The NRC and Nuclear Safety Culture: Do As I Say, Not As I Do, Union of Concerned Scientists
DAVE LOCHBAUM, DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR SAFETY PROJECT | FEBRUARY 27, 2017 Many times over the past 20 years the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has intervened when evidence strongly suggested a nuclear power plant had nuclear safety culture problems. The evidence used by the NRC to trigger its interventions was readily available to the plant owners, but the owners had downplayed or rationalized away the evidence until the NRC forced them to face reality.
The evidence used by the NRC to detect these nuclear safety culture problems included work force surveys indicating a sizeable portion of workers reluctant to raise safety concerns and allegations received by NRC from workers about reprisals and harassment they experienced after raising safety concerns.
Ample evidence strongly suggests that the NRC itself has nuclear safety culture problems. The NRC’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has surveyed the safety culture and climate within the NRC every three years for the past two decades. The latest survey was conducted during 2015 and released in March 2016. Figure 1 from the OIG’s 2015 survey along with data from the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Surveys and other sources show safety culture problems as bad as—it not considerably worse—than the worst safety culture problems identified at Millstone, Davis-Besse, and yes, even the TVA reactors.
After the OIG’s 2009 survey of the NRC’s safety culture and climate, UCS submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all records related to the actions taken by the agency in response to the survey. We obtained many records which described very few actions. And regardless of the number of actions, the OIG’s 2015 survey showed that the NRC’s safety culture was worse than in 2009 (see the last column on the right in Figure 1 [graph on original] ).
Why would the NRC take steps to remedy safety culture problems at nuclear plants yet have taken no steps to remedy its own safety culture problems? The answer is the same as to the question of why the plant owners failed to take steps to correct safety culture problems before the NRC intervened—they did not perceive the problems to exist. Likewise, Figure 2 [on original]shows that the NRC’s senior management does not perceive safety culture within the agency to need remediation……..
Just as plant owners failed to correct the problem they could not see, NRC senior management cannot fix the agency’s “invisible” safety culture problems. The NRC intervened to enable owners to see, and then fix, their safety culture problems. Someone needs to intervene to help NRC senior management see the agency’s safety culture problems so they can take the corrective measures they have often compelled plant owners to take…….http://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/the-nrc-and-nuclear-safety-culture-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do
March 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, USA |
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Russia, Tajikistan to cooperate in nuclear energy field, AZER News, 1 March 17 By Kamila Aliyeva
Tajikistan and Russia have agreed to cooperate in atomic energy and border security. The relevant agreements were achieved within the framework of the visit of Russian leader Vladimir Putin to Tajikistan on February 27.
Thus an agreement on cooperation in peaceful uses of atomic energy was signed by Farhod Rakhimov, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, and Alexey Likhachev, Director General of ROSATOM, on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation.
The deal has provided the legal basis for interaction between Tajikistan and Russia in the nuclear power sector for the first time in history while determining a wide range of cooperation areas including design, construction, operation and decommissioning of research reactors; spent fuel and radioactive waste management; rehabilitation of tailing storage areas and utilization of decommissioned uranium mining and reprocessing facilities; production of radioisotopes; use of nuclear technology in industry, medicine, agriculture; education and training of highly skilled personnel for the nuclear power industry, etc.
Besides, the agreement envisages the formation of joint coordination commission with the view of further consulting in the issues relating to the implementation of the above mentioned peaceful uses of atomic energy and search for mutually beneficial opportunities…….http://www.azernews.az/region/109545.html
March 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
marketing, Russia |
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Meanwhile, OPG continues to tell MPPs and other decision makers that nuclear power is our lowest cost option for keeping the lights on and that it is simply not possible to import low-cost power from Quebec. Both of these claims are false.
According to Hydro Quebec’s CEO, Eric Martel, Quebec has 3,000 megawatts of surplus power available for export. Furthermore, according to Mr. Martel, Hydro Quebec is more than willing to sign long-term fixed-price export contracts.
Hydro Quebec has power available to export for at least 99% of the hours in a year. It can further increase the power it has for export by improving energy efficiency in Quebec and continuing to develop its significant low-cost wind power potential.
Our public utility and the nuclear lobby should stop spreading “alternative facts.” We need an honest discussion based on transparent information about whether keeping the 46-year-old Pickering Station running and re-building the 30-year-old Darlington Station makes sense.
And instead of playing shell games designed to hide the rising cost of nuclear power, our government should be looking at grabbing some real cost savings – by making a deal with Quebec.
Please send an email to Premier Wynne premier@ontario.ca or call her at 416 325 1941. Tell her you want to see Ontario secure some real cost savings by making a long-term deal with Quebec to permit the closing of the Pickering Nuclear Station in 2018 when its licence expires.
You can also contact your MPP and tell them you want to see real savings. You can find your MPPs contact info here. If you don’t know your electoral district, click here.
March 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, Canada, politics |
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Trump to Seek $54 Billion Increase in Military Spending | 27 Feb 2017 | President Trump put both political parties on notice Monday that he intends to slash spending on many of the federal government’s most politically sensitive programs – relating to education, the environment, science and poverty – to protect the economic security of retirees and to shift billions more to the armed forces.
The proposal to increase military spending by 54 billion and cut nonmilitary programs by the same amount was unveiled by White House officials as they prepared the president’s plans for next year’s federal budget. Aides to the president said final decisions about Medicare and Social Security would not be made until later in the year, when he announces his full budget. But Sean Spicer, his spokesman, cited Mr. Trump’s campaign commitments about protecting those programs and vowed that “he’s going to keep his word to the American people.”
March 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA |
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Did Putin help elect Trump to restore $500 billion Exxon oil deal killed by sanctions
Follow the money: Will Trump repay Putin by ending Russian sanctions and killing the Paris climate deal? Think Progess, Joe Romm , 28 Feb 17, “……. our democracy and our children have a new axis to worry about: Putin, Trump, and ExxonMobil, whose CEO Rex Tillerson — an extreme Russophile and long-time director of a US-Russian oil company — is Trump’s puzzling choice for Secretary of State.
I say “puzzling” because the long-serving Exxon employee (from age 23!) has no qualifications to be secretary of state — other than a history negotiating major oil deals with countries like Putin’s Russia, which in any sane world would actually disqualify him or at least force a recusal from all State Department dealings with Russia.
But that puzzle disappears if we follow the famous dictum from the Watergate era for uncovering a tangled web of covert campaign acts: “Follow the money.” And perhaps another puzzle is also solved: Why did Putin take such a “fearful risk,” as Frum put it, to “mount a clandestine espionage and disinformation campaign on behalf” of Trump and against Clinton, “when Putin had every reason to expect that he probably would end up facing a President Clinton,” and a tremendous backlash.
You can certainly make a plausible case, as U.S. intelligence agencies do in their bombshell new report, that Putin had plenty of motivation to interfere. He wanted to undermine the legitimacy of U.S. elections and a Clinton Presidency, he blamed Secretary Clinton for “inciting mass protests against his regime,” and he was angry with the U.S. for the Panama Papers leaks.
Those leaks showed a $2 billion trail of offshore accounts and deals that traced back to Putin and his cabal of kleptocrats, who, among other things, were getting rich “trading shares in Rosneft,” Russia’s state-owned (i.e. Putin run) oil monopoly.
But a half trillion dollars to line their pockets and prop up the Russian economy offers a much more tangible motivation for team Putin to get Trump elected. And it was Tillerson who had made the $500 billion oil dealwith Putin that got blocked by sanctions.
Blocking the deal did not just “put Exxon at risk,” as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2014. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained last month the biggest oil deal in history was “expected to change the historical trajectory of Russia.”
The top priority for Putin and the kleptocrats who benefit from his rule is enriching the Kremlin’s coffers and their own, which have been hurt by the sanctions. And Trump’s election already appears to have delivered $11 billion to the Kremlin through sale of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft, “confounding expectations that the Kremlin’s standoff with the West would scare off major investors,” as Fortune has reported in a must-read piece.
Kleptocracy — and interfering with our election — pays…….
Indeed, if Trump and Tillerson instead end the sanctions that are blocking the Exxon-Rossneft deal, it is going to look suspiciously like a half trillion dollar quid pro quo for Putin’s help getting elected.
And if Trump and Tillerson work together to kill the Paris climate deal, the last best chance to save Americans from catastrophic climate change—and aridiculously good deal for the U.S.— that will look like they are putting Putin’s interests and Exxon’s profits above America’s national interest and the health and well-being of our children. It bears repeating that ExxonMobil’s future is inextricably tied to their stalled oil deal with Putin — and their future drilling plans would benefit from continued global warming and melting of polar ice…….. https://thinkprogress.org/putin-helped-trump-exxon-oil-deal-sanctions-6f169c4a4cd0#.hxgqiytyu
March 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, politics international, Russia, USA |
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As with all such lists, the 300 ‘scientists’ badly lack climate expertise, Guardian, John Abraham, 27 Feb 17, If you read my articles regularly, you may have noticed multiple times I have stated that the scientific argument is over; there are no longer any reputablescientists that deny the overwhelming human influence in our climate. An open letter published last week by the anti-environmentalists proves my point.
If you read the headlines, it might have seemed impressive: “300 Scientists Tell Trump to Leave UN Climate Agreement.” Wow, 300 scientists. That’s a lot right? Actually, it’s a pitiful list.
First of all, hardly anyone on the list was a climate scientist; many were not even natural scientists. It is almost as though anyone with a college degree (and there are about 21 million enrolled in higher education programs just in the USA) was qualified to sign that letter.
Okay but what about the signers of the letter? Surely they are experts in the field? Not so much. It was very difficult to find the list of signers online however I was able to acquire it with some help. See for yourself – Google “300 scientists letter climate change” in the past week. You will see many stories in the press, but try finding the actual letter or the list of names. The version I obtained was dated February 23, 2017 which helps narrow your searching. In an era of Dr. Google, it is unbelievable that the letter itself was not made more available.
Okay but let’s get to the central issue. These 300 scientists must be pretty good at climate science, right? Well let’s just go through the list, alphabetically. Here is a sampling (text copied verbatim from the version of the letter I obtained).
Example 1:……..Example 2:…….Example 6:………
What is the takeaway message? As I’ve said many times, the science is settled. Human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing the Earth’s climate to change. It’s practically impossible to find a reputable climate scientist who disagrees, or a climate scientist who can support an alternative view. It is also very difficult to find a scientist who thinks that the warming isn’t a problem, or isn’t significantly caused by humans. But, this isn’t a lack of trying on their side.
When the folks denying human influence on climate can only generate the type of signatures attached to this letter, it shows that while they are good at getting press, they are not good at climate science.
Of course, press may be all they ever wanted in the first place. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/feb/27/just-who-are-these-300-scientists-telling-trump-to-burn-the-climate
March 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
general |
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