is reluctant to invest with natural gas emerging as a more viable alternative — utilities have turned to the government for assistance. Obama has signaled his desire to help, proposing in his 2012 budget plan an additional billion in loan guarantees to build new plants.

David Axelrod, the president’s longtime political strategist and former White House advisor, has worked for Exelon as a consultant, though Axelrod said Friday he currently has no private clients. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff and now Chicago’s mayor-elect, helped broker the deal that created Exelon when he worked at the investment bank Wasserstein Perella.

Exelon’s political action committee and its employees have given more than 0,000 to Obama’s congressional and presidential campaigns over the years, including ,300 from Exelon chief executive John Rowe, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Since Obama became president, Exelon has sided with the White House in at least one major policy battle — quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest of the trade group’s opposition to a cap-and-trade energy plan. Exelon declined comment.

Another major nuclear player is Duke Energy, whose chief executive, Jim Rogers, is leading fundraising efforts for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. The firm, which slightly favored Democrats in its 2010 PAC donations, has agreed to guarantee a million line of credit for the convention from a local bank.

Duke Energy officials say the effort is purely an economic development initiative. ‘We would do it for the Republicans in 2016 if they would consider Charlotte,” said spokesman Tom Williams. “It’s not a partisan effort at all.”

Overall, Obama has not relied very heavily on energy-related contributions in his political career, and his aides have pledged to continue refusing any corporate PAC donations in the 2012 campaign. Contributors in the energy and natural resources sector gave about .8 million to Obama in 2008, compared to .1 million for GOP candidate John McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The president’s position appears to be in good stead with crucial independent voters, a majority of whom view nuclear as a safe energy source, according to a new Fox News poll. The survey found that a plurality of Democratic voters disagree.

Last year, the White House rejected a request by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) to enforce a law passed in 2002 requiring that potassium iodide pills be made available to all U.S. citizens living within 20 miles of nuclear plants for use in case of exposure to radioactive iodine.

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?

Seeking the middle ground, the IAEA appeared to have gradually lowered its ambitions in a series of drafts. The one that was adopted placed more emphasis on the voluntary nature of the measures than earlier versions, also regarding the central issue of nuclear plant inspections organised by the IAEA — so-called peer reviews.

At the start of the board meeting in Vienna on Monday, Amano defended the plan against the criticism, saying it would mark a significant step forward in nuclear safety. U.S. Ambassador Glyn Davies said it represented a “sound beginning to learn and act upon what we now know” about the Fukushima accident, the world’s worst such disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. He added, in his statement to the board, “We believe member states should focus their efforts initially on completing national assessments (of safety at plants) and implementing the results of those assessments.”

Germany’s envoy, Ruediger Luedeking, had earlier expressed “regret” that the plan did not “fully meet our expectations”. A ministerial meeting in June asked the Vienna-based UN agency to draw up the plan to help improve standards in how reactors are able to withstand natural disasters, in how the industry is regulated and in how to respond to emergencies. The political impact of the massive earthquake and huge tsunami that caused Japan’s crisis was particularly strong in Europe, highlighted by Germany’s move to close all its reactors by 2022 and Italy’s vote to ban nuclear power for decades.

Fuel rods in three reactors at the Japanese complex started melting down when power and cooling functions failed, causing radiation leakage and forcing the evacuation of 80,000 people. At present, there are no mandatory, international nuclear safety regulations, only IAEA recommendations which national regulators are in charge of enforcing. The UN agency conducts review missions, but only at a member state’s invitation.

Decisions on the safety of nuclear installations will “remain squarely the prerogative of sovereign national governments” also after adoption of the IAEA action plan, said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. NAN

The article, with its spectacular allegations, was swiftly picked up by the mainstream media including USA Today along with video and a picture of an example of reactor corrosion. In a piece titled "Nuke regulator, industry compromise safety to keep reactors running," Donn wrote . . . "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 those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that 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 by the NRC are significantly undermining safety - and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States."

Bickel has 36 years experience in the US and International nuclear engineering profession, specializing in reliability and risk assessment. He has a Masters Degree and PhD in nuclear engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. ~ John Bickel, left, attending a meeting of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris, where he chairs the special working group on Defense in Depth of Electrical Systems (DIDELSYS) ~ I asked Bickel what he thought of the AP article. Here are some highlights of what he said in a series of email exchanges. Bickel agreed to let me post his personal email comments here. Also, he agreed to let me post his contact information at the end of this blog post so that AP, or anyone else in the media, could contact him for confirmation. Here’s what he said. "I had hoped for more insight from a prestigious organization such as AP. Their article entitled: “US nuke regulators weaken safety rules” is pretty sloppy and indicative of the fact AP failed to research much of what they have written about."

Point and counterpoint

Instead, in order to keep these dangerous reactors operational, many now with twenty year license extensions, the NRC task force is recommending that rather than the industry volunteering a dubious containment vent system, the NRC should order the nuclear industry to take another try at an experimental venting fix which fundamentally compromises their own defense in depth philosophy.

the same day that the NRC  publicly released its report in the USA, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that the implications of Fukushima for nuclear power in Japan meant that “’We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,’ he said.” Perhaps, now too late for a society to live without the threat of increasing radioactivity levels.

The team measured both the dose rate and the gamma ray spectrum in each area. Gamma ray spectroscopy is a measure of the gamma rays emitted by radioactive particles, and it can be analyzed to determine how much of each different radiological isotope is present. Dose rate is a measure of the dose a human would receive in a particular location over a given amount of time. The data and samples collected by the teams will be analyzed in labs around the country, providing both information for Japan's recovery and a more detailed understanding of what happens to radioactive material after it's released.

A map of the radiation release data collected from both aerial and ground measurements near the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan. Courtesy NNSA."When radiation disperses from a source, you get a plume that travels, and it changes according to wind, moisture and particulates in the air," explained Argonne RAP scientist Frank Moore. "But once it's laid on the ground, it moves much less."

"To get an accurate picture, you have to measure the same location several times over a period," he said. "Radiological material doesn't just sit there; it migrates into the environment. It can soak into the soil, or can run off in rivers and streams and collect in low areas. Near roadways, it might collect in the ditches. And it can be taken up into plants."

The U.S. Department of State coordinated sharing the data with Japanese authorities, Moore said. They also left several detectors behind and trained both U.S. military and Japanese personnel how to use them. When the RAP team isn't responding to threats, they provide radiation training to law enforcement—including police, FBI, firefighters and Border Control guards—around the country. Though airports, shipping ports and border crossings are often equipped with radiation detectors, interpreting results from the sensitive instruments can be tricky.