Tepco data show 32,000 workers at Fukushima No. 1 got high radiation dose
, Tepco data show http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/07/national/science-health/32000-fukushima-no-1-workers-got-high-radiation-dose-tepco-data-show/#.WL-YzNKGPGhJIJIA reading of 5 millisieverts is one of the thresholds of whether nuclear plant workers suffering from leukemia can be eligible for compensation benefits for work-related injuries and illnesses.
Of those workers, 174 had a cumulative radiation dose of more than 100 millisieverts, a level considered to raise the risk of dying after developing cancer by 0.5 percent. Most of the exposure appears to have stemmed from work just after the start of the crisis on March 11, 2011.
The highest reading was 678.8 millisieverts.
Overall, a total of 46,490 workers were exposed to radiation, with the average at 12.7 millisieverts.
The number of workers with an annual dose of over 5 millisieverts increased 34 percent from fiscal 2013 to 6,600 in fiscal 2014, when workloads grew to address the increase in radiation-tainted water at the plant. The number was at 4,223 in the first 10 months of fiscal 2015, which ends this month, on track to mark an annual decline.
A labor standards supervision office in Fukushima Prefecture last October accepted a claim for workers compensation by a man who developed leukemia after working at the plant, the first recognition of cancer linked to work after the meltdowns as a work-related illness. Similar compensation claims have been rejected in three cases so far, according to the labor ministry.
The average radiation dose was higher among Tepco workers at the plant than among workers from subcontractors in fiscal 2010 and 2011. Starting in fiscal 2012, the reading was higher among subcontractor workers than among Tepco workers.
The average dose for subcontractor workers was 1.7 times the level of Tepco workers in fiscal 2013, 2.3 times in fiscal 2014 and 2.5 times in fiscal 2015 as of the end of January.
A separate analysis of data from the Nuclear Regulation Authority showed that the average radiation dose of workers at 15 nuclear power plants across the country, excluding the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants, fell to 0.22 millisievert in fiscal 2014, when none of the plants was in operation, down 78 percent from 0.99 millisievert in fiscal 2010.
Lockheed Martin – USA’s top salesman for war?
Lockheed Martin Used Pentagon Dollars to Lobby Congress for Nuclear Weapons Funding One of the uses of the billions of dollars from these contracts is to recycle them back into lobbying the government to push for additional conventional and nuclear weapons spending, as reported by William Hartung and Stephen Miles. Of course, in addition, these funds are used to support a general environment of fear and insecurity, through contributions supporting hawkish think tanks.
Trump Is Bankrupting Our Nation to Enrich the War Profiteers, March 06, 2017 By Jonathan King and Richard Krushnic, Truthout | News Analysis
“……..Corporations that contract with the Department of Defense (DOD) for nuclear weapons complex work do not report revenues and profits from this work separately from their other military work, although they do break up government work from civilian work, and sometimes break up military work from other government work. Hence, it is not possible to determine profits made from nuclear weapons complex work from the annual reports and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings of large military corporations. However, it is possible to estimate, and to demonstrate how a significant amount of military R&D and production not recorded as nuclear weapons work is in fact partially nuclear weapons work. The nuclear weapons work financed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) is (not surprisingly) carried out in a semi-secret insiders club that insulates it from public knowledge and oversight. The first contracts for the upgrading of the nuclear weapons triads have already been awarded — one to Northrop Grumman — for a new generation of long-range bomber. But the public remains in the dark as to how many tens of billions of their tax dollars will be spent on the project.
From 2012-2014, according to Lockheed Martin’s 2014 annual report, the company realized an average of $46 billion a year in revenue, with an average of $3.2 billion in profits — 7 percent of revenue, and a 76 percent return on $4.2 billion of investor equity. The annual report informs us that 59 percent of 2014 revenue came from the Pentagon. We know from other sources that $1.4 billion a year is coming from the DOE for operation of the Sandia nuclear weapons lab, and we are estimating that an additional $600 million a year is coming for DOE nuclear weapons complex work. Information in the annual report indicates that around $6.1 billion came from foreign military sales. This adds up to around $35 billion of military revenue, or 75.3 percent of total 2014 revenue. The single biggest revenue earner in recent years is the F-35 jet fighter, bringing in $8.2 billion, 17 percent of total corporation revenue, in 2014. (William Hartung’s recent report describes additional aspects of Lockheed Martin’s military business, and his book Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military Industrial Complex provides extensive background).
The only references to Lockheed Martin’s nuclear weapons complex work in its 2014 annual report is a sentence noting provision of infrastructure and site support to the DOE’s Hanford complex, and a phrase noting continuing work on the Trident missile. The words “nuclear weapons” never appear in the report.
Lockheed Martin’s Nuclear Weapons Operations
In spite of the lack of mention in the annual report, Lockheed Martin is a partner with Bechtel ATK, SOC LLC and subcontractor Booz Allen Hamilton in Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC (CNS), in running the DOE Pantex Plant and the Y-12 Complex. Pantex does nuclear weapons life extension, dismantlement, development, testing and fabrication of high explosive nuclear warhead components. Y-12 stores and processes uranium, and fabricates uranium weapons components.
Lockheed Martin produced the Trident strategic nuclear missile for the 14 US Ohio-class nuclear submarines and for the four British Vanguard-class submarines. The 24 Tridents on each Ohio-class submarine each carry either eight or 12 warheads, all of them 20 to 50 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Each warhead is capable of killing most of the people in any one of the world’s largest cities — either immediately or later, from radiation, burns, other injuries, starvation and disease. Lockheed MArtin is not producing new Trident missiles now, but it maintains and modifies them. Previously, Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors received $65 million for each of the 651 Trident missiles, in addition to the $35 billion in earlier development costs.
The other primary strategic nuclear weapon delivery vehicle is Boeing’s land-based Minuteman III strategic missile, also with many warheads per missile. About 450 of them are in silos in Colorado and northern plains states. Lockheed Martin produced and continues to produce key systems for the Minuteman III, and plays a large role in maintaining them. It was awarded a $452 million contract for this work in 2014.
Lockheed’s Sandia Subsidiary
Regarding the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons upgrades planned for the next decade; particularly important is the role of Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). Outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, this DOE lab’s 10,600 employees make 95 percent of the roughly 6,500 non-nuclear components of all seven US nuclear warhead types. Components arm, fuse, fire, generate neutrons to start nuclear reactions, prevent unauthorized firing, preserve the aging nuclear weapons stockpile and mate the weapons to the missiles, planes and ships that deliver them to targets. Sandia Corporation LLC, wholly owned by Lockheed Martin, operates Sandia. The DOE is spending at least $1.4 billion a year on Sandia nuclear weapons work. The secret Lockheed Martin nuclear warhead assembly plant uncovered in Sunnyvale in 2010 is an extension of Lockheed Martin’s Sandia operations. Again, none of this received any mention or revenue numbers in Lockheed Martin’s 2014 annual report.
Lockheed Martin Used Pentagon Dollars to Lobby Congress for Nuclear Weapons Funding
One of the uses of the billions of dollars from these contracts is to recycle them back into lobbying the government to push for additional conventional and nuclear weapons spending, as reported by William Hartung and Stephen Miles. Of course, in addition, these funds are used to support a general environment of fear and insecurity, through contributions supporting hawkish think tanks. Technically, the federal government does not allow military contracting firms to use awarded funds to lobby Congress. Lobbying funds must come from other parts of the companies’ businesses. In reality, this is a non-functional restriction, since profits from various business segments are fungible; that is, once they are profits, they are intermingled, so in reality, the firms can use the profits from military contracts to lobby Congress. But Lockheed Martin went ahead and spent military contract funds from 2008-2012 as part of the contract expenditures. It didn’t even bother to book the lobbying expenditures as expenditures of profits. In 2015, the US Department of Justice required Lockheed Martin’s Sandia subsidiary to repay $4.9 million of a Sandia contract award to the Pentagon that the firm had spent under the contract for lobbying of Congressman the DOE secretary and the secretary’s family and friends………http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39712-trump-is-bankrupting-our-nation-to-enrich-the-war-profiteers
New York decision makers absent from nuclear bailout hearing
Decision-makers skip N.Y. nuclear bailout hearing, Democrat and Chronicle, 7 Mar 17 Jon Campbell , @JonCampbellGAN ALBANY – A state-approved bailout of three upstate nuclear power plants was the focus of a legislative hearing Monday, but New York’s top energy officials declined to attend.
The hearing, however, was absent the key decision-makers in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration who were behind the initiative. The state Public Service Commission, which approved the measure last August, declined to testify in person, citing scheduling conflicts and a late invitation to attend. The state Energy Research Development Authority also declined……
Differing views
Without Cuomo’s administration participating Monday, lawmakers instead heard from private critics and supporters of the plan, including Exelon’s representatives. It began around 10 a.m. Monday and continued into the afternoon.
Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, urged lawmakers to pass legislation pausing the nuclear subsidy before it takes effect April 1.
NYPIRG and other critics of the plan estimate it will cost ratepayers $7.6 billion over 12 years, though the actual cost will depend largely on the cost of wholesale power.
“I think you hit that pause button, because once these things go on sale, it’s tough to un-ring that bell,” Horner said.
James Vaughn, senior manager at Exelon’s Nine Mile Point plant in Oswego County, spoke in support of the plan, urging lawmakers to be driven by “facts not fear.”
He said the plan is not about “lining our pockets with money,” but keeping the plants profitable so they can stay open and producing clean power.
“At the end of the day, we’re a business,” Vaughn said. “And without these (zero-emissions credits), these plants will shut down.”http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2017/03/06/hearing-ny-nuclear-bailout/98806392/
The Trump and Congressional Republican Assault on Our Environment
The Real Lowdown: The Trump and Congressional Republican Assault on Our Environment, Vol. 3 https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nrdc/real-lowdown-trump-and-congressional-republican-assault-our-environment-vol-3 March 03, 2017 NRDC Nearly halfway through his first 100 days, President Donald Trump is on track to set a record for putting Americans’ health and our environment at risk.
In recent days, we’ve seen Trump issue an order to keep streams and rivers flowing with toxic chemicals, add a trio of polluters’ allies to his cabinet, hint of eviscerating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and telegraph he’ll soon start to try to unravel our country’s best chance to curb dangerous climate change: the popular Clean Power Plan.
Cabinet nominees
The GOP-led Senate staffed up Trump’s cabinet of polluters by confirming Ryan Zinke at the U.S. Department of the Interior, threatening public lands; Rick Perry at Energy, jeopardizing clean energy; and Scott Pruitt, the polluters’ lawyer, at the EPA.
After Pruitt was sworn in, his old office in Oklahoma released—on court orders—thousands of e-mails confirming his critics’ worst fears. They showed he worked hand in glove as attorney general with fossil fuel lobbyists and dirty energy companies to try to block the EPA’s clean air and clean water rules as well as other health protections. Pruitt also used private e-mail to communicate with his AG staff, even though he told the Senate he did not.
The newly minted administrator, speaking before the Conservative Political Action Committee on February 25, promised to roll back environmental protections in an “aggressive way” and told his appreciative audience that calls to completely eliminate the EPA are “justified.”
NRDC is fighting back
A few days before, NRDC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for materials and communications related to a press release the EPA issued announcing Pruitt as the new agency administrator. In the press release, the EPA endorsed statements calling itself “tone deaf,” “rogue,” and “one of the most vilified agencies in the ‘swamp’ of overreaching government.” Such statements are “unheard of and extremely alarming,” says Aaron Colangelo, codirector of litigation at NRDC. “We want to know who and what is motivating the agency’s new leader to undermine the EPA’s mission before he even gets started.”
On February 28, Trump addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time as president, where he outline an agenda that purportedly would create jobs and lift the economy. In response, NRDC President Rhea Suh penned a blog on the website The Hill, noting that the speech left unsaid “his unmitigated assault on the nation’s environment and public health.”
Slashing the EPA budget
Words and deeds don’t always match up. In his address to Congress, Trump promised to “promote clean air and clean water.” But he declined to mention this: Behind the scenes, he’s cooking up a budget plan that, according to news reports, includes a 24 percent cut to the EPA, the guardian of our air and water and environment. If approved, his plan would cripple the agency founded by Richard Nixon in 1970. NRDC President Rhea Suh warned: “Slashing the EPA’s budget will be dangerous to our health and the well-being of our children.”
Love that dirty water
Trump loves that dirty water. He has signed away safeguards that protected streams and downstream communities from coal-mining pollution. And he recently signed an executive order dubbed the “Dirty Water Rule” because it begins the rollback of the Obama-approved Clean Water Rule to protect wetlands and drinking water sources for more than 117 million Americans. Suh declared: “We will stand up to this reckless assault. We’ll stand up for clean water and a healthy future for all Americans.”
Moving ahead with pipelines
In that same address to Congress, Trump boasted about clearing the way for construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would threaten drinking water and our climate, and the Dakota Access Pipeline, disregarding concerns from indigenous people about its impact on their communities. Trump also touted a directive he issued that new American pipelines be made with American steel—except a few days later he exempted KXL from his “buy American” requirements.
Pruitt steps away from limiting methane emissions
Just days into his job, Pruitt yanked an Obama administration directive from last November requiring thousands of oil and gas companies to report a broad range of information about their operations’ emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Pruitt acted just one day after 11 state attorneys general asked the EPA to suspend the requirement, which had been part of a long-term plan to limit wasteful and climate-harming methane emissions.
Drilling on public lands
Even before Zinke took office, the Department of the Interior abruptly stopped enforcing a rule that closed a loophole the fossil fuel industry has used to lower the royalties for extracting oil on public lands (by artificially depressing the market value of that oil). Taxpayers, according to estimates, have lost as much as $30 billion with this scheme.
Orders coming to derail climate action
Trump could, as early as next week, issue an executive order undermining or eliminating the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate action agenda. The plan sets the first national emissions limits on the nation’s power plants, the largest source of the dangerous carbon pollution that is driving climate change.
Reopening public lands to coal mining
Trump also is expected to sign an order lifting an Obama administration moratorium on new coal leasing on public lands. This ignores poll findings of strong support for conservation rather than development among residents of the Rocky Mountain states, home to large tracts of public lands.
NRDC has prepared a list of other far-ranging threats posed by the new administration. And we will be vigilantly monitoring and reporting on its assault on the environment through Trump Watch.
Americans are confused on climate, but support cutting carbon pollution
Skeptical Science 6 March 2017 by dana1981 The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication published the findings of its 2016 survey on American public opinion about climate change. The results are interesting – in some ways confusing – and yet they reveal surprisingly broad support for action to address climate change. The Yale team created a tool with which the results can be broken down by state, congressional district, or county to drill down into the geographic differences in Americans’ climate beliefs.
Acceptance of science despite confusion about expert consensus
The first survey questions asked about participants’ beliefs about whether climate changeis happening, what’s causing it, what scientists think, and whether they trust climatescientists. Overall, 70% of Americans realize that global warming is happening, while just 12% said it’s not. A majority of Americans in every state answered the question correctly, ranging from 60% in West Virginia to 77% in New York and 84% in Washington DC. Drilling down to a more local level, majorities in every congressional district and nearly every county in America were aware of the reality of global warming.
But when asked whether most scientists think global warming is happening, Americans got a failing grade. Just 49% correctly answered ‘yes,’ while 28% believed there’s a lot of disagreement among scientists. In reality, even 95% of weathercasters – who are among the most doubtful groups of scientists about human-caused global warming – realize that climate change is happening. This shows that the campaign to cast doubt on the expert consensus on global warming has been remarkably successful in the US.
However, Americans trust climate scientists on the subject of global warming. Overall, 71% trust the scientific experts, while 26% distrust them. Majorities of Americans in every state, county, and congressional district trust climate scientists.
Regarding the cause of that global warming, only 53% of Americans correctly answered that it’s caused mostly by human activities, while 32% incorrectly said it’s mostly natural. By state, correct responses varied from 42% in Wyoming to 59% in California and 67% in Washington DC……..https://www.skepticalscience.com/americans-confused-support-cutting-carbon-pollution.html
Paul Ehrlich impressed by the Vatican’s commitment to saving the global environment
Vatican Visit, MAHB, Ehrlich, Paul R. | March 7, 2017 I was somewhat apprehensive about taking my invited place at the workshop on biological extinction of the Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Sciences at the end of February. Right wing Catholic websites were loaded with outrage and lies about my invitation, and that of John Bongaarts from the Population Council, and more than 10,000 people had signed petitions to get me (or us) excluded.
My apprehension was unnecessary. The view of the Academies, backed by the Vatican, was that “all voices should be heard.” The workshop, arranged by my old friends and colleagues Peter Raven and Partha Dasgupta, was one of the most productive and informative I have ever attended. It was an assembly of stars, and everyone was treated with dignity, respect, and fine hospitality. The presidents of the two Academies, Werner Arber and Margaret Archer, and their Chancellor Msgr. Marcelo Sánchez Sarondo were open and friendly. The papers (which will be published commercially), were (with a single exception) excellent, as was most of the discussion. Everyone emphasized the grave danger extinctions pose both to human life-support systems and the ethical duties of humanity to preserve “the creation” –the only life-forms we know of in the universe. There was essentially complete agreement that the drivers of the now-underway sixth mass extinction were human overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich, and inequity (poverty)…….
The Catholic Church is the only one with scholarly academies charged with providing unbiased information. As a result, for example, it has led the way in the battle against climate denial and long ago accepted the overwhelming evidence for evolution. In a civilization facing existential risks, it should be praised and supported for this attitude toward science.http://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/vatican-visit/
Italy’s thorium contamination resulting from military operations
 Subject: Alarming levels of thorium-232 at the military firing range lying between Cordenons, San Quirino, Vivaro and San Giorgio della Richinvelda, in the province of Pordenone http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2014-000031+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
The Italian Army operates a military firing range lying between the districts of Cordenons, San Quirino, Vivaro and San Giorgio della Richinvelda in the province of Pordenone, in the vicinity of the River Cellina and the River Meduna, and the drills carried out at this firing range have led to the area becoming radioactively contaminated. |
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| As has been reported by the press, in late December 2013 the Commander of the 132nd Ariete Armoured Division in Cordenons, the Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Army, the offices of the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the province of Pordenone and the affected districts, the prefect of Pordenone, and lastly Local Health Authority (ASS) No 6, were all sent the results of tests that had been carried out by the Friuli-Venezia Giulia provincial department of the Italian Regional Environmental Protection Agency (ARPA), which showed alarming levels of thorium-232 in the area.
Thorium-232 is a notoriously radioactive metal, which emits particles that are six times more hazardous to human health than those released by depleted uranium. It is at its most toxic between around 20 and 25 years after use. More specifically, out of the eight targets (the shells of armoured tanks used for firing practice) tested by the ARPA, four were found to contain thorium-232 at markedly higher levels than those that generally occur naturally; these levels were therefore unnatural, and presumably attributable to military firing operations. In all likelihood, such levels are the legacy left behind by the drills carried out at the site in the 1980s and 1990s: between 1986 and 2003, the Italian Army’s units were equipped with ‘Milan’ shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles, which emitted thorium-232(1). The ARPA has indicated that it will shortly carry out more extensive tests in the area. It is recalled that, as a result of the area’s geological make-up, materials tend to trickle down to the lowest layers, which makes their future recovery appear rather difficult. Consequently, there is an acute risk that the ‘Magredi’ region, and the rocky terrain that makes it so distinctive, will be devastated; what is more, the area is protected as both a site of Community importance and a Special Protection Area within the meaning of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and the Birds Directive (2009/147/EC), due to the wide variety of flora and fauna present there(2). 1. Is the Commission aware of this contamination? 2. Can it report whether any similar cases have occurred in the EU, how they were tackled and whether the areas affected were restored to their original state? 3. What initiatives does it intend to implement in order to prevent similar episodes from occurring in the EU, and in particular to prevent the contamination of aquifers?
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America’s war profiteers
Trump Is Bankrupting Our Nation to Enrich the War Profiteers, March 06, 2017 By Jonathan King and Richard Krushnic, Truthout | News Analysis “………The Role of Weapons Contractors
We have previously argued that it is the guaranteed profits from nuclear weapons manufacture that leads contractors to resist nuclear disarmament and promote the concept of danger from abroad.
The profitability derives from three distinct aspects of such weapons contracts:
- First, they cannot be outsourced to lower cost suppliers, such as in China or Mexico, by congressional edict.
- Second, the contracts are cost-plus. That is, no matter what the companies spend on the manufacture, they are guaranteed a healthy profit on top. And, of course, the more they run up the costs, the more they make.
- And third, the contracts are screened from oversight, such as proper audits, by national security considerations.
The current 2017 congressional military authorization calls for spending of some $350 billion over the next decade for upgrades of our nuclear weapons ($35 billion a year) — land-based missiles in silos, long-range bombers and their bombs, new Trident submarines and upgraded Trident missiles and new nuclear-capable cruise missiles. The so-called “modernization” program that Trump supports will spend more than $1 trillion — a thousand billion — income tax dollars over the next 30 years.
Given that the Soviet Union no longer exists, that China has become a capitalist economy and that the major difficulties faced abroad are ISIS (also known as Daesh) and related groups, it is deeply questionable why the congressional budget still devotes tens of billions of dollars to Cold War-era nuclear weapons. Yet the Trump administration is proposing to spend a trillion dollars or more over the next three decades upgrading the US nuclear weapons triad.
Where does the pressure for these wasteful and provocative programs — which almost certainly decrease national security — come from? While military high command and the intelligence agencies also press for nuclear weapons upgrades, corporate profits derived from nuclear weapons contracts may be the most powerful driving force, supported by members of Congress with military research and development (R&D) and production facilities in their districts.
A closer look at Lockheed Martin, the largest weapons contractor in the world, reveals how this coupling between corporate profits and the continuation of nuclear weapons delivery programs operates……….http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39712-trump-is-bankrupting-our-nation-to-enrich-the-war-profiteers
Nuclear company NuGen promoting Moorside nuke plan to local authorities
THE New Nuclear Local Authorities Group (NNLAG) Conference starts in Whitehaven tomorrow.http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/business/Nuclear-conference-to-begin-d4054724-aa58-4b09-9e23-ff13c75e36eb-ds 7 March 2017
This is being held at Summergrove Halls and runs until Friday.
It includes 15 local authorities from across the UK who are likely to be affected by and benefit from proposals for new nuclear power stations.
Its aim is to share knowledge, information and best practice on the process of developing new nuclear power stations from a local authority perspective.
Mayor of Copeland Mike Starkie said: “I am very pleased to welcome this important group to Copeland.
“The work of the NNLAG ensures local authorities with a vested interest in matters new nuclear meet to share their knowledge and expertise and moreover provide an interface with Government.”
NuGen will give a presentation on the Moorside project in Copeland on Thursday.
Chair of NNLAG, Geoff Holdcroft, the deputy leader of Suffolk Coastal District Council, said: “Hosting a major national infrastructure project, such as a new nuclear power station, has a massive impact on any area.
“Whilst we support the need for these projects in principle, it is important that we local authorities work together to maximise the benefits for our communities, while minimising the negative impacts. Conferences such as this have an essential role to play in us sharing best practice and presenting a united front to the Government and the major multinational companies proposing these new power stations.”
South Korea is trying to develop nuclear reprocessing technology other countries have failed at
| US expert: uranium price falling, why is S. Korea seeking expensive spent fuel processing facilities? The Hankyoreh, 7 Mar 17 |
Frank von Hippel says South Korea is trying to develop two kinds of technology other countries have failed at
“The price of uranium is gradually falling, and it costs twice as much to acquire spent fuel processing facilities for running a fast reactor. I don’t understand why [South Korea] is trying to acquire such expensive facilities,” said Frank von Hippel, 80, a professor at Princeton University, during a lecture at a seminar called “Truth and Lies about Pyroprocessing” that was held at the Daejeon Youth We Can Center on Feb. 28. Von Hippel is the American nuclear expert who first proposed the term “proliferation resistance.”
“The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute is trying to develop the two technologies that all other advanced countries have failed to develop, which is to say reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and liquid sodium-cooled fast reactors. While they claim to be pursuing nuclear fuel reprocessing as a way to manage nuclear waste, this doesn’t improve the problem but only makes it worse while incurring tremendous costs,” von Hippel warned.
“I don’t think the Trump administration and the Republicans are going to change the Obama administration’s nuclear policy [of non-proliferation],” he said. …..
“The Idaho National Laboratory promised to process 25 tons of spent nuclear fuel using pyroprocessing in five years, but they only processed five tons in 16 years, which cost a huge amount of money,” he went on to say.
The plan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and to build fast reactors derives from false predictions about the future, von Hippel explains. In the 1950s, Americans expected that energy demand would double every decade, but the current energy demand is only twice what it was in the 1960s. The American nuclear energy establishment projected in the 1960s that nuclear energy would cover 100% of future energy demand, but at present nuclear power only provides 20% of energy in the US and just 10% of energy worldwide.
The plan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel for use also derived from concerns about the depletion of uranium reserves and rising prices. But the dreaded rise in prices never materialized because predictions about the rate of increase of nuclear plants were way off and because the output of uranium mines has not decreased. “Currently, the cost of uranium only accounts for 1% of the cost that goes into producing electricity at nuclear plants. Even if spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed and used at fast reactors, it will only be about 2%. Not only is this a small percentage of the total cost, but it will only make the cost of generation more expensive. I don‘t know if it’s necessary to acquire high-cost facilities,” van Hippel said.
Along with the high cost, there are high risks, which means that hardly any countries are interested in building fast reactors, von Hippel contends. France’s fast reactor Superphenix cost 100 trillion won to develop but only operated at 8% before being decommissioned, and Japan’s Monju nuclear plant operated at just 1% for 20 years before it was decided last year to shut it down. The UK is also planning to end operations in 2018. China operated a pilot fast reactor in 2011, but after producing 20kg of plutonium, a small amount, it concluded that the benefits were marginal and suspended the program. Russia continues to operate these reactors, but there have reportedly been 15 fires at sodium fast reactors……
In von Hippel’s view, the most affordable policy for managing spent nuclear fuel is first storing nuclear waste in dry casks and then burying those casks deep underground in disposal sites that have been prudently designed with engineered barriers.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/785468.html
Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Remains One of the Worst in the Nation – NRC says
NRC Says Pilgrim Plant Remains One of the Worst in the Nation, By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter March 7, 2017 PLYMOUTH – The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth remains one of the three worst performing reactors in the country, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Annual Assessment Letter.
The NRC letter indicates the plant’s performance remains under Column 4 and no further regulatory action is required……..The plant was downgraded from Column 3 in 2015 and was placed under increased oversight for safety violations and unplanned shutdowns.
If further regulatory action is needed, the plant could be placed under Column 5, the unacceptable performance level, and a shutdown order could be issued…….
Diane Turco with the Cape Downwinders, an organization calling for the immediate closure of the plant, said the Annual Assessment Letter shows that the NRC is just a cheerleader for the nuclear power industry.
“When they sent out this annual report that the performance at Pilgrim is acceptable and additional regulatory action is not required after the initial inspections, this just shows that the NRC is in support of this industry and they don’t provide for public safety,” Turco said.
“When we see systemic mismanagement, when we see equipment failing over and over and not being repaired the public is at risk.”…..
A second public meeting will be March 21 at Plymouth Memorial Hall to discuss the recent inspection findings.
The NRC said the plant would most likely face 10 to 15 more safety violations during the first public meeting in January…..
In the leaked December e-mail, Don Jackson, the lead inspector of the special inspection, raised concerns about the station’s safety culture, writing “we are observing current indications of a safety culture problem that a bunch of talking probably won’t fix.”
Pilgrim is only one of three stations in the country to be under Column 4 oversight by the NRC. The other two reactors are in Arkansas and are both operated by Pilgrim’s owner, Entergy.
Complete findings from the December and January inspection are expected in April or May.http://www.capecod.com/newscenter/nrc-says-pilgrim-plant-remains-one-of-the-worst-in-the-nation/
Dangers of Nuclear Weapons “Modernization”
Trump Is Bankrupting Our Nation to Enrich the War Profiteers, March 06, 2017 By Jonathan King and Richard Krushnic, Truthout | News Analysis
“……..Perhaps the most dangerous effect of Trump’s plan is the further modernization of the nuclear weapons triad. Great damage can be done with conventional weapons to people and their communities. But the increased investment in nuclear weapons increases the chances of inadvertent or intentional nuclear war. The resulting catastrophic damage to human society and to the planet will likely be irreversible. We share the concern with many defense experts, such as former Defense Secretary William Perry, that this modernization will increase the anxieties of Russia, China and other nations, and increase the chance of an accidental launch. The launching of the missiles from a single Trident class submarine would obliterate every major city in any adversary nation. If that nation were Russia, the retaliatory response, following in minutes to hours, would obliterate every city on the East Coast of the United States.
Rutgers Climate Scientist Alan Robock and his colleagues have shown that even a limited exchange — for example between India and Pakistan — would generate firestorms throwing enough soot and particles into the upper atmosphere to generate a nuclear winter, lowering the Earth’s temperature and creating worldwide famine for decades following………http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39712-trump-is-bankrupting-our-nation-to-enrich-the-war-profiteers
New York lawmakers struggle with Gov. Cuomo’s costly nuclear bailout
Lawmakers tread murky details of nuclear bailout debate, Anna Gronewold, Associated Press
March 7, 2017 ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York lawmakers are searching for guidance as they wade through hazy details of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s multibillion-dollar decision to rescue three waning upstate nuclear power plants.
Senators and assembly members at a public hearing Monday denounced the absence of representatives from the Public Service Commission — which approved the landmark bailout in August — to walk them through how and why ratepayer money should be used to preserve the failing plants……
Opponents accused the governor-appointed commission of shrouding the entire decision process in secrecy and questioned whether it considered middle-ground proposals to meet Cuomo’s clean energy goals.
Nuclear watchdog group Alliance for a Green Economy says the program will cost ratepayers an estimated $7.6 billion.
Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the organization is most concerned with the speed with which the project slid through the approval process in August.
“The most outrageous part of this from our point of view is that the public was shut out, but they’re going to pay for the tab,” Horner said. “And they’re not even going to know.”
Experts estimate electricity consumers will pay on average about $2 more per month to raise the money. Horner said already-struggling public agencies with enormous electricity costs, such as hospitals and schools and public transportation, could see increases up to $112 million in the first two years of the program……http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lawmakers-tread-murky-details-nuclear-003304425.html
Lawmakers introduce pro nuclear legislation as GAO releases report on Nuclear Regulatory Commission fee collection methods
GAO releases report on Nuclear Regulatory Commission fee collection methods March 07, 2017 by Daily Energy Insider Report The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its review last week of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) budget development process and fee collection methods.
The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce requested the report in June 2015 as part of their oversight of NRC.
“NRC’s fee rule and supporting documents did not clearly present the information that stakeholders need in order to understand fee calculations and provide substantive comments to the agency,” GAO said. “Until NRC clearly defines and consistently uses key terms, provides complete calculations and explanations for
the fees, and ensure the accuracy of its fee and work papers, industry stakeholders’ understanding of the NRC’s fee calculations may remain limited.”
In response to GAO’s report, committee members Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), introduced the Nuclear Utilization of Keynote Energy (NUKE) Act. … Kinzinger said. “I’m excited to introduce this bipartisan legislation today as we take steps to make the regulatory process more efficient and transparent. Nuclear power is incredibly important for the district I represent, and for the country.”https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/3606-gao-releases-report-nuclear-regulatory-commission-fee-collection-methods/
Famed anti-nuclear activist group The Cape Downwinders start ballot campaign about Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s wastes
Plymouth: Cape Downwinders Devise Ballot Campaign http://959watd.com/blog/2017/03/plymouth-cape-downwinders-devise-ballot-campaign/ BY MIMI WALKER MARCH 6, 2017 Famed anti-nuclear activist group The Cape Downwinders have devised a ballot campaign to move spent fuel at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station into dry cask storage.
Activist Becky Chin, who also co-chairs the Duxbury Nuclear Advisory Committee, explains the nuclear storage situation at Pilgrim:
“There is a swimming pool in the attic of the reactor that was designed for 880 assemblies and it now has over 3,000 in it so that they are racked much closer together, it is like a giant wine rack. On the site next to the reactor is a football field of concrete that has huge casks that they could put 60 or so assemblies in. We have no long term option that the federal government has provided for us, it is a better option than the swimming pool,” said Chin.
Every two years, spent fuel rods from the core of Pilgrim’s reactor are moved into the storage pool; however, it can take up to five years for the rods to cool down to a safe temperature for dry cask storage.
The Cape Downwinders ballot campaign is a plea to government officials; there is no official federal repository to store the spent fuel rods, so nuclear waste could remain on the site for several decades, even after the plant closes in 2019.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be back in Plymouth for another public meeting regarding Pilgrim on March 21.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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