Open Intelligence / Energy

Vietnamese power development plans recently approved by prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung envisage nuclear power providing 2.1% of the nation's energy by 2020. Russia's AtomStroyExport is due to begin work on Vietnam's first nuclear power plant in Nin Thuan province in 2014 under an agreement signed in October 2010. At around the same time, the Vietnamese government selected Japan as the preferred partner to build its second nuclear power station, also in Nin Thuan province

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s report does not call for moving more of the fuel.When the commission received an oral report from a six-member “task force” it appointed to study the safety implications of Fukushima, one commissioner, William C. Ostendorff, said he had received letters from members of Congress asking for wider use of the casks, however.But Charles L. Miller, who led the task force, replied that removing the fuel would not do much to reduce the basic problem, which is that fuel rods remain in the pool, and if cooling is knocked out, the water that provides protection against melting and the release of radioactive materials will boil away.

“Before you can take it out of the pool, it has to be at least five years old, and by that time, we call it, for lack of a better word, cold fuel,’’ Mr. Miller said.At the briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Fertel mentioned other recommendations from the task force, including better instruments for altering operators to how much water is in the pools and new ways of adding water in an emergency. Pulling more fuel out, he said, would provide certain advantages but is also certain to expose workers to radiation in the course of the transfer.

Fukushima used dry casks as well, and those appear to have survived without damage, Mr. Fertel said, although they have not been thoroughly inspected. “They’re fine, but so are the pools,’’ he said.

They were not unscathed, however; debris flew into the pools after the buildings surrounding them blew up in hydrogen explosions.

The task force also refrained from recommending changes in emergency planning zones, despite the embassy’s recommendation during the crisis for Americans to stay 50 miles away from Fukushima. In the United States, emergency evacuation planning is required within 10 miles of any reactor.

Mr. Fertel said the recommendation to evacuate to 50 miles “was based not on information, but on the lack thereof.’’

Opponents of nuclear power have argued that the commission should cease all extensions of reactors’ operating licenses until it has digested the lessons of the accident in Japan. But Mr. Fertel noted that since March 11, the commission has issued 20-year license extensions for the Vermont Yankee, Palo Verde, Prairie Island, Salem and Hope Creek reactors, and allowed higher power outputs for Limerick and Point Beach.

"According to our calculations, the cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity will go up by only one cent," says Economics Minister Philipp Rösler, head of Merkel's junior coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP). For an average household, this would correspond to the price of only one latte a month, says Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, of Merkel's Christian Democrats. Germany is rapidly switching to green energy and at almost no additional cost to consumers. What conservative politician would have thought such a thing possible just a few months ago?

In reality, though, the official calculations have little connection to reality. According to an assessment by the Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI), the politicians' estimate of the costs of expanding renewable sources of energy is far too low, while the environmental benefits have been systematically overstated.

RWI experts estimate that the cost of electricity could increase by as much as five times the government's estimate of one cent per kilowatt hour. In an internal prognosis, the semi-governmental German Energy Agency anticipates an increase of four to five cents. According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, the additional cost could easily amount to "five cents or more per kilowatt hour."

An internal estimate making the rounds at the Economics Ministry also exceeds the official announcements. It concludes that an average three-person household will pay an additional 0.5 to 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and up to five cents more in the mid-term. This would come to an additional cost of €175 ($250) a year. "Not exactly the price of a latte," says Manuel Frondel of the RWI.

The problem is the federal government's outlandish subsidies policy. Electricity customers are already paying more than €13 billion this year to subsidize renewable energy. The largest subsidies go to solar plants, which contribute relatively little to overall power generation, as well as offshore wind farms in the north, which are far away from the countries largest electricity consumers in Germany's deep south.

German citizens will be able to see the consequences of solar subsidization on their next electricity bill. Since the beginning of the year, consumers have been assessed a renewable energy surcharge of 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity, up from about 2 cents last year. And the cost is only going up. Since the first nuclear power plant was shut down, the price of electricity on the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig has increased by about 12 percent. Germany has gone from being a net exporter to a net importer of electricity.

For economic and environmental reasons, therefore, it would be best to drastically reduce solar subsidies and spend the money elsewhere, such as for a subsidy system that is not tied to any given technology. For example, wind turbines built on land are significantly more effective than solar power. They receive about the same amount of subsidy money, and yet they are already feeding about five times as much electricity into the grid. In the case of hydroelectric power plants, the relationship between subsidies and electricity generation is six times better. Biomass provides a return on subsidies that is three times as high as solar.

"We are dumping billions into the least effective technology," says Fritz Vahrenholt, the former environment minister for the city-state of Hamburg and now the head of utility RWE's renewable electricity subsidy Innogy.

"From the standpoint of the climate, every solar plant is a bad investment," says Joachim Weimann, an environmental economist at the University of Magdeburg. He has calculated that it costs about €500 to save a ton of CO2 emissions with solar power. In the case of wind energy, it costs only €150. In combination with building upgrades, the cost plummets to only €15 per ton of CO2 emissions savings.

Photovoltaics, in particular, is now seen as an enormous waste of money. The technology receives almost half all renewable energy subsidies, even though it makes up less than one 10th of total green electricity production. And it is unreliable -- one never knows if and when the sun will be shining

According to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSOE) in Brussels, Germany now imports several million kilowatt hours of electricity from abroad every day.

In displays on ENTSOE computers in Brussels, countries that produce slightly more electricity than they consume are identified in yellow on the monitors, while countries dependent on imports are blue. Germany used to be one of the yellow countries, but now that seven nuclear reactors have been shut down, blue is the dominant color. The electricity that was once generated by those German nuclear power plants now comes primarily from the Czech Republic and France -- and is, of course, more expensive. The demand for electricity is expected to increase in the coming years, particularly with growing numbers of electric cars being connected to the grid as they charge their batteries.

Solar panels only achieve their maximum capacity in the laboratory and at optimal exposure to the sun (1,000 watts per square meter), an ideal angle of incidence (48.2 degrees) and a standardized module temperature (25 degrees Celsius, or 77 degrees Fahrenheit). Such values are rare outside the laboratory. All photovoltaic systems are inactive at night, and they also generate little electricity on winter days

Upcoming Events A July 28 public Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting will focus on the agency’s near-term task force recommendations for safety enhancements at U.S. nuclear energy facilities after the Fukushima accident. The Foundation for Nuclear Studies will host a July 29 briefing and discussion on the status of Fukushima Daiichi for congressional staff in Washington, D.C. The briefing will be conducted by Lake Barrett, former NRC site director for Three Mile Island and former acting director of the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

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.

Shimotsuke Shinbun (local Tochigi paper; 7/27/2011) reports that Tochigi Prefecture tested the leaves that went into the leaf compost bags, and they found 72,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. The leaves were collected in the northern Tochigi in April, and was sold outside the prefecture from mid June to early July. The Tochigi prefectural government ordered the two sellers of leaf compost in Tochigi to recall what's been sold and refrain from shipping "voluntarily" (i.e. at the sellers' own cost, with no support from the government).Leaf composts are mainly used by the home gardeners. There may be many who hoped to grow their own, radiation-free vegetables and bought these bags to amend the soil for better growth of the seedlings. Well, that hope is dashed. The home gardeners may have ended up contaminating their own soil which may not have been contaminated before they put in the compost.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries couldn't even figure out that cattle farmers feed their cows with rice hay. What the individual home gardeners use for their small gardens was probably none of their concern, as the Ministry is there for the producers.

Skerpon said the union does not believe management workers have been sufficiently trained. “These management personnel haven’t been doing hands-on work like my members have,” he said. He said management workers began job-shadowing their IBEW counterparts only two weeks ago. “I would say the public should be concerned to the point that they should question it,” Skerpon said. “I’m not telling anyone to evacuate their house. But they should be concerned enough to question it.”

Strikes by nuclear plant operators are rare, but not illegal. There has never been a strike at the two Nine Mile Point plants, which became operational in 1969 and 1988. CENG purchased the plants for $762 million from Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. in 2001.

The last strike at a nuclear plant in the Northeast occurred in 2003 at Oyster Creek, N.J., where more than 200 workers walked off the job when contract talks broke down. The strike lasted about 11 weeks.

Dave Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that management workers have safely operated other nuclear plants during strikes. Nuclear plant owners typically replace striking workers with managers who hold licenses to operate nuclear plants and who work daily in the plant control room or in training rooms, said Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who worked 17 years in nuclear plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent three extra inspectors to Scriba to monitor the two nuclear plants around the clock from inside their control rooms during the first 48 hours of the strike, an NRC spokesman said. After that, inspectors will remain on-site 24 hours a day for the next couple of weeks to make sure things are going smoothly, said Diane Screnci, speaking for the NRC.

Screnci said the NRC has reviewed the company’s plans for operating the plants during the strike and is satisfied that its replacement operators can operate them safely. If the NRC inspectors find the replacement workers can’t do the job, they will order the plants be shut down, Lochbaum said. “The safety net the public has is the NRC watching the first few days,” Lochbaum said

The final version of the recovery and reconstruction plan that the government was to submit by the end of this month was revealed on July 26.

The plan will include the research and development centers for health care and renewable energy in Fukushima Prefecture, which suffers damages from the nuclear plant accident. The government will support the recovery by sending the government research institutions to Fukushima. For residents who cannot rebuild their homes easily, the government will provide the "disaster public housing". The government will set up the headquarters for recovery and reconstruction on July 29, and formally decide on the plan.

In the final version of the plan, it is clearly stated that "the national government will be responsible" in recovery and reconstruction from a nuclear disaster. As to the decontamination of the soil and the disposal of disaster debris, the plan says [the government] will "take necessary measures". It also mentions the creation of facilities for the "world-class pharmaceutical and medical equipment research and development" and the "world-class renewable energy research" in Fukushima Prefecture, which are to attract the related industries. For the residents who have lost their homes, the government will provide the "disaster public housing", which will be sold later to those who want to purchase the homes under the scheme.So here's one answer to the question posed by a resident in the youtube video below that captured the confrontation between the Fukushima residents and the national government officials over evacuation:

"People in Fukushima have a right to avoid the radiation and live a healthy life, too. Don't you think so?"Well, the government needs them inside Fukushima for all these grand projects. Besides, the government doesn't care about that right for anyone outside Fukushima either.

Kawamata-machi is 47 kilometers northwest of Fukushima I Nuke Plant.The Japanese government's mishandling and concealing the radioactive fallout information has resulted in radioactive water, vegetables, fish, mushroom, beef, hay, pork, manure, compost, and now eggs. And the farmers like this chicken farmer who clearly wants to sell only "safe" eggs to his customers are at a loss. To the chicken farmer, 60 becquerels/kg was just too high to sell his eggs in good conscience.

The Japanese government began efforts this month to rescue animals from the restricted zone around Fukushima.About 67 dogs and cats have been taken to safety so far, according to Ministry of the Environment officials, who said it is unclear how many pets remain in the area.There are 5,800 dogs registered in the nine municipalities covered by the evacuation zone, said Koji Okura, deputy chief of the Ministry’s Office of Welfare and Management of Animals. The number of displaced cats cannot be estimated because Japan does not require cats to be registered, he said.“It is not possible to figure out exactly how many dogs are still left within the zone,” Okura said.

“We have been gathering data and samples and combining them with their (the plants’) test results so we have a total picture from before, during and after [the disaster] to make sure the food safety measures they put in place weren’t impacted,” she said.

The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, to include the cruiser USS Chancellorsville, the destroyer USS Preble and the combat support ship USNS Bridge, the guided-missile destroyers USS Fitzgerald, USS John S. McCain, USS McCampbell, USS Mustin and USS Curtis Wilbur continue relief operations off the east coast of Iwate prefecture. Three U.S. Navy liaison officers are on JS Hyuga to coordinate U.S. operations with Japan Maritime Self Defense force leadership.Helicopters from HS-4 and HSL-43 with the Reagan strike group, and HSL-51 from Carrier Airwing Five (CVW-5) in Atsugi, on the 18th delivered 28 tons of food, water, clothes, medicine, toiletries, baby supplies, and much needed kerosene to displaced persons at fifteen relief sites ashore. For two of the relief sites serviced, it was the first humanitarian aid they have received since the tsunami a week ago. Eight of the sites serviced made requests for specific aid, including a need for a medical professional.CVW-5 on Friday completed the relocation of 14 helos normally assigned to USS George Washington from Atsugi to Misawa Air Base in northern Honshu.

USS Cowpens continued its northerly track to rendezvous with the Reagan Carrier Strike Group. Cowpens is expected to join the Strike Group overnight. USS Shiloh is en route from Yokosuka to deliver relief supplies to the Strike Group.USS Blue Ridge, the flagship for the U.S. 7th Fleet, remains in the vicinity of Okinawa to conduct transfers of supplies and additional personnel to augment the staff.All 7th Fleet ships, including George Washington and USS Lassen which are currently conducting maintenance in Yokosuka, are preparing to go. Personnel have been recalled and leaves canceled.

Two P-3 Orion aircraft from Patrol Squadron Four conducted two aerial survey missions over ports and airfields in northern Honshu on Saturday. CTF-72 has embarked two liaison officers from Japan Maritime Self Defense Force on each mission. Aerial imagery captured on these missions is shared with Japan. VP-4 has established a detachment in Misawa with two aircraft and four aircrews. Radioactive iodine found in Tokyo drinking water10:07 p.m. Saturday, Tokyo timeFrom the Associated Press:TOKYO — Japan officials say radioactive iodine detected in drinking water for Tokyo and other areas.

A valuable resource on your entitlements during evacuations

The link for this Office of Personnel Management (OPM) handbook is: http://www.opm.gov/oca/compmemo/2008/HandbookForEmergencies(PayAndLeave)

Voluntary departure" updates at Misawa

Video: Yokosuka commander talks flights

Who is authorized to fly out?·         Command Sponsored and non-Command Sponsored Dependents of Uniformed and Civilian DoD personnelo    NOTE: Non-Command Sponsored dependents are only entitled to a round trip flight to the first destination in the United States. These dependents are not entitled to draw per diem or Safe Haven Allowance.What about girlfriends or significant others?They are not authorized departure. Only <span>Dependents</span> of Uniformed and Civilian DoD personnel are covered by the current authorization.

What about dependents of our NAFA/CFAY/ZAMA contractors?·         They will be allowed to board the plane and fly to the States, HOWEVER, as things currently stand, they are NOT entitled to any allowances or even to government-funded air travel out of NAFA.·         Funding issues should be worked through the contractor’s parent company, and the contractor sponsor should beware that he/she may ultimately be required to reimburse the U.S. Government for the value of the flight.

What about non-DoD American Citizens who aren’t contractors or attached to our bases?

The military is working to schedule flights through contractors because no military aircraft will be used for the voluntary departures, according to U.S. Forces Japan spokesman Maj. Neal Fisher.