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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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

We don't have a lot of experience in this area," said Eric J. Leeds, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. "It looks like we'll see a lot of each other over the next few weeks — hopefully not months."

Dominion Virginia Power is eager to get the plant, which can generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes, operating again. The Richmond-based company is the state's largest electric utility, serving 2.3 million customers.

Based on results to date, Dominion Virginia Power believes all tests and repairs will be completed on Unit 1 by Sept. 22, said Eugene Grecheck, the company's vice president for nuclear development. Unit 2 is going into a planned refueling outage, and the company hopes it could be restarted by Oct. 13. But, warned Jack Grobe, deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, "We're probably going to have to have a series of meetings. I guarantee you're going to get a lot of questions." Among the questions will be the shaking force of the earthquake on the plant.

The earthquake appears to have produced a peak acceleration — its shaking force — of about 0.26 g approximately 24 miles from its epicenter, the NRC said. G is the unit of measurement for acceleration based on the force of gravity. North Anna's rock-based structures are designed to withstand 0.12 g. The power station is about 11 miles from the quake's epicenter. The plant experienced earthquake forces an average of 21 percent greater than it was designed for, according to Dominion Virginia Power. The strong motion passed quickly, lasting no more than 3.1 seconds and reducing its impact, the company told NRC officials Thursday.

North Anna can handle shaking forces higher than 0.12 g in the critical lower frequencies, Dominion Virginia Power said. Most of the plant's critical safety components can actually resist shaking of 0.3 g, the company said, and relatively less-sturdy structures can withstand 0.16 g. "Consequently, safe shutdown components are capable of surviving seismic accelerations in excess of the … design criteria," Eric Hendrixson, Dominion Virginia Power's director of nuclear engineering, told federal regulators.

The NRC began assessing the safety implications of increased plant earthquake hazards in 2005. According to the agency, the potential earthquake hazards for some nuclear power plants in the central and eastern U.S. may be slightly larger than previously estimated.

Dominion Virginia Power still does not know exactly what caused the reactors to trip off-line, officials said Thursday. "There were diverse and redundant trips coming in in milliseconds," said N. Larry Lane, Dominion Virginia Power's site vice president for the power station.

Knowing precisely what prompted the shutdown is critical for validating the safety of the plant's design.

While tsunami are not foreseen as a problem in Europe, the plants have been obliged to consider other external and internal initiating events that could trigger a loss of safety functions.In France, a total of 150 nuclear facilities including operating reactors, reactors under construction, research reactors and other nuclear facilities are affected. In its progress report, French regulator Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) notes that the risk of similar phenomena to those that triggered the Fukushima accident is negligible and says that it prefers to submit a more comprehensive report for all of its affected installations later in the year. However, reports for the 80 facilities identified as priorities have been submitted and those for the country's 58 operating power reactors have already been published on the ASN's web site.

No fundamental weaknesses in the definition of design basis events or the safety systems to withstand them has been revealed for UK nuclear power plants from either the stress tests or from earlier national reviews, according to the progress report from the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). However, lessons are being learnt about improving resilience for beyond-design-basis events and removing or reducing cliff-edges, and will be applied in a timely manner, the regulator says.

Measures under consideration in the UK include the provision of additional local flood protection to key equipment and the provision of further emergency back-up equipment to provide cooling and power, while EDF Energy, operator of the country's AGRs and single PWR plant, is preparing additional studies to reconsider flood modelling for specific sites and to review recent climate change information that arrived subsequent to recent routine ten-yearly safety reviews. The main focus for the country's Magnox reactors will be to improve the reliability of cooling systems in the face of a variety of beyond-design-basis faults to reduce or minimise the potential for cliff-edges. Evaluations of findings are still ongoing. Operators have up to 31 October to make their full report back to their national regulator, and regulators have until 31 December to make their full reports to the European Commission.

Is all this true? Or is it contrary to what many nuclear professionals know to be the case with regulation of the nation's 104 reactors? I turned to John Bickel, who's impeccable credentials include several decades of nuclear engineering experience backed by advanced degrees in the field

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

Point and counterpoint

For example, many of you have probably seen or read the Associated Press hit piece on the effort by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry to address the issue of aging nuclear power stations

The encouraging thing about that response is that it happened on the SAME DAY as the AP report was released. After Dan published his report, he notified the world via Twitter that the post was up. I have already had the opportunity to retweet his announcement and to share his link in a conversation related to a Huffington Post article titled U.S. Nuclear Regulators Weaken Safety Rules, Fail To Enforce Them: AP Investigation and in a conversation on Joe Romm’s Climate Progress titled AP Bombshell: U.S. Nuclear Regulators “Repeatedly” Weaken Safety Rules or are “Simply Failing to Enforce Them”.Think about that – it has been just 24 hours since the AP story hit the wires, yet nuclear professionals are already sharing a completely different side of the story without the filter of someone else deciding what is important.

However, the AP reporter, most likely someone who has never worked on an old car or repaired an old submarine, took a lot of stories out of context. He added a number of scary sounding inferences about the relationship between the regulators and the regulated. In response to the story, Dan Yurman, who blogs at Idaho Samizdat and was a professional journalist before he became a nuclear professional, reached out for real expertise.

He interviewed Dr. John Bickel, a man who has about 39 years worth of professional experience in plant aging, defense in depth and other safety related issues. You can read Dan’s excellent article at Associated Press Nukes the NRC on Reactor Safety.

It should be no secret to anyone that the average age of nuclear power plants in the US increases by almost exactly one year with every passing year. We are only officially building one plant right now, with four more that will enter that category as soon as the NRC issues the construction and operating licenses. It is also no secret that the NRC and the industry have been working hard to address aging as part of the effort to relicense plants for an additional 20 years, a process that is complete for more than 60 plants so far.

Another thing that is different about the fight over using atomic energy now, compared to the fight that happened in the late 1960s through the 1990s is that the opposition has a much less capable base of leaders. In the previous phase of the battle, the antinuclear movement grew out of a morally understandable effort to stop testing nuclear weapons in the earth’s atmosphere.

That effort was inspired by real world events like showering a Japanese fishing vessel with lethal doses of fallout from an ill-timed test in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It was led by some of the world’s most renowned atomic scientists, many of whom bore a deep moral guilt for their wartime efforts to build the Bomb in the first place.

When that effort succeeded in convincing the US, the UK and Russia to agree to stop atmospheric testing in 1963, some of the organizations that had been formed to do the heavy lifting saw substantial decreases in membership and contributions. After all, they could have easily hung up a large banner saying “Mission Accomplished” and closed up shop. Some did just that. Some persisted for a while with a variety of related issues like fighting against antiballistic missile installations and medium range rockets.

The groups organized against nuclear energy today are no longer led by world renowned scientists, though they do have some media celebrities with spotty professional histories and puffed up resumes. In many cases, they are grayer than I am and less well versed in the techniques of modern communications. Their fellow travelers on blogs and message boards routinely expose their own ignorance and sometimes their near illiteracy.

In contrast to the past, many of the renowned nuclear scientists and engineers in the profession today have no guilt at all. They did not participate in developing fearful weapons of mass destruction. Instead, they have spent their lives participating in an enterprise that provides massive quantities of emission free, low cost power to the people of the world. Seasoned professionals like Ted Rockwell, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin and Gail Marcus are out there blogging away and telling people what they know to be true about nuclear energy.

Enthusiastic younger people like Kirk Sorensen, Jack Gamble, and Suzy Hobbs are sharing optimistic visions for the future and explaining why they have chosen to support nuclear energy development, often in the face of numerous friends who disagree

I am encouraged. Atomic energy is alive and well; there is nothing that humans can do to eliminate its existence. We are entering a golden age of nuclear energy where facts and reality will overcome fictional tall tales spun by folks like Arnie Gundersen or Paul Blanche.

In the July through September period, NEI lobbied Congress, the Commerce Department, the Defense Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Departments of Transportation, Energy, State and Homeland Security Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the report the NEI filed October 19 with the House clerk's office.

Nuclear reactors produce about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, but the country's reactors are aging. No new reactor has been planned and completed since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. In April through June, NEI lobbied Congress, the Commerce Department, the Defense Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Departments of Transportation, Energy, State and Homeland Security Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the report the NEI filed July 19 with the House clerk's office. Lobbyists are required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches of government under a federal law enacted in 1995.

One final idea, which does not involve money going to or from government, is simply requiring that cleaner sources provide a certain fraction of our overall power generation. The many state Renewable Portfolio Standards (that do not include nuclear) and the Clean Energy Standard being considered by Congress and the Obama administration (which does include nuclear) are examples of this policy. While better than nothing, such policies are not ideal in that they are crude, and don’t involve a quantitative incentive based on real external costs. An energy source is either defined as “clean,” or it is not. Note that the definition of “clean” would be decided politically, as opposed to objectively based on tangible external costs determined by scientific studies (nuclear’s exclusion from state Renewable Portfolio Standards policies being one outrageous example). Finally, there is the fact that any such policy would require legislation.

Well, if we can’t tax pollution, how about encouraging the use of clean sources by giving them subsidies? This has proved to be more popular so far, but this idea has also recently run into trouble, given the current situation with the budget deficit and national debt. Events like the Solyndra bankruptcy have put government clean energy subsidies even more on the defensive. Thus, it seems that neither policies involving money flowing to the government nor policies involving money flowing from the government are politically viable at this point.

All of the above begs the question whether there is a policy available that will encourage the use of cleaner energy sources that is revenue-neutral (i.e., does not involve money flowing to or from the government), does not involve the outright (political) selection of certain energy sources over others, and does not require legislation. Enter the Dispatch Queue

There must be enough power plants in a given region to meet the maximum load (or demand) expected to occur. In fact, total generation capacity must exceed maximum demand by a specified “reserve margin,” to address the possibility of a plant going offline, or other possible considerations. Due to the fact that demand varies significantly with time, a significant fraction of the generation capacity remains offline, some or most of the time. The dispatch queue is a means by which utilities, or independent regional grid operators, decide which power plants will operate in order to meet demand at any given instant. A good discussion of dispatch queues and how they operate can be found in this Department of Energy report.

The general goal of the methodology used to set the dispatch queue order is to minimize overall generation cost, while staying in compliance with all federal or state laws (environmental rules, etc.). This is done by placing the power plants with the lowest “variable” cost first in the queue. Plants with the highest “variable” cost are placed last. The “variable” cost of a plant represents how much more it costs to operate the plant than it costs to leave it idle (i.e., it includes the fuel cost and maintenance costs that arise from operation, but does not include the plant capital cost, personnel costs, or any fixed maintenance costs). Thus, one starts with the least expensive plants, and moves up (in cost) until generation meets demand. The remaining, more expensive plants are not fired up. This ensures that the lowest-operating-cost set of plants is used to meet demand at any given time

As far as who makes the decisions is concerned, in many cases the local utility itself runs the dispatch for its own service territory. In most of the United States, however, there is a large regional grid (covering several utilities) that is operated by an Independent System Operator (ISO) or Regional Transmission Organization (RTO), and those organizations, which are independent of the utilities, set the dispatch queue for the region. The Idea

As discussed above, a plant’s place in the dispatch queue is based upon variable cost, with the lowest variable cost plants being first in the queue. As discussed in the DOE report, all the dispatch queues in the country base the dispatch order almost entirely on variable cost, with the only possible exceptions being issues related to maximizing grid reliability. What if the plant dispatch methodology were revised so that environmental costs were also considered? Ideally, the public health and environmental costs would be objectively and scientifically determined and cast in terms of an equivalent economic cost (as has been done in many scientific studies such as the ExternE study referenced earlier). The calculated external cost would be added to a plant’s variable cost, and its place in the dispatch queue would be adjusted accordingly. The net effect would be that dirtier plants would be run much less often, resulting in greatly reduced pollution.

This could have a huge impact in the United States, especially at the current time. Currently, natural gas prices are so low that the variable costs of combine-cycle natural gas plants are not much higher than those of coal plants, even without considering environmental impacts. Also, there is a large amount of natural gas generation capacity sitting idle.

More specifically, if dispatch queue ordering methods were revised to even place a small (economic) weight on environmental costs, there would be a large switch from coal to gas generation, with coal plants (especially the older, dirtier ones) moving to the back of the dispatch queue, and only running very rarely (at times of very high demand). The specific idea of putting gas plants ahead of coal plants in the dispatch queue is being discussed by others.

The beauty of this idea is that it does not involve any type of tax or government subsidy. It is revenue neutral. Also, depending on the specifics of how it’s implemented, it can be quantitative in nature, with environmental costs of various power plants being objectively weighed, as opposed certain sources simply being chosen, by government/political fiat, over others. It also may not require legislation (see below). Finally, dispatch queues and their policies and methods are a rather arcane subject and are generally below the political radar (many folks haven’t even heard of them). Thus, this approach may allow the nation’s environmental goals to be (quietly) met without causing a political uproar. It could allow policy makers to do the right thing without paying too high of a political cost.

Questions/Issues The DOE report does mention some examples of dispatch queue methods factoring in issues other than just the variable cost. It is fairly common for issues of grid reliability to be considered. Also, compliance with federal or state environmental requirements can have some impacts. Examples of such laws include limits on the hours of operation for certain polluting facilities, or state requirements that a “renewable” facility generate a certain amount of power over the year. The report also discusses the possibility of favoring more fuel efficient gas plants over less efficient ones in the queue, even if using the less efficient plants at that moment would have cost less, in order to save natural gas. Thus, the report does discuss deviations from the pure cost model, to consider things like environmental impact and resource conservation.

I could not ascertain from the DOE report, however, what legal authorities govern the entities that make the plant dispatch decisions (i.e., the ISOs and RTOs), and what types of action would be required in order to change the dispatch methodology (e.g., whether legislation would be required). The DOE report was a study that was called for by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which implies that its conclusions would be considered in future congressional legislation. I could not tell from reading the report if the lowest cost (only) method of dispatch is actually enshrined somewhere in state or federal law. If so, the changes I’m proposing would require legislation, of course.

The DOE report states that in some regions the local utility runs the dispatch queue itself. In the case of the larger grids run by the ISOs and RTOs (which cover most of the country), the report implies that those entities are heavily influenced, if not governed, by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is part of the executive branch of the federal government. In the case of utility-run dispatch queues, it seems that nothing short of new regulations (on pollution limits, or direct guidance on dispatch queue ordering) would result in a change in dispatch policy. Whereas reducing cost and maximizing grid reliability would be directly in the utility’s interest, favoring cleaner generation sources in the queue would not, unless it is driven by regulations. Thus, in this case, legislation would probably be necessary, although it’s conceivable that the EPA could act (like it’s about to on CO2).

In the case of the large grids run by ISOs and RTOs, it’s possible that such a change in dispatch methodology could be made by the federal executive branch, if indeed the FERC has the power to mandate such a change

Effect on Nuclear With respect to the impacts of including environmental costs in plant dispatch order determination, I’ve mainly discussed the effects on gas vs. coal. Indeed, a switch from coal to gas would be the main impact of such a policy change. As for nuclear, as well as renewables, the direct/immediate impact would be minimal. That is because both nuclear and renewable sources have high capital costs but very low variable costs. They also have very low environmental impacts; much lower than those of coal or gas. Thus, they will remain at the front of the dispatch queue, ahead of both coal and gas.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Integrated Resource Plan process also developed various possible strategies that TVA might use to meet the region's future power needs. Each strategy was analyzed to create 20-year power generation portfolios -- or combinations of electricity resources -- for TVA to consider. Each portfolio was rated using factors such as cost, risk and environmental impact

"TVA's Integrated Resource Plan process is a rigorous one that is supportive of TVA's renewed vision and will guide the corporation as it leads the region and the nation toward a cleaner and more secure energy future, relying more on nuclear power and energy efficiency and less on coal," said Van Wardlaw, TVA's executive vice president of Enterprise Relations, who is leading the Integrated Resource Plan effort

The TVA Board of Directors has adopted a renewed vision for the federal corporation to be one of the nation's leading providers of cleaner low-cost energy by 2020, increasing its use of nuclear power and energy efficiency and improving its environmental performance

TVA completed its previous Integrated Resource Plan, titled "Energy Vision 2020," in 1995. The new plan will update the earlier study, based upon changes in regulations and legislation, the marketplace for electric generating utilities and customer demand.

The request is being treated pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 2.206 of the Commission's regulations. The request has been referred to the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). As provided by Section 2.206, appropriate action will be taken on this petition within a reasonable time. The NRR Petition Review Board (PRB) held two recorded teleconferences on April 14 and May 25, 2011, with the petitioner, during which the petitioner supplemented and clarified the petition. The results of those discussions were considered in the PRB's determination regarding the petitioner's request for immediate action and in establishing the schedule for the review of the petition. As a result, the PRB acknowledged the petitioner's concern about the impact of a Fukushima- type earthquake and tsunami on U.S. nuclear plants, noting that this concern is consistent with the NRC's mission of protecting public health and safety. Currently, the NRC's monitoring of the events that unfolded at Fukushima has resulted in the Commission establishing a senior-level task force to conduct a methodical and systematic review to evaluate currently available technical and operational information from the Fukushima events. This will allow the NRC to determine whether it should take certain near-term operational or regulatory actions potentially affecting all 104 operating reactors in the United States. In as much as this task force charge encompasses the petitioner's request, which has been interpreted by the PRB to be a determination if additional regulatory action is needed to protect public health and safety in the event of earthquake damage and loss-of-coolant accidents similar to those experienced by the nuclear power reactors in Japan resulting in dire consequences, the NRC is accepting the petition in part, and as described in this paragraph.

A copy of the petition, and the transcripts of the April 14 and May 25, 2011, teleconferences are available for inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are accessible electronically through the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) in the NRC Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov.

In SECY-08-0134, the staff discussed the shift in its approach to developing the regulatory framework for commercial reprocessing facilities. The staff noted that it would defer additional work on regulatory framework development efforts for advanced recycling reactors and focus on the framework revisions necessary to license a commercial reprocessing facility. As a result of this shift, an additional review of the initial gap analysis was warranted. The NRC staff further refined the regulatory gap analysis by focusing on commercial reprocessing and recycling using existing reactor technology. The staff summarized this analysis in SECY-09-0082. The staff's gap analysis identified 14 ``high'' priority gaps that must be resolved to establish an effective and efficient regulatory framework. The NRC staff's regulatory gap analysis considered several documents in its analysis, including: NUREG-1909, a white paper authored by the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials, titled ``Background, Status and Issues Related to the Regulation of Advanced Spent Nuclear Fuel Recycle Facilities,'' issued June 2008; correspondence from the Union of Concerned Scientists titled, ``Revising the Rules for Materials Protection, Control and Accounting;'' and a Nuclear Energy Institute white [[Page 34009]] paper titled, ``Regulatory Framework for an NRC Licensed Recycling Facility.''

The NRC noted in its letter that Fort Calhoun has been safely operated. Otherwise, based on the way the federal regulatory process works, it would have given OPPD the equivalent of an “F.”

Late last week, the NRC gave OPPD the green light to take steps toward resuming normal operations at the reactor. Uselding said that decision, a separate matter, put in writing the steps OPPD agreed to take before the plant can be brought back on line.

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.

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

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

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

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

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