JAPAN NUCLEAR REACTOR ATOP ACTIVE FAULT: REGULATOR, Yahoo 7 News, May 23, 2013TOKYO (AFP)

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said it had approved a report from experts which found a crack in the Earth’s crust lying underneath the reactor at a plant in Tsuruga, western Japan, was active. ”There is a need for us to take the report seriously,” NRA chairman
Shunichi Tanaka said.

It is the first time the newly-minted NRA has made such a ruling. It is still investigating possibly-active faults under five other
reactors. A second reactor at Tsuruga, which sits 300 metres (328 yards) away, is not one of this number.

The final decision on a restart rests with the government, who are expected to be asked by plant operator Japan Atomic Power to overrule
the watchdog.

Observers say despite its pro-nuclear stance, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration is unlikely to risk public ire by backing the
operator, meaning the reactor would become the first to be permanently shuttered since the Fukushima disaster……
http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/17290072/japan-nuclear-reactor-atop-active-fault-regulator/

This is a follow-up report on the statuses of Fukushima Daiichi and Daini Nuclear Power Stations after the earthquake occurred in the offshore of Fukushima Prefecture (M5.9) at around 2:48 PM on May 18.

At around 4:10 PM in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, a TEPCO employee found water dropping from an overflow pipe of Units 5-6 RO treated water tank (D7 tank) where the leakage was found yesterday on the site patrol after the earthquake. [...]

Regarding the treated water dropping from an overflow pipe of Units 5-6 RO treated water tank, the leakage area is estimated to be about 2 m x about 2 m and the leakage amount is estimated to be about 4 liters. [...]

The water dropping is assumed to be caused by the earthquake occurred at around 2:48 PM today since the treated water tank was at full capacity from yesterday. [...]
See also: Strong M6 quake hits near Fukushima nuclear plant — Intensity 5+ on JMA scale — Officials: “No reports of damage so far”

the sudden shutdown of seven nuclear power plants had no detrimental effect on security of supply, and was compensated for within the German energy infrastructure

Nuclear futures: renewables blossom in Germany’s post-nuclear vision .http://theconversation.com/nuclear-futures-renewables-blossom-in-germanys-post-nuclear-vision-14364   Erik Gawel,   Sebastian Strunz 22 May 2013,  When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was hit by a tsunami in March 2011, the disaster had a profound effect on German energy policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel reasoned that “Fukushima has forever changed the way we define risk in Germany.”

Three days after the news of meltdown  in three of Fukushima’s reactors, Chancellor Merkel drew a line under German nuclear power. The seven oldest nuclear power plants in Germany were immediately taken off the grid, and two months later the government made this permanent. The remaining German nuclear power plants, it was decided, would be shut down by 2022.

This decision was a spectacular policy U-turn, as the same conservative government had only recently overturned an earlier attempt to ban nuclear power in Germany. In 2010, Chancellor Merkel’s coalition had argued that nuclear power was a “bridge technology” ecessary to pave the way towards a carbon-free energy system. The prolonged use of nuclear power would be indispensable in order to guarantee security of supply, it was claimed.
This raises two questions: did removing seven power plants endanger the security of supply to the German national grid? And what convincing long-term strategy is there in place to manage the shift to carbon-free energy without nuclear power?

The loss of the power stations cut the nuclear contribution to the country’s energy by about a quarter, from 22% in 2010 to 16% in 2012. Yet Germany is still a net exporter of electricity, and the power not generated due to the shutdown has not led to a requirement to import foreign nuclear power. The key findings of a detailed study by the Institute for Applied Ecology on this matter clearly demonstrated this, where the authors stated that: “The existence of power imports is not an indication that the (domestic) security of supply is in jeopardy. The shutdown of nuclear power plants has not resulted in increased imports of power from foreign nuclear power plants and thus has not been counterbalanced by foreign power imports.”

In other words, the sudden shutdown of seven nuclear power plants had no detrimental effect on security of supply, and was compensated for within the German energy infrastructure
Which policies and strategies does the Energiewende (the project to transform Germany’s energy system into a mainly renewables-based one by 2050) rely on? The Renewable Resources Act, passed in 2000, established a system of feed-in tariffs to promote the build-up of renewables. Renewables share in overall German electricity generation has since increased from 7% in 2000 to 23% in 2012. Each year, another 10,000 MW of (intermittent) renewables capacities are being installed  – an amount that almost matches the remaining 12,000 MW of (non-intermittent) nuclear capacities from Germany’s nuclear reactors still in operation.

To consider how insanely radioactive Lake Karachay is, think about this: Chernobyl disaster: 5-12 exabecquerels blown over thousands of square miles Lake Karachay: 4 exabecquerels in this tiny lake, less than a quarter of a mile in diameter. Even approaching the lake will get you a lethal dose within an hour. And they ARE starting to cover it up with concrete and gravel as the water evaporates. As the water recedes, they lay down dirt, gravel and concrete over the area so it can’t fill back in and the sediment doesn’t get disturbed by the wind.

The 10 Worst Civilian Nuclear Accidents in History http://www.neatorama.com/2013/05/21/The-10-Worst-Civilian-Nuclear-Accidents-in-History/ Miss Cellania , May 21, 2013   Quick -how many nuclear accidents can you name? Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima …any more? There have been quite a few nuclear accidents of varying danger that you probably never heard of, including some fatal incidents. For example, in 1957, nuclear waste exploded at a reactor near the Soviet town of Ozyorsk.

One of the storage tanks contained around 70 to 80 tons of radioactive liquid waste, and its cooling mechanism stopped working and wasn’t fixed. The tank’s contents, made up mostly of ammonium nitrate and acetates, began to dry out as the liquid heated up and evaporated. Moreover, the temperature increase caused an explosion whose force was equivalent to 70 to 100 tons of TNT, and this sent huge amounts of radioactivity – roughly 20 MCi (800 PBq) – into the environment. The fallout cloud from the explosion contaminated an area of up to 7,722 square miles (20,000 square kilometers).

Over a period of nearly two years, about 10,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area. In terms of fatalities, the exact cost of the incident is not known, but immediately around the site of the explosion there were 66 diagnosed cases of chronic radiation syndrome.

Read more about the Ozyorsk incident and nine others in a list at Tech Graffiti. Link -via the Presurfer

 (i cludes video)Nuclear Secrets: How America Helped Pakistan Get the Bomb http://www.corbettreport.com/nuclear-secrets-how-america-helped-pakistan-get-the-bomb/   by James Corbet

Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani national, was working at a centrifuge production facility in the Netherlands in 1974 when he first offered his services to the Pakistani government to offer them help with their nuclear program. After convincing them to develop a uranium-based bomb, he began stealing nuclear designs from the Dutch company he was working for. What followed was a three decade affair in which Khan and the nuclear network he developed not only successfully helped Pakistan acquire the knowledge, equipment and materials to build their own bomb, but allegedly helped to proliferate that technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea as well.

As we explored in a previous edition of the Eyeopener, however, the Khan network was known about and actively protected from its very inception by the CIA.

Amongst the many pieces of evidence that come together to paint this picture of American involvement in helping to protect and even foster Khan’s proliferation network is the extraordinary story of former CIA analyst Richard Barlow, who, as a specialist in counter-proliferation in the 1980s, had a chance to discover and expose the shocking truth: that elements in the highest levels of the intelligence community, the state department, and even the White House knew about Pakistan’s procurement activities but actively turned a blind eye to them.

Shortly after joining the CIA in the mid-1980s, Barlow began amassing reams of evidence related to Pakistan’s nuclear activities. He quickly discovered, however, that senior government officials were actively working to suppress this information in direct violation of national and international proliferation protocols.

In the most egregious incident, Barlow and US Customs carefully developed a sting operation to catch Arshad Pervez, a Pakistani businessman, and Inam ul-Haq, a retired brigadier from the Pakistani army, attempting to purchase materials for a uranium centrifuge from a Pennsylvania company. Pervez was arrested, but ul-Haq, the main target, never arrived. Later, Barlow discovered cables proving that ul-Haq had been tipped off about the sting by high-ranking officials extremely close to the White House. Although the State Department did their best to cover up the incident, Congressman Stephen Solarz secured a closed congressional hearing on the issue at which Barlow was meant to testify about what had happened.

As Barlow told the Boiling Frogs podcast back in 2009, however, no one was interested in him actually telling the truth about what had happened.

Barlow bravely stuck to his guns and refused to mislead Congress on the details of what he had uncovered. As his reward, those offices in charge of America’s covert war in Afghanistan lined up to try and have him fired. Ultimately, he was vindicated: the Pakistani agents from Barlow’s sting operation were convicted and the Solarz Amendment was triggered. Immediately, however, Reagan issued a national security waiver and, in the words of Seymour Hersh, told Pakistan “that it could have its money and its bomb.”

Realizing he was now a marked man, Barlow left the CIA and took a position at the Pentagon, beginning work in the Pentagon’s Office of Non-Proliferation Policy on January 1, 1989 under incoming Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. Despite the fact that the Afghan war was over and the Cold War was all but finished, however, it wasn’t long before he encountered the exact same pressures as before with regards to Pakistan’s nuclear program. This time, the attempts to cover for Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities centered around a $1.6 billion General Dynamics contract for F-16s.

Barlow’s story is chilling because it exposes the grim truth that all of the platitudes and rhetoric about the dangers of proliferation spouted by Washington year after year is precisely that: platitudes and rhetoric. Despite the condescending lectures that are delivered at nuclear security summits about the reckless nature of the Iranian and North Koreans in their nuclear programs, the sober truth is that the world’s largest nuclear superpower has also been responsible for protecting the network that enabled the very proliferation that they now hypocritically seek to condemn.

In most cases, even most national security cases, corruption, hypocrisy and double dealing is dangerous and lamentable. But when it comes to nuclear security, it is the very fate of the planet that hangs in the balance. And what has come of the brave individual who stood up to some of the most powerful political figures in the world to speak the truth on this issue? After an intense smear campaign designed to destroy his personal and professional life, his marriage fell apart and he was unable to find employment in his field of work due to the revocation of his security clearance. In 2005, the authors of an A.Q. Khan biography were shocked to find Barlow living in motor home in Montana with his two dogs.

This is the plight of the whistleblower in the face of the American political establishment. And until the story of Barlow and others like him is exposed and examined with the same vigour that the media now reserves for celebrity scandals and political minutiae, absolutely nothing will change.

Nuclear Powered Cancer Clusters By Roger Witherspoon April 7, 2010 

To correct that unsubstantiated claim, the NRC has contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a two year study of both cancer incidence and mortality around former, current, and proposed nuclear reactor sites. The $5 million study, which is expected to take a year to design and two more years to complete, would be the first, comprehensive, government study of the health implications of the continuous release of radioactive into the air and water around nuclear facilities.

It would replace the 1990 study conducted for the NRC by
the National Institutes of Health – National Cancer Institute titled
“Cancer in Populations Living Near Nuclear Facilities.”  That study
concluded that the continuous release of radioactive gas, liquids, and
particles – both intentionally and accidentally – did not contribute
to the cancer mortality rates in the counties surrounding the 62
reactor sites housing 107 reactors. From an epidemiological
standpoint, that study was flawed in its conception and
implementation, and hampered by a dearth of data…….
Commercial nuclear power plants markedly differ from U.S. Navy
nuclear vessels in the way they handle radioactive emissions.  If Navy
vessels simply pumped their radioactive gasses into the air, in time
the accumulations in the ship would be so great that it would be a
multi billion dollar, radioactive, uninhabitable relic of a warship.
The Navy stores their waste until it can be properly disposed of. But
that is a cost commercial operations avoid.

The new NRC health impact study will look for cancers in
age groupings of 0-5, 0 – 10, 10 – 19, 20 – 39, 40 – 59, and 60 –
older years. It will study both the incidence and mortality from
Leukemia and A-Leukemia; Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas;
multiple myeloma; the digestive organs including stomach, colon,
rectum and liver; the trachea, bronchus and lungs; the prostate,
uterus and ovaries; breast, thyroid, bone and joints; bladder; brain
and central nervous system; and both benign and in-situ
neoplasms.http://spoonsenergymatters.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/nuclear-powered-cancer-clusters/

So Germany turning away from nuclear power is not a panicky reaction that endangers the country’s security of supply, more an important and well-integrated part of her transformation to use renewables exclusively.

Which is not to say that the Energiewende is without problems. Rising electricity bills and the costs of expanding many thousands of miles of transmission lines threaten to strain public acceptance. Rampant nimbyism and ecological and economic trade-offs have to be addressed; any plan for large offshore-wind farms that promise to provide efficient, renewable energy inevitably leads to conflicts with environmentalists.

Maintaining the power grid’s stability in a renewable-based system remains a challenge. But there is nothing to suggest that turning off nuclear power will jeopardise Germany’s clean energy vision. And where Germany leads, others may follow.http://theconversation.com/nuclear-futures-renewables-blossom-in-germanys-post-nuclear-vision-14364

Large Scale Energy Storage Roundup http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3755 23 May 13, 

As the world increasingly moves towards renewable energy; it will need many individual energy storage locations distributed across the grid to address issues of variability in electricity production.   The idea of a battery being a relatively small device or a series of small boxes cobbled together with wiring is changing fast. Batteries capable of storing huge amounts of energy are being developed using all sort of materials and technologies.
The following are just a few we’ve reported on in the past; some of which are have now been deployed in commercial applications:

- Lithium polysulfide flow battery
- Sodium ion battery
- “Rust” battery
- Zinc air
- Iron phosphate
- Lithium-air
- Molten salt
- Beltway
- Flywheel
- Iron based flow
- Vanadium based flow
- Liquid metal
- Silicon air

More recently, we’ve covered underground compressed air storage and pumped hydro has been around in various forms for many years. Here are a few more large energy storage systems that have recently been put on our radar.

Isentropic pumps heat from one tank of inert material (e.g. gravel) into another. One tank of gravel is cooled to -160°C while another is heated up to 500°C. The process is reversible with a round trip efficiency claimed to be 72-80%. Advantages include low cost materials, high reliability and durability.

Energy Cache uses ski-lift style structures to lift gravel up a hill. This is stored gravitational potential energy. Advantages include cheap materials, a simple process and materials don’t degrade over time.

Subhydro is also type of gravity storage, using the pressure of sites deep underwater. Water is pumped out of rigid underwater tanks to store energy, then allowed to flow back through water turbines to generate electricity.

Hydrostor is another type of gravity storage, using the pressure of sites deep underwater. Air is pumped into flexible underwater tanks to store energy, then released through air turbines when required to generate power.