After two and a half years of negotiations, just when it looked like Duke Energy would buy a portion of a new nuclear plant in South Carolina, the company announced it has cut off negotiations.
Duke had been looking to purchase a share of two nuclear units being built at the V.C. Summer station near Jenkinsville, South Carolina—one of the first new nuclear plants in decades, projected to cost roughly $10 billion. Duke began talks in 2011 with the minority owner, power company Santee Cooper for a 10 percent stake and looked poised to pull the trigger. Santee Cooper’s board voted today to sell a portion of the project.
But, it turns out, not to Duke and not 10 percent. It will transfer five percent to South Carolina utility SCG&E, which already owns the majority of project.
Duke filed a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has ended negotiations with Santee Cooper—a spokesman said the companies couldn’t agree to terms. Duke will continue to move forward with plans to build two new reactors at the Lee Nuclear Station in Cherokee County, South Carolina.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that it is conducting a special inspection at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern Maryland after an electrical malfunction caused the two reactors there to shut down.
The plant, which restarted both reactors over the weekend, suffered the shutdown after snow and ice during a storm Jan. 21 apparently affected a ventilation louver filter and caused a short circuit. After the electrical supply system shut down, so did several plant systems and components that rely on electricity, the nuclear regulatory agency said Monday.
Those components included motors for moving control rods and water circulating pumps for the Unit 2 reactor, the agency said. The main turbine control circuit for the Unit 1 reactor also malfunctioned after the electricity loss.
Both units shut down as a result, with “no impacts on public health and safety,” the agency said.
The three-person inspection team began working at the plant Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
“We want to gain a better understanding of the chain of events that caused both of the reactors to simultaneously shut down and equipment anomalies subsequent to the plant trips,” said Bill Dean, the commission’s administrator for the region that includes Maryland, in a statement. “This inspection is designed to shed additional light on not only why the outages happened but how the plant operators handled them.”
AConstellation Energy Nuclear Group spokesman said in an email that federal reviews after shutdowns are common, adding that the company welcomed the inspection at its plant.
If justice is served Tuesday, a federal judge will exercise leniency when he sentences Sister Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli for their non-violent protest at the Y-12 nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in July 2012.
The three peace activists did much more to raise awareness about the security gaps at Y-12 than any harm committed when they breached the compound’s outer fence.
Important lessons were learned about the nuclear weapons complex’s security failings and, more importantly, the failings were discovered through non-violent methods.
We hope the court will take into account that the only real impact their protest had was to expose the extremely flawed and dangerous security at Y-12.
Whilst Japans new secrecy law was being unveiled, under the noses of the big international NGO`s and Global press scrutiny (sort of), a little known Cancer Registration Law was quietly brought into being.
This registry law comes with teeth – up to a 2 year prison sentence for doctors or other health staff with the option for a huge fine (For the doctors). The law and its threatening posture means that the Law has really now begun and few if any cancer statistics will be released. Apart from coourageous japanese whistleblowers. We bloggers should all support their efforts to get the hidden truth out there to the masses.
Some debate on this is floating around the Japanese Blog scene. And I will attempt to recreate some of the comments here. I will also leave links and comments in Japanese for our Japanese viewers for further investigation;
The Cancer registration Law(がん登録法 ) had passed the lower house (It passed the Upper house sometime before) recently (6/12/13) along with the new secrets law. Doctors are complied with registering this information on their patients who have developed cancer.
They get of up to 1,000,000 yen fine or 2 years in the jail if they leak the data of their cancer patients. They said it’s going to take an effect from January in 2016 at the earliest.
The In this law all the hospitals in Japan are required to notify the specific “cancer registry “ department;
The details that will be passed exclusively to the secretive cancer registry are the ;
Names, birth dates, type of cancer , grade, treatment, and other valuable epidemiological research data.
In a recent court case in Tokyo a judge decided that it is perfectly legal, without giving the legal justification, for the Japanese police to collect all personal information on Muslims for no other reason than the fact they are Muslims.
CAIRO – A growing number of Japanese universities are offering halal meals in their menus to cater to the needs of the growing number of Muslim students.
“I’d been making my own meals until now, so this is helpful,” a 21-year-old student from Malaysia, eating a halal curry dish, told The Mainichi on Sunday, January 26.
The student was at the student cafeteria at the University of Yamanashi, where new items labeled with Halal stickers were added to the menu.
MIT Center for International Studies — Japan’s Continuing Nuclear Nightmare, Oct 24, 2013:
Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (at 31:00 in):
I kind of look at these [Chernobyl and Fukushima] and say these are similar in scale, we can argue about which one’s bigger. It was politically impossible, the first paper I wrote, for Japanese scientists to be co-author because I compared Fukushima to Chernobyl and that was considered not appropriate by his bosses at his institution. Buesseler during a recent radio interview: Fukushima released “100, or 50 to 80 petabecquerels” of cesium-137 in 2011 — Chernobyl total was 70 petabecquerelsWatch the presentations here
Jiji Press, Jan. 24, 2014: Tainted Water May Also Have Leaked from No. 1 Reactor at Fukushima N-Plant — Highly radioactive water accumulated in the basement of the turbine building of the No. 1 reactor […] may have contaminated groundwater, experts said Friday. […] TEPCO has explained that the groundwater may have been contaminated by highly radioactive water in underground cable tunnels of the No. 2 and 3 reactors […] however, 5,600 becquerels of radioactive tritium per liter was detected in groundwater taken on Sunday from an observation well near the turbine building of the No. 1 reactor. No radioactive tritium was detected in water collected in mid-November. […]
8 groundwater locations hit new highs for tritium since January 6 (Bq/liter):
Japanese nuclear power regulation does not require evacuation plan approval as a prerequisite for restarting nuclear power plants
No plan best plan in Kansai nuclear disaster Area leaders paralyzed by lack of answers, state guidance Japan Times, BY ERIC JOHNSTON 26 Jan 14 Ten months after regional governments were required to submit nuclear disaster evacuation plans, a lack of central government guidance and local-level cooperation is generating concern that Kansai will be ill-prepared to respond if any of Fukui Prefecture’s 13 commercial reactors suffers a meltdown.
Questions remain about how fleeing Fukui residents who pass through neighboring Kyoto would be stopped and screened for radiation, and how residents in the rural northern areas closest to the reactors would be gathered and evacuated in a timely manner. Evacuating the elderly, young mothers and the pregnant is also a serious concern.
There is also the question of what to do if Shiga’s Lake Biwa, which supplies drinking water to about 14.5 million people, gets contaminated with radiation.
Citizens’ groups have posed these and other detailed questions to prefectural officials in Kyoto and the Union of Kansai Governments, a loose federation of seven prefectures and four major cities in the region. But Kansai officials reply that, on many issues, there is little they can do because the central government hasn’t drafted specific guidelines…..
Kansai leaders recognize that more monitoring stations, particularly in northern Kyoto and Hyogo, are needed, but without guidance from the central government, as well as funding, there is little they can do.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has made restarting the nation’s nuclear reactors a primary goal. The discussions have focused mostly on the technical issues related to the plants and whether the fault lines surrounding them, or in some cases under them, are active.
Human Rights Watch chides China for enforcing highly repressive policies in Tibet http://tibet.net/2014/01/23/human-rights-watch-chides-china-for-enforcing-highly-repressive-policies-in-tibet-2/ DHARAMSHALA: China’s policies in Tibet once again came under criticism from Human Rights Watch, which says in annual report released on Tuesday that the Chinese government systematically suppresses Tibetan political, cultural, religious and socio-economic rights.
The Chinese government systematically suppresses Tibetan political, cultural, religious and socio-economic rights in the name of combating what it sees as separatist sentiment including non-violent advocacy for Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama’s return, or opposition to government policy, the report said.
“Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment remains common, and torture and ill-treatment in detention is endemic. Fair trials are precluded by politicised judiciary overtly tasked with suppressing separatism,” it said.
“The Chinese government carries out involuntary population relocation and rehousing on a massive scale, and enforces highly repressive policies in ethnic minority areas in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia,” Human Rights Watch said in its report.
“The government is also subjecting millions of Tibetans to a mass rehousing and relocation policy that radically changes their way of life and livelihoods, Continue reading →
“……LFTRs are theoretically capable of a high fuel burn-up rate, but while this may indeed reduce the volume of waste, the waste is more radioactive due to the higher volume of radioactive fission products. The continuous fuel reprocessing that is characteristic of LFTRs will also produce hazardous chemical and radioactive waste streams, and releases to the environment will be unavoidable. Spent fuel from any LFTR will be intensely radioactive and constitute high level waste.
The reactor itself, at the end of its lifetime, will constitute high level waste.
The UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) believes that considerable research, development and testing lies ahead before thorium fuels will be ready for operational use. As the NNL states, “Thorium reprocessing and waste management are poorly understood. The thorium fuel cycle cannot be considered to be mature in any area.” It estimates that 10-15 years work is required before thorium fuels will be ready for use in current reactor designs, and that their use in new types of reactor is at least 40 years away….”http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo43.pdf
“During the campaign we saw the impacts of climate change. We know those islands are among the most vulnerable to climate change.”The desire to more effectively conduct projects in the Pacific was also the reason the UAE signed the partnership arrangement with the New Zealand ministry of foreign affairs and trade.
At Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week last week, technology partnerships were signed with New Zealand and Denmark, and plans announced to give US$20 million (Dh73.4m) in aid to Pacific Island states.
Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, director of energy and climate change at the ministry, said clean energy had been identified as a major area of focus for UAE diplomacy. Dr Al Zeyoudi said the money would go to Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Continue reading →
Politicians and the deal’s numerous critics were shocked when the NDA awarded NMP the extension in October, despite a disastrous tenure during which Sellafield’s clean-up bill soared to over £70bn. The letters warn that a “re-baselining” of budgets will cause cost estimates to further spiral in April this year: “However presented, the extent of change was going to be extremely uncomfortable and difficult to sell.”
Nuclear chief’s despair over Sellafield firm NMP revealed in letters written by UK nuclear decommissioning boss The Independent, 26 Jan 14, Damning criticism of the consortium overseeing the expensive clean-up of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been revealed in a series of hostile letters written by John Clarke, head of the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Mr Clarke accused Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) of undermining confidence and damaging the entire project’s reputation, as well as criticising Tom Zarges, the consortium chairman, of setting “unduly conservative” targets. In one letter, written in November 2012, Mr Clarke attached slides that outlined the NDA’s frustrations with NMP’s decontamination work at the Cumbrian facility, including concerns about the “quality of leadership” and the “pace of change”, which it said “feels too slow”.
The content of the letters has added to the confusion over why NMP was recently asked to continue overseeing the clean-up of one of the world’s most hazardous nuclear sites until 2019. The correspondence, which was obtained under a Freedom of Information request, covers a 21-month period to November 2013. During this time NMP and the NDA were locked in discussions over a five-year extension to a contract that was originally awarded in 2008.
Politicians and the deal’s numerous critics were shocked when the NDA awarded NMP the extension in October, despite a disastrous tenure during which Sellafield’s clean-up bill soared to over £70bn. The letters warn that a “re-baselining” of budgets will cause cost estimates to further spiral in April this year: “However presented, the extent of change was going to be extremely uncomfortable and difficult to sell.”
The harsh tenor of the letters – one of which demanded “improved performance in a number of key areas, including schedule delivery” – adds weight to suggestions that Mr Clarke did not want NMP to continue at Sellafield. The NDA looked at bringing the decontamination back under the management of the public sector.
A critical 292-page report by the accountancy firm KPMG last year showed that nine of the 11 biggest projects on the site, including the construction of a storage facility for radioactive sludge, were a combined £2bn overbudget.
Seven were also behind schedule, while KPMG argued that the structure of NMP’s contract was “inappropriate” and was designed in a way that sought to “maximise shareholder returns”. NMP is a consortium of California-based URS, France’s Areva and British engineer Amec.
Going nuclear-and small-with new type of reactor, 27 Jan 14 “……….recent report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research cast doubt on the idea that SMRs could help revive the nuclear industry.
The think tank said small reactors “still present enormous financial risks,” citing the sector’s tendency to overrun on costs. It said the four reactors under construction were in part subsidized by taxpayers. The report said the mass production of SMRs could require $90 billion, and migrating from reactors to smaller modules “is a financial risk shell game, not a reduction in risk.
No matter where Uranium is mined on this planet the story is the same. The marketeers operate without conscience. Uranium should not be a marketable commodity.
Once fissioned the nuclear waste produced acts to decreate all of creation. It is lethal to all living things. It cannot be buried and forgotten because 90% of the biomass on this planet exists below ground. Therefore nuclear waste must be perpetually managed and contained above ground forever as it lasts forever. These are the reasons why I continue to call for the ABOLITION OF ALL NUCLEAR FISSIONING APPLICATIONS ASAP!
Still, French company Areva keeps contaminating those residents and their environment while mining away for uranium—one of the few resources the world’s poorest country still has. Continue reading →
WWII vet exposed to radiation wins fight with VA http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/WWII-vet-exposed-to-radiation-wins-fight-with-VA-5173107.phpKevin Fagan , January 24, 2014 MILLBRAE – John Brenan rolled his Jeep into freshly bombed Hiroshima in 1945 on a reconnaissance mission to see if there was any enemy left to fight. The only enemy the Army sergeant found in the miles of rubble pulverized by America’s atomic attack was the one he couldn’t see – radiation.
The fallout surrounded his body, and that is almost surely why he got colon cancer four decades later, his doctors told him. Brenan managed to beat the disease, but then came the follow-up battle – filing a disability claim with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
It took until last week for him to win that battle. And victory only came with the help of a member of Congress. Continue reading →
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