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The Ministry of Education and Science (and the media reporting the news) is spinning it as "good news" that radioactive materials detected in river water and well water in Fukushima Prefecture are "far less than the provisional safety limit".If you compare the measured level to the provisional safety limit for water which is high as 200 becquerels/liter for radioactive cesium for adults, well yes, it is far less.If you compare the level to the one before the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, it is a different story altogether. The highest strontium-90 level in the Ministry's survey is 5.14 times the highest level measured in 2009, and the highest cesium-137 level is 6,500 times the highest level measured in 2009.The Ministry's announcement (10/20/2011) is here (in Japanese, PDF).

From Asahi Shinbun (10/20/2011):

The Ministry of Education and Science announced the result of the survey of water contamination in rivers and wells in Fukushima Prefecture, except in the 20-kilometer radius from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclides such as cesium and strontium were tested, but according to the Ministry there was no detection of radioactive materials exceeding the standard for drinking water.

Nuclear power plants in Pennsylvania are preparing to cope with flooding, but none has declared a state of emergency, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said Thursday. All the Pennsylvania nuclear plants that could potentially be affected by flooding are in close communication with NRC, and with state and local officials, and the agency has resident inspectors at each plant who are monitoring the situation, Sheehan said. The plants were all operating at full power early Thursday, according to NRC data, except for Exelon Nuclear's Peach Bottom-3, which was at 88% power and has been gradually reducing its output for several days ahead of refueling outage.

Emergency diesel generators and their fuel tanks at those plants are "located at a higher elevation, in buildings designed to keep them dry," Sheehan said. Exelon Nuclear's Three Mile Island-1, located along the Susquehanna River, 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg, began its abnormal operating procedure for river flooding early Wednesday, Sheehan said. The river peaked at 291 feet above sea level Wednesday and was at 288 feet above sea level early Thursday. It is expected to crest Thursday at about 297 feet above sea level, he said.

If the river reaches 300 feet above sea level, then the plant would have to declare an unusual event, the least significant of NRC's four emergency levels, Sheehan said. If the river reaches 302 feet above sea level, the plant would need to shut and an alert, the next highest level of emergency, would need to be declared. "Important equipment" at Three Mile Island-1 is protected against flooding up to about 315 feet above sea level, Sheehan said.

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont health officials say radioactive tritium from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has reached the Connecticut River. Dr. Harry Chen, the state health commissioner, said late Wednesday that samples of water taken July 18 and July 25 from the river — at the point where contaminated groundwater flows from the shoreline into the river — confirmed the migration of the substance. Chen says health officials have been tracking the plume of tritium-contaminated groundwater as it moved towards the river and that the readings confirm it has reached the river.

Last year, when tritium was discovered in ground water at Vermont Yankee, health officials said it was likely it had reached the river but that it couldn’t be confirmed in testing of the river water.

at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station near Blair, Nebraska, the river is already lapping at the Aqua Dams -- giant plastic tubes filled with water -- that form a stockade around the plant's buildings. The plant has become an island.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a "yellow finding PDF" (indicating a safety significance somewhere between moderate and high) for the plant last October, after determining that the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) "did not adequately prescribe steps to mitigate external flood conditions in the auxiliary building and intake structure" in the event of a worst-case Missouri River flood. The auxiliary building -- which surrounds the reactor building like a horseshoe flung around a stake -- is where the plant's spent-fuel pool and emergency generators are located.

OPPD has since taken corrective measures, including sealing potential floodwater-penetration points, installing emergency flood panels, and revising sandbagging procedures. It's extremely unlikely that this year's flood, no matter how historic, will turn into a worst-case scenario: That would happen only if an upstream dam were to instantaneously disintegrate. Nevertheless, in March of this year the NRC identified Fort Calhoun as one of three nuclear plants requiring the agency's highest level of oversight. In the meantime, the water continues to rise

Tweet by @chummiboy on Feb. 5, translated by Fukushima Diary:

A Fukushima citizen watched lots of trucks go to Abukuma river at night. They came to the river to dump tones of the radioactive mud made from decontamination. He was terrified to think he has to drink the water from the river, decided to evacuate Fukushima.

Generation mPower (GmP) - a partnership between Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) and Bechtel - has signed a letter of intent with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) which defines the project plans for constructing up to six small modular reactors (SMRs) at a site in Tennessee.  

In June 2009, B&W announced plans to develop and deploy a scalable, modular nuclear power reactor. The 125 MWe mPower design is an integral PWR designed to be factory-made and railed to site. B&W and Bechtel later entered into a formal alliance to design, license and deploy the design.

In its latest Integrated Resource Plan and associated Environmental Impact Statement, published in March 2011, TVA said that it had identified its Clinch River Breeder Reactor site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as a potential site for an mPower plant. Studies of the site’s suitability, including environmental issues, were due to begin in late 2010.   The Clinch River Breeder Reactor project was a joint effort of the US government and the country’s electric power industry to design and construct a sodium-cooled fast-neutron nuclear reactor. The project, first authorized in 1970, was terminated in 1983.   The letter of intent signed by GmP and TVA defines the project plans and associated conditions for designing, licensing and constructing up to six mPower units at the Clinch River site. The project is expected to include joint development and pursuit of a construction licence from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The project would also include engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities leading to receipt of an operating licence from the NRC, assuming certain preconditions are met.

Almost 12 million tons of radioactive waste will be moved from the banks of the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for more than 25 million people across the West, the government said Wednesday. Energy Department officials on Wednesday cleared the way for a plan that was announced this year. The 94-foot high pile of uranium mining waste is near Moab, Utah, and 750 feet from the river. The department now will work on the specifics of moving the waste to a site at Crescent Junction, more than 30 miles northwest. Concern that contaminants would leach into the Colorado River was heightened by January flooding in southern Utah.

Moab's rich uranium deposits were mined for nuclear bombs starting in the 1950s. The Uranium Reduction Co. sold its mill in 1962 to Atlas Corp., which ran it sporadically until declaring bankruptcy in 1998. The Energy Department took over the site in 2001.

Left behind was a 130-acre uranium mill tailings pile, which is mostly in the open air on bare ground, surrounded by a chain-link fence. "This decision demonstrates our commitment to fulfilling our Cold War cleanup obligations as well as preserving the long-term environmental health of the river and the many communities it serves," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican who lobbied the Bush administration to move the waste, said the development "was great news for Utah and the millions of people who rely on the Colorado River for their water supply." The cleanup cost is expected to be more than $400 million. The department estimates it will begin moving the tailings in 2008 and finish by 2014, department spokesman Mike Waldron said.

Ground soil of rivers. Otsugawa  (Kashiwa Chiba) 9,000 Bq/Kg ← Double from last November. Imba discharge channel (Yachiyo Chiba) 7,800 Bq/Kg ← Double from last November. Mamagawa (Ichikawa Chiba) 4,700 Bq/Kg← 10 times much as last year. (430 Bq/kg)

Hanford officials have settled on a plan to clean up what may be the most highly radioactive spill at the nuclear reservation. It depends on calling back into service the 47-year-old, oversized hot cell where the spill occurred to protect workers from the radioactive cesium and strontium that leaked through the hot cell to the soil below. Radioactivity in the contaminated soil, which is about 1,000 feet from the Columbia River, has been measured at 8,900 rad per hour [89 sieverts per hour]. Direct exposure for a few minutes would be fatal, according to Washington Closure. [...]

In the 1980s, cesium and strontium spilled inside the hot cell, according to a 1993 report that referenced the spill. Germany needed a heat source to use for tests of a repository for radioactive waste, which emits heat, and the cesium and strontium were being fabricated into the sources. “This was concentrated material,” said Mark French, the Department of Energy’s project director for Hanford cleanup along the Columbia River. [...]

It migrated down in a open square shape, with the worst contamination down to five or six feet deep, McBride said. There is not evidence that it has reached the ground water which is about 54 feet below the ground there and about 42 feet below the bottom of the hot cell [...]

Vermont Yankee could close by March 2012 * Entergy fighting for reactor survival NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Vermont health regulators said on Tuesday they found a fish containing radioactive material in the Connecticut River near Entergy's (ETR.N) Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant which could be another setback for Entergy to keep it running. The state said it needs to do more testing to determine the source of the Strontium-90, which can cause bone cancer and leukemia.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin wants the 620 megawatts reactor shut in March 2012 when its original operating license was to expire. "Today's troubling news from the Vermont Department of Health is another example of Entergy Louisiana putting their shareholders' profits above the welfare of Vermonters," Shumlin said in a statement. "I am asking my Health Department to keep a close eye on test results moving forward to determine the extent of any contamination that has reached the environment."

New Orleans-based Entergy, the second biggest nuclear power operator in the United States, however wants to keep the reactor running for another 20 years under a new license. Entergy filed a complaint in federal court to block the state from shutting the reactor next year. Officials at Entergy were not immediately available for comment. "One finding of (Strontium-90) just above the lower limit of detection in one fish sample is notable because it is the first time Strontium-90 has been detected in the edible portion of any of our fish samples," the Vermont Department of Health said on its website. The Health Department said it did not know how the Strontium-90, which is both naturally occurring in the environment and a byproduct of nuclear power production and nuclear weapons testing, got into the fish.

given the fact that a new study reports that the Columbia River will be contaminated with nuclear waste from a nuclear weapons plant for thousands—yes, thousands—of years. Even though the government has already spent billions of dollars on cleanup.

The Oregonian reports that the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, formerly a nuclear weapons production site, sits on 586 square miles of land next to the Columbia. And it has already leaked and spilled some waste into the river, contaminating the water and surrounding environment with such fun things as strontium, cesium, tritium, and plutonium. The federal government did an analysis of the damage to determine if capping and sealing off the waste would stop more of it from getting out, and also, if more waste could be imported to the site to be buried along with the original waste.

The analysis also shows that the U.S. energy department's plan to import low-level and midlevel radioactive waste from other sites to Hanford after 2022 poses "completely unacceptable" risks, [assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy Ken] Niles said. Washington is also raising concerns about importing more waste. […] Health risks from Hanford's contamination are long-term, not immediate. They're expressed in terms of cancer cases after a lifetime of drinking well water from the site, with a one in 10,000 risk considered high. But many of the contaminant levels at the site exceed health benchmarks by wide margins.

You’ve likely heard this argument before: “The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, so we can’t rely on renewable energy.” However, a series of recent events undermine the false dichotomy that renewable energies are unreliable and that coal, nuclear and natural gas are reliable.

There are too many reasons to list in a single blogpost why depending on fossil and nuclear energies is dangerous, but one emerging trend is that coal, natural gas and even nuclear energy are not as reliable as they are touted to be. Take for instance the nuclear disaster still unfolding in Japan. On March 11, that country experienced a massive earthquake and the resulting tsunami knocked out several nuclear reactors on the coast. Three days later, an operator of a nearby wind farm in Japan restarted its turbines - turbines that were intentionally turned off  immediately after the earthquake. Several countries, including France and Germany, are now considering complete phase-outs of nuclear energy in favor of offshore wind energy in the aftermath of the Japanese disaster. Even China has suspended its nuclear reactor plans while more offshore wind farms are being planned off that country’s coast.

In another example much closer to home, here in the Southeast, some of TVA’s nuclear fleet is operating at lower levels due to extreme temperatures. When the water temperatures in the Tennessee River reach more than 90 degrees, the TVA Browns Ferry nuclear reactors cannot discharge the already-heated power plant water into the river. If water temperatures become too high in a natural body of water, like a river, the ecosystem can be damaged and fish kills may occur. This problem isn’t limited to nuclear power plants either.

Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher said on Monday, September 19, 2011, that high-level nuclear waste once destined for the Yucca Mountain repository will be sent, instead, to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.

The Obama Administration has spent more than $1 billion in Stimulus Act funds cleaning up legacy Cold War nuclear and chemical waste at the site. Despite this effort, there is now more radioactive waste at SRS than when the clean-up started. The idea of bringing nuclear reactor waste and surplus weapons plutonium from around the world to SRS only exacerbates already chronic problems. The 312 square mile site near Aiken, South Carolina, was once the home of five reactors that churned out nuclear materials for H-bombs. The last reactor at SRS had to be shuttered for safety reasons during the Reagan Administration. Tritium, which is needed for nuclear weapons, is produced by Tennessee Valley Authority reactors and processed into gas for nuclear weapons at SRS.

The decision to use the Savannah River Site in South Carolina as a permanent storage facility is controversial. It is the most radioactive site in the United States. Aiken County, in which part of the site is located, sued the Department of Energy unsuccessfully when the Obama Administration decided not to use the multi-billion-dollar Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada for high-level nuclear waste storage that was supposed to be removed from SRS. Currently, millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste are stored in 49 leaking tanks on the site as well as huge amounts of surplus plutonium. Deadly chemicals and radiation will contaminate the facility for thousands of years. “The Bomb Plant,” as locals refer to the site, is uniquely unsuitable for a permanent nuclear waste repository, according to leading geologists. It sits on an earthquake fault and one of the most important aquifers in the South. The sandy soil and swampy conditions make it highly vulnerable to waste seepage.

Fish taken from a lake in northern Vermont had similar levels of strontium-90 and cesium-137 as fish taken from the Connecticut River near Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. During a Feb. 3 meeting of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee in the Vermont Statehouse, committee members heard from Bill Irwin, chief of radiological health for the Vermont Department of Health. "We got preliminary results from our fish sample analysis from Lake Carmi in northern Franklin County," Irwin told the Reformer on Monday. Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State. "The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture." The fish taken from Lake Carmi were small-mouth bass, he said, and were taken from the lake by Vermont Fish and Wildlife fisheries personnel. Cesium was found in both edible and inedible portions of the bass, he said, while strontium was found only in inedible portions, which include bones, the head, fins and scales. "There's no danger in eating the fish," said Irwin. "Should we ever find that there are reasons to restrict diet from any sampling for any kind of radioactive or toxicological events, we would keep in mind different cultures have different diets."

In the same analyses, the fish had almost 500 times more potassium-40 in them than they do cesium-137, he said. Potassium-40 is a naturally occurring radioactive material that is in nearly everything and was created when the planet was formed billions of years ago, said Irwin. A fish taken from the Connecticut River in 2010 had the highest levels of strontium-90 in bone that his department has seen in any samples. "In that same sample we did find very low but measurable amounts of strontium-90 in the meat of the fish," said Irwin, which could have been a sampling or contamination error. "But we don't know that." The sampling is part of an ongoing multi-state operation to help determine what is the level of the two radioactive isotopes in fish in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York. "We hope to further populate this data with fish taken from waters unaffected by nuclear power plants," said Irwin. The states are also working with the a Food and Drug Administration laboratory in Winchester, Mass., to develop sampling and analysis protocols. When more data has been assembled from around the region, Irwin said they hope to publish it in scientific journals. The results of the sampling from Lake Carmi will be posted soon on DOH's website, he said. When this year's fishing season begins, Fish and Wildlife personnel will be taking more fish for the Department of Health.

On November 15, the Ministry of the Environment announced the result of the survey of the radioactive material density in bottom soil in 193 locations in rivers, lakes and dams in Fukushima Prefecture. Radioactive cesium was detected in almost all locations, with the highest density of 60,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in the riverbed soil in the Ota River that runs through Minami Soma City, which was designated as "evacuation-ready zone" after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

The Ministry also conducted the survey of the water. Maximum 27 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium was detected in the water from a dam inside the "no-entry zone" [within 20-kilometer radius], but in most locations it was not detected. The Ministry's analysis is that "radioactive materials have been absorbed by sludge and sands and sunk to the bottom, and that is why the radiation density is high [in the soil in rivers, lakes and dams]."The survey result is not yet uploaded at the Ministry's website.The provisional "safety" standard for drinking water in Japan is 200 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium. (For reference, in Belarus, it is 10 becquerels/kg.)

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal agency has ordered additional oversight for the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant because of regulatory violations found last year at the site north of Omaha.Fort Calhoun will be subject to additional inspections and public meetings, and the Omaha Public Power District must submit a detailed improvement plan, according to a letter released Tuesday from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The NRC and OPPD both said none of the problems identified at Fort Calhoun represented a public safety threat. Regulators say a key electrical part failed during a test and deficiencies in flood planning were found last year.OPPD officials promised improvement at Fort Calhoun, which sits about 20 miles north of Omaha on the west bank of the Missouri River."We take this situation very seriously," OPPD CEO Gary Gates said. "We will work to find ways to improve and we will seek assistance from other high performing power plants as well."

Besides the regulatory violations already on the books at the NRC, a small fire at Fort Calhoun briefly knocked out the cooling system for used fuel in June. Temperaturs at the plant never exceeded safe levels and power was quickly restored.That fire is still being investigated and the NRC has not determined the severity of the problem under its regulations.

Something is going wrong. TEPCO has started to use fresh water taken from the river to cool the reactors, because the treated water that it has been using is running low.From Yomiuri Shinbun (10:23PM JST 7/15/2011):

TEPCO announced on July 15 that the company started to use the fresh water from outside source to supplement the treated water it has been using to cool the reactors for two weeks. The contaminated water treatment system at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is not functioning well.

If the outside water is used, that will increase the amount of contaminated water. TEPCO is trying to identify the cause of the problem.

A top regulator said on Sunday that a nuclear power plant threatened by flooding from the swollen Missouri River was operating safely and according to standards. "I got to see a lot of efforts they're taking to deal with flooding and the challenges that presents," Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said after touring the Cooper Nuclear Station near the village of Brownville and meeting with plant officials and executives.

Right now, we think they're taking an appropriate approach. This is a plant that is operating safely and meeting our standards," he added.The plant is located about 80 miles south of Omaha, where snow melt and heavy rains have forced the waters of the Missouri River over its banks, although they have not flooded the plant and receded slightly on Sunday.Jaczko said he was not doing an official plant inspection. He was briefed by NRC resident inspectors -- the agency staff who work on-site every day -- plant officials and executives, said Mark Becker, a spokesman at the Nebraska Public Power District, the agency that runs the plant.The power plant sat about 4 feet above the river's level on Sunday. The river had surged over its banks near the plant and filled in low-lying land near the Cooper plant.Water levels there are down after upstream levees failed, Becker said, relieving worries that water will rise around the Brownville plant as it has at another nuclear plant north of Omaha in Fort Calhoun.Art Zaremba, director of nuclear safety at Cooper, backed the assessment."The plant is very safe right now, and we've taken a lot of steps to make sure it stays that way," Zaremba said.

Department of Energy scientists allege catastrophic mismanagement of the costliest environmental cleanup in world history.

During Hanford's lifespan, 475 billion gallons of radioactive wastewater were released into the ground. Radioactive isotopes have made their way up the food chain in the Hanford ecosystem at an alarming rate. Coyote excrement frequently lights up Geigers, as these scavengers feast on varmints that live beneath the earth's surface. Deer also have nuclear radiation accumulating in their bones as a result of consuming local shrubbery and water.

The EPA has deemed Hanford the most contaminated site in North America—a jarring fact, as the Columbia River, lifeline for more than 10,000 farmers and dozens of commercial fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, surges along Hanford's eastern boundary.