nuclear-news

Secrecy and deception about nuclear power plants

A growing number of plants are nearing the end of their operating lifetimes, and details about the security of existing facilities are classified. “The industry is hiding behind the 9/11 tragedy to withhold information—like which plants have failed tests…early last month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu agreed to classify nuclear as “clean energy” in hopes of wooing Republicans to pass an energy bill in 2011.

Flirting With Disaster,  Failing the Nuclear Security Test, Newsweek, 4 Jan 2011, Every few years the defenses of the nation’s nuclear plants are tested. What’s scary is how often they fail.”………….A growing number of plants are nearing the end of their operating lifetimes, and details about the security of existing facilities are classified. “The industry is hiding behind the 9/11 tragedy to withhold information—like which plants have failed tests and repairs that have been made—that should be available,” says David Lochbaum, a nuclear analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Worries are particularly acute because the nuclear-energy industry is experiencing a new era of growth. In his State of the Union address in 2010, President Obama asked Congress to consider nuclear power central to America’s pursuit of energy security. A month later he proposed $8 billion in loan guarantees to begin building a handful of new plants. “To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power,” he told a warehouse full of hard hats in Lanham, Md., in mid-February. Leading Democrats, who have generally resisted an expansion of nuclear facilities on safety grounds, were slow to agree. Then, early last month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu agreed to classify nuclear as “clean energy” in hopes of wooing Republicans to pass an energy bill in 2011.

Advanced technology has virtually eliminated the risk of accidental meltdowns, like the one at Chernobyl in 1986, adding repetitive safeguards that allow the plant to shut itself down if operators can’t. The bigger problem is the highly radioactive waste that is left over once most of the energy-producing juice has been sucked out of it.

Used nuclear fuel looks like a bunch of black ceramic pellets—each about the size of a Tootsie Roll. They’re a mix of uranium, plutonium, and several minor chemicals, and give off about 750 degrees Fahrenheit of heat. The raw material can’t be held, or easily stolen to make a dirty bomb. But America’s current system for storing nuclear waste—in giant cool-water pools and dry casks of cement, at the individual nuclear plants—means that ready-made dirty bombs already exist. An intruder draining the water from the pools could cause it to self-ignite and spread radiation through the air.

In a broad sense, the waste problem isn’t going away for a very, very long time. Spent fuel produced today will remain dangerously radioactive for about 10 millennia, until the year 12011, according to William Hurt, a spent-fuel engineer with the Idaho National Laboratory. Of the half a dozen nuclear scientists NEWSWEEK spoke with for this story, none were completely content with the current system of storage…..

January 8, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA