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Soon after the Fukushima disaster, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at its annual meeting in Vienna said that most of the radioactive water released from the devastated Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant was expected to disperse harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean. Another expert in a BBC interview also suggested that nuclear sea-dumping is nothing to worry about because the "Pacific extension" of the Kuroshio Current would deposit the radiation into the middle of the ocean, where the heavy isotopes would sink into Davy Jones's Locker.

The current is a relatively narrow band that acts like a conveyer belt, meaning radioactive materials will not disperse and settle but should remain concentrated   Soon thereafter, the IAEA backtracked, revising its earlier implausible scenario. In a newsletter, the atomic agency projected that cesium-137 might reach the shores of other countries in "several years or months." To be accurate, the text should have been written "in several months rather than years."

chemicals dissolved in the water have already started to reach the Pacific seaboard of North America, a reality being ignored by the U.S. and Canadian governments.   It is all-too easy for governments to downplay the threat. Radiation levels are difficult to detect in water, with readings often measuring 1/20th of the actual content. Dilution is a major challenge, given the vast volume of sea water. Yet the fact remains that radioactive isotopes, including cesium, strontium, cobalt and plutonium, are present in sea water on a scale at least five times greater than the fallout over land in Japan.

Start of a Kill-Off   Radiation and chemical-affected sea creatures are showing up along the West Coast of North America, judging from reports of unusual injuries and mortality.   - Hundreds of large squid washed up dead on the Southern California coast in August (squid move much faster than the current).   - Pelicans are being punctured by attacking sea lions, apparently in competition for scarce fish.   - Orcas, killer whales, have been dying upstream in Alaskan rivers, where they normally would never seek shelter.

- The 9-11 carbon compounds in the water soluble fraction of gasoline and diesel cause cancers.   - Surfactants, including detergents, soap and laundry powder, are basic (versus to acidic) compounds that cause lesions on eyes, skin and intestines of fish and marine mammals.   - Pesticides from coastal farms, organophosphates that damage nerve cells and brain tissue.   - Drugs, from pharmacies and clinics swept out to sea, which in tiny amounts can trigger major side-effects.

Japan along with many other industrial powers is addicted not just to nuclear power but also to the products from the chemical industry and petroleum producers. Based on the work of the toxicologist in our consulting group who worked on nano-treatment system to destroy organic compounds in sewage (for the Hong Kong government), it is possible to outline the major types of hazardous chemicals released into sea water by the tsunami.   - Polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs), from destroyed electric-power transformers. PCBs are hormone disrupters that wreck reproductive organs, nerves and endocrine and immune system.   - Ethylene glycol, used as a coolant for freezer units in coastal seafood packing plans and as antifreeze in cars, causes damage to kidneys and other internal organs.

Ringed seals, the main food source for polar bears in northern Alaska, are suffering lesions on their flippers and in their mouths. Since the Arctic seas are outside the flow from the North Pacific Current, these small mammals could be suffering from airborne nuclear fallout carried by the jet stream.   These initial reports indicate a decline in invertebrates, which are the feed stock of higher bony species. Squid, and perhaps eels, that form much of the ocean's biomass are dying off. The decline in squid population is causing malnutrition and infighting among higher species. Sea mammals, birds and larger fish are not directly dying from radiation poisoning ­ it is too early for fatal cancers to development. They are dying from malnutrition and starvation because their more vulnerable prey are succumbing to the toxic mix of radiation and chemicals.

The vulnerability of invertebrates to radiation is being confirmed in waters immediately south of Fukushima. Japanese diving teams have reported a 90 percent decline in local abalone colonies and sea urchins or uni. The Mainichi newspaper speculated the losses were due to the tsunami. Based on my youthful experience at body surfing and foraging in the region, I dispute that conjecture. These invertebrates can withstand the coast's powerful rip-tide. The only thing that dislodges them besides a crowbar is a small crab-like crustacean that catches them off-guard and quickly pries them off the rocks. Suction can't pull these hardy gastropods off the rocks.

hundreds of leather-backed sea slugs washed ashore near Choshi. These unsightly bottom dwellers were not dragged out to sea but drifted down with the Liman current from Fukushima. Most were still barely alive and could eject water although with weak force, unlike a healthy sea squirt. In contrast to most other invertebrates, the Tunicate group possesses enclosed circulatory systems, which gives them stronger resistance to radiation poisoning. Unlike the more vulnerable abalone, the sea slugs were going through slow death.

Instead of containment, the Japanese government promoted sea-dumping of nuclear and chemical waste from the TEPCO Fukushima No.1 plant. The subsequent "decontamination" campaign using soapy water jets is transporting even more land-based toxins to the sea.   What can Americans and Canadians do to minimize the waste coming ashore? Since the federal governments in the U.S. (home of GE) and Canada (site of the Japanese-owned Cigar Lake uranium mine) have decided to do absolutely nothing, it is up to local communities to protect the coast.  

According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada. The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. 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.” Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”

Fast forward to the present. Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all. On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.” But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”

Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment. It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community. While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.

On June 7, there was a fire -- apparently unrelated to the flooding -- in an electrical switchgear room at Fort Calhoun. For about 90 minutes, the pool where spent fuel is stored had no power for cooling. OPPD reported that "offsite power remained available, as well as the emergency diesel generators if needed." But the incident was yet another reminder of the plant's potential vulnerability

And so, Fort Calhoun remains on emergency alert because of the flood -- which is expected to worsen by early next week. On June 9, the Army Corps of Engineers announced PDF that the Missouri River would crest at least two feet higher in Blair than previously anticipated

The Fort Calhoun plant has never experienced a flood like this before

this spring, heavy rains and high snowpack levels in Montana, northern Wyoming, and the western Dakotas have filled reservoirs to capacity, and unprecedented releases from the dams are now reaching Omaha and other cities in the Missouri River valley. Floodgates that haven't been opened in 50 years are spilling 150,000 cubic feet per second -- enough water to fill more than a hundred Olympic-size swimming pools in one minute. And Fort Calhoun isn't the only power plant affected by flooding on the Missouri: The much larger Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, Nebraska, sits below the Missouri's confluence with the Platte River -- which is also flooding. Workers at Cooper have constructed barriers and stockpiled fuel for the plant's three diesel generators while, like their colleagues at Fort Calhoun, they wait for the inevitable.

Transcript of the video.

(3)Hirotada Ohashi Professor in System Innovation University of Tokyo (at a panel discussion in Saga Pref. on Dec. 25, 2005, regarding using MOX fuel at Genkai Nuke Plant)

(2)Keiichi Nakagawa Associate Professor in Radiology The University of Tokyo Hospital (in Nippon TV "news every" on Mar. 29, 2011)

Well, half of adult males will die if they ingest 200 grams of salt. With only 200 gram. However, oral lethal dose of plutonium-239 is 32g. So, if you　compare the toxicity, plutonium, when ingested, is not very different from salt. If you inhale it into your lungs, the lethal dose will be about 10　milligram. This is about the same as potassium cyanide. That sounds scary but the point is plutonium is no different from potassium cyanide. Some toxins like botulism bacillus that causes food poisoning is much more dangerous. Dioxin is even more dangerous. So, unless you turn plutonium into powder and swallow it into your lungs.... MC: "No one would do that."

Besides, plutonium can be stopped by a single sheet of paper. Plutonium is made into nuclear fuels in facilities with good protective measures, so you don't need to worry.

For example, plutonium will not be absorbed from the skin. Sometimes you ingest it through food, but in that case, most of it will go out in urine or stools. The problem occurs when you inhale it. Inhaling plutonium is said to increase the risk of lung cancer. MC: "How will that affect our daily lives?" Nothing. MC: "Nothing?"

Nothing. To begin with, this material is very heavy. So, unlike iodine, it won't disperse in the air. Workers at the plant MAY be affected. So, I'd caution them to be careful. But I don't think the public should worry. For example, 50 years ago when I was born, the amount of plutonium was 1000 times higher than now. MC: "Oh, why?" Because of nuclear testing. So, even if the amount has now increased somewhat, in fact it's still much less than before. However, if it is released into the ocean through exhaust water, that's a problem. Once outside, plutonium hardly decreases.

MC: "It takes 24,000 years before it dicreases to half, doen't it?" That's right. So, in that sense, plutonium is problematic. But then again, there will be no effect on the public. I think you can rest easy. MC: "Let me summarize. Plutonium won't be absorbed from the skin. If it's ingested through food, it will go out of the body in urine. If it's inhaled, it may increase the risk of lung cancer. But since it's very heavy, we don't need to worry."

I'd like to point out two things. What happens in a [nuclear] accident depends entirely on your assumptions. If you assume everything would break and all the materials inside the reactor would be completely released into the environment, then we would get all kinds of result. But it's like discussing "what if a giant meteorite hit?" You are talking about the probability of an unlikely event. You may think it's a big problem if an accident occurs at the reactor, but the nuclear experts do not think Containment Vessels will break. But the anti-nuclear people will say, "How do you know that?" Hydrogen explosions will not occur and I agree, but their argument is "how do you know that?"

So, right now in the safety review, we're assuming every technically possible situation. For example, such and such parts would break, plutonium would be released like this, then it would be stopped here...something like that. We set the hurdle high and still assume even the higher-level radiation would be released and make calculations. This may be very difficult for you to understand this process, but we do. To figure out how far contamination might spread, we analyze based on our assumption of what could occur. However, the public interpret it as something that will occur. Or the anti-nuclear people take it in a wrong way and think we make such an assumption because it will happen. We can't have an argument with such people.

Another thing is the toxicity of plutonium. The toxicity of plutonium is very much exaggerated. Experts dealing with health damage by plutonium call this situation "social toxicity." In reality, there's nothing frightening about plutonium. If, in an extreme case, terrorists may take plutonium and throw it into a reservoir, which supplies the tap water. Then, will tens of thousands of people die? No, they won't. Not a single one will likely die. Plutonium is insoluble in water and will be expelled quickly from the body even if it's ingested with water.

So, what Dr. Koide is saying is if we take plutonium particles one by one, cut open your lungs and bury the plutonium particles deep in the lungs, then that many people will die. A pure fantasy that would never happen. He's basically saying we can't drive a car, we can't ride a train, because we don't know what will happen. MC: "Thank you very much."

See, we've been duped. Plutonium is not dangerous! We'd better ask these three to drink it up to prove it's not dangerous. Then we will feel safe, won't we? Please doctors, would you do it for us?

So helpless were the plant's engineers that, as dusk fell after Japan's devastating March 11 quake and tsunami, they were forced to scavenge flashlights from nearby homes. They pulled batteries from cars not washed away by the tsunami in a desperate effort to revive reactor gauges that weren't working properly. The plant's complete power loss contributed to a failure of relief vents on a dangerously overheating reactor, forcing workers to open valves by hand.And in a significant miscalculation: At first, engineers weren't aware that the plant's emergency batteries were barely working, the investigation found—giving them a false impression that they had more time to make repairs. As a result, nuclear fuel began melting down hours earlier than previously assumed. This week Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, confirmed that one of the plant's six reactors suffered a substantial meltdown early in Day 1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322804576302553455643510.html

Lots of interesting information in this paper from TEPCO:http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_110525_01-e.pdfUnits 1-4 did not have RCIC.  They had isolation condensers.  Not only that, the isolation condensers were water cooled with 8 hours of water in the condenser reservoir. 

HPCI required DC power to operate.  The turbine lube oil pump was DC; it didn't have a shaft oil pump.  I think this may be common here too, anyone willing to verify that?That's why they had trouble so quick:  8 hours later and without AC power they had no way to get water to the pressure vessel.  About the same time the instruments died from a lack of battery power is about the time they lost the isolation condenser from a lack of water.They also verify that they didn't have the hardened vent modification.

Fukushima may have a group that could tackle the nuclear crisis looming over Japan. The Skilled Veterans Corps, retired engineers and professionals, want to volunteer to work in the dangerous conditions instead of putting younger generations at risk. More than 200 Japanese retirees are seeking to replace younger workers at Fukushima while the plant is being stabilized. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/307378

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) on June 6 revised the level of radioactivity of materials emitted from the crisis hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant from 370,000 terabecquerels to 850,000 terabecquerels. (from 10,000,000 curies to 22,972,972.97 curies)http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110606p2a00m0na009000c.html

The following article focus's on US spent fuel storage safety, Several members of Congress are calling for the fuel to be moved from the pools into dry casks at a faster clip, noting that the casks are thought to be capable of withstanding an earthquake or a plane crash, they have no moving parts and they require no electricity. but there is a reference to Fukishima's dry storage casks farther into the article.But Robert Alvarez, a former senior adviser to the secretary of energy and expert on nuclear power, points out that unlike the fuel pools, dry casks survived the tsunami at Fukushima unscathed. “They don’t get much attention because they didn’t fail,” he said.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/business/energy-environment/06cask.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=science

In 1967, Tepco chopped 25 meters off the 35-meter natural seawall where the reactors were to be located, according to documents filed at the time with Japanese authorities. That little-noticed action was taken to make it easier to ferry equipment to the site and pump seawater to the reactors. It was also seen as an efficient way to build the complex atop the solid base of bedrock needed to better protect the plant from earthquakes.But the razing of the cliff also placed the reactors five meters below the level of 14- to 15-meter tsunami hitting the plant March 11, triggering a major nuclear disaster resulting in the meltdown of three reactor cores.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303982504576425312941820794.html

Toyota was a key executive who was involved in the Fukushima No. 1 plant construction.It is actually common practice to build primary nuclear plant facilities directly on bedrock because of the temblor factor.Toyota also cited two other reasons for Tepco clearing away the bluff — seawater pumps used to provide coolant water needed to be set up on the ground up to 10 meters from the sea, and extremely heavy equipment, including the 500-ton reator pressure vessels, were expected to be brought in by boat.In fact, Tepco decided to build the plant on low ground based on a cost-benefit calculation of the operating costs of the seawater pumps, according to two research papers separately written by senior Tepco engineers in the 1960s.

If the seawater pumps were placed on high ground, their operating costs would be accordingly higher."We decided to build the plant at ground level after comparing the ground construction costs and operating costs of the circulation water pumps," wrote Hiroshi Kaburaki, then deputy head of the Tepco's construction office at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, in the January 1969 edition of Hatsuden Suiryoku, a technical magazine on power plants.Still, Tepco believed ground level was "high enough to sufficiently secure safety against tsunami and typhoon waves," wrote Seiji Saeki, then civil engineering section head of Tepco's construction office, in his research paper published in October 1967.

Engineers at Tohoku Electric Power Co., on the other hand, had a different take on the tsunami threat when the Onagawa nuclear plant was built in Miyagi Prefecture in the 1980s.Like Fukushima, the plant was built along the Tohoku coast and was hit by tsunami as high as 13 meters on March 11.Before building the plant, Tohoku Electric, examining historic records of tsunami reported in the region, conducted computer simulations and concluded the local coast could face tsumani of up to 9.1 meters.Tohoku Electric had set the construction ground level at 14.8 meters above sea level — which barely spared the Onagawa plant from major damage from 13-meter-high tsunami that hit in March.

Former Tepco worker Naganuma said many locals now feel they have been duped by Tepco's long-running propaganda on the safety of its nuclear facilities, despite the huge economic benefits the plant brought to his hometown of Okuma, which hosts the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

TEPCO intentionally dumped radioactive materials into the ocean, as they had no additional room for storage, the levels showed no signs of decreasing, and all desalination hopes were falling woefully short.  It would also be found that many leaks around, and inside of the reactors were also finding their way into the Pacific, but the public was told that there would not be any risk to them, or the living creatures in the sea. After 7 months however, impact can be found all over the island nation, and spreading throughout the ocean, despite the expectations it would merely be diluted exponentially. In September, scientists from the government's Meteorological Research Institute and the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry announced their findings at a meeting of the Geochemical Society of Japan, adding that some of the cesium will also flow into the Indian Ocean and, eventually, reach the Atlantic.

Floating Radioactive Debris Reaching Hawaii Sooner Than Expected The researchers believed that the cesium had initially dispersed into the Pacific from the coast of Fukushima Prefecture but would be taken to the southwest by the prevailing currents at a depth of around 1,300 feet. Researchers thought it would take years to reach the islands. But now, according to a University of Hawaii researchers, the debris will arrive sooner than expected.  ....Since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, researchers have been predicting it would take about two years for the debris from Japan to hit Hawaii's west-facing beaches. “We have a rough estimate of 5 to 20 million tons of debris coming from Japan,” said UH computer programming researcher Jan Hafner.

..Their path back to Russia crossed exactly across the projected field of the debris.  Soon after passing the Midway Islands on Sept. 22, they hit the edge of the tsunami debris.   “They saw some pieces of furniture, some appliances, anything that can float, and they picked up a fishing boat,” said Hafner.  It was a 20-foot fishing boat with the word "Fukushima" on it.  “That's actually our first confirmed report of tsunami debris,” said Hafner...  Source: kitv.com 

The Public Concern Was Never Really An 'Official' concern In the first few days after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, government authorities and the company were criticized for not providing information in a timely fashion. A Kyodo News survey released Sunday found that 58% of respondents did not approve of the government's handling of the crisis at the nuclear plant. More than two weeks later, updates provided via news conferences, press releases, data charts and Twitter feeds have become very frequent and very technical. To a lay person, the onslaught of numbers and unfamiliar terms can feel indecipherable.

"The question is, what is a reasonable interval to give people information?" said Dr. Robert Peter Gale, an American physician and expert on radiation who consulted on the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl and is now advising Japan's government. "Instead of just releasing each data point you get, sometimes it's better to base things on an average of readings over a period of time." Source: LA Times

This ruse would only work, if the officials could hold off on monitoring and tracking the deposition as long as possible, until the plume had finally moved away from the coastline. TEPCO had intentionally dumped over 11 tons of water in the first few weeks, all of which contained high concentrations of radioactive materials. There would be further reports that would be difficult to quantify, including unknown amount of contaminated water leaked into the ocean from a damaged reservoir, and a plethora of uncharted and un-monitored leaks from the reactors. After dealing with the spring, the tsunami season arrived and even more contamination entered the sea through fallout from the air, and through precipitation runoff.

By March 26th, the news broke that levels near the reactor were 1,250 times the legal limits, as the levels of I-131 reported just a few hundred meters offshore boomed to ten times the already increased levels in a matter of days.  Tepco also reported levels of caesium-137 - which has a longer half life of about 30 years - almost 80 times the legal maximum. Findings throughout the summer challenged experts and officials however, as radiation levels found contamination in some parts had risen over 3,000 times the normal levels. "This is a relatively high level," nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said in a televised news conference. Drinking 500ml of fresh water with the same concentration would expose a person to their annual safe dose, Mr Nishiyama said, but he ruled out an immediate threat to aquatic life and seafood safety.

"Generally speaking, radioactive material released into the sea will spread due to tides, so you need much more for seaweed and sea life to absorb it," Mr Nishiyama said. Pledges to Monitor and Track Contamination Left Unattended Japanese officials said they would check the seawater about 20 miles (30km) off the coast for radiation back in March, yet even though finding contamination, resumed testing withing 20 km, and downplayed the effects by stating they expected it to show there is no need to be concerned about any possible effect to fish.

By the time that current reaches the Central Pacific, there are branches heading more towards Alaska and the South—that gets harder to predict,” said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute told Jeff McMahon, a reporter for Forbes. “But that’s one of the things that several people hope to do by measuring these isotopes even at levels when they’re not harmful. We could actually track those ocean currents and better understand the circulation pattern in the Pacific.” Japanese Science and Fisheries Agencies Late Decision to Expand Testing On Marine Products to Weekly Testing 20-30 km Around Fukushima Daiichi

The science ministry and the Fisheries Agency will strengthen testing on marine products and widen the survey for seawater for radiation contamination from the damaged Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. The tests on marine products will be conducted once a week, in principle, depending on the size of the fish hauls, in Fukushima, Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures. The government eased restrictions on land use outside the 20-kilometer no-entry zone around the plant in September. It will now test waters 20-30 km from the plant for radiation, and eventually survey seawater beyond 280 km from the coast using more accurate instruments, officials said.

Sources: ajw.asahi.com, via Nuclear News | What The Physics? Forbes.com SkyNews TEPCO IAEA

Even fish caught far from Japan are contaminated. One sample of skipjack tuna caught 440 kilometres from Japan in late September had a cesium reading of 13.9 becquerels per kilogram, according to the Japanese fishery data. That’s below the Japanese ceiling of 500 Bq per kilogram, but it could still pose a health risk, especially when added to radioactive exposure from other fish or water. This is because there’s no safe level of radiation. The scientific consensus is that even small amounts are unsafe. For example, the Canadian radiation ceiling is set at a level that causes about 500 lifetime cancers per million people over 70 years of exposure, according to Health Canada’s website. That’s 17,000 lifetime cancers spread over 33 million Canadians.

CPS didn’t just pull nukes out of a hat when it went looking for energy options. CEO Milton Lee may be intellectually lazy, but he’s not stupid. Seeking to fulfill the cheap power mandate in San Antonio and beyond (CPS territory covers 1,566 square miles, reaching past Bexar County into Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, and Wilson counties), staff laid natural gas, coal, renewables and conservation, and nuclear side-by-side and proclaimed nukes triumphant. Coal is cheap upfront, but it’s helplessly foul; natural gas, approaching the price of whiskey, is out; and green solutions just aren’t ready, we’re told. The 42-member Nuclear Expansion Analysis Team, or NEAT, proclaimed “nuclear is the lowest overall risk considering possible costs and risks associated with it as compared to the alternatives.” Hear those crickets chirping?

NEAT members would hold more than a half-dozen closed-door meetings before the San Antonio City Council got a private briefing in September. When the CPS board assembled October 1 to vote the NRG partnership up or down, CPS executives had already joined the application pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A Supplemental Participation Agreement allowed NRG to move quickly in hopes of cashing in on federal incentives while giving San Antonio time to gather its thoughts. That proved not too difficult. Staff spoke of “overwhelming support” from the Citizen’s Advisory Board and easy relations with City staff. “So far, we haven’t seen any fatal flaws in our analysis,” said Mike Kotera, executive vice president of energy development for CPS. With boardmember and Mayor Phil Hardberger still in China inspecting things presumably Chinese, the vote was reset for October 29.

No one at the meeting asked about cost, though the board did request a month-by-month analysis of the fiasco that has been the South Texas Project 1&2 to be delivered at Monday’s meeting. When asked privately about cost, several CPS officers said they did not know what the plants would run, and the figure — if it were known — would not be public since it is the subject of contract negotiations. “We don’t know yet,” said Bob McCullough, director of CPS’s corporate communications. “We are not making the commitment to build the plant. We’re not sure at this point we really understand what it’s going to cost.” The $206 million outlay the board will consider on Monday is not to build the pair of 1,300-megawatt, Westinghouse Advanced Boiling Water Reactors. It is also not a contract to purchase power, McCullough said. It is merely to hold a place in line for that power.

It’s likely that we would come on a recurring basis back to the board to keep them apprised of where we are and also the decision of whether or not we think it makes sense for us to go forward,” said Larry Blaylock, director of CPS’s Nuclear Oversight & Development. So, at what point will the total cost of the new plants become transparent to taxpayers? CPS doesn’t have that answer. “At this point, it looks like in order to meet our load growth, nuclear looks like our lowest-risk choice and we think it’s worth spending some money to make sure we hold that place in line,” said Mark Werner, director of Energy Market Operations.

Another $10 million request for “other new nuclear project opportunities” will also come to the board Monday. That request summons to mind a March meeting between CPS officials and Exelon Energy reps, followed by a Spurs playoff game. Chicago-based Exelon, currently being sued in Illinois for allegedly releasing millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater beneath an Illinois plant, has its own nuclear ambitions for Texas. South Texas Project The White House champions nuclear, and strong tax breaks and subsidies await those early applicants. Whether CPS qualifies for those millions remains to be seen. We can only hope.

Consider, South Texas Project Plants 1&2, which send us almost 40 percent of our power, were supposed to cost $974 million. The final cost on that pair ended up at $5.5 billion. If the planned STP expansion follows the same inflationary trajectory, the price tag would wind up over $30 billion. Applications for the Matagorda County plants were first filed with the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974. Building began two years later. However, in 1983 there was still no plant, and Austin, a minority partner in the project, sued Houston Power & Lighting for mismanagement in an attempt to get out of the deal. (Though they tried to sell their share several years ago, the city of Austin remains a 16-percent partner, though they have chosen not to commit to current expansion plans).

After Unit 1 came online in 1988, it had to be shut down after water-pump shaft seared off in May, showering debris “all over the place,” according to Nucleonics Week. The next month two breakers failed during a test of backup power, leading to an explosion that sheared off a steam-generator pump and shot the shaft into the station yard. After the second unit went online the next year, there were a series of fires and failures leading to a half-million-dollar federal fine in 1993 against Houston Power. Then the plant went offline for 14 months. Not the glorious launch the partnership had hoped for. Today, CPS officials still do not know how much STP has cost the city, though they insist overall it has been a boon worth billions. “It’s not a cut-and-dried analysis. We’re doing what we can to try to put that in terms that someone could share and that’s a chore,” said spokesman McCollough. CPS has appealed numerous Open Records requests by the Current to the state Attorney General. The utility argues that despite being owned by the City they are not required to reveal, for instance, how much it may cost to build a plant or even how much pollution a plant generates, since the electricity market is a competitive field.

Even without good financial data, the Citizen’s Advisory Board has gone along with the plan for expansion. The board would be “pennywise and pound foolish” not to, since the city is already tied to STP 1&2, said at-large member Jeannie O’Sullivan. “Yes, in the past the board of CPS had been a little bit not as for taking on a [greater] percentage of nuclear power. I don’t know what their reasons were, I think probably they didn’t have a dialogue with a lot of different people,” O’Sullivan said.

A 2003 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates the cost of nuclear power to exceed that of both coal and natural gas. A U.S. Energy Information Administration report last year found that will still be the case when and if new plants come online in the next decade. If ratepayers don’t pay going in with nuclear, they can bet on paying on the way out, when virtually the entire power plant must be disposed of as costly radioactive waste. The federal government’s inability to develop a repository for the tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste means reactors across the country are storing spent fuel in onsite holding ponds. It is unclear if the waste’s lethality and tens of thousands of years of radioactivity were factored into NEAT’s glowing analysis.

The federal dump choice, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, is expected to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion. If it opens, Yucca will be full by the time STP 3&4 are finished, requiring another federal dump and another trainload of greenbacks. Just the cost of Yucca’s fence would set you back. Add the price of replacing a chain-link fence around, let’s say, a 100-acre waste site. Now figure you’re gonna do that every 50 years for 10,000 years or more. Security guards cost extra. That is not to say that the city should skip back to the coal mine. Thankfully, we don’t need nukes or coal, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a D.C.-based non-profit that champions energy efficiency. A collection of reports released this year argue that a combination of ramped-up efficiency programs, construction of numerous “combined heat and power” facilities, and installation of on-site renewable energy resources would allow the state to avoid building new power plants. Texas could save $73 billion in electric generation costs by spending $50 billion between now and 2023 on such programs, according to the research group. The group also claims the efficiency revolution would even be good for the economy, creating 38,300 jobs. If ACEEE is even mostly right, plans to start siphoning millions into a nuclear reservoir look none too inspired.

To jump tracks will take a major conversion experience inside CPS and City Hall, a turning from the traditional model of towering plants, reels of transmission line, and jillions of dependent consumers. CPS must “decentralize” itself, as cities as close as Austin and as far away as Seattle are doing. It’s not only economically responsible and environmentally sound, but it is the best way to protect our communities entering what is sure to be a harrowing century. Greening CPS CPS is grudgingly going greener. In 2004, a team of consultants, including Wisconsin-based KEMA Inc., hired to review CPS operations pegged the utility as a “a company in transition.” Executives interviewed didn’t understand efficiency as a business model. Even some managers tapped to implement conservation programs said such programs were about “appearing” concerned, according to KEMA’s findings.

While the review exposed some philosophical shortcomings, it also revealed for the first time how efficiency could transform San Antonio. It was technically possible, for instance, for CPS to cut electricity demand by 1,935 megawatts in 10 years through efficiency alone. While that would be accompanied with significant economic strain, a less-stressful scenario could still cut 1,220 megawatts in that period — eliminating 36 percent of 2014’s projected energy use. CPS’s current plans call for investing $96 million to achieve a 225-megawatt reduction by 2016. The utility plans to spend more than four times that much by 2012 upgrading pollution controls at the coal-fired J.T. Deely power plant.

In hopes of avoiding the construction of Spruce 2 (now being built, a marvel of cleanliness, we are assured), Citizen Oversight Committee members asked KEMA if it were possible to eliminate 500 megawatts from future demand through energy efficiency alone. KEMA reported back that, yes, indeed it was possible, but would represent an “extreme” operation and may have “unintended consequences.” Such an effort would require $620 million and include covering 90 percent of the cost of efficiency products for customers. But an interesting thing happens under such a model — the savings don’t end in 2012. They stretch on into the future. The 504 megawatts that never had to be generated in 2012 end up saving 62 new megawatts of generation in 2013 and another 53 megawatts in 2014. With a few tweaks on the efficiency model, not only can we avoid new plants, but a metaphorical flip of the switch can turn the entire city into one great big decentralized power generator.

How do we usher in this new utopia of decentralized power? First, we have to kill CPS and bury it — or the model it is run on, anyway. What we resurrect in its place must have sustainability as its cornerstone, meaning that the efficiency standards the City and the utility have been reaching for must be rapidly eclipsed. Not only are new plants not the solution, they actively misdirect needed dollars away from the answer. Whether we commit $500 million to build a new-fangled “clean-coal” power plant or choose to feed multiple billions into a nuclear quagmire, we’re eliminating the most plausible option we have: rapid decentralization.

For this, having a City-owned utility offers an amazing opportunity and gives us the flexibility to make most of the needed changes without state or federal backing. “Really, when you start looking, there is a lot more you can do at the local level,” said Neil Elliott of the ACEEE, “because you control building codes. You control zoning. You can control siting. You can make stuff happen at the local level that the state really doesn’t have that much control of.” One of the most empowering options for homeowners is homemade energy provided by a technology like solar. While CPS has expanded into the solar incentives field this year, making it only the second utility in the state to offer rebates on solar water heaters and rooftop panels, the incentives for those programs are limited. Likewise, the $400,000 CPS is investing at the Pearl Brewery in a joint solar “project” is nice as a white tiger at a truck stop, but what is truly needed is to heavily subsidize solar across the city to help kickstart a viable solar industry in the state. The tools of energy generation, as well as the efficient use of that energy, must be spread among the home and business owners.

Joel Serface, with bulb-polished pate and heavy gaze, refers to himself as a “product of the oil shock” who first discovered renewables at Texas Tech’s summer “geek camp.” The possibilities stayed with him through his days as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and eventually led him to Austin to head the nation’s first clean-energy incubation center. Serface made his pitch at a recent Solar San Antonio breakfast by contrasting Texas with those sun-worshipping Californians. Energy prices, he says, are “going up. They’re not going down again.” That fact makes alternative energies like solar, just starting to crack the 10-cent-per-killowatt barrier, financially viable. “The question we have to solve as an economy is, ‘Do we want to be a leader in that, or do we want to allow other countries [to outpace us] and buy this back from them?’” he asked.

To remain an energy leader, Texas must rapidly exploit solar. Already, we are fourth down the list when it comes not only to solar generation, but also patents issued and federal research awards. Not surprisingly, California is kicking silicon dust in our face.