Group items tagged

Without much going on recently that hasn’t been covered by other blog posts, I’d like to explore a topic not specifically tied to nuclear power or to activities currently going on in Washington, D.C. It involves an idea I have about a possible alternative means of having the electricity market account for the public health and environmental costs of various energy sources, and encouraging the development and use of cleaner sources (including nuclear) without requiring legislation. Given the failure of Congress to take action on global warming, as well as environmental issues in general, non-legislative approaches to accomplishing environmental goals may be necessary. The Problem

One may say that the best response would be to significantly tighten pollution regulations, perhaps to the point where no sources have significant external costs. There are problems with this approach, however, above and beyond the fact that the energy industry has (and will?) successfully blocked the legislation that would be required. Significant tightening of regulations raises issues such as how expensive compliance will be, and whether or not viable alternative (cleaner) sources would be available. The beauty of simply placing a cost (or tax) on pollution that reflects its costs to public health and the environment is that those issues need not be addressed. The market just decides between sources based on the true, overall cost of each, resulting in the minimum overall (economic + environmental) cost-generation portfolio

The above reasoning is what led to policies like cap-and-trade or a CO2 emissions tax being proposed as a solution for the global warming problem. This has not flown politically, however. Policies that attempt to have external costs included in the market cost of energy have been labeled a “tax increase.” This is particularly true given that the associated pollution taxes (or emissions credit costs) would have largely gone to the government.

1)     Natural disasters

In the U.S. this is an ongoing effort. Every time something happens through the INPO reporting systems and the NRC assessments, the entire industry looks at each facility and assesses any lessons learned or changes that need to be made.However, it is clear that we need to remain vigilant against complacency while balancing cost vs. risk assessments of these potentials.

2)   Long term Station Blackout (SBO)

Near the end of 2010, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a summary of a report titled The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle as part of its MIT Energy Initiative. The complete report was released a few months ago. The conclusions published that report initiated a virtual firestorm of reaction among the members of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Study group who strongly disagreed with the authors.

the following quote from the “Study Context” provides a good summary of why the fast reactor advocates were so dismayed by the report.

For decades, the discussion about future nuclear fuel cycles has been dominated by the expectation that a closed fuel cycle based on plutonium startup of fast reactors would eventually be deployed. However, this expectation is rooted in an out-of-date understanding about uranium scarcity. Our reexamination of fuel cycles suggests that there are many more viable fuel cycle options and that the optimum choice among them faces great uncertainty—some economic, such as the cost of advanced reactors, some technical such as implications for waste management, and some societal, such as the scale of nuclear power deployment and the management of nuclear proliferation risks. Greater clarity should emerge over the next few decades, assuming that the needed research is carried out for technological alternatives and that the global response to climate change risk mitigation comes together. A key message from our work is that we can and should preserve our options for fuel cycle choices by continuing with the open fuel cycle, implementing a system for managed LWR spent fuel storage, developing a geological repository, and researching technology alternatives appropriate to a range of nuclear energy futures.

Just a reminder that the September/October issue of Radwaste Solutions is available in hard copy and electronically for American Nuclear Society members (must enter ANS user name and password in Member Center). The issue is devoted to environmental remediation, and contains the following feature articles: Getting Remediation Done at ORNL Enhanced “Interrogation” Techniques: Soil Contamination Imaging at Hanford From Test Site to Wildlife Refuge: Tatum Salt Dome Test Site Transferred to State Permeable Reactive Barriers: Advancing Natural In-Situ Remediation for Treatment of Radionuclides in Groundwater Groundwater Restoration at the La Rosita In-Situ Uranium Recovery Project It’s Complicated: The Complexities of Decommissioning a Uranium Mine Site

Other items of note in the issue include the following reports: Draft Report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future—Executive Summary Report of the American Nuclear Society’s President’s Special Committee on Used Nuclear Fuel Management Options—Executive Summary The issue also contains a meeting report titled, “Very Long Term Dry Storage—and Other Issues,” which deals with information collected during a session at the ANS 2011 Annual Meeting in June, and much more. Past issues of Radwaste Solutions are available here.

There are battles being fought on two fronts in the five months since a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. On one front, there is the fight to repair the plant, operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and to contain the extent of contamination caused by the damage. On the other is the public’s fight to extract information from the Japanese government, TEPCO and nuclear experts worldwide.

The latter battle has yielded serious official humiliation, resulting high-profile resignations, scandals, and promises of reform in Japan’s energy industry whereas the latter has so far resulted in a storm of anger and mistrust. Even most academic nuclear experts, seen by many as the middle ground between the anti-nuclear activists and nuclear lobby itself, were reluctant to say what was happening: That in Fukushima, a community of farms, schools and fishing ports, was experiencing a full-tilt meltdown, and that, as Al Jazeera reported in June, that the accident had most likely caused more radioactive contamination than Chernobyl

As recently as early August, those seeking information on the real extent of the damage at the Daiichi plant and on the extent of radioactive contamination have mostly been reassured by the nuclear community that there’s no need to worry.

It is fashionable among green groups and others who have utopian visions of a low tech post industrial society to say that nuclear energy is finished as a result of the Fukushima crisis. This is dead wrong. Charles D. Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists, has an important essay in Foreign Policy Magazine on the subject. In an article titled, "Think Again: Nuclear Power," he writes that while Japan has "melted down, that doesn't mean the end of the atomic age."His point is that the fashionable approach to the nuclear fuel cycle is sometimes wrong.Also, there is other positive news about nuclear energy. The NRC is making headway with the final design certification of the Westinghouse AP1000. South Africa will try again to get financing and build new nuclear reactors instead of more coal plants.

Here's a quick summary of Ferguson's essay.First, Fukushima did not kill the nuclear renaissance. Germany already had a significant anti-nuclear political constituency well before March 11, 2011. Fukushima simply accelerated a process that was already underway. Meanwhile, China, India, and South Korea are moving ahead with their plans to rely on nuclear energy.Second, nuclear energy is not "an accident waiting to happen." The accidents which have happened are mostly the result of issues with organizational culture, and not technology failures.

Third, the expense of building nuclear power plants is offset by the low cost of running them. Once you factor in the benefits of stopping carbon emissions and the issue of climate change, nuclear energy looks like a bargain. While nuclear energy has been good for highly industrialized countries, it doesn't have nearly the same potential in the developing world for two reasons – cost and lack of robust electrical grids. Ferguson doesn't address small modular reactors which could find a niche in these markets.Fourth, commercial nuclear development does not necessarily lead to bomb making. Most of the 30 or so countries that use nuclear power have not built their own enrichment plants nor reprocessing centers.

The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that it should decide within 90 days on how to address recommendations to be issued this week by a task force that examined the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan. Almost simultaneously, House Republicans and the industry’s trade association warned him not to rush.

The chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, speaking at the National Press Club, cast the March 11 earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi, which produced three meltdowns, as a serious challenge for the American nuclear industry. “The history of nuclear power has also been punctuated by several significant events that challenged old truths and upended our understanding of nuclear safety,’’ he said.

The task force’s recommendations are to be issued on Tuesday. Mr. Jaczko did not say that the five-member commission should complete its work in 90 days, only that it should give strong direction on each recommendation by then. The work should be finished within five years, he said.

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY DOE Response to Recommendation 2011-1 of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Safety Culture at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: On June 09, 2011, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board affirmed their Recommendation 2011-1, concerning Safety Culture at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, to the Department of Energy. In accordance with section 315(b) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 2286d(b), The following represents the Secretary of Energy's response to the recommendation.

As the Board notes in the introduction to this Recommendation, DOE committed itself to establishing and maintaining a strong nuclear safety culture almost 20 years ago through Secretary of Energy Notice SEN-35-91, Nuclear Safety Policy. This commitment was reiterated and confirmed in February 2011, in DOE Policy 420.1, Department of Energy Nuclear Safety Policy. We agree with the Board's position that establishment of a strict safety culture must be a fundamental principle throughout the DOE complex, and we are in unqualified agreement with the Board that the WTP mission is essential to protect the health and safety of the public, our workers, and the environment from radioactive wastes in aging storage tanks at Hanford.

Nuclear reactors are operated by fallible human beings, and at least two meltdowns have been caused by poor human decisions: the 1961 meltdown of an experimental military reactor in Idaho, which killed three operators when one of them withdrew a control rod six times as far as he was supposed to (carrying out a high-tech murder-suicide over a love triangle, according to some accounts), and the Chernobyl accident, which was caused by an ill-conceived experiment conducted outside approved protocols.

So, if nuclear safety is a matter of human behavior as well as sound technical infrastructure, we should look to the social sciences in addition to engineering to improve reactor safety. After all, the machines don't run themselves. The social sciences have five lessons for us here: The blind spot. In what we might call the frog-in-boiling-water syndrome, human cognition is such that, in the absence of a disaster, individuals often filter out accumulating indications of safety problems that look like obvious red flags in retrospect -- just as frogs do not jump out of a pot of water on a stove as long as the temperature goes up slowly. Diane Vaughan's award-winning book on the Challenger disaster demonstrates a clear pattern in earlier space shuttle launches of O-ring performance degrading in proportion to declining launch temperatures -- the problem that would ultimately kill Challenger's ill-fated crew. Some shuttle engineers had become concerned about this, but the organizational complex responsible for the space shuttle could not bring this problem into full cognitive focus as long as the missions were successful. Operational success created a blinding glow that made this safety issue hard to see.

The whistle-blower's dilemma. The space shuttle program provides another example of human fallibility, explored in William Langewische's account of the Columbia space shuttle accident: Large, technical organizations tend to be unfriendly to employees who harp on safety issues. The NASA engineers who warned senior management -- correctly, as it turned out -- that the Columbia shuttle was endangered by the foam it lost on takeoff were treated as pests. (The same is true of Roger Boisjoly, the Morton Thiokol engineer who was ostracized and punished for having warned correctly that the Challenger shuttle was likely to explode if launched at low temperature.) Large technical organizations prioritize meeting deadlines and fulfilling production targets, and their internal reward structures tend to reflect these priorities. This is especially true if the organizations operate in a market environment where revenue streams are at stake. In such organizations, bonuses tend not to go to those who cause the organization to miss targets and deadlines or spend extra money to prevent accidents that may seem hypothetical. It is not the safety engineers, after all, who become CEOs. Those with safety concerns report that they often censor themselves unless they are deeply convinced of the urgency of their cause. Indeed, there is -- sadly -- substantial literature on the various forms of mistreatment of engineers who do come forward with such concerns.

The Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee included extensive language in their FY 2012 committee report about nuclear energy.  They wrote of being “extremely concerned that the United States continues to accumulate spent fuel from nuclear reactors without a comprehensive plan to collect the fuel or dispose of it safely, and as a result faces a $15,400,000,000 liability by 2020,” called for the development of “consolidated regional storage facilities,” and mandated research on dry cask storage, advanced fuel cycle options, and disposal in geological media.  The appropriators provided no funding for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant program or Light Water Reactor Small Modular Reactor Licensing Technical Support.  In a separate section, they direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to contract with the National Academy of Sciences for a study on the lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and discuss beyond design-basis events and mitigating impacts of earthquakes. Language from the committee report 112-75 follows, with page number references to the pdf version of this document.

Nuclear Energy The FY 2011 appropriation was $732.1 million The FY 2012 administration request was $754.0 million The FY 2012 House-passed bill provides $733.6 million, an increase of $1.5 million or 0.2 percent from the current budget. The Senate Appropriations Committee bill provides $583.8 million, a decline of $148.3 million or 20.3 percent.

(Page 80) “The events at the Fukushima-Daiichi facilities in Japan have resulted in a reexamination of our Nation’s policies regarding the safety of commercial reactors and the storage of spent nuclear fuel.  These efforts have been supported by appropriations in this bill, and the Committee provides funding for continuation and expansion of these activities.

I have been rereading a 1982 book by Bertrand Goldschmidt titled “The Atomic Complex: A Worldwide Political History of Nuclear Energy.”

The two self-assigned homework projects are as part of a reflective effort to understand more about how human society moved from a period of optimism based on a vision of “Atoms for Peace” to a period where someone reading the advertiser supported press would believe that sensible people would logically consider giving up the whole technology out of fear of radiation and its health consequences.One of the hopeful lessons I have learned so far is that the initial conditions of our current fight to defend and expand the safe use of atomic energy are far different from those that faced the people engaged in the earliest battles against a well organized opposition to nuclear technology development. We have a much better chance of success now than we did then – and there are several reasons why that is true.

One condition that is vastly different is the ability of nuclear professionals to have their voices heard. No longer are most people who understand nuclear energy isolated in small communities with few media outlets. In the 1970s, a large fraction of nuclear professionals were located near remotely sited national laboratories or power stations. Today, though many still work at national labs or in small market communities like Lynchburg, VA, we are all globally connected to a vast network on the Internet. We have Skype, YouTube and blogs. Some of us know that major decision makers and journalists read or listen to our words on a regular basis. We are no longer shy about responding to misinformation and unwarranted criticism.

The government will set more stringent standards for radiation levels in food following new recommendations on the issue by the Food Safety Commission. According to the commission, health problems would emerge if accumulated radiation exposure over an individual's lifetime exceeded 100 millisieverts. Health minister Yoko Komiyama said Oct. 27 the new standards would take effect early next year and would be more strict than the temporary ones now in place. She cited the "need to secure food safety." Komiyama's announcement came on the day the commission issued its new report revising its position on health dangers from radiation contaminated food.

It revised past statements that the 100-millisievert limit included external exposure to radiation from the environment. Commission members said appraising radiation exposure from the environment was outside of their jurisdiction. The lifetime figure of 100 millisieverts is based on the assumption that radiation exposure comes only from food and does not include any external radiation exposure. The commission's recommendation will serve as the basis for new maximums for radiation levels in food from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which are expected to be ready early next year. Health ministry officials will have to wrestle with how to incorporate health effects from external radiation exposure into the new guidelines. Parts of Fukushima Prefecture have recorded high levels of radiation following the disaster at the nuclear power plant there.

Another key issue is whether to issue different guidelines for different age groups. Children are more easily affected by radiation than adults, but there are concerns that establishing different standards for different ages will cause confusion among consumers. Health ministry officials have estimated that if individuals ate food tainted with radioactive materials from the Fukushima nuclear accident for one year, the average level of radiation exposure across all age groups would be about 0.1 millisievert. Based on that estimate, a person who lived to 100 would be exposed to about 10 millisieverts of radiation over a lifetime. The temporary food radiation standards now in place were calculated on the premise that total annual radiation exposure from food should not exceed 17 millisieverts. The temporary standards for vegetables and meat were set at 500 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram. That standard was used by the farm ministry to decide if orders should be implemented to ban shipments of food products exceeding the standard. According to calculations by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, if an adult consumed 200 grams of food containing 500 becquerels of cesium-137 per kilogram every day for a year, the total annual exposure amount would be about 0.5 millisievert.

Organizers of the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World [in Yokohama] claimed 6,000 participants from some 30 countries [...] The conference shows all the signs of turning into a coherent, focused movement. [...] The conference’s call for “full transparency, accountability and responsibility by the Japanese Government and Tokyo Electric Power Company” is just as important. Without complete disclosure, progress toward grasping the causes of the problem and finding solutions cannot gain traction. The conference’s calls for ongoing data collection about the safety of food and materials will also be close to the hearts of all consumers. Already, consumers have been demanding basic information about foodstuffs and potentially contaminated materials. Last week’s discovery that radioactive gravel in concrete used to build a new condominium in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, is one more reminder that problems will continue for a very long time. Nuclear issues have come to home to roost. [...] it is clear that a practical consensus towards a different energy future is well underway. Now that is a weekend well spent!

On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois. Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state. Why? In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state. Cause and effect? The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.

The U.S. natural gas industry pumps a mixture of water and assorted chemicals deep underground to shatter sediment layers containing natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, known more informally as “fracking.” While environmental groups have primarily focused on fracking’s capacity to pollute underground water, a more ominous byproduct emerges from U.S. government studies – that forcing fluids under high pressure deep underground produces increased regional seismic activity. As the U.S. natural gas industry mounts an unprecedented and expensive advertising campaign to convince the public that such practices are environmentally benign, U.S. government agencies have determined otherwise. According to the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal website, the RMA drilled a deep well for disposing of the site’s liquid waste after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.”  According to the RMA, “The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet” and 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste, consisting of “very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics” was injected into the well during 1962-1966.

Why was the process halted? “The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was “triggering earthquakes in the area,” according to the RMA. In 1990, the “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” study of RMA events by Craig Nicholson, and R.I. Wesson stated simply, “Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” Twenty-five years later, “possibility” and ‘established” changed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s July 2001 87 page study, “Technical Program Overview: Underground Injection Control Regulations EPA 816-r-02-025,” which reported, “In 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that a deep, hazardous waste disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was causing significant seismic events in the vicinity of Denver, Colorado.” There is a significant divergence between “possibility,” “established” and “was causing,” and the most recent report was a decade ago. Much hydraulic fracturing to liberate shale oil gas in the Marcellus shale has occurred since.

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

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

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

The misinformation on thorium is highly promoted by the nuclear industry and various companies that want investment dollars for thorium reactors and fuel

One myth is that thorium is safe. Thorium-232 has a half life of 14 billion years (billions, not millions). Thorium-232 is also highly radiotoxic, with the same amount of radioactivity of uranium and thorium, thorium produces a far higher dose in the body. If someone inhaled an amount of thorium the bone surface dose is 200 times higher than if they inhaled the same amount of uranium. Thorium also requires longer spent fuel storage than uranium. With the daughter products of thorium like technetium‐99 with a half life of over 200,000 years, thorium is not safe nor a solution to spent fuel storage issues.

Another myth is that thorium reactors can run at atmospheric temperatures, in order to produce power they must be run differently and would not be at atmospheric temperatures. Many of the thorium reactors use liquid sodium fluoride in the reactor process. This material is highly toxic and has its own series of risks. The creation of thorium fuels is also not safer than creating uranium fuels. Thorium poses the same nuclear waste and toxic substance problems found in mining and fuel milling of uranium.

The Forum was created by the European Commission in 2007. It represents a unique platform for a broad discussion within European Union on all nuclear energy issues. It gathers all relevant stakeholders in the nuclear field: Governments, European Institutions (Commission, European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee), academics, nuclear industry- electricity consumers and vendors- and representatives of the civil society

"Nuclear energy offers the best relative economical performance compared to other sources of energy when used for base load electricity generation. It contributes to the EU’s security of supply, emitting practically no greenhouse gases and thus combating climate change."

These conclusions are drawn by ENEF which annual plenary meeting took place in Bratislava, on June 25 and 26, 2010.

expert on technological risk and environmental change. Other contributors include fellow WSU sociologist James F. Short and Tom Leschine, director of the University of Washington School of Marine Affairs

"While scientific and technical analyses are essential, they will not, and arguably should not, carry the day unless they address, substantively and procedurally, the issues that concern the public." Source:  Washington State University A renewed federal effort to fix the nation's stalled nuclear waste program is focusing so much on technological issues that it fails to address the public mistrust hampering storage and disposal efforts.

Writing in the latest issue of the journal Science, 16 researchers from around the country say a special White House panel on high-level radioactive waste needs to focus more on the social and political acceptability of its solutions to succeed

Californians are closely synched to Gov. Jerry Brown's views on nuclear power, global warming and other environmental issues, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll has found, but they aren't very approving of how he has handled those issues. The PPIC poll found that support for nuclear energy, which had been creeping upwards in recent years, plummeted after a tsunami hit Japanese nuclear plants and threatened to create a nuclear disaster. Nearly two-thirds of California adults now oppose building more nuclear plants in California, which now has two in operation -- the lowest level of support ever found in a PPIC poll. Last month, a statewide Field Poll found a similar drop in nuclear power support.

"Californians are holding steady in the belief that global warming is underway and threatens the state's future," Baldassare added. "In the wake of federal inaction on the issue, they strongly support the state's climate change policies. With unemployment high, many also see a potential for job creation."