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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.

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.

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.

"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." 

"'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."

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.

"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

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.

"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.

 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. 

Most of the countries either use large repository or reprocess the fuel as a mean to dispose the nuclear waste. The following table shows the list of different countries and their ways for disposing the radioactive waste. Nuclear Non- Proliferation Makes Way for Peaceful and Non-Power Applications

The nuclear energy is used in transport application, in medicines and in industries as radioisotopes, in space exploration programs, in nuclear desalination, in nuclear heat process and in other research programs.

Scope Overview of the global nuclear power industry Analysis of the historical trends of nuclear capacity and generation until 2009. Description of the various nuclear agencies and associations, globally and by region. Description of the various nuclear treaties and protocols. Analysis of the nuclear energy policy of the major countries in all geographic regions Analysis of the regulatory frameworks in major countries of different geographic regions including North America, South and Central America, Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific.

Reasons to Buy

The French generate approximately 80% of their energy using nuclear power.  They have realized the long-term financial and environmental benefits to nuclear power and have continued supporting the industry and its growth within their country and abroad.  AREVA, the French nuclear engineering firm, continues to work with partner companies to license and construct new nuclear plants and fuel facilities, such as the uranium enrichment plant in Idaho.” But in other countries, “nuclear plants are trying to get by with fewer people,” Sewell explained.  However, the more safety mechanisms that are developed in the industry, the more financial support the nuclear energy industry will receive.  One big safety development is in regard to the nuclear reactors themselves.

The newest nuclear reactors (Generation IIIs) have additional layers of safety and technology to stave off a meltdown in the event of a power loss (as happened at Fukushima).  The first of the Generation III reactors is due to come online in 2016 at The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, located in Georgia,” said Sewell. The more safety measures that are developed, the more proactive the nuclear energy industry can be in addressing problem areas before a catastrophe happens.  I'm sure this won't make everyone feel safe tonight though, will it?

Commitment to Continuous Learning, Safety

The U.S. industry—through its commitment to continuous learning and relentless pursuit of excellence in safe operations—has taken significant action to ensure that American reactors are operated safety and securely. This includes actions in the following areas: Command and control: key operational and response decisions remain with shift supervisor—Decision-making remains on site with licensed operators. Reactor operators drill on accident scenarios several times each year and are prepared to respond to a wide range of potential severe events.

Operator licensing and training—U.S. reactor operators are licensed by the NRC and must re-qualify for their license every two years. U.S. reactor operators spend one week out of six in simulator training, which is more continuous training than pilots and doctors. Safety culture—The industry’s safety culture is transparent and encourages and facilitates the reporting of problems or concerns by employees through several channels. A commitment to safety culture is evidenced by employees who embrace continuous learning and maintain a questioning attitude regarding safety. This attitude gives rise to tools like corrective actions programs.

Independent regulator that includes resident inspectors—The NRC is an independent agency whose sole mission is protection of public health and safety. NRC inspectors located at each of America’s nuclear energy facilities have unfettered access to workers and data as part of their daily inspections. Creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations—INPO was formed by the industry after the Three Mile Island accident to drive industry toward operational excellence and above and beyond NRC requirements. Post 9/11 security contingency measures—The NRC and industry took several actions after 9/11 to enhance security at America’s nuclear energy facilities. These features also would help mitigate extreme events, such as large fires or explosions.

(Also see NEI’s graphic: “Commitment to Continuous Learning, Safety.”)

One possible barrier to renewed industry growth is the 20-year mummification of the industry’s supply sector. However, this is changing, with membership of the UK Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) booming as companies realise that there will be many new opportunities in this sector as the UK returns to building reactors. Another possible negative, namely the need to ensure a strict world non-proliferation regime, has been reinforced by the North Korean and Iranian cases, to which endless column inches and analyses have been devoted.  On the other hand, three highly important factors have moved very strongly in the industry’s favour: the industry’s own operating performance, the greenhouse gas emissions debate and concerns over energy security of supply

The 435 reactors around the world generate electricity very cheaply and earns significant profits for their owners, irrespective of the power market, whether it is liberalised or regulated. The challenge for the industry is to cut the capital investment costs of new reactors to enable many new reactor projects to go forward. Concerns over climate change and the perceived need to moderate greenhouse gas emissions has worked strongly in the industry’s favour and, at the very least, have opened an opportunity for the industry as a viable mitigation technology. The argument for more nuclear power as a means of securing additional energy security of supply has also become increasingly important, particularly in those countries who perceive themselves as becoming increasingly reliant on supplies from geopolitically unstable or otherwise unattractive countries. It is important to recall that this was the main argument that prompted both France and Japan, now numbers two and three in world nuclear generation, to go down this path in the 1970s in the aftermath of two “oil shocks”.

Reasons to buy - Enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner - Find out the major deal performing segments for investments in your industry - Evaluate type of companies divesting / acquiring and ways to raise capital in the market - Do deals with an understanding of how competitors are financed, and the mergers and partnerships that have shaped the nuclear energy market - Identify major private equity/venture capital firms that are providing finance in the nuclear energy market - Identify growth segments and opportunities in each region within the industry - Look for key financial advisors where you are planning to raise capital from the market or for acquisitions within the industry - Identify top deals makers in the nuclear energy market

A Department of Energy analysis revealed the budget for 75 of the first plants was about $45 billion, but cost overruns ran that to $145 billion. The last nuclear power plant completed was the Watts Bar plant in eastern Tennessee. Construction began in 1973 and was completed in 1996. Part of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, the Watts Bar plant cost about $8 billion to produce 1,170 mw of energy from its only reactor. Work on a second reactor was suspended in 1988 because of a lack of need for additional electricity. However, construction was resumed in 2007, with completion expected in 2013. Cost to complete the reactor, which was about 80 percent complete when work was suspended, is estimated to cost an additional $2.5 billion. The cost to build new power plants is well over $10 billion each, with a proposed cost of about $14 billion to expand the Vogtle plant near Augusta, Ga. The first two units had cost about $9 billion.

Added to the cost of every plant is decommissioning costs, averaging about $300 million to over $1 billion, depending upon the amount of energy the plant is designed to produce. The nuclear industry proudly points to studies that show the cost to produce energy from nuclear reactors is still less expensive than the costs from coal, gas, and oil. The industry also rightly points out that nukes produce about one-fifth all energy, with no emissions, such as those from the fossil fuels. For more than six decades, this nation essentially sold its soul for what it thought was cheap energy that may not be so cheap, and clean energy that is not so clean. It is necessary to ask the critical question. Even if there were no human, design, and manufacturing errors; even if there could be assurance there would be no accidental leaks and spills of radioactivity; even if there became a way to safely and efficiently dispose of long-term radioactive waste; even if all of this was possible, can the nation, struggling in a recession while giving subsidies to the nuclear industry, afford to build more nuclear generating plants at the expense of solar, wind, and geothermal energy?

Once they have reached the limits (which are elevated in most all cases to the maximum levels allowable) they are let go with no compensation. In my opinion a scale should be established such that the industry has to compensate the workers proportionate to their dose and in the event of receiving a dose equivalent to a life time dose they should be compensated for life.

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?

Yet in the entire history of the nuclear industry, there have been three major reactor accidents: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Russia and Fukushima. And apart from Chernobyl — which was caused by a flawed reactor design that is not employed anywhere in the United States — no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation from a commercial nuclear plant. This fact is attributable to sound designs, strong construction, a culture in which safety always comes first, a highly trained, conscientious workforce, and rigorous government oversight.

Nuclear power plants are constantly upgraded.Unlike cars or appliances that are typically run until they break down, U.S. nuclear plants have a proactive aging-management program that replaces equipment well before it has the opportunity to malfunction. Using the car analogy, think of it this way: While the body of the car may have been manufactured years ago, its engine and safety systems are upgraded and rebuilt continuously with state-of-the-art components over time.In 2009 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry invested approximately $6.5 billion to upgrade plant systems with the latest technology. Continuous upgrades have always been the standard for U.S. nuclear plants for many reasons — most importantly protecting the health and safely of the public and workers. This industry considers continuous improvement to be a necessary investment rather than "optional" expense.

The amount of spent fuel is small and can be managed safely.In many cases, the issue of storing used fuel is discussed without proper context.Used nuclear fuel is in the form of solid pellets about the size of a pencil eraser. The fact is, the total amount of waste generated by the entire U.S. nuclear industry over more than 60 years of operation would fit in the area of one football field. For this entire time, we have safely and securely stored this fuel on-site in specially-designed pools and in strongly-engineered dry storage containers.

Nobody would argue that the on-site storage of used fuel is ideal. But it is a responsible option for now, since the relative amount of used fuel is so small; because multiple levels of safety and security protection have proven to be effective; more than 50 years of scientific research, engineering and experience proves that it can be stored with little environmental impact; and on-site storage is the only option utilities have until the federal government fulfills its responsibility to identify a long-term disposal solution.Moreover, only a small percentage of the available energy has been harvested from this fuel at the point when regulations require it to be stored on-site. This fuel should be recycled and re-used, as other countries have successfully concluded. But until political barriers in this country allow for this logical path, it must be stored on-site.

Nuclear plants have more government oversight than any other industry.The rigor and comprehensiveness of nuclear safety oversight in the United States is extraordinary. Our licensing and regulatory process is studied and emulated worldwide.Every nuclear power plant in the United States has multiple government inspectors on-site, year-round. They are top experts in the field and have unrestricted access to all vital areas of the plant, including plant records. In addition to these daily oversight activities, each plant frequently undergoes multiple evaluations and inspections that include detailed reviews of security, emergency planning, environmental protection, industrial safety, critical plant systems, plant culture and safety processes — all of which are aimed at ensuring the continued safe operation of these facilities.

Honest questioning from concerned citizens regarding nuclear energy is understandable. A thinking society should continuously strive for accurate, credible validation of its technologies. As to the safety and security of U.S. nuclear plants, the facts are reassuring. I firmly believe that these — and other facts — should be the basis for any discussion on the future of nuclear energy here in America.

In finding that balance, I’m not sure it’s possible to overcome the political pressures tugging agencies and officials to stress refinement and deployment of known and maturing technologies (even though that’s where industry and private investors are most focused).

On the left, the pressure is for resources to deploy today’s “green” technology. On the right, as illustrated in a Heritage Foundation report on ways to cut President Obama’s budget for the Energy Department, the philosophy seems to be to discourage all government spending on basic inquiry related to energy.

According to Heritage, science “in service of a critical national interest that is not being met by the private sector” is fine if that interest is national defense, but not fine if it’s finding secure and sustainable (environmentally and economically) sources of energy.

I solicited reactions to the Energy Department review from a variety of technology and innovation analysts. The first to weigh in are Daniel M. Kammen, an energy technology researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who is on leave working for the World Bank, and Robert D Atkinson, the founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Here’s Kammen: The idea of a regular review and status report on both energy innovation and deployment spending is a good one. Some of the findings in the QTR review are useful, although little is new. Overall, though, this is a useful exercise, and one that should be a requirement from any major programmatic effort.

he real need in the R&D sector is continuity and matching an increasing portfolio of strategic research with market expansion. My former student and colleague Greg Nemet have written consistently on this: - U.S. energy research and development: Declining investment, increasing need, and the feasibility of expansion - Reversing the Incredible Shrinking Energy R&D Budget

Perhaps the biggest worry in this report, however, is the missing logic and value of a ’shift to near term priorities in energy efficiency and in electric vehicles.’ This may be a useful deployment of some resources, but a range of questions are simply never addressed. Among the questions that need firmer answers are:

Following record levels funding made available to the energy industry through the [stimulus package of spending], what are the clearly identified market failures that exist in this area that added funding will solve? Funding is always welcome, but energy efficiency in particular, can be strongly driven by regulation and standards, and because good energy efficiency innovations have such rapid payback times, would regulatory approaches, or state-federal partnerships in regulation and incentives not accomplish a great deal of what can be done in this area? Congressman Holt raises a number of key questions on related issues, while pointing to some very hopeful experiences, notably in the Apollo program, in his 16 September editorial in Science.

given the state-by-state laboratories we already have of differing approaches to energy efficiency, the logic of spending in this area remains to be proven (as much as we all rightly love and value and benefit from energy efficiency).

Near-term electric vehicle deployment. A similar story could be told here. As the director of the University of California at Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center (http://tsrc.berkeley.edu) I am huge believer in electric vehicles [EVs]. However, the review does not make clear what advances in this area are already supported through [the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy], and what areas of near-term research are also not best driven though regulation, such as low-carbon fuel standards, R&D tax credits, ‘feebates’ that transfer funds from those individuals who purchase inefficient vehicles to those who purchase efficient ones. Similar to the story in energy efficiency, we do have already an important set of state-by-state experiments that have been in place for some time, and these warrant an assessment of how much innovation they have driven, and which ones do and do not have an application in scale-up at the federal level.

Finally, the electric vehicle landscape is already very rich in terms of plans for deployment by automakers. What are the barriers five-plus years out that the companies see research-versus-deployment and market-expansion support as the most effective way to drive change in the industry? Where will this focus put the U.S. industry relative to China?

There are some very curious omissions from the report, such as more detail on the need to both generate and report on jobs created in this sector — a political ‘must’ these days (see, e.g., the “green jobs” review by the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at Berkeley) — and straightforward comparisons in the way of ‘report cards’ on how the US is stacking up relative to other key players (e.g. China, Germany…).

Here’s Robert Atkinson: If DOE is shifting toward a more short-term focus, this is quite disturbing.  It would mean that DOE has given up on addressing the challenge of climate change and instead is just focused on the near term goal of reducing oil imports and modestly reducing the expansion the coal fired power plants. If DOE thinks it is still focused on climate change, do they think they are fighting “American warming”?

If so, cutting the growth of our emissions make sense.  But its global warming and solving this means supporting the development of scalable, cheap low or no-carbon energy so that every country, rich and poor, will have an economic incentive to transitioning to cheap energy.  Increasing building efficiency, modernizing the electric grid, alternative hydrocarbon fuels, and increasing vehicle efficiency do virtually nothing to meet this goal. They are “American warming” solutions.

This is also troubling because (as you point out) who else is going to invest in the long-term, more fundamental, high risk, breakthrough research than the U.S. government.  It certainly won’t be VCs. And it won’t be the Chinese who are principally interested in cutting their energy imports and exporting current generation clean energy, not developing technology to save the planet.  Of course all the folks out there who have been pushing the mistaken view that we have all the clean technologies we need, will hail this as the right direction.  But it’s doing what the rest of the market has been doing in recent years – shifting from high risk, long-term research to short-term, low risk.  If the federal government is doing this it is troubling to say the least.

or those seeking more, here are the slides used by Steven Koonin, the physicist and former BP scientist who now is under secretary for science at the department, in presenting the review earlier this week:

Rolling Out the Quadrennial Technology Review Report

Much has been made of the apparent cozy relationship of TEPCO and NISA. There are clear indications that TEPCO as the largest nuclear utility in Japan had far too much influence on NISA, including some preferred hiring practices. Every country should look closely at the relations between the regulated and the regulator in every industry that has such oversight.

Political Interference – domestic

There have been reports that Prime Minister Kan of Japan was too involved in the response to the Fukushima incident. We’ve heard that he tried to prevent seawater injection and his desire to fly over the site delayed some of the vital activities. In addition, it appears that he bypassed some of the pre-planned emergency response systems that would have assured more balanced expert advice.

Political Interference – International

One of the most egregious examples of political grandstanding was NRC Chairman Jaczko’s presentation before Congress on March 16th. He declared that the unit 4 pool was dry and likely on fire and recommended a 50 mile evacuation zone for US citizens. The Japanese government vehemently denied the allegation and was ultimately proven correct.

International Emergency Response

IAEA was quick to send people to at least provide some independent international oversight of the risk to the population and the workers on the plant site. The NRC, EPRI, and other agencies also sent personnel with expertise on these plants to provide high level advice and suggestions. Those personnel were used by the Japanese and continue to provide support.

Suggestions have been floated to create an international “strike team” that would be available at a moment’s notice to fly to any plant that is in trouble.

Llewelyn King, who hosts “White House Chronicle” on PBS television, and was the summit’s moderator, asked a panel titled “Lessons from Fukushima” whether its four members considered “Fukushima a speed bump, Armageddon or something in between” for the nuclear industry.

William Tucker, author of Terrestrial Energy stressed that nuclear power is needed to provide carbon-free energy to counter global warming, and thus despite the Fukushima situation will do well.

A featured speaker at the event held June 21 and 22 was William D. Magwood IV, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Although the commission is supposed to regulate the industry without a pro-nuclear bias, Magwood is a staunch advocate of nuclear power. Indeed, at a similar but pre-Fukushima nuclear summit at Idaho National Laboratory in December, Magwood, then head of the Office of Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, bemoaned that “we in the United States have not seen…a new successful nuclear power plant project, since 1973 and our research, industrial and educational bases have eroded dramatically in the last decade.”

He praised the “new general nuclear technology”—much of which is being developed at the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory—at that December 7 meeting called the New Millennium Nuclear Energy Summit

The Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy was organized by the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council. Council members include General Electric, the manufacturer of the Fukushima nuclear power plants and, since 2006, in partnership in its nuclear plant business with the Japanese corporation Hitachi

Other members of the council include the nuclear industry trade group Nuclear Energy Institute;  Babcock & Wilcox, manufacturer of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant that  underwent a partial meltdown in 1979; Duke Energy, a U.S. utility long a booster of nuclear power; the Tennessee Valley Authority, a U.S. government-created public power company heavily committed to nuclear power; Uranium Producers of America; and AREVA, the French government-financed nuclear power company that has been moving to expand into the U.S. and worldwide

A running point at the summit was the need to “educate the public” about the benefits of nuclear power despite Fukushima

There was also much complaining about a series of Associated Press articles on nuclear power by investigative reporter Jeff Dunn that started running a day before the summit began. On June 20, the AP series of expose’s launched with an article about how “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

Other speakers at the summit included: John Kelly, an Obama administration Department of Energy deputy assistant for nuclear reactor technologies; Matthew Milazzo representing an entity called the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future set up by the Obama administration; and Congressman Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, chairman of the House Energy & Power Subcommittee, a leading nuclear power backer in Congress

In addition to “Lessons from Fukushima,” there were panels on “China, India & Emerging Global Nuclear Markets,” “Advancing Nuclear Technology” and “State of the Renaissance,”

What little system the public has for radiation notification through the EPA has been shuffled off to a no bid contract with spurious origins and the system experienced widespread problems when it was needed most. That system was mostly turned off just over a month after the disaster. The NRC, the agency tasked with protecting the public from nuclear disasters decided to hand everything over to the nuclear industry’s lobbyists.

Before entering into the non-profit world, he entered into the family business of oil industry analysis and claims to have achieved a fair amount of financial success. As Lundberg tells the tale, he stopped “punching the corporate time clock” in 1988 to found Fossil Fuels Policy Action.I had just learned about peak oil. Upon my press conference announcing the formation of Fossil Fuels Policy Action, USA Today’s headline was “Lundberg Lines up with Nature.” My picture with the story looked like I was a corporate fascist, not an acid-tripping hippie. The USA Today story led to an invitation to review Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades, for the quarterly Population and Environment journal. In learning for the first time about peak oil (although I had questioned long-term growth in petroleum supplies), I was awakened to the bigger picture as never before. Natural gas was no answer. And I already knew that the supply crisis to come — I had helped predict the 1970s oil shocks — was to be a liquid fuels crisis.

As Oil Guru, Dan [Lundberg, my father] earned a regular Nightly Business Report commentary spot on the Public Broadcasting System television network in the early and mid-1980s. I helped edit or proof-read just about every one of those commentaries, and we delighted in the occasional opportunity to attack gasohol and ethanol for causing “agricultural strip mining” (as we did in the Lundberg Letter).

I slept on it and decided that I would not participate in this corrupt conspiracy. Instead, I had fun writing one of Fossil Fuels Policy Action’s first newsletters about this “bridge” argument and the background story that the gas industry was really competing with fuel oil for heating. I brought up the AGA’s funding for enviros and said I was rejecting it. I was crazy, I admit, for I was starting a new career with almost no savings and no guarantees. So I was not surprised when my main contact at AGA called me up and snarled, “Jan, are you on acid?!

Here is a quote from his July 10, 2011 post titled Nuclear Roulette: new book puts a nail in coffin of nukesCulture Change went beyond studying the problem soon after its founding in 1988: action and advocacy must get to the root of the crises to assure a livable future. Also, information overload and a diet of bad news kills much activism. So it’s hard to find reading material to strongly recommend. But the new book Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against the “Nuclear Renaissance” is must-have if one is fighting nukes today.

He goes to say the following:The uneconomic nature of nuclear power, and the lack of energy gain compared to cheap oil, are two huge reasons for society to quit flirting with more nuclear power, never mind the catastrophic record and certainty of more to come. Somehow the evidence and true track record of dozens of accidents and perhaps 300,000 to nearly 1,000,000 deaths from just Chernobyl, are brushed aside by corporate media and most governments. So, imaginative means of helping to end nuclear proliferation are crucial, the most careful and reasonable-sounding ones being included in summary form in Nuclear Roulette.

Indeed, except in the three metropolitan areas around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, where major companies are concentrated, the utility companies are usually the largest corporations in terms of gross sales in their respective regions. One notable exception is Chugoku Electric Power Co., whose turnover lags that of Mazda Motor Corp. headquartered in Hiroshima.

The typical power structure in each of Japan's 47 prefectures is an "iron triangle" composed of the prefectural government, regional banks and local newspapers. Beneath this triangle are groups of corporations, such as general contractors, that are linked to politicians. It is noteworthy that, except in Hokkaido and Okinawa, the regional electric company transcends this powerful triangle because it monopolizes the power supply in two or more prefectures. For example, Tohoku Electric Power Co. covers seven prefectures in northeastern Japan, and even Hokuriku Electric Power Co., with sales of less than ¥500 billion a year, serves three prefectures. This fact has led the utilities to think that they are above the prefectural governments.

In prefectures where nuclear power plants are located, tense relationships exist between governors and power companies. Governors often try to prevent power companies from doing as they like concerning the operation of nuclear power plants. At the same time, governors want to avoid confrontations with companies because of their vote-generation potential.

A bitter confrontation took place in the gubernatorial election in Fukushima Prefecture in 1988. In his first bid to become prefectural governor, Eisaku Sato (not the former prime minister by the same name) faced a candidate backed by Tokyo Electric Power Co. After Sato won, severe conflicts ensued between him and Tepco, which has nuclear power stations in Fukushima Prefecture that supply electricity to the areas it serves. Sato sought to impose rigid conditions on the operation of the Fukushima Nos. 1 and 2 nuclear power plants and on the use of mixed oxide fuel, which contains plutonium, amid local residents' fears of nuclear power generation.

Although Sato also won subsequent elections, he resigned following his arrest in 2006 in a scandal related to dam construction. Tepco did not come out as the ultimate winner either, as its ranking officials were investigated over their alleged involvement in the same scandal. Confrontations between power companies and governors have various roots, but the main one is that the former are far more powerful than the latter. This overwhelming influence stems primarily from the enormous investments that power companies make to build or renew facilities to generate, transform or distribute electricity. Such investments have been necessary to keep up with the growing demand for electricity.

During the peak year of 1993, capital investment by Japan's 10 electric power companies exceeded ¥5 trillion, with ¥1.7 trillion coming from Tepco alone. In 2009, Tohoku Electric Power Co., which serves the seven prefectures in the Tohoku region, invested ¥274.7 billion, which accounted for 24.4 percent of total capital investment in the region, according to statistics compiled by the Development Bank of Japan.

Comparable figures were 25.5 percent from Kyushu Electric Power, which serves seven prefectures on Kyushu; 22.5 percent from Chugoku Electric Power, serving the five prefectures in the western part of Honshu; and 27.6 percent from Shikoku Electric Power, which supplies power to the four prefectures on Shikoku.

Although power companies possess undisputed influence, the way they have accumulated it is unusual in the history of Japan's postwar economic development. By contrast, companies in the steel, oil, electronics, precision-machine, automobile, shipbuilding and other industries have had to battle it out for market share domestically before gaining international competitiveness.

Power utilities help politicians by providing them with campaign funds; METI helps maintain the industry's regional monopolies; and the power companies provide high-paying positions into which former METI bureaucrats "parachute." The politicians and the bureaucrats jointly promote nuclear power generation, which helps protect the vested interest of the power companies.

Any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how slight, boosts cancer risk, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Federal regulators set a limit for how much tritium is allowed in drinking water, where this contaminant poses its main health risk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says tritium should measure no more than 20,000 picocuries per liter in drinking water. The agency estimates seven of 200,000 people who drink such water for decades would develop cancer.

The tritium leaks also have spurred doubts among independent engineers about the reliability of emergency safety systems at the 104 nuclear reactors situated on the 65 sites. That's partly because some of the leaky underground pipes carry water meant to cool a reactor in an emergency shutdown and to prevent a meltdown. Fast moving, tritium can indicate the presence of more powerful radioactive isotopes, like cesium-137 and strontium-90.

So far, federal and industry officials say, the tritium leaks pose no health or safety threat. Tony Pietrangelo, chief nuclear officer of the industry's Nuclear Energy Institute, said impacts are "next to zero." LEAKS ARE PROLIFIC

Like rust under a car, corrosion has propagated for decades along the hard-to-reach, wet underbellies of the reactors — generally built in a burst of construction during the 1960s and 1970s. There were 38 leaks from underground piping between 2000 and 2009, according to an industry document presented at a tritium conference. Nearly two-thirds of the leaks were reported over the latest five years

For example, at the three-unit Browns Ferry complex in Alabama, a valve was mistakenly left open in a storage tank during modifications over the years. When the tank was filled in April 2010, about 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters) of tritium-laden water poured onto the ground at a concentration of 2 million picocuries per liter. In drinking water, that would be 100 times higher than the EPA health standard. And in 2008, 7.5 million picocuries per liter leaked from underground piping at Quad Cities in western Illinois — 375 times the EPA limit.

Subsurface water not only rusts underground pipes, it attacks other buried components, including electrical cables that carry signals to control operations. A 2008 NRC staff memo reported industry data showing 83 failed cables between 21 and 30 years of service - but only 40 within their first 10 years of service. Underground cabling set in concrete can be extraordinarily difficult to replace.

Under NRC rules, tiny concentrations of tritium and other contaminants are routinely released in monitored increments from nuclear plants; leaks from corroded pipes are not permitted. The leaks sometimes go undiscovered for years, the AP found. Many of the pipes or tanks have been patched, and contaminated soil and water have been removed in some places. But leaks are often discovered later from other nearby piping, tanks or vaults. Mistakes and defective material have contributed to some leaks. However, corrosion - from decades of use and deterioration - is the main cause. And, safety engineers say, the rash of leaks suggest nuclear operators are hard put to maintain the decades-old systems.

“In these shale gas plays no well is really economic right now,” the geologist said in a previous e-mail to the same official on March 16. “They are all losing a little money or only making a little bit of money.”

Around the same time the geologist sent the e-mail, Mr. McClendon, Chesapeake’s chief executive, told investors, “It’s time to get bullish on natural gas.”

Aubrey McClendon, whose name is not terribly familiar to people outside of the energy industry, has an enormous financial interest in encouraging customers to become addicted to natural gas so that they will keep buying even if the price shoots up – like it did in the period from 2000-2008. During that time McClendon and his company rode a wave that resulted in growing a company from tiny to huge based on debt-financed investments in leases and drilling rigs designed to produce gas in the midcontinent region of the US. A high portion of the company’s wells were stimulated with hydraulic fracturing.

When the price of natural gas collapsed in 2008, mostly as a result of the contraction in demand caused by the financial crisis and resulting economic recession/depression, McClendon nearly lost control of his company. He had to sell “substantially all” of shares at a dramatically lowered price in order to pay off creditors and meet margin calls.

No U.S. chief executive officer has bought more of his own company’s stock in recent years than McClendon, even as the shares reached all-time highs. His appetite for Chesapeake stock made him “a darling of Wall Street,” Tulsa money manager Jake Dollarhide said. But his purchases were made on margin, meaning he used borrowed money. As the value of the stock fell, McClendon was forced to raise cash to meet margin calls. Recent losses — Chesapeake shares have plummeted 60 percent in the past three weeks — left him unable to fulfill those requirements.Read more: http://newsok.com/market-slide-wipes-out-ceos-chesapeake-holdings/article/3310107#ixzz1QSst9NnL

McClendon responded vigorously to the NY Times’s suggestion that the gas revolution was more mirage than miracle in a lengthy letter to Chesapeake Energy employees that was published on the company’s public Facebook page. (Note: The timing of this letter with regard to the NY Times article is telling. The article appeared in the Sunday edition of the Times on June 26, 2011. The letter to employees included a time stamp indicating that it was released at 8:37 pm on the same day while the Facebook page indicates that it was posted to the world by 11:27 pm. In other words – there is no rest for the weary in the Internet era.)

McClendon’s letter blamed the NY Times article on environmental activists that proclaim a desire to supply all of the US energy needs from wind and solar energy. It also issued a call to action for Chesapeake Energy employees:

We hope that every Chesapeake employee can be part of our public education outreach. At more than 11,000 strong, we are an army of “factivists” – people who have knowledge of the facts and the personal knowledge and ability to spread them. You can do this by talking to your families, friends and others in your spheres of influence (schools, churches, civic organizations, etc) about the kind of company you work for and the integrity of what we do every day for our shareholders, our communities, our states, our nation, our economy and our environment. You don’t have to be an expert to stand up and tell folks that Chesapeake is committed to doing what’s right – and that commitment is expressed every day by you and your colleagues across the company.

You can also get involved by joining Chesapeake Fed PAC, our political action committee. Our opponents are extremely well funded and organized. We need to make sure our voice is heard in Washington, DC and with elected officials who are making decisions that affect our industry, our company and our ability to operate in the many states in which shale gas and oil have been discovered.

After describing how Chesapeake has 125 active drilling rigs and how it has developed a “swat team” with more than 100 employees that works with environmental groups to produce legislation designed to slow the development of new coal fired power plants and to hasten the closure of existing coal plants, Tom Price said the following:

“It’s been said before, but the demand side of the equation is extremely important right now. I mean this really is a zero sum game. I think that there are a number of very progressive utilities out there that recognize the challenges that they are facing with regard to climate change, but the Transport Rule, Clean Air Act and various others.”

I remain convinced that there is a market battle going on between natural gas and nuclear energy.

Most nuclear blogs have a “blog roll”which list other publishers of information on the nuclear energy field.  Areva has done this on its North American blog. Areva handles the issue of avoiding any appearance of endorsement by noting that the list with more than two dozen entries is one of “blogs we read.” Areva also has several years of experience reaching out to the nuclear blogger community with monthly conference calls. The blog of the Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI Nuclear Notes,  lists a wide range of nuclear blogs including this one as well as the blogs published by independent analysts.

Duke’s Web site is a completely modern effort set up like a blog, with new entries on a frequent basis. On the right column, the site has a list of other places to get nuclear energy information, including the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The Nuclear Information Center announces right at the top that “In this online space, you will find educational information on the nuclear industry and the nuclear stations operated by Duke Energy. We will feature insights into radiation, new nuclear, emergency planning and more . . . allowing readers to get an inside view of the industry.” That’s a big step for a nuclear utility. The reason is that like many publicly traded electric utilities, it generates electricity from several fuel sources, including coal, natural gas, solar, wind, and nuclear. Because these utilities have huge customer rate bases and supply chains, they are inherently conservative about the information they publish on their Web sites. Also, there are significant legal and financial reasons why a utility might or might not put information out there for public consumption. Press releases receive scrutiny from the general counsel and chief financial officer for very important reasons having to do with regulatory oversight and shareholder value.

Idaho National Laboratory, Areva, and recruiter CoolHandNuke.

Taken together, the four blogs that reported monthly page views represent 100,000 visits to online information pages on nuclear energy or an effective rate of well over 1 million page views per year. These are real numbers and the data are just for a small sample of the more than two dozen blogs on nuclear energy that update at least once a week. Another interesting set of statistics is who reads North American blogs overseas? It turns out that the international readership is concentrated in a small group of countries. They include, in alphabetical order for the same sample of blogs, the following countries: Australia Canada France Germany India Japan United Kingdom

Who reads nuclear energy blogs? So, who is reading nuclear blogs? On the ANS Social Media listserv, I asked this question recently and got some interesting results for the month of May 2011. Here’s a sample of the replies: Michele Kearny, at the Nuclear Wire, a news service, reports for the month of May 18,812 page views. Michele’s blog is a fast-moving series of news links that keeps readers coming back for updates. Will Davis, at Atomic Power Review, who has been publishing high quality, in-depth technical updates about Fukushima, reports 31,613 page views for the same month. Rod Adams, who recently updated the template at his blog at Atomic Insights, reported his numbers in terms of absolute visitors. He cites Google Analytics as reporting 10,583 unique visitors for May. Rod emphasizes commentary and analysis across a wide range of nuclear subjects. At my blog Idaho Samizdat, I can report 6,945 visitors and 24,938 page views for May 2011. The blog covers economic and political news about nuclear energy and nonproliferation issues. At ANS Nuclear Cafe, this blog uses WordPress to track readers, reporting 24,476 page views for the same four-week period as the other blogs. During the height of the Fukushima crisis on a single day, March 14, 2011, the blog attained over 55,000 page views as people poured on to the Internet in search of information about the situation in Japan.

5,000 people interact on LinkedIn, moderated by nuclear industry consultant Ed Kee. It is called “Nuclear Power Next Generation” and is one of dozens of such groups related to nuclear energy on the professional networking site.

Nuclear energy is not so widely represented on Facebook as on LinkedIn, despite its enormous popularity, and isn’t conducive to the kinds of technical dialogs that populate other nuclear social media sites. While the Facebook format is attractive to lifestyle information such as dating and the promotion of entertainment, sports, and consumer packaged goods, it doesn’t seem to work as well for business and engineering topics. It turns out Facebook is a good way to offer a “soft sell” for recruitment purposes to drive traffic to nuclear energy organization recruitment pages. It can answer the questions of what’s it like to work for an organization and the attractive amenities of life in the employer’s home town. Videos and photos can help deliver these messages.

On the other hand, Twitter, even with its limits of 140 characters, is enormously useful for the nuclear energy field. Twitter users who follow the output of nuclear bloggers number in the tens of thousands, and many nuclear energy organizations, including the major utilities such as Entergy, have invested in a Twitter account to have a presence on the service. The American Nuclear Society “tweets” under @ans_org and posts updates daily on the situation at Fukushima

Web sites maintained by NEI and the World Nuclear Organization had to make fast upgrades to their computer servers to handle millions of inquires from the media and the public and on a global scale. Getting out the facts of the situation to respond to these inquiries was facilitated by this online presence at an unprecedented scale. Even so, newspapers often had anti-nuclear groups on speed dial early in the crisis and their voices reached an unsettled public with messages of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. In response, ANS used technical experts on its social media listserv to information media engagements, which reached millions of views on network television and major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post.

This useful mix of free form communication on the listserv and excellent outreach by Clark Communications, working for ANS, made a difference in getting the facts about Fukushima to an understandably anxious public. Margaret Harding, a consulting nuclear engineer with deep experience with boiling water reactor fuels, was one of the people tapped by ANS to be a spokesperson for the society. She wrote to me in a personal e-mail that social media made a difference for her in many ways.

In summary, she said that it would have been impossible for her to fulfill this role without many hands helping her from various quarters at ANS. She pointed out that the ANS Social Media listserv group “provided invaluable background information . . that helped me keep up-to-date and ready for the question from the next reporter.” In fact, she said, she might not have even started down this road if the listserv hadn’t already proven itself as a source of information and expertise.

Another take on the news media’s shift into anti-nuclear skepticism following Fukushima comes from Andrea Jennetta, publisher of Fuel Cycle Week.  Writing in the March 17 issue, she said that this time the “bunker mentality” that has characterized communications in prior years by the nuclear industry gave way to something new. “But instead of rolling over, the nuclear community for once is mobilizing and fighting back. I am impressed at the efforts of various pronuclear activists, bloggers, advocates and professional organizations.