The week that was in nuclear news
Please note – dirty tricks department. If you saw the Twitter note, (by pro thorium nuclear troll “Thomas Huxley”)- saying that my posts here are contaminated by a Trojan virus – that is simply not true. It’s a lie – aimed at stopping people from reading anti nuclear material.
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
Pope Francis goes all out for nuclear disarmament
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) – the nuclear lobby’s desperate delusion
Fukushima. TEPCO abandons the failed robot stuck inside Fukushima nuclear reactor. Japan mulls releasing radiation into air, instead of water – evaporation instead of Pacific ocean drainage. Highly Contaminated WaterRemains in Unit 1 Basement.
China. Wind power rising fast in China, once again producing more electricity than nuclear power is. Nuclear reprocessing not going at all well. China’s new nuclear reactors lack required modern safety features
USA. Fears of a nuclear Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) cause Pentagon to re-open Cheyenne mountain bunker. Issues of anger and violence – in commander in charge of moving nuclear bombs. Michigan lawmaker urges Congress to oppose Canada’s waste dump plan near Lake Huron. Federal Judge OKs Uranium Mining Next to Grand Canyon National Park. Steady fall in support for nuclear power among American public.
UK. Debate on whether or not Britain should have its own Trident nuclear arsenal
Canada. Local opposition to nuclear waste dumping seems to work. Vancouver the latest of 50 cities to commit to100% renewable energy.
Taiwan‘s nuclear waste storage problem may cause early retirement of nuclear reactor
Turkey. Agressive pro nuclear propaganda in Turkey (a taste of what’s to come, globally?)
India‘s government acts to cut off funding for Greenpeace: freezes its bank accounts
Financial success for investors who dumped holdings in coal, gas and oil
Wind power rising fast in China, once again producing more electricity than nuclear power is
Wind Power Beats Nuclear Again in China. Earth Policy Institute
J. Matthew Roney. 5 Mar 15 China, the country that is building more nuclear reactors than any other, continued to get more electricity from the wind than from nuclear power plants in 2014. This came despite below-average wind speeds for the year. The electricity generated by China’s wind farms in 2014—16 percent more than the year before—could power more than 110 million Chinese homes.
China added a world record 23 gigawatts of new wind power capacity in 2014, for a cumulative installed capacity of nearly 115 gigawatts (1 gigawatt = 1,000 megawatts). Some 84 percent of this total—or 96 gigawatts—is connected to the grid, sending carbon-free electricity to consumers.
As China’s wind power installations took off in the mid-2000s, electric grid and transmission infrastructure expansion could not keep pace. But the situation is improving: China is building the world’s largest ultra-high-voltage transmission system, which is connecting remote, wind-rich northern and western provinces to the more populous central and eastern ones. At the same time, the government is providing incentives for wind farm development in less-windy areas nearer to population centers. Advances in wind power technology can allow greater capture of energy in spots without the strongest wind resources.wind resources.
China’s wind power goal is to have 200 gigawatts connected to the grid by 2020. According to China’s National Energy Administration, the country has some 77 gigawatts of wind capacity now under construction, bringing this goal that much closer to being realized. Efforts to bolster the grid and connect more turbines are reducing the amount of potential wind generation lost each year due to curtailment, when turbines must stop producing because the grid cannot take on any more electricity. Since 2012, the rate of this curtailment at China’s wind farms has dropped by more than half; however, further improvements are still needed……..ttp://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights50 http://www.environmental-expert.com/news/wind-power-beats-nuclear-again-in-china-472349
TEPCO to abandon the failed robot stuck inside Fukushima nuclear reactor
Fukushima Containment Robot To Be Abandoned Inside, Simply Info http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=14680 April 12th, 2015
TEPCO announced that the robot stuck in containment will not be recovered. They will send a team into the reactor building today to cut the cable for the robot and leave it in containment. Entry of the second robot was postponed. TEPCO has not made the data collected by the first robot public yet……..
Why China should avoid the doubtful dream of commercial nuclear reprocessing
Reprocessing in China: A long, risky journey, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 15 Hui Zhang“………Should China continue pursuing its plans for fast breeder reactors and commercialized reprocessing? Good reasons exist for avoiding this course of action. First, because most of China’s power reactors are newly built, Beijing will face little pressure over the next two decades to reduce its spent fuel burden. And spent fuel can be stored safely, at low cost, in dry casks—or disposed of safely in a deep geological repository.
Second, China faces no shortage of uranium resources for the foreseeable future. The nation’s identified resources more than tripled between 2003 and 2012, to 265,500 metric tons from 77,000 metric tons. China’s potential uranium reserves amount to more than 2 million tons. Beijing in recent times has also secured huge overseas uranium resources—about three times as large as its own identified uranium reserves. More such reserves could easily be added.
In any event, the cost of uranium accounts for only a small percentage of the cost of power that reactors generate. Simply put, the cost of uranium will not increase in the foreseeable future to levels that would justify the cost of reprocessing and breeder reactors. To the extent that China is concerned about potential disruptions in its uranium supply, it could easily and inexpensively establish a “strategic” uranium stockpile.
China should carefully examine the experiences of nations that have launched large reprocessing programs and built demonstration breeder reactors in the expectation that the commercialization of these reactors would follow. Commercialization did not follow in those countries—but huge expenses were incurred for cleaning up reprocessing sites and disposing of separated plutonium. For China, there is no urgent need to go down this risky road.
Plutonium recycling is much more expensive, and much less safe and secure, than operating light water reactors with a once-through fuel cycle. As for nuclear waste, dry cask storage is a safe, flexible, and low-cost option that can postpone for decades the need either to reprocess spent fuel or to dispose of it directly—allowing time for technology to develop. China has no convincing rationale for rushing to build commercial-scale reprocessing facilities or plutonium breeder reactors. http://thebulletin.org/reprocessing-poised-growth-or-deaths-door8185
The grim facts on the unsafety of Davis Besse, Columbia, Diablo, New York and other nuclear power stations
The Real Nuclear Threats, CounterPunch 12 Apr 15 by MIRIAM GERMAN “……….These are just some of the facts about Davis-Besse.
● Because it was built in a flood plain, a 1972 Lake Erie storm caused massive flooding of the entire construction site including the pre-operational reactor.
● In October 1977, a relief valve stuck.
● Uranium fuel must be submerged in water (coolant) at all times to prevent a meltdown. In June 1985, Davis Besse had a loss-of-feedwater accident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission closed the plant for a year.
● A June 1998 tornado caused loss of external electric power.
● In March 2002, neglected, leaking boric acid in the coolant water had eaten through more than seven inches of the steel reactor lid, leaving only a 3/16″ liner to prevent radiation release. The plant closed for two years, costing ratepayers $600 million. Davis-Besse was fined $33.5 million, the largest in NRC history.
● The corroded lid was replaced before restart in 2004, but in 2010, cracks were found in this new lid, forcing its replacement in 2011.
● To replace aging, deteriorating, damaged parts, an unprecedented four large cuts have been made through the Davis-Besse concrete shield building which prevents release of radiation. Starting in 2011, cracks and voids were discovered in the building’s concrete.
Moniz must look over here, below his feet on US ground, to recognize and acknowledge the bomb fields laying in wait that you still believe are safe, inexpensive and necessary, but which I call ancient relics of poor technology based on the idiocy of a few terrible ideas by self-important arrogant fools who believed nukes would save the world but would instead, kill the very Earth we inhabit. What side of the gambling table are you on? Remember, the cards have already been shown. Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island. Hanford.
There is no peaceful nuke and there is no peace with nukes. There is only a mirage.
Columbia Generating Station. Richland, WA. Located on the Columbia River. CGS was built on twelve fault lines. It was not known at the time but now we have facts. It is not built to withstand an earthquake of the 9.0 magnitude the NW is expecting any day. Not even close. With facts, we are armed with the ability to make changes for the sake of humanity. But we only care about being armed for war. There is no containment around the CGS fuel pool. The fuel pool is five stories high. Think Fukushima. Really. Think Fukushima. CGS is the same kind of nuclear reactor as Fukushima. CGS sits ten miles from 56 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste at Hanford. If a meltdown or explosion happens at CGS, it will take Hanford with it. There will be no way to get in to the area to clean it up due to the massively high levels of radiation. The Columbia River flows directly into the Pacific. CGS has problems with the monitoring stacks just about every two to three weeks. They cannot monitor levels of radiation going into the environment from the plant properly without these stacks. On top of all of this, we have records of drug abuse from managers and workers at the plant caught stoned or drunk during surprise drug testing, so many records that we have a spreadsheet that we add to periodically. Would you like to live near CGS?
Where is the IAEA? They are waiting to be flown to Iran.
Diablo Canyon. Corruption. PG&E. Water Bureau. Illegal dumping of hot water into the Pacific. Fault lines. To see a photo of the fault lines at the base of Diablo Canyon and on out just a bit into the ocean off the coast of California is to understand a vision of insanity……..
New York City. Home to well over eight million people and the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, just twentyfive miles from the Bronx. Here we have a known leaking nuke plant but the IAEA and all of their grave concerns about safety in Iran can be found no where close to home. Indian Point leaks Tritium. Do you know how bad it is to have that in the ground water, drinking water or rivers and lakes? The Big Apple can turn to molten corium as far as the IAEA, the DOE and the NRC are concerned.
Let’s mention MOX fuel since Kerry and Moniz talk so much lately about oversight and care and safety and transparency from the IAEA to Iran. Plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons can get used as fuel in nuke plants creating more heat and radioactivity than uranium if it explodes while causing twice as many civilian cancers as the same explosion using uranium. Fact: MOX fuel is the easiest type of fuel to explode; it is the Viagra for nuclear weapons. Yet knowing that it’s the easiest to explode, nuclear engineers still decided to put MOX fuel into nuclear power plants. Pure insanity…….
Miriam German is the director of RadCast.org. She founded No Nukes NW in 2012. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/10/the-real-nuclear-threats/
Business realities are catching up with climate denialists
There’s even a fierce battle brewing in Florida between the Koch brothers and a free market Tea Party group pushing for solar power—a clear sign that, as with gay marriage, there is no longer just one single monolithic conservative position. Continue reading
Fears of a nuclear Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) cause Pentagon to re-open Cheyenne mountain bunker
EMP Nuclear Attack Fears Have US Reopen Cheyenne Mountain, ARUTZ SHEVA Israel International News, By Mark Langfan 4/11/2015, Days after Iran deal, Pentagon acts fearing nuclear missile attack that would burn out America’s electronic-based defenses. The Pentagon has decided to reopen the Cheyenne Mountain Air Defense facility, which housed the heart of America’s air and missile defense of North America. The facility had been mothballed in a “cost-saving” move in 2006.
Last week, Admiral William Gortney, head of US NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and US Northern Command, reversed that decision and announced the Pentagon was spending an opening ante of $700 million to oversee reactivation of the Cheyenne mountain-embedded facility.
The reason – the Pentagon’s fears of a nuclear Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack by a missile that would burn out America’s overly-dependent defense, which is based on modern electronics.
US NORAD and US Northern Command aren’t just acronyms. They represent the last-ditch American defense of the continental United States homeland. NORAD originally stood for North America Air Defense Command, but now stands for North American Aerospace Command. US Northern Command is the area-specific designation of the US military command that is responsible for the continental United States homeland.
Given the current US military fear of an inter-continental ballistic (ICBM) missile attack with an EMP nuclear-device, Admiral Gortney explained that “because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain’s built, it’s EMP-hardened. And so, there’s a lot of movement [in the Pentagon] to put [military] capability into Cheyenne Mountain and to be able to communicate in there.”
In early 2013, this author warned against a similar Iranian “Fatwa-compliant” EMP attack against Saudi Arabia, and a North Korea EMP attack against South Korea.
In an even more startling admission, Admiral Gortney revealed that his “primary concern” was whether the Pentagon was “going to have the space inside the [Cheyenne] mountain for everybody who wants to move in there, and I’m not at liberty to discuss who’s moving in there.”
The Cheyenne mountain bunker is a half-acre cavern that was carved into a mountain in the 1960s that was originally designed to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. During the Cold War, the United States feared a Soviet nuclear attack scenario that would feature an opening Soviet “EMP decapitation” nuclear attack.
Such a nuclear attack was not the launch of a massive Soviet nuclear first-strike against American cities, but instead, a first-strike Soviet “EMP decapitation” attack that would explode a nuclear device high-above the United States, burning out all of America’s command and control communication systems, and thus severing America’s President from being able to order the US military to retaliate.
By first electronically destroying America’s communications systems, the Soviets would thus have “decapitated” the US’s ability to respond to a secondary more massive follow-on Soviet nuclear attack on American cities.
Thus, a successful Soviet nuclear EMP attack on the US would have “trumped” the concept of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, because America would have been unable to retaliate and destroy the Soviet Union in response to a Soviet nuclear attack.
During the Cold War, airmen stationed inside the massive complex were poised to send warnings and firing codes that could trigger the launch of America’s vast web of nuclear missiles. Now, in light of the latest nuclear EMP dangers hanging over the United States, the US military, and the United States of America- itself, once again hopes to be protected by the mountains of Colorado…….http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193883#.VSrsY9yUcnk
America’s nuclear facilities are like nuclear bombs – just waiting to go off
While all eyes are on Israel and Iran, I’d like to bring the focus back home not just to where I live on the West Coast of the United States where Diablo Canyon and the Columbia Generating Station have been given free reign by the very same Ernest Moniz to continue wreaking havoc on our environment, but also to other parts of the US where nuclear plants could blow like a bomb larger than anything Iran could ever possibly dream of making, and again, these nuclear plants are sanctioned to stay alive and online, albeit on respirators and life support, by Moniz and the NRC.
Diablo Canyon. Columbia Generating Station. Davis-Besse. Pilgrim. Indian Point. Turkey Point. I could go on but I shouldn’t bore you with even more of the banalities of nuclear bombs in our own back yards in the United States. Iran is so much more exiting! But just for the hell of it, let’s take a peek.
Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, MA on the Cape is just over twenty miles from Boston. There is one way in and one way out. They call it Safe. Secure. Vital. Pilgrim has a melt down. No Way Out. Pilgrim explodes. No Way Out. Is the NRC watching? Hey, DOE! IAEA! Over here! Pilgrim has thirty-two hundred fuel rods in their pool when there are supposed to be eight hundred. PR says Pilgrim is safe. Pilgrim shut down on January 27, 2015 after two transmission lines failed during Blizzard Juno around high tide. Just how safe is safe enough?
Where are the watchful American hawks waving the flag of sanity, of clarity, of transparency telling Iran that they will observe their every breath in and around their nuclear facility? Where is that same sane presence of the IAEA in the United States? Do US citizens matter at all or only crazy old Iran?
One nuke plant exploding in the US is equivalent to many nuclear bombs due to the amount of fuel rods, and the cancers and death that would ensue is comparable to that of a nuclear war. Iran has no bombs at all while we have a base load of ninety-nine nuclear plants, i.e. bombs, waiting to blow at any given moment with one power grid shut down from iced wires or one frozen pipe or one flooded basement, or one fire, or one human mistake.
Let’s look at the bomb crackling right now at Davis-Besse in Ohio. (I wish those hawkish US and IAEA eyes looking at Iran would turn this way if only for the last 40 years!) Are you ready for this?
These are just some of the facts about Davis-Besse………….. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/10/the-real-nuclear-threats/
Vancouver the latest of 50 cities to commit to %100 renewable energy
More than 50 cities have announced they are on their way to 100% renewable energy including San Diego and San Francisco in California, Sydney Australia, and Copenhagen. Some are aiming for 2020, others by 2030 or 2035.
Vancouver commits to run on 100% renewable energy http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/10/vancouver-commits-to-run-on-100-renewable-energy
Canadian city of 600,000 people is the latest to announce it will use only green energy for electricity, transportation, heating and air conditioning within 20 years Vancouver has become the latest city to commit to running on 100% renewable energy. The city of 600,000 on Canada’s west coast aims to use only green energy sources for electricity, and also for heating and cooling and transportation. Continue reading
The reality of the earthquake threat to California’s nuclear reactors
numerous high level scientists and researchers have been speaking out about the continuation of Fukushima’s devastating effects and the need to further stabilize and shutdown nuclear plants along the fault lines throughout the United States — and California is not the only region in question
Experts Warn Of ‘Inevitable’ Fukushima Disaster In California Natural Society, BY ANTHONY GUCCIARDI Sep3 2014 Since the catastrophic meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March of 2011 irreparably altered the state of the planet for the known future, the incident has been shrouded in nothing but bureaucratic cover ups and government-backed disinformation. Now, within our own borders, top experts turned whistleblowers are warning of a nuclear nightmare that could surpass Fukushima and Chernobyl alike by leaps and bounds. Continue reading
Time Britain called it a day for Trident nuclear weapons
It’s time for Britain to move on from nuclear weapons http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/11/letters-trident-not-desirable
Pinning our security on a nuclear deterrent encourages others to do the same The election campaign to date suggests that decommissioning Trident nuclear weapons is a dangerous, minority demand led by the SNP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru. Yet poll after poll reveals that it is in fact a majority popular demand throughout the UK. One poll recently revealed that 81% of 500 general election candidates are opposed to renewal. There are increasingly obvious reasons why we think it’s time to move on from Trident.
Pinning our security on a nuclear deterrent encourages others to do the same. The UK should become the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to give up all its nuclear weapons, transforming the nuclear club from within. Instead of protecting us, hosting nuclear weapons makes us a target for the disaffected. And any accident would lead to a humanitarian disaster. Having nuclear weapons diverts resources and attention from tackling our most urgent security problems, including climate and environmental destruction.
Finally, continuing to invest in nuclear weapons is actively depleting military and other effective defences we might need in the 21st century. We should invest military spending on conflict prevention. By moving on from Trident, we can more effectively serve the needs and the potential of our country and a changing world.
www.moveontrident.org ; Helena Kennedy QC; Young Fathers, Mercury prizewinners; Prof Peter Higgs, 2014 Nobel prize for physics; Vivienne Westwood, designer and activist; Frankie Boyle, comedian; Neal Lawson, Compass; Gabrielle Rifkind, Oxford Research Group; Konnie Huq, presenter; Massive Attack; Sir Michael Atiyah, ex-president of the Royal Society; Marina Cantacuzino, founder of The Forgiveness Project; Jonathon Porritt, Forum for the Future; Robin McAlpine, director, Common Weal; Kamila Shamsie, writer; Lindsey Coulson, actress
Taiwan’s nuclear waste storage problem may cause early retirement of nuclear reactor
Nuclear generator may be retired early: Taipower CNA April 13, 2015 TAIPEI--The state-owned Taiwan 
Power Co. (Taipower, 台電) warned Sunday that the No. 1 generator at the country’s first nuclear power plant may have to go offline sooner than expected because of limited storage space for spent nuclear fuel. On Feb. 17, Taipower issued an invitation for foreign companies to tender for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from Taiwan’s first and second nuclear power plants but withdrew the request on April 2 amid a budget controversy.
Taipower had allocated NT$11.257 billion (US$360 million) for the overseas reprocessing of 1,200 clusters of spent fuel rods, 300 of which were to be shipped out by the end of the year.
But lawmakers failed to approve the budget in March, saying that Taipower and the Ministry of Economic Affairs were trying to initiate a bidding process with foreign companies without legislative oversight and were accessing the nation’s nuclear back-end management fund before the establishment of legal guidelines for its use……..
Taipower said that if the fuel storage problem is not resolved in time, the No. 1 generator would have to go offline in mid-2016, ahead of the decommissioning of the first nuclear power plant in New Taipei City, which is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed by 2023.
The generator, in fact, has been down since last December due to a component failure, and the Atomic Energy Council has not yet given approval for it to be put back online……..
Several civic groups, including Mom Loves Taiwan and Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, have lodged strong protests against Taipower’s proposed reprocessing of nuclear fuel.
The groups have said is “absurd” to consider sending fuel rods overseas for reprocessing since Taiwan should be phasing out nuclear power.http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2015/04/13/433515/Nuclear-generator.htm
Appeal likely against court decision to permit uranium mining near Grand Canyon
Judge permits Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon: No Tribal Consult, No Environmental Update; Appeal Expected [Great Photos] Minng Awareness, 12 Apr 15 The nuclear fuel chain destroys the environment and kills from the start, with uranium mining, to the finish, with long-lived, deadly, nuclear waste. Why does the US government refuse to protect America’s National Forests and water supply? Why does it fail to uphold its obligations to the American Indians? Especially at the behest of foreign mining companies? Why must Americans fight foreign companies in court, and even fight Congressmen, to protect the land and water?……https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/judge-permits-uranium-mining-near-grand-canyon-no-tribal-consult-no-environmental-update-appeal-expected/
Nuclear reprocessing has NOT gone according to plan, in China
Reprocessing in China: A long, risky journey, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Hui Zhang , April 15 Since 1983, a closed fuel cycle has been an official element of China’s nuclear energy policy. According to proponents, plutonium reprocessing and breeder reactors will allow full utilization of China’s uranium resources, drastically reduce the volume of radioactive waste that must be stored in an underground repository, and establish a way to dispense with the spent fuel accumulating in China’s reactor pools.
But Beijing’s attempts to develop commercially viable reprocessing facilities and breeder reactors have been afflicted with technological difficulties, serious delays, and cost overruns. At this point—especially taking into account China’s ample uranium resources and its easy access to additional resources abroad—it appears very doubtful that reprocessing and fast reactors are the proper way forward for China’s nuclear energy sector.
Not according to plan………..
Parallel with development of the pilot reprocessing plant, China has been working to establish commercially viable plutonium breeder reactors. According to a plan in place until 2013, development of breeder reactors was to be a three-stage process. The first stage was to complete a project known as the China Experimental Fast Reactor. The second stage would involve building, by about 2020, a few demonstration fast reactors. Finally, commercialized fast reactors would be deployed around 2030. Progress always ran far behind schedule.
The China Experimental Fast Reactor is a sodium-cooled experimental fast reactor using technology developed for Russia’s BN-600 reactor. The project, with a planned capacity of 20 megawatts, was approved in 1995. Construction began in 2000. As with the pilot reprocessing plant, the experimental fast reactor encountered many difficulties during construction. Capital cost estimates had to adjusted twice, with each estimate double the previous one. The reactor went critical in July 2010 and, by July 2011, 40 percent of its full power was incorporated into the grid. The reactor, however, was online for only 26 hours during the remainder of 2011, and it produced the equivalent of just one full power-hour. Not until December 2014 did the reactor manage to operate at full capacity for 72 hours. So 19 years passed between project approval and operation at full capacity.
As for the second stage of the pre-2013 plan, CNNC in 2009 signed an agreement with Russia’s Rosatom to jointly construct two copies of Russia’s BN-800 fast neutron reactor in China. But Beijing has not officially approved the project. As with the French reprocessing plant, Chinese experts complain that Russia is demanding too high a price. It is not clear when or if the project will go forward. Instead, CNNC in 2013 began focusing on the development of the indigenous 600-megawatt China Fast Reactor (CFR-600). The start of construction is envisioned for 2017, with operations to commence in 2023—but the government has not approved the project yet.
Experts from CNNC have also, since 2013, urged the development of China’s first commercial fast reactor—a 1,000-megawatt reactor based on experience gained from the CFR-600. But CNNC expert Gu Zhongmao—an advocate of the closed fuel cycle—said at a recent workshop on nuclear energy in East Asia that “China needs at least another 20 to 30 years of effort before commercialization of fast reactor energy systems, and there are so many uncertainties ahead. It is beyond our ability to draw a clear picture 20 years ahead.”…………. http://thebulletin.org/reprocessing-poised-growth-or-deaths-door8185
Who’s to blame for the faults in San Onofre Nuclear Plant: not us -says NRC
NRC: Nuclear plant failure not our fault UT San Diego, By Morgan Lee .APRIL 10, 2015 As it turns the page on the breakdown of the San Onofre nuclear plant, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is standing by its role in overseeing the replacement of steam generators that led to a radiation leak and the facility’s early retirement in 2013.
The safety agency also is warning the nuclear power industry that the destructive vibrations among generator tubes carrying radioactive water that occurred at San Onofre could emerge at other reactors over time.
A detailed memo by nuclear commission staff on the lessons learned at San Onofre has concluded that efforts by plant operator Southern California Edison to avoid a more-detailed review of the generators by safety regulators are not necessarily to blame in the breakdown of the plant. Responsibility lies instead with design mistakes overseen by Edison, according to the 70-page memo quietly released last month……..
The commission is directing the nuclear power industry to revise design guidelines that do not sufficiently address the kind of destructive tube vibrations that disabled the replacement generators at San Onofre.
A letter from the agency to industry engineers last year warned that “events at San Onofre not only raise questions about industry standards for designing and fabricating steam generators, but also raise questions about the operation of existing steam generators.” It cited no immediate safety concerns but said active generators could become susceptible as conditions change.
A 2012 radiation leak at San Onofre was traced to rapid wear on generator tubes that carry radioactive water that circulates through the reactor core.
Meanwhile, the nuclear commission is preparing to dismiss formal accusations that a more-thorough safety review of the San Onofre generators was warranted. That complaint was filed by the environmental group Friends of the Earth in 2012……….http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/apr/10/nrc-stands-by-process-at-onofre/
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