Group items tagged

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

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk. If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.  On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.” Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article: If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.

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

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

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

That consent order covers 33 underground canals of radioactive waste below the barrels, but not the barrels, which are awaiting transfer to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in southern New Mexico. A record 170 shipments of the legacy waste from the nation's premier nuclear weapons facility were taken to WIPP in the fiscal year that just ended, but the equivalent of some 40,000 barrels remain."The governor wants to get the (barrels) off the hill and protect the groundwater and wastewater," said Ed Worth, who oversees waste cleanup at the lab.The same top priority was approved last week by the Citizens Board, volunteers comprised of former lab workers, retirees, public employees and others, chartered by DOE to make recommendations on establishing the order of cleanup initiatives."All we do is tell them they should," said Lawrence Longacre, a board member expressing frustration that the priority recommendations had no teeth. "Is there any way we can hold their feet to the fire and say do A, B and C?"

Worth told the board their recommendations are being heard and taken seriously, noting that President Obama's budget request this year for lab cleanup "was more than we ever expected."Congress, however, has cut the Los Alamos cleanup request for $358 million to $185 million, raising the question of the lab's ability to meet the consent decree

4. Winscale Fire, Great Britain Oct. 10, 1957 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) The uranium core of Britain’s first nuclear facility had been on fire for two days before maintenance workers noticed the rising temperatures. By that time, a radioactive cloud had already spread across the UK and Europe. Plant operators delayed further efforts in fighting the fire, fearing that pouring water on it would cause an explosion. Instead, they tried cooling fan and carbon dioxide. Finally, they applied water and on Oct. 12, the fire was out. British officials, worried about the political ramifications of this incident, suppressed information. One report, however, says that in the long run, as many as 240 may have died from accident related cancers. 5.

Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, US March 28, 1979 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) Failure of a pressure valve resulted in an overheating of the plant’s core and the release of 13 million curies of radioactive gases. A full meltdown was avoided when the plant’s designers and operators were able to stabilize the situation before contaminated water reached the fuel rods. A full investigation by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggests that there were no deaths or injuries resulting from the incident.

6. Golania, Brazil Sept, 1987 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) Scavengers at an abandoned radiotherapy institute found a billiard ball sized capsule of radioactive cesium chloride, opened it and then sold it to a junkyard dealer. The deadly material was not identified for more than two year, during which time it had been handled by hundreds, including some who used the glittery blue material for face paint. Of the 130,000 tested, 250 were discovered to be contaminated and 20 required treatment for radiation sickness. Four died, including the two who originally found the capsule, the wife of the junkyard owner and a small girl who used the powder as face paint. 7. Lucens, Switzerland January 1, 1969 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) When the coolant on a test reactor facility in a cave in Switzerland failed during startup, the system suffered a partial core meltdown and contaminated the cavern with radioactivity. The facility was sealed and later decontaminated. No known deaths or injuries.

8. Chalk River, Canada INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) May 24, 1958 Inadequate cooling lead to a fuel rod fire, contaminating the plant and surrounding labs. 9. Tokaimura,Japan Sept. 30, 1999 INES Rating: 4 (accident with local consequences) The nuclear plant near Tokai had not been used for three years when a group of unqualified workers attempted to put more highly enriched uranium in a precipitation tank than was permitted. A critical reaction occurred and two of the workers eventually died of radiation exposure. Fifty six plant workers and 21 others also received high doses of radiation. Residents within a thousand feet of the plant were evacuated.

10. National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho Falls, Idaho January 3, 1961 INES Rating: 4 (accident with local consequences) Improper withdrawal of a control rod led to a steam explosion and partial meltdown at this Army facility. Three operators were killed in what is the only known US nuclear facility accident with casualties. In addition to these, there have been a number of deadly medical radiotherapy accidents, many of which killed more people than the more commonly feared nuclear plant accidents: 17 fatalities – Instituto Oncologico Nacional of Panama, August 2000 -March 2001. patients receiving treatment for prostate cancer and cancer of the cervix receive lethal doses of radiation.[7][8] 13 fatalities – Radiotherapy accident in Costa Rica, 1996. 114 patients received an overdose of radiation from a Cobalt-60 source that was being used for radiotherapy.[9]

11 fatalities – Radiotherapy accident in Zaragoza, Spain, December 1990. Cancer patients receiving radiotherapy; 27 patients were injured.[10] 10 fatalities – Columbus radiotherapy accident, 1974–1976, 88 injuries from Cobalt-60 source. 7 fatalities – Houston radiotherapy accident, 1980.Alamos National Laboratory.[18] 1 fatality – Malfunction INES level 4 at RA2 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, operator Osvaldo Rogulich dies days later.

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident – by far the worst – is most instructive. In 2006, the Chernobyl Forum published an authoritative analysis of the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of Chernobyl. The report concluded that 31 emergency workers died as a direct consequence of their response to the Chernobyl accident. The Forum was unable to reliably assess the precise number of fatalities by radiation exposure. The best it was able to do was speculate based on the experience of other populations exposed to radiation. By 2002, 15 deaths were reported from among 4,000 people exposed to radiation and diagnosed with thyroid cancer. These data are in stark contrast to a number of other poorly referenced sources which have speculated on large numbers of radiation-related deaths from Chernobyl.

Clearly, the fears about nuclear energy are based on perceptions, imagined or engineered, and not on the consequences of actual events. For example, in August 1975, the Banqiao hydroelectric dam in western Henan province, China, failed as a result of Typhoon Nina, 180,000 people died. Another example is that 1 billion gallons of oil from 21 disasters have been spilled in the oceans since 1967. A third example is that, in Nigeria, on Oct. 18, 1998, a natural gas pipeline explosion took the lives of 1,082 people. Members of the public would benefit from scrutinizing the comparative safety and track record of clean, emission-free nuclear energy. The nuclear industry would benefit by helping the public learn the basic concepts and principles of nuclear technology. Nuclear energy can help achieve quality of life for those who don’t have it and help sustain it for those who do.

Steven B. Krivit is the senior editor of New Energy Times, an online magazine specializing in low-energy nuclear reaction research.  He also is the editor-in-chief of the 2011 Wiley and Sons Nuclear Energy Encyclopedia.

At Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, the Reactor 1 reactor building blew up in a hydrogen explosion in the afternoon of March 12, followed by a hydrogen explosion of Reactor 3 in the morning of March 14. Further, in the early morning on March 15, there was an explosive sound, and the damage to the Reactor 4 reactor building was confirmed. Right after the explosive sound the pressure in the Suppression Chamber of Reactor 2 dropped sharply, which led TEPCO to conclude that there were near-simultaneous explosions in Reactors 2 and 4. The Japanese government reported the events as such in the report to IAEA in June.So then what does TEPCO now think happened in Reactor 2 in the early morning on March 15? Yomiuri doesn't say in the article text, but at the bottom of the illustration that accompanies the article it says:"There was no explosion, but a possibility of some kind of damage to the Containment Vessel."So, before TEPCO completely changes story, here's what they say happened on Reactor 4 on March 15 (from the daily "Status of TEPCO's Facilities - past progress" report, page 6):

It says "abnormal sound was confirmed near the suppression chamber" at 6:14AM on March 15.Now, this is what TEPCO says about Reactor 4 on the same day, about the same time, from Page 16:

It says "an explosive sound was heard" at 6AM on March 15. The Reactor 4 explosion occurred before the Reactor 2 "explosion" which TEPCO now says never happened.The two sounds are 14 minutes apart, and TEPCO now claims they misheard the second one and there was no explosion in the Suppression Chamber of Reactor 2.(By the way, the fire spotted at 9:38AM on March 15 on Reactor 4 was never reported to the local fire department or the local government, as I reported on March 15.)