In a slew of climate change related news this week, Iran’s city of Ahvaz saw temperatures hit near the highest readings ever recorded on Earth, a new scientific model study has found that climate change made the recent heatwave that hit Europe this June two to ten times more likely, and climate change deniers lost a major cherry-picked talking point as the most recent satellite data now confirms the rapid global temperature rise that ground stations have been reporting all along.
129 F in Iran — Near Record for Globe, But Not a 35 C Wet Bulb Reading
On Thursday, in Ahvaz, Iran, temperatures hit a blazing 53.7 degrees Celsius or 128.66 degrees Fahrenheit. These temperatures were just shy of the 54 C (129.2 F) global records in Mitribah, Kuwait on July 21, 2016 and in California’s Death Valley on July 30, 2013 identified by Chris C Burt of…
¶ Humanity must put carbon dioxide emissions on a downward slope by 2020 to have a realistic shot at capping global warming at well under two degrees Celsius, the bedrock goal of the Paris climate accord, experts warned in a commentary published in the science journal Nature. A world that heats up beyond that threshold will face devastating impacts. [NEWS.com.au]
Devastation (Picture: Kevin Frayer)
World:
¶ Renewable energy analysts MAKE Consulting published its China Wind Power Outlook 2017 report this week. Over the next ten years, China is expected to install an annual average of more than 25 GW of new wind capacity, resulting in a cumulative growth across the decade of about 403 GW, according to the report’s figures. [CleanTechnica]
¶ In 2016, China’s State Council released guidelines forbidding the construction of “bizarre” and “odd-shaped” buildings lacking character or cultural heritage. They want…
Three men plead not guilty to professional negligence in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdown
From left, former Tepco executives Tsunehisa Katsumata, Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto arriving at court in Tokyo on Friday.
Three former executives with the operator of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have pleaded not guilty to charges of professional negligence, in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdown more than six years ago.
In the first hearing of the trial at Tokyo district court on Friday, Tsunehisa Katsumata, who was chairman of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) at the time of the disaster, and two other former executives argued they could not have foreseen a tsunami of the size that knocked out the plant’s backup cooling system, triggering a meltdown in three reactors.
“I apologise for the tremendous trouble to the residents in the area and around the country because of the serious accident that caused the release of radioactive materials,” Katsumata said, bowing slightly.
Prosecutors alleged that the 77-year-old, along with his co-defendants, Sakae Muto, 67, and Ichiro Takekuro, 71 – both former Tepco vice-presidents – had been shown data that anticipated a tsunami of more than 10 metres in height that could cause a power outage and other serious consequences.
Activists protest against Tepco on Friday.
A report by a government panel said Tepco simulated the impact of a tsunami on the plant in 2008 and concluded that a wave of up to 15.7 metres (52 feet) could hit the plant if a magnitude-8.3 quake occurred off the coast of Fukushima. Executives at the company allegedly ignored the internal study.
The three men – charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury – have since retired from Tepco.
The company, which faces a multibillion-dollar bill for decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi, is not a defendant in the trial. If convicted, the men face up to five years in prison or a penalty of up to 1m yen (£7,000).
Although there are no records of anyone dying as a result of exposure to radiation from the plant, prosecutors alleged the executives were responsible for the deaths of 40 elderly people who were evacuated from a hospital near the plant.
The Fukushima plant had a meltdown after the tsunami, triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake, hit the plant on the afternoon of 11 March 2011.
The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and forced more than 150,000 others living near the plant to flee radiation. Some of the evacuated neighbourhoods are still deemed too dangerous for former residents to return to.
“They continued running the reactors without taking any measures whatsoever,” the prosecutor said. “If they had fulfilled their safety responsibilities, the accident would never have occurred.”
Muto challenged the allegation by the prosecution that he and the other defendants failed to take sufficient preventative measures despite being aware of the risk of a powerful tsunami more than two years before the disaster.
“When I recall that time, I still think it was impossible to anticipate an accident like that,” he said. “I believe I have no criminal responsibility over the accident.”
Investigations into the accident have been highly critical of the lax safety culture at Tepco and poor oversight by industry regulators. Prosecutors considered the case twice, and dropped it both times, but a citizens’ judicial panel overrode their decision and indicted the former executives.
Outside the court, Ruiko Muto, a Fukushima resident and head of the group of plaintiffs, said: “Since the accident, nobody has been held responsible nor has it been made clear why it happened. Many people have suffered badly in ways that changed their lives. We want these men to realise how many people are feeling sadness and anger.”
Three former executives of the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have pleaded not guilty over the March 2011 accident.
Nuclear meltdowns occurred at the plant after it was hit by a giant earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
The defendants are former Tokyo Electric Power Company Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former Vice Presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto.
They are accused of professional negligence resulting in the deaths of 44 people, including hospital patients forced to stay at evacuation shelters for a long period.
At the start of the trial at the Tokyo District Court on Friday, Katsumata apologized for the serious accident, and causing a great nuisance and concern.
But he said it was impossible to predict the tsunami, and the nuclear accident that followed, at the time.
Takekuro and Muto also offered apologies but pleaded not guilty.
Points of contention will likely include whether the defendants were able to predict that a huge tsunami would hit the plant, and whether the accident could have been prevented if proper steps had been in place.
This is the first trial concerning criminal responsibility for an accident at a nuclear power plant.
Public prosecutors decided not to file charges against the 3 former executives in 2013. But they were indicted in February last year by court-appointed lawyers in line with the decision by a prosecution inquest panel of randomly selected citizens.
An excavator sits among bags of nuclear waste in the town of Tomioka near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2016.
FUKUSHIMA – The Fukushima District Court on Thursday sentenced a former Environment Ministry official to one year in prison, suspended for three years, for accepting bribes to help a company win a decontamination project in Fukushima Prefecture.
The court also ordered 57-year-old Yuji Suzuki, who formerly worked at a branch of the ministry’s environment regeneration office in Fukushima, to pay a fine of ¥230,000.
Presiding Judge Shoji Miyata said that with people aiming for a swift recovery from the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, rapid and secure implementation of decontamination work was strongly anticipated in areas tainted by radioactive substances from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant.
Miyata criticized Suzuki, saying that the fact that he betrayed those expectations “cannot be overlooked” and that the social impact of his actions was “not insignificant.”
As for the reason for the suspended sentence, Miyata said Suzuki was “showing regret.”
According to the ruling, Suzuki helped a civil engineering and construction company based in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, join a decontamination project in the Fukushima town of Namie as a subcontractor of a consortium.
In return, Suzuki received ¥25,000 in cash and benefits worth ¥206,000 in the form of dining and accommodation between September 2015 and June 2016.
An underground ice wall being built to keep groundwater from entering the crippled nuclear reactor buildings in Fukushima is expected to be completed soon.
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are circulating coolant in pipes buried around the buildings to make the 1.5 kilometer-long barrier.
The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, hopes to keep groundwater from being contaminated with radioactive substances.
The utility has so far left part of the wall unfrozen, due to fears that freezing the entire area could lead to a sharp drop in groundwater levels outside the reactor buildings, which could cause the tainted water to leak out.
On Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulation Authority gave basic approval for the utility’s plan to freeze a 7 meter-wide section that remains on the mountain side.
Utility officials have explained to authority members that the groundwater level won’t plunge and that they are prepared for such an emergency.
TEPCO says that as soon as it gets official approval it will start freezing the remaining section of the wall. It has been functioning for about 15 months.
The daily amount of groundwater flowing into the buildings is now about 100 tons, compared with some 400 tons per day at the start of the operation.
The utility says the completion of the ice wall will further reduce the amount. The regulators plan to monitor the effects of the barrier after it is completed.
From the news media, you would hardly know it, but two big international meetings are happening. In New York, delegations from more than 130 States are working to finalize the text for the “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”. In Hamburg, the G20 summit is about to be held, with climate change as a central issue. Meanwhile, as I write, the “important” news item is, as usual, occupied by Donald Trump, who apparently has tweeted rudely, again – ho hum.
Investigative journalism lives! The Center for Public Integrity’s Nuclear Negligence examines safety weaknesses at U.S. nuclear weapon sites operated by corporate contractors.
Hackers breached a US nuclear power plant’s network, and it could be a ‘big danger’, Business Insider, SONAM SHETH JUN 30, 2017
A US nuclear facility was breached in a cyberattack, outlets reported on Wednesday.
The attack was contained to the business-associated side of the plant, and evidence indicates that critical infrastructure was not affected.
But cybersecurity experts say that now that the network has been infiltrated, the nuclear systems have become “much more vulnerable.”
Unidentified hackers recently breached at least one US nuclear power plant and the situation is being investigated by federal officials, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News on Wednesday.
The name and location of the plant have not been released, but cyberattacks have affected “multiple nuclear power generation sites this year,” according to E&E News, which was the first to report the story.
It is not yet clear who launched the attack and whether it is connected to a global cyberattack that crippled several countries and corporations beginning on Tuesday.
The breach was contained to the business-associated side of the plant, officials said. So far, little information has come out about the origins of the hack, code named “Nuclear 17,” but evidence indicates that the attack was not serious enough to prompt alerts from the public safety systems at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the International Atomic Energy Agency, E&E reported. The information available thus far indicates that nuclear safety is not immediately at direct risk.
But cybersecurity experts say that now that hackers have infiltrated the system, nuclear safety could be at risk down the road. “If a nuclear power facility is attacked on the business side, that might actually serve as a way of information-gathering” for hackers, Paulo Shakarian, founder of the cybersecurity firm CYR3CON, told Business Insider. In some cases, hackers will try to “see if, by reaching that system, they can get more insight into what the facility is using on the operational side,” Shakarian said.
“This could be a big danger,” he added. “And it could lead to another attack that could be more serious.” Though nuclear power providers have rigorous practices in place to divide business and nuclear operations in their networks, experts say an attack on one could inform an attack on the other.
A breach to the business-associated end of a nuclear power plant “is very severe and very scary,” said Greg Martin, the CEO of cybersecurity firm JASK. He said that while it was “wonderful” that network segmentation prevented hackers from being able to attack critical infrastructure directly, “the business side has tons of information about the more vulnerable infrastructure side of these types of plants.”
That information can include emails; communications involving design plans; information about security assessments; emails or documents that contain passwords; and more. Martin echoed Shakarian’s assessment and added that some information that can be gleaned from a breach like this can open up a window that “can be used to set up for future, more damaging attacks just based on the proprietary information they’re able to steal.”….
In the case of the nuclear power plant breach, Martin said once hackers had accessed the business network, “it is much, much more vulnerable” despite having a firewall and being segmented off from the operational side.
Calling for world leaders to be guided by the scientific evidence rather than “hide their heads in the sand”, they said “entire ecosystems” were already beginning to collapse, summer sea ice was disappearing in the Arctic and coral reefs were dying from the heat.
The world could emit enough carbon to bust the Paris Agreementtarget of between 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius in anything from four to 26 years if current levels continue, the article said.
Global emissions had been rising rapidly but have plateaued in recent years. The experts, led by Christiana Figueres, who as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change played a key role in the Paris Agreement, said they must start to fall rapidly from 2020 at the latest.
“The year 2020 is crucially important for another reason, one that has more to do with physics than politics,” they said.
Citing a report published in April, they added: “Should emissions continue to rise beyond 2020, or even remain level, the temperature goals set in Paris become almost unattainable.
“Lowering emissions globally is a monumental task, but research tells us that it is necessary, desirable and achievable.”
The article was signed by more than 60 scientists, such as Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, politicians, including former Mexican President Felipe Calderon and ex-Irish President Mary Robinson, businesspeople like Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, investment managers, environmental campaigners and others.
Since the 1880s, the world’s temperature has risen by about 1C because of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity – a process predicted by a Swedish Nobel Prize-winning scientist in 1895.
The Nature article laid out the effect of this sudden increase on the planet. “Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are already losing mass at an increasing rate,” it said.
“Summer sea ice is disappearing in the Arctic and coral reefs are dying from heat stress – entire ecosystems are starting to collapse.”
And it added: “The social impacts of climate change from intensified heatwaves, droughts and sea-level rise are inexorable and affect the poorest and weakest first.”
Humanity is currently emitting about 41 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year, but if the Paris target is to be met it only has a carbon ‘budget’ of between 150 and 1,050 gigatonnes.
“If the current rate of annual emissions stays at this level, we would have to drop them almost immediately to zero once we exhaust the budget. Such a ‘jump to distress’ is in no one’s interest. A more gradual descent would allow the global economy time to adapt smoothly,” the experts wrote.
But they urged people not to abandon hope.
“The good news is that it is still possible to meet the Paris temperature goals if emissions begin to fall by 2020,” they said.
“He has spoken out to a global audience in support of climate scientists, and invited researchers to move to France to help accelerate action and deliver on the Paris agreement.”
Any delay would pose a threat to human prosperity.
“With no time to wait, all countries should adopt plans for achieving 100 per cent renewable electricity production, while ensuring that markets can be designed to enable renewable-energy expansion,” the experts wrote.
Optimism was also important.
“Recent political events have thrown the future of our world into sharp focus,” they said. “But as before Paris, we must remember that impossible is not a fact, it’s an attitude. It is crucial that success stories are shared.
“There will always be those who hide their heads in the sand and ignore the global risks of climate change.
“But there are many more of us committed to overcoming this inertia. Let us stay optimistic and act boldly together.”
As the majority of the world’s countries have been gathered at the United Nations negotiating the nuclear weapon ban treaty, the Center for Public Integrity has been releasing installments of a new report about workplace hazards at the US nuclear weapon laboratories. Monday’s installment of the report reveals a “litany of mishaps” across the eight sites that involve workers inhaling radioactive particles, receiving electrical shocks, being burned by acid or in fires, splashed with toxic chemicals, or cut by debris from exploding metal drums. Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the plutonium cores for nuclear warheads are produced, has “violated nuclear industry rules for guarding against a criticality accident three times more often last year” than any of the country’s other 23 nuclear installations combined.
Contractors run Los Alamos and the other nuclear weapon labs. These corporations make between 15–60 million USD a year in pure profit. The work of making nuclear weapons is viewed as “extremely low risk,” financially-speaking—“contractors commit ‘virtually no financial investment,’ contribute only a limited number of top executives, enjoy legal indemnification protections, and have ‘relatively few’ costs that are not completely reimbursed,” explains the report. Violating safety standards and exposing workers or local communities to risk does not seem to hamper these profits at all. Los Alamos’ criticality safety shortcomings have been so persistent that two years ago the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) threatened to fine the lab’s managing contractors more than a half-million dollars. However, “In the end, the NNSA administrator decided to not to impose the fine, exemplifying what critics allege is a climate of impunity for mistakes.”
Before Los Alamos took over the production of the plutonium component for US nuclear bombs, Rocky Flats near Denver Colorado was the nation’s sole facility for plutonium core manufacturing. This facility, also managed by various contractors, had multiple fires including two major accidents involving plutonium in 1957 and 1969; on-site storage and burial of transuranic materials in leaking drums and unlined trenches contaminating the land and groundwater; radioactive contamination of nearby creeks and reservoirs; plutonium trapped in building ductwork, missing plutonium and so-called infinity rooms deemed too highly radioactive and dangerous to enter; and the incineration of plutonium contaminated waste—which eventually brought the attention of the FBI, leading to a raid.
In 1989, Rocky Flats shuttered its operation, the buildings were taken down, and much radioactivity was borne away from the site, but much remains. The first six feet of level earth were partially “cleaned” of contamination, but below that, any amount of plutonium and other radioactive and toxic materials have been left on-site. The surface of land that comprises the former facility shifts often due to bioturbation, the handy work of burrowing animals. Ecologists have documented the presence of some 22 such species at Rocky Flats. These animals play a significant role in the redistribution and further dispersal of radioactive contaminants that remain in the ground. Despite all of this, in 2017 the re-named Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge is slated to open, complete with a visitors center, picnic areas and 20 miles of hiking, biking, and riding trails.
These cases clearly demonstrate that while a handful of corporations make profits from building the bomb, their workers and the surrounding public suffer immediate, direct health-related costs. Meanwhile the rest of the world lives under the risk of environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.
This is where the ban treaty comes in.
Banning nuclear weapons is a threat to the nuclear weapon complex. Several of the draft treaty’s proposed legal prohibitions—such as on assistance, development, production, manufacture, testing, and of course possession—will impact directly on the economic, political, and social sustainability of this enterprise. An explicit prohibition against the financing of nuclear weapons, as a form of assistance, would be significant in terms of putting pressure on the companies currently running the nuclear weapon labs in the United States and equivalents in other countries. Taking the profitability out of manufacturing weapons of genocide is critical for impeding “modernisation” programmes and diverting human and economic resources away from weapons and towards meeting social needs.
Right now, nuclear ban negotiators are waiting for the release of the revised draft treaty text from the conference President. This revised text will be the basis for the remainder of negotiations. We have eight days left to achieve a ban treaty by 7 July. Keeping in mind the physical, economic, operational context of nuclear weapons out in the world is important for shaping an effective treaty inside the conference room.
FT 27th June 2017, A year after the break-up of Eon and RWE in a sweeping restructuring of Germany’s power industry, investors are bracing for the next wave of upheaval in European utilities. Bankers and industry executives say further deals look certain as electricity companies scramble to adapt to the accelerating shift towards renewable energy.
The £318m sale last week of two UK gas-fired power stations by Centrica to EPH of the Czech Republic was the latest example of a utility reshaping its portfolio. Now, expectations are growing of bigger transactions to come. Much of the anticipation is focused on the new companies created by the separation of Eon and RWE. Both German utilities split themselves in two, with one unit focused on traditional thermal generating businesses – dominated by coal
and gas-fired power – and the other comprising “cleaner” businesses, such as renewables, electricity distribution and consumer services.
Uniper, the conventional power business spun out of Eon, has been touted by analysts and bankers as a potential target for Fortum, the Finnish utility. Meanwhile, Innogy, the clean energy business split from RWE, has been linked with Engie of France.
Whatever constellation of deals emerges, it looks increasingly likely that the ripples from restructuring of RWE and
Eon will not stop at Germany’s borders. As Mr Critchlow says: “Once one player consolidates, like at a dance, everybody will look for a preferred dance partner.”
Helping customers reduce their energy bills does not sound like an especially appealing business model for an electricity company. Yet that was the aim when the UK arm of Engie paid £330m to acquire a business specialising in making buildings more energy efficient from Keepmoat, the construction company.
“There’s more value today in helping reduce consumption than in selling energy itself,” says Wilfrid Petrie, head of Engie in the UK. He likens the shift to the one undergone by the telecoms industry, which today finds its growth in services and content rather than the line rental and phone calls that used to be its core business.
Nuclear experts warn of a march to war with North Korea, Salon,com Ex-nuclear commanders from around the world are urging Trump to engage in talks with North Korea instead,MATTHEW ROZSA, 29 June 17, A group of ex-nuclear commanders issued a strong warning on Wednesday that pointed out the world is at the precipice of a potential nuclear war, and urged America to open up dialogue with North Korea.
Hailing from China, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States, the Nuclear Crisis Group determined “that the risk of nuclear weapons use, intended or otherwise, is unacceptably high and that all states must take constructive steps to reduce these risks.” They called on the United States and NATO to establish military-to-military talks with Russia and recommended that India and Pakistan set up a nuclear hotline.
The group was created earlier in 2017 with the approval of Global Zero, an arms control group that ultimately wants to abolish nuclear weapons.
The letter came as H. R. McMaster, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters during a security conference with Homeland Security Chief John Kelly on Wednesday that “the [North Korean] threat is much more immediate now and so it’s clear that we can’t repeat the same approach – failed approach of the past.”…. http://www.salon.com/2017/06/29/nuclear-experts-warn-of-a-march-to-war-with-north-korea/
House panel votes to advance Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, The Hill, BY TIMOTHY CAMA – 06/28/17 A House committee voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to advance a bill meant to move along the stalled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
The legislation would set a time limit for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to approve the project and makes a necessary land transfer for the project.
It also allows the Department of Energy (DOE) to permit an interim nuclear waste storage site before Yucca has its licensing process completed.
If the legislation becomes law, it would bring Yucca closer to reality, 30 years after Congress decided — over the objections of the state of Nevada — to designate the site as the nation’s repository for high-level nuclear waste…..
A near-disaster at a federal nuclear weapons laboratory takes a hidden toll on America’s arsenal , Science Repeated safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Laboratory’s work on the cores of U.S. nuclear warheads By The Center for Public Integrity, Patrick Malone Jun. 29, 2017 Technicians at the government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory settled on what seemed like a surefire way to win praise from their bosses in August 2011: In a hi-tech testing and manufacturing building pivotal to sustaining America’s nuclear arsenal, they gathered eight rods painstakingly crafted out of plutonium, and positioned them side-by-side on a table to photograph how nice they looked.
At many jobs, this would be innocent bragging. But plutonium is the unstable, radioactive, man-made fuel of a nuclear explosion, and it isn’t amenable to showboating. When too much is put in one place, it becomes “critical” and begins to fission uncontrollably, spontaneously sparking a nuclear chain reaction, which releases energy and generates a deadly burst of radiation.
The resulting blue glow — known as Cherenkov radiation — has accidentally and abruptly flashed at least 60 times since the dawn of the nuclear age, signaling an instantaneous nuclear charge and causing a total of 21 agonizing deaths. So keeping bits of plutonium far apart is one of the bedrock rules that those working on the nuclear arsenal are supposed to follow to prevent workplace accidents. It’s Physics 101 for nuclear scientists, but has sometimes been ignored at Los Alamos.
As luck had it that August day, a supervisor returned from her lunch break, noticed the dangerous configuration, and ordered a technician to move the rods apart. But in so doing, she violated safety rules calling for a swift evacuation of all personnel in “criticality” events, because bodies — and even hands — can reflect and slow the neutrons emitted by plutonium, increasing the likelihood of a nuclear chain reaction. A more senior lab official instead improperly decided that others in the room should keep working, according to a witness and an Energy Department report describing the incident.
Catastrophe was avoided and no announcement was made at the time about the near-miss — but officials internally described what happened as the most dangerous nuclear-related incident at that facility in years. It then set in motion a calamity of a different sort: Virtually all of the Los Alamos engineers tasked with keeping workers safe from criticality incidents decided to quit, having become frustrated by the sloppy work demonstrated by the 2011 event and what they considered the lab management’s callousness about nuclear risks and its desire to put its own profits above safety.
When this exodus was in turn noticed in Washington, officials there concluded the privately-run lab was not adequately protecting its workers from a radiation disaster. In 2013, they worked with the lab director to shut down its plutonium handling operations so the workforce could be retrained to meet modern safety standards.
Those efforts never fully succeeded, however, and so what was anticipated as a brief work stoppage has turned into a nearly four-year shutdown of portions of the huge laboratory building where the plutonium work is located, known as PF-4.
Officials privately say that the closure in turn undermined the nation’s ability to fabricate the cores of new nuclear weapons and obstructed key scientific examinations of existing weapons to ensure they still work. The exact cost to taxpayers of idling the facility is unclear, but an internal Los Alamos report estimated in 2013 that shutting down the lab where such work is conducted costs the government as much as $1.36 million a day in lost productivity.
And most remarkably, Los Alamos’s managers still have not figured out a way to fully meet the most elemental nuclear safety standards. ……
these safety challenges aren’t confined to Los Alamos. The Center’s probe revealed a frightening series of glaring worker safety risks, previously unpublicized accidents, and dangerously lax management practices. The investigation further revealed that the penalties imposed by the government on the private firms that make America’s nuclear weapons were typically just pinpricks, and that instead the firms annually were awarded large profits in the same years that major safety lapses occurred. Some were awarded new contracts despite repeated, avoidable accidents, including some that exposed workers to radiation…….
George Anastas, a past president of the Health Physics Society who analyzed dozens of internal government reports about criticality problems at Los Alamos for the Center, said he wonders if “the work at Los Alamos [can] be done somewhere else? Because it appears the safety culture, the safety leadership, has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
Repeated radiation warnings go unheeded at sensitive Idaho nuclear plant Center fr Public Integrity 29 June 17
“…….Key findings
The chairman of a safety committee at Idaho National Laboratory wrote a memo in 2009 warning that damaged plutonium plates could endanger workers. He said in a legal deposition that he shared it with 19 people at the lab, including high-ranking managers.
The managers ignored most of his recommendations, he said. An accident occurred in which 16 workers inhaled plutonium dust particles. Two minutes beforehand, a supervisor who had been warned about the risks relayed an order for it to proceed.
Three workers sued, claiming their inhalations brought injury and illness. Though BEA, the contractor running the lab, disagreed about the severity of the exposures, it settled the suits confidentially and then petitioned the federal government to pay its legal fees and settlement costs.
Word of this incident reached local newspapers, but there were other radiation exposures at the lab — both before and after this incident — that did not attract public notice. Despite work stoppages and re-training of workers, unsafe conditions persisted, according to government reports.
The year of the plutonium-exposure accident, BEA received 92 percent of all the profit its contract made available — $17.1 million. In 2012 the Energy Department withheld $500,000 in profits from BEA for radiation events, but later gave all of the money back to the company. In March 2014, the Department of Energy extended BEA’s contract to operate Idaho National Laboratory for five more years without holding a competition……..https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/repeated-warnings/
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