Exit Jackzo: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Free Fall

That’s a good thing.  The NRC is not doing the job that the law and common sense require it to do.  It is a captive of the nuclear industry, operates in secret and without due regard for the public health and safety. The NRC’s relationship to the nuclear industry today is just what the SEC’s relationship was to Wall Street four years ago.  We are skating on very thin ice.

The nomination of a
new chairman, with the public debate that will follow is the best way
to get it pointed in the right direction.

Full disclosure:  I’ve been active for many years in the efforts to
close Indian Point, because it’s dangerous in design and operation,
and within 50 miles of 22 million people, unlike any other American
reactor.  Those efforts have included litigation to force IP to stop
taking three billion gallons of water a day from the Hudson River and
returning it in polluted form, efforts to make the NRC adopt a real
and workable evacuation plan for the region, and federal litigation,
now before the courts, to stop the NRC from giving secret “exemptions”
to IP from its own safety rules.

The conventional response from the nuclear industry has been to try to
marginalize opponents by dismissing them as “anti-nuke activists.”
They’ve actually had some success at that, even as real events such as
Three Mile Island and Fukushima have reminded every American about the
realities of unsafe operation of nuclear plants.

But there’s a growing awareness among some proponents of nuclear
power, that a broken NRC actually hurts them as well.  There’s
enormous political and economic muscle behind attempts to build new
plants, with Obama in support, and taxpayer funded-corporate welfare
already in place.  But given the egregious behavior of the American
nuclear industry, and the NRC, there remains massive resistance to a
proliferation of new plants.  So, fixing the NRC to a point where it
enjoys the confidence of the American people turns out to be more than
the goal of those opposed to nuclear power, it is the only way that
“pro-nuke activists” can move forward.

Jackzo was in some ways trying to make that point.  He got into
trouble for a confrontational style, but in the end he was tanked by
the dinosaurs in the nuclear industry.  Their fond hope is to get a
new chairman who will protect and expand the practices at the NRC that
reduce their costs and endanger the American people.

Look at the issues the NRC really needs to decide.  Spent fuel storage
on reactor sites; spent fuel permanent storage; re-licensing of aged
and non-conforming reactors; inadequate evacuation plans; terrorist
attacks; earthquake protections; secret “exemptions” from safety
rules, and much, much more.

Who Obama nominates and what he says about the NRC will be things that
may get short shrift in an election year, but will do more to define
the physical and economic security of the American people than most of
what is now being debated.  Let’s recall the audacity of hope and hope
for some audacity.

 The story of polonium highlights the twists and turns made by an industry that puts profits above health, and continues to push a product that kills half of all its long-term users…….  

Tobacco Firms Have Failed to Act on Radioactivity in Cigarettes – Here’s Why HUFFINGTON POST UK, By Oliver Childs,  25/05/2012 It’s a plot worthy of Hollywood – a fatal radioactive poison, secret documents, suppressed information, and drugs.

But this isn’t fiction. This is the story of the tobacco industry’s knowledge, policy and inaction around radioactive material in cigarette smoke. And how it took a painstaking search through thousands of court-ordered documents to uncover exactly why tobacco firms are unwilling to remove this deadly radioactivity, despite knowing how for more than 30 years.
By their own admission, “creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it” is a strategy the tobacco industry has used effectively for decades, using smoke and mirrors to deflect mounting evidence of the deadly harm caused by their products.

As politicians and the public debate the merits of putting cigarettes in plain packaging to deter new young smokers, this particular story should serve as a timely reminder of how Big Tobacco operates when faced with the possibility of falling profits…….

In 1964, two scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health published a landmark study that revealed that a radioactive element called polonium in cigarettes could be “significant” in the development of lung cancer.

But how does this radioactive chemical get into tobacco in the first place?

There are two main routes. Some tobacco plants are grown using fertilisers that contain apatite, a group of minerals that becomes contaminated with radioactive lead phosphate, the ‘parent’ of polonium. The plants absorb this radioactivity from the fertiliser.

Tobacco plants also absorb tiny dust particles from the air that are loaded with small amounts of radioactive material, including polonium and other radioactive elements that eventually decay into it. These radioactive dust particles clump onto the sticky, hair-like projections (called trichomes) that thickly cover both sides of tobacco leaves.

Cigarettes deliver dangerously concentrated doses of radioactivity directly into the lungs. When smokers inhale, the radioactive particles damage lung tissue, creating ‘hot spots’ of damage.

Other chemicals in cigarette smoke damage the lung’s cleaning systems, which would normally get rid of gunk in our airways. So the particles build up over time. These localised build-ups lead to far greater and longer exposures to radiation than people would usually get from natural sources.

Autopsies of smokers have shown that cancer often develops where these polonium-induced hot spots of damage occur.

The evidence for the cancer-causing effects of radioactive polonium in tobacco smoke is strong. But instead of addressing these findings in public, the tobacco industry turned to denial and cover-ups……

the industry was aware of the presence of higher than background levels of radioactivity in tobacco five years before the wider scientific community had published any research on the topic. In 1959, a Canadian health official – by a quirk of fate called Mr Ash – wrote to tobacco company Philip Morris to ask whether tobacco should be regulated as a “radioactive substance”, and suggested a way to remove up to a third of the radioactive dose from cigarettes.

But this letter was “summarily dismissed” by the tobacco company, according to Professor Karagueuzian.

Second, in the 1960s the industry went on to build an in-depth knowledge about the effects of polonium on smokers. They not only knew of potential cancerous growth in the lungs of regular smokers, but even accurately calculated how much radiation a long-term smoker would take in.

And despite knowing how to remove the deadly radioactivity for several decades, the industry was “unshakable and adamant with respect to its policy of silence, denial, obfuscation, and rebuttal to any and all from of news about tobacco radioactivity”.

The reason? Professor Karagueuzian is convinced profit underpinned this silence and denial……

The term free-basing has more commonly been associated with cocaine addiction, where users seeking a more intense effect from the drug convert it from its normal form to its more intense free-base form.

Free-basing is about giving addicts a drug ‘kick’ as quickly and efficiently as possible. It’s not hard to imagine why an industry that relies on addicts being hooked on their deadly products would resist a process that reduces the effect of their key drug……

The story of polonium highlights the twists and turns made by an industry that puts profits above health, and continues to push a product that kills half of all its long-term users…….  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/oliver-childs/tobacco-firms-have-failed_b_1541908.html

Servetnik accuses the authorities of using the Interior Ministry’s anti-terror police, known as Center E, to spy on his small group based in Murmansk.

ecologists persuaded authorities in Volgodonsk, southern Russia, to hold round table talks on the planned power increase of one reactor at the Rostov nuclear plant. In the Kaliningrad exclave, opposition is mounting to the planned 2016 launch of a new reactor at the Baltic plant. 

Nuclear-Strength Kola TOL Special Report: In Russia’s northwest, a scrappy bunch of young environmentalists faces off against a powerful nuclear lobby. By Alexander Tretyakov  reporter for SOTV, a publicly funded Internet television channel in Moscow. 24 May 2012 This is the fourth in a series of articles on the state of the environment in Russia.

MOSCOW | Murmansk Oblast in northern Russia has one of the highest
concentrations of nuclear energy on earth. Nuclear submarines and
icebreakers of the Russian Northern Fleet sail the White and Barents
seas, and the Kola nuclear power plant is still going strong nearly 40
years after its first reactor hummed into life.

Russia’s nuclear industry is due for a massive expansion under a
government plan to increase nuclear’s share in national power
production. Russia has shown no sign of wavering on nuclear power in
the wake of last year’s Fukushima disaster, …..
On Murmansk Oblast’s Kola peninsula, however, nuclear backers face one
of the strongest environmental organizations in Russia. For more than
10 years, Vitaly Servetnik and other activists at Priroda i molodezh
(Nature and Youth) have battled attempts to build new reactors and
extend the life of existing ones at the Kola nuclear plant, carrying
out more than 100 protest campaigns, with more success than some of
their fellow campaigners elsewhere in Russia. Campaigners took heart
when several years ago local government seemed to be warming to their
enthusiasm for wind power and other forms of renewable energy.

“The Kola nuclear plant is in a critical state,” said Andrei
Ozharovsky, a nuclear physicist and expert with the Bellona
Foundation. The Norwegian-based environmental group has long been
critical of Russia’s heavy reliance on nuclear power in the far north.
“Although the plant has some of the oldest reactors, there are plans
to increase the output of Unit 4 by 7 percent.”

The two oldest reactors at Kola have been in operation since the
1970s. Unit 4 went online in 1984. All four units are
pressurized-water reactors, similar to those used in many countries,
but Russia is the only country that still uses graphite-moderated RBMK
reactors such as the one that exploded at Chernobyl. Eleven RBMK units
are still in operation at the Kursk, Leningrad, and Smolensk power
plants. Anti-nuclear campaigners can boast of one victory in the
post-Fukushima era: Russia’s state nuclear energy conglomerate Rosatom
said in March it was stopping work on a fifth RBMK reactor at the
Kursk plant which had been under construction since 1985, a year
before the Chernobyl disaster…….
Servetnik accuses the authorities of using the Interior Ministry’s
anti-terror police, known as Center E, to spy on his small group based
in Murmansk.

“The most active members of our organization are under surveillance
by Center E,” he said in a recent interview.

“The pressure increased after 4 March,” he said, in a reference to the
day Vladimir Putin was elected to a third term as president. “This may
be connected with the participation of members of the group, as well
as my own, in activities of the regional Golos [election monitoring
group].”

Despite the pressure, over the years activists from Nature and Youth
and the allied Kola Environmental Center have thrown a number of
wrenches into the plans of the nuclear lobby. In 2006, Servetnik and
colleagues from Nature and Youth challenged Rosatom’s bid to expand
the nuclear plant, partly to service a power-hungry aluminum smelter.
They managed to persuade Rosatom head Sergei Kirienko to meet with
them. It turned out to be the last time Kirienko met members of the
group, but the expansion plan was shelved. ……
“It is impossible to get support for anti-nuclear projects on the
regional level, because they are not considered to be
socially-oriented activities,” Servetnik said. “Picking up garbage and
planting trees are always welcome, but discussing energy policies is
not. It is also difficult to get into the local media. Coverage of our
activities has been reduced in the past few years.”

Fortunately for local environmentalists, Scandinavia with its
comparatively powerful anti-nuclear groups lies just across the
border. Opposition to expansion of the Kola plant has been spearheaded
by Nature and Youth’s parent group and by Bellona, both based in
Norway. Anti-nuclear groups elsewhere in Russia are more isolated and
their protests are generally more muted. Nevertheless, ecologists
persuaded authorities in Volgodonsk, southern Russia, to hold round
table talks on the planned power increase of one reactor at the Rostov
nuclear plant. In the Kaliningrad exclave, opposition is mounting to
the planned 2016 launch of a new reactor at the Baltic plant……..
local environmentalists still see the Kola nuclear plant as the main
obstacle blocking development of wind and other alternative energy
sources. As long as nuclear is king on the peninsula, local
authorities will not even consider licensing alternative power plants,
Bellona’s Ozharovsky ­charges
http://www.tol.org/client/article/23174-nuclear-strength-kola.html

 70 percent of firms are prepared to cooperate on power saving to the same degree as last summer

Three-quarters of Japanese firms oppose nuclear power, Chicago Tribune, by Tetsushi Kajimoto, TOKYO (Reuters) 25 May 12- Nearly three-quarters of Japanese companies support abandoning nuclear power after last year’s Fukushima disaster, although a majority set the condition that alternative energy resources must be secured, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.

The poll offers fresh evidence of the deep public distrust of nuclear
power, the role of which the government is reconsidering after the
March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima nuclear
plant, triggering a radiation crisis that caused mass evacuations and
widespread contamination.

All of the country’s 50 nuclear reactors are now off-line, with those
halted for maintenance checks since Fukushima prevented from
restarting as a result of public safety fears, and shortfalls in power
supply are being met by the use of costly fossil fuels and
energy-saving steps.

The government is struggling to finalize a revamp of Japan’s energy
program, which previously called for an increase in the use of nuclear
power to meet 50 percent of the nation’s electricity needs. The figure
stood at about 30 percent before the crisis, and options in the
revised policy are seen ranging from zero to 35 percent by 2030.

“Companies are already coping with the situation where all nuclear
reactors have gone off-line so the survey’s result seems to reflect
such reality,” said Taro Saito, director of economic research at NLI
Research Institute in Tokyo…….
The latest poll, taken alongside the monthly Reuters Tankan survey,
suggests big companies are less wedded to nuclear power than Japan’s
biggest business lobby, Keidanren’s , position suggests.

Critics of Keidanren, including Hiroshi Mikitani, president of virtual
mall operator Rakuten Inc, accuse the business lobby of protecting the
utility firms….. Critics accuse utilities of exaggerating potential
power shortages in order to win public support to restart off-line
reactors, beginning with two at Kansai Electric’s Ohi plant in Fukui.

The poll also showed 70 percent of firms are prepared to cooperate on
power saving to the same degree as last summer, with 24 percent
willing to cooperate to a lesser extent.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-japan-nuclear-pollbre84o08j-20120524,0,2801937.story

how did governments around the world, citizens like us around the world, science and the nuclear industry, turn a blind eye to the huge

the nuclear waste dangers will remain for thousands of years, longer than civilization itself. And right next to the largest fresh-water lake system in the world.

Nuclear waste, tourism don’t mix http://www.lfpress.com/comment/2012/05/25/19800186.html By WAYNE MACDONALD,  May 26, 2012  A packed council chambers in Saugeen Shores, where I live, stood in stunned amazement as its local council- once again – took a huge step toward changing the face of this lakeside community with no discussion, no debate. Absolutely none.

One councillor later explained that council was at fault for not explaining to the people that there was no need for discussion. What council had done was move the community another step forward in its still-puzzling anxious desire to become Canada’s high-level nuclear waste dump site.

No need for discussion? When, I wonder, would there be a need for discussion?
Many people in London, Middlesex County, Stratford, and the scattering
of small towns, villages, and townships in the area are familiar with
the Lake Huron shoreline. The tourism, family, education and health
care ties are strong. Bruce County and the entire Lake Huron
shoreline, from Grand Bend north to Tobermory rely heavily on this
area for its tourism economy. Londoners are among the 40 million
people who rely on the Great Lakes for their water supply.

So, if you’re not aware that three municipalities in Bruce County and
a fourth in Huron County are in a struggle to win the affection of
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), you should be.

The result could mean that more than two million used nuclear fuel
bundles will be buried not far from where you live.

The counties have spent millions positioning themselves as Ontario’s
natural retreat and Ontario’s West Coast and millions more attracting
visitors to come here to enjoy the lake, the beaches, the natural
environment, the fishing rivers and streams, the cottages.

Suddenly, these towns and their municipal council soul mates have
taken a sharp turn from their vision of what is right. The questions
remain: How did this new direction come about? What is the new agenda?
Who will dissect the exaggerated benefits of the nuclear waste
organization? Who will examine the risks? Who will tell us the truth?

The back story, as I think some would say in today’s journalism, is
how did governments around the world, citizens like us around the world, science and the nuclear industry, turn a blind eye to the huge
buildup of nuclear waste for more than 40 years as we enjoyed the
fruits of nuclear power.
The only solution remains a primitive one: bury it. The proponents of
the deep geological repository (that’s what the NWMO calls it) will
quarrel with that characterization as they also quarrel with use of
the word “dump.” So I will allow that it will be a very fancy hole in
the ground.

But the nuclear waste dangers will remain for thousands of years, longer than civilization itself. And right next to the largest fresh-water lake system in the world.

In the absence of debate, transparency and independent benefit/risk
analysis, many questions remain:

When so much is at stake, how can a “host community” be defined by the
narrow boundaries of small-town Ontario, like Saugeen Shores,
Brockton, Huron Kinloss, South Bruce and Central Huron?

When and how does a host community become “willing?”

Apart from the untested health and safety risks, what about stigma?
Many Canadians are familiar with the Yucca Mountain fiasco in the U.S.
where several studies and the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld a jury
decision to award damages for perceived loss of property values based
on public perception of fear, fear of the transportation of high-level
nuclear waste. None of this is accounted by the NWMO.

Even the North American Free Trade Agreement raises the question of
whether a national repository could be open to storage of U.S. used
nuclear fuel.

Still, nuclear waste needs a solution. Bruce Power in Kincardine will
soon announce the restart of two reactors, making it the largest
nuclear power facility in the world. Along with that achievement,
though, is the on-site storage of 40% or more of Canada’s lethal
high-level nuclear waste. And with expanded capacity the spent fuel
pile will continue to grow.

Many technical experts, including the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, raise the idea of storage in a permanent repository in a
central area with low population density. Doesn’t sound like Southern
Ontario.

Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Ready for a Fukushima-Like Meltdown?  PBS Newshour 25 May 12, When Chairman Gregory Jaczko resigned from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week, reports suggested it was linked to battles within the commission over safety requirements. Miles O’Brien reports on how government regulators in the U.S. set the safety bar for nuclear plants……

DAVE LOCHBAUM, Union of Concerned Scientists: The biggest concern I
have had with the NRC over the years I have been monitoring them is
lack of consistency.

MILES O’BRIEN: Dave Lochbaum is a nuclear engineer who spent 17 years working for the industry before publicly blowing the whistle on safety concerns and joining the Union of Concerned Scientists, which just
released an eye-opening report on the NRC and nuclear plant safety in
the U.S. in 2011.

It documents 15 near-misses, many occurring because reactor owners
either tolerated known safety problems or took inadequate measures to
correct them; problems with safety-related equipment that increased
the risk of damage to the nuclear core; recognized, but unresolved
problems that often cause significant safety-related events at nuclear
power plants or increase their severity.

And it says NRC inspectors all too often focus just on a specific
problem, not its underlying cause.

DAVE LOCHBAUM: I think the challenge the NRC has is, when something
happens, it’s easy to convince people they need to spend money,
prevent the next one. But when something hasn’t happened yet and it’s
just a postulated event or a hypothetical disaster, it’s more
difficult to get people to pony up millions of dollars to fix the
hypothetical problem….
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june12/nrc_05-25.html

The undeclared war on Iran’s nuclear program, PAUL KORING TEHRAN—  Globe and Mail  May. 25, 2012

No group or nation has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks on Iranian scientists. The killings are clearly part of a deliberate campaign. Some in the West see them as justified in the broader effort to deny a nuclear arsenal to Iran’s bellicose leaders……
the series of attacks on Iranian scientists like Mr. Rezaeinejad, most
in broad daylight and in conspicuously public places in the capital,
are widely regarded as a bloodier tactic in an undeclared war that
aims to wreak havoc on Iran’s nuclear program. A parallel
cyber-warfare campaign introduced the so-called Stuxnet virus, which
reportedly sent Iranian centrifuges used to enrich uranium spinning
out of control to their own destruction, is another…..
Some Iranians, including those who are usually at odds with the
government, say that if American scientists were being killed in
Washington by motorcycle bombers, there would be great furor and clear
cries of terrorism…..
Suspicion here, and elsewhere, has fallen on Israel, which has its own
nuclear weapons and has threatened air strikes against Iran’s nuclear
sites. Israel has not denied involvement in the attacks on Iranian
scientists. ….
A 24-year-old man named Majid Jamali Fashi was hanged in Tehran’s Evin
Prison this month after being convicted in the murder of Massoud
Ali-Mohammadi, a physics professor at Tehran University. At his trial
last summer, Mr. Fashi admitted to travelling to Tel Aviv and being
trained by the Mossad. Some believe his testimony was coerced. But
three months ago, the American television network NBC reported that
U.S. officials, speaking on background, said that the Mossad, Israel’s
intelligence agency, has trained Iranian exiles from MEK for the
assassination campaign.

The targeted assassinations are clearly effective in instilling fear.
Killing leading scientists, whether or not they are actually involved
in a covert nuclear-weapons program, does have a chilling impact and
makes it more difficult for the regime to recruit anyone to national
security research efforts, an Iranian official here admitted, speaking
on condition of anonymity.

Prof. Ali-Mohammadi, for instance, had lived in fear for years that he
would be targeted, his widow told The Globe and Mail in an
interview…….
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-undeclared-war-on-irans-nuclear-program/article2444182/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%2

China to spend $27bn on energy efficiency and renewables Country plans to promote solar and wind power and develop hybrid technologies to cut carbon emissions guardian.co.uk,   25 May 2012

The country’s finance ministry said it wants to promote energy-saving products, solar and wind power and accelerate the development of renewable energy and hybrid cars…..

In the long term, China is targeting to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40-45% by 2020, compared with 2003 levels and aims to boost its use of renewable energy to 15% of overall energy consumption.

Negotiators from over 180 nations are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until Friday to work towards getting a new global climate pact signed by 2015. The aim is to ensure ambitious emissions cuts are made after the Kyoto protocol expires at the end of this year. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/25/china-renewable-energy-carbon-emissions

“When the regulator does not follow its own rules, don’t expect that

Nuclear Regulatory Commission OKs new 20-year license for Pilgrim nuke plant, Boston Herald, By Associated Press,  May 25, 2012 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the renewal of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s operating license for another 20 years, the agency announced Friday, despite objections from Gov. Deval Patrick and other Massachusetts officials. The commission voted 3-1 to
authorize staff to renew the license before June 8, when the original
40-year license of the Plymouth, Mass., facility was set to expire.

Patrick called the NRC’s decision “extremely troubling.” He and other
officials, including Attorney General Martha Coakley and U.S. Reps.
Edward Markey and William Keating, had called on the NRC hold off on
renewal until all safety and environmental contentions had been
resolved. The commission approved an earlier staff recommendation to
relicense the plant, even though some issues regarding its operation
were still under review.

Outgoing commission chairman Gregory Jaczko cast the dissenting vote,…..
Mary Lambert, an anti-Pilgrim activist from Duxbury, said granting the
license before the hearing process was completed was like ending a
football game in the middle of the fourth quarter.

“When the regulator does not follow its own rules, don’t expect that
it will require the nuclear industry to do so either. Fukushima showed
what happen,” said Lambert, who heads the group PilgrimWatch.

Critics had also raised concerns about plant security and emergency
planning, and how relicensing would affect Atlantic sturgeon and river
herring, which swim nearby the plant and are protected under the
federal Endangered Species Act.
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20120525nuclear_regulatory_commission_approves_new

U.S., allies may drop demand that Iran completely halt uranium enrichment By Sahar Issa — McClatchy Newspapers, May 23, 2012;  

…….The proposals also contained incentives for Iran, but it wasn’t
clear whether the six powers had offered to ease far-reaching
sanctions that have sharply hurt Iran’s economy or to suspend a cutoff
of purchases of Iranian oil that’s due to go into effect July 1.

Iran, which says that its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful
purposes, cautiously welcomed the six-power proposal.

“The ideas fielded to us speak of the fact that the other side would
like to make Baghdad a success,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Salehi said in Tehran. “We hope that in a day or two we can bring good
news.”…….http://www.macon.com/2012/05/23/2036306/us-allies-may-drop-demand-that.html