Union of Concerned Scientists Annual Review of U.S. Nuclear Plant, Near Misses
A near miss incident is an event or condition that could increase the chance of reactor core damage by a factor of 10 or more, prompting the NRC to send an inspection team to investigate. The number of near miss incidents has declined since UCS initiated its annual review in 2010. In 2010, there were 19; last year there were nine. All told, from 2010 through 2015 there were 91 near misses………
Nuclear Disaster by Design – Nuclear Safety inFLEXibility
For the NRC’s Fukushima fixes to reach their target destination, the NRC must determine why Pilgrim procured an inadequate FLEX air compressor, why River Bend thought it had 24 hours to handle a one-hour problem, and how dozens of flood protection problems remaining invisible during the NRC-mandated walkdowns at Arkansas Nuclear One.
Nuclear Safety inFLEXibility http://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/nuclear-safety-inflexibility Dave Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project | March 15, 2016, Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #23
Disaster by Design
Among the actions taken by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in response to the March 11, 2011, accident at Fukushima was to issue an order on March 12, 2012, to all U.S. nuclear plant owners requiring them to procure equipment and implement measures to enable their facilities to cope with an extended loss of normal and backup power supplies to emergency equipment.
The NRC required that owners develop a phased response capability (Fig. 1). The initial response is by permanently installed equipment. Recognizing that this equipment may become unavailable (as happened at Fukushima), the NRC required a followup response capability by portable equipment stored in places not likely to be affected by the accident. Recognizing that portable equipment provides an interim response, the NRC required a longer term response capability to be provided by the “nuclear cavalry” (equipment and staffing resources arriving from offsite locations). The Nuclear Energy Institute developed the Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies (FLEX) Implementation Guide for use by plant owners in complying with the NRC’s order.
Safety Detour?
There can be a big difference between the course plotted and the road taken. For example, a family heading out by car from their home in Atlanta, Georgia for a relaxing vacation on Sanibel Island in Florida should become a little troubled upon seeing the Washington Monument through the windshield.
If the following examples are any indication, the road to the Fukushima fixes ordered by the NRC might have taken a detour or three. Continue reading
USA’s nuclear regulator ineffective, as radiation leaks continue
Nuclear Plants Leak Radiation, and Regulator Faces Scrutiny Five years after one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, America’s nuclear plants still face safety issues. Indian Point nuclear power plant sits on the Hudson River outside New York City.USA News, By Alan Neuhauser March 15, 2016Yet it’s radioactive, and in the past two months, two nuclear power plants outside New York City and Miami were found to be leaking tritium: the former into groundwater within the facility’s confines, the second straight into Biscayne Bay.
The leaks, revealed in news reports, apparently haven’t contaminated drinking water and don’t pose a threat to human health. But tritium, while less potent than other substances like cesium or strontium or radium, can still be harmful in high enough concentrations, even lethal. And that’s before taking the public reaction into account: The New York incident made headlines across the region, anti-nuclear groups warned the state was “flirting with catastrophe,” and Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered an investigation.
The incidents came just a few weeks before the fifth anniversary of the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was sparked by a tsunami and earthquake and became the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. They also occurred as the industry was working to burnish its image on safety: All of the nation’s 61 nuclear plants are at least 20 years old, many are over 40, and at least one plant operator has announced it hopes to extend its reactors’ licenses to 80 years.
Yet more than three-quarters of the country’s commercial nuclear power sites have reported some kind of radioactive leak in their life spans, an investigation by the Associated Press found in June 2011 – three months after Fukushima. At the same time, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has repeatedly weakened federal regulations to allow plants to keep operating, despite thousands of problems ranging from corroded pipes to cracked concrete and radioactive leaks.
Late last month, seven NRC engineers went public with a petition urging the agency to fix a critical design flaw in the electrical systems of all but one of the nation’s nuclear plants – a highly unusual move for federal employees.
“We have a very ineffective regulator that will not impose any costs that will jeopardize the economics of these plants,” says Paul Blanch, a longtime engineer and industry worker turned watchdog. While a tritium leak may not imperil human health, “it indicates a very sloppy operational environment of aging management and fixing obvious sources of leaks.”………
since finalizing the new standards, the agency has reportedly inspected and approved just two of the country’s 61 plants for compliance: one in Tennessee, the other in Virginia, Bloomberg BNA found. It’s also unclear whether new equipment for maintaining power at the plant during a prolonged outage will even work, experts say: while the NRC’s mandate called for buying the new equipment, it apparently lacked minimum performance standards.
Meanwhile, last fall, Indian Point in New York – the plant leaking tritium – suffered four unplanned outages in two months………http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/nuclear-plants-leak-radiation-and-regulator-faces-scrutiny
Arkansas Nuclear Reactors found by regulator to need more oversight
Feds Say Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear Reactors Need More Oversight, NPR By WESLEY BROWN/ TALK BUSINESS & POLITICS 14 Mar 16 In an annual evaluation of the nation’s commercial nuclear plants, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Entergy Arkansas’ Nuclear One and Two units in Russellville were among three reactors that require increased oversight because of two safety findings of “substantial significance” in 2015…….
Eleven reactors need to resolve one or two items of low safety significance. For this performance level, regulatory oversight includes additional inspections and follow-up of corrective actions. Plants in this level are: Clinton (Illinois); Davis Besse (Ohio); Dresden 2 (Illinois); Duane Arnold (Iowa); Indian Point 3 (New York); Millstone 3 (Connecticut); Prairie Island 2 (Minnesota); River Bend (Louisiana); Sequoyah 1 (Tennessee); and Susquehanna 1 and 2 (Pennsylvania). Duane Arnold, Millstone 3, and Susquehanna 1 and 2 have resolved their issues since the reporting period ended and have transitioned to the highest performing level, NRC officials.
There were three reactors in the fourth performance category, or Column 4, including Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One and Two units in Russellville, and Entergy Corp.’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass. Pilgrim is in the fourth performance Column 4 category because of long-standing issues of low-to-moderate safety significance, NRC officials said.
Nuclear reactors in Column 4 receive additional inspections and increased NRC management attention to confirm performance issues are being addressed. Later this year, the NRC will host a public meeting in the vicinity of each plant to discuss the details of the annual assessment results………
ISSUES ARISE FROM 2013 ACCIDENT
The issues relating to the Entergy nuclear reactors in Russellville stem back to the events surrounding the industrial accident that occurred at the plant on March 31, 2013, which resulted in one fatality and eight injured personnel. At the time of the event, Unit 1 was shut down in a refueling outage with the reactor vessel head off and fuel in the vessel. Beginning in 2013, Entergy Operations officials and the NRC began extensive inspections of the flood protection program at ANO.
All told, more than 100 previously unknown flood barrier deficiencies creating flooding pathways into the site’s two auxiliary buildings were found. These included defective floor seals, flooding barriers that were designed, but never installed, and seals that had deteriorated over time. In one case, a special hatch that was supposed to close a ventilation duct in the Unit 1 auxiliary building in the event of flooding had never been installed.
In June 2014, ANO Units 1 and 2 received yellow violations because electrical equipment damaged during an industrial incident increased risk to the plant. Workers were moving a 525-ton component out of the plant’s turbine building when a temporary lifting rig collapsed on March 13, 2013, damaging plant equipment. Those violations moved both units from Column 1 to Column 3 of the NRC’s Action Matrix, which the agency increases its oversight of plants as performance declines.
Bowling said the NRC placed Arkansas Nuclear One in Column 4 in March 2015 after issuing the two “yellow findings” for each nuclear unit related to the 2013 heavy equipment handling incident in which a lift operated by a contractor failed. Two subsequent yellow findings for Arkansas Nuclear One and Two related to flood barrier effectiveness had the cumulative effect of moving the plant to Column 4………http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/feds-say-entergy-s-arkansas-nuclear-reactors-need-more-oversight#stream/0
Is India’s Government Hiding A Serious Accident Underway In Gujarat?
India’s Former Nuclear Regulator Says, Govt Might Be 
, CounterCurrents By Kumar Sundaram 13 March, 2016 Indiaresists.com The retired chief of India’s nuclear regulator, Dr. A Gopalakrishnan has sent out an urgent note in which he has cautioned that a ‘loss of coolant accident(LOCA)’ might be underway in Gujarat’s Kakrapar Nuclear Power Station(KAPS). A LOCA accidents is the most serious accident that can happen in nuclear plants and it might lead to the meltdown of the reactor fuel core.
The same reactor had a major accident in 1994 when floodwaters drowned Kakrapar. The floodgates meant to release excess water could not be opened and the water kept increasing–which could lead to a major accident–but it was prevented with the efforts of local engineers. Mr. Manoj Mishra, a worker in the power station then who blew whistle on that accident was terminated by the NPCIL. He was denied justice even by the Supreme Court in India which bought the NPCIL’s argument that he cannot be a whistle-blower as he did not have technical degrees. Mr. Mishra had years of experience in the reactor and he was a strong leader of the workers’ union.
Kakrapar is situated not very far from the Vansda-Bharuch earthquake faultline running through Gujarat, which has experienced several major earthquakes.
Exactly on the 5th anniversary of Fukushima, a leak has been reported in the Unit-1 of the Kakrapar Nuclear Power Station near Surat in Gujarat.
Here is the note by Dr. Gopalakrishnan:
The Kakrapar Unit-I nuclear reactor in Gujarat is undergoing a moderately large leakage of heavy water from its Primary Heat Transport (PHT) system since 9.00 AM on March 11,2016. From the very limited information released by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) of the government , as well as from the conversations I had with press people who have been in touch with nuclear officials, few inferences can be drawn.
Till 7.00 PM on March 12,2016 , the DAE officials have no clue as to where exactly the PHT leak is located and how big is the rate of irradiated heavy water that is leaking into the reactor containment . However, some reports indicate that the containment has been vented to the atmosphere at least once , if not more times , which I suspect indicates a tendency for pressure build up in that closed space due to release of hot heavy water and steam into the containment housing . If this is true, the leak is not small , but moderately large , and still continuing. No one confirms that any one has entered the containment (in protective clothing) for a quick physical assessment of the situation , perhaps it is not safe to do so because of the high radiationfields inside . When NPCIL officials state that the reactor cooling is maintained , I believe what they may be doing is to allow the heavy water or light water stored in the emergency cooling tanks to run once-through the system and continue to pour through the leak into the containment floor through the break .
All this points to the likelihood that what Kakrapar Unit-1 is undergoing is a small Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) in progress. It is most likely that one or more pressure tubes (PT) in the reactor (which contain the fuel bundles) have cracked open , leaking hot primary system heavy-water coolant into the containment housing . ……….
. It may be possible that , having built more than 20 PHWRs , NPCIL and AERB in recent years have become overconfident and relaxed their strict adherence to this Aging Management Program , which might have been the reason for the current accident.
Let me caution the reader that the above conjecture is based on bits and pieces of reliable and not so reliable information gathered from different people close to the accident details and in positions of authority. Future detailed evaluation may or may not prove my entire set of conclusions or part of them to be not well-founded. But , technical experts are compelled to put out such conjectures because of the total lack of transparency of the Indian cilvilian nuclear power sector and the atomic energy commission (AEC) , the Dept. of Atomic Energy (DAE) , the NPCIL and the AERB . Public have a need to know and , therefore , the AEC and its sub-ordinate organizations need to promptly release status reports on the progressing safety incident which could affect their lives , to alleviate their concerns and anxieties . It is a series of such lapses in communication over the years which has built up the ever-increasing trust deficit in the DAE system among the general public. All future plans for expanding the civilian nuclear power sector should be put on hold until a truly independent nuclear safety regulator is put in place , who is not controlled by the AEC or the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) , who will then be answerable to openly communicating with the public on all civilian nuclear power matters.
Kumar Sundaram is a senior researcher with Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) and Editor of DiaNUke.org http://www.countercurrents.org/sundaram130316.htm
Threat of nuclear terrorism continuesA lingering nuclear threat https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/beyond-the-nuclear-security-summit/2016/03/12/15d2c952-e0c5-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html By Editorial Board March 12
WHEN BELGIAN police searched the home of a suspected member of the Islamic State after the Paris terror attacks in November, they found in the suspect’s apartment a curious video. It appeared to be a surveillance recording, made by the suspect, of a senior researcher at a Belgian nuclear center. The authorities speculate that it might have been part of a terrorist plot to capture nuclear materials from the center, perhaps by kidnapping the researcher. The episode has prompted Belgian authorities to deploy armed troops to protect nuclear sites, replacing a private security force.
The potential threat is clear. Much has been done to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles and materials over the past 25 years, but hazards remain from highly enriched uranium and plutonium spread around the globe. Some 1,800 metric tons of weapons-useable material is stored in hundreds of facilities, including civilian research reactors and military stocks.
Starting in 2010, President Obama cast a spotlight on the problem with international summits at which leaders were pressed to act, including the cleanup of materials that could be used for building a so-called “dirty bomb,” a conventional explosive combined with nuclear materials that, while not a nuclear blast, would nonetheless cause considerable mayhem and disruption. In 2010, when the summits began in Washington, 35 nations had weapons-usable materials; three summits and six years later, it is down to 24.
But now comes the difficult part. Leaders of more than 50 nations will gather in Washington at the end of this month for the fourth and final nuclear security summit. Then what? The summit process has not given rise to an effective global system for securing these nuclear materials. It will take some real imagination and determination to keep up the pressure. We hear the coming summit will produce “action plans,” pledges from the leaders to pursue nuclear security in existing international organizations. It may also set up some kind of smaller, ongoing contact group. But will these be sufficient to sustain the sense of urgency and political drive that the summits generated?
A detailed index published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative shows tangible progress was achieved between 2012 and 2014, but since then efforts havestalled, due to political issues that have diverted attention, bureaucratic inertia, lack of resources and cultural factors. None of these are going away any time soon.
The rapid deterioration of U.S. relations with Moscow has taken a toll, too. Russia has declared it will not attend the summit. Cooperation on nuclear security has all but collapsed under the weight of President Vladimir Putin’s ill-fated adventure in Ukraine. Former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who pioneered that cooperation, said recently there is a “corrosive lack of trust”between Washington and Moscow, and channels of communication are “few and far between.” Without in any way easing the pressure on Mr. Putin over Ukraine or Syria, the United States and Russia ought to realize that Islamic State terrorists interested in nuclear materials in Belgium are a threat to all countries, and one worth talking about.
Major leak shuts down India’s Gujarat Nuclear Plant
Gujarat Nuclear Plant Shut Down After Major Leak, All Workers Safe http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/gujarat-nuclear-plant-shut-down-after-major-leak-workers-isolated-but-safe-1286198 NDTV, All India | Written by Pallava Bagla March 12, 2016 NEW DELHI:
An emergency has been declared within the nuclear plant at Kakrapar in Gujarat after a major heavy water leak in a nuclear reactor. No worker has been exposed to radiation, said officials, adding that the employees remained sequestered till their shift ended, which is standard operating procedure for a crisis.
The workers were allowed to go home after they had been counted and accounted for as officials checked to ensure that no radioactivity was reported outside the plant.
Officials at India’s nuclear operator, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), told NDTV “The reactor has shut down safely and no radiation has leaked out”. According to Nalinish Nagaich a senior official at NPCIL, no worker was stationed in the affected area.
The nuclear reactor is slowly cooling down and is in a “safe stage” confirmed Dr Sekhar Basu, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The heavy water leak affected the reactor’s cooling system. If emergency cooling systems do not kick in after this sort of glitch, the temperature can rise so much that the core of the reactor can melt down completely.
Heavy water, formed with a hydrogen isotope, is used in Indian reactors as a preferred cooling agent.
A Jewish Law insight on the ethics of keeping crumbling Indian Point nuclear power plant
What Jewish Law Says About Crumbling Indian Point Nuclear Plant, Forward, Jay Michaelson 11 Mar 16, What does an ox’s propensity for violence have to do with a leaky nuclear reactor? One is an ancient, Jewish example of negligence; the other is a very contemporary one. But the ethical imperative is the same:
When there’s an imminent risk of danger to the public, it’s morally wrong to do nothing.
Let’s start with the present. Twenty-five miles north of New York City, the crumbling Indian Point nuclear power plant is leaking radioactive water. And yet what has been the government’s response? Forge ahead with a 42-inch natural gas pipeline right underneath that power plant.
Although The New York Times published an excellent op-ed on the plant this week, that article omitted the pipeline entirely, focusing only on the need to close Indian Point………
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, to his credit, believes that it’s time to retire the Indian Point plant and, among other things, invest in renewables. So did that New York Times op-ed.
But it seems that one of those “other things” is Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market project, a web of natural gas pipelines that stretches from New Jersey to Boston.
In other words, fracking. The AIM pipeline, if completed, will pipe fracked natural gas (that is, methane) from the Appalachians to New England. Cuomo has so far been silent on the AIM pipeline, giving it his tacit approval. FERC, the federal agency responsible for the pipeline, approved it in 2015.
Now, common sense would seem to disagree. Natural gas pipelines rupture all the time; there were 119 pipeline accidents in 2014. Right now, a gas storage leak outside Los Angeles is spewing 62 million cubic feet of methane into the atmosphereevery day. And the AIM pipeline would run just 105 feet away from the Indian Point plant. Twenty million people live within 50 miles.
The icing on the cake? Both the plant and the pipeline lie less than a mile from a fault line.
How is any of this possible?
First, for all the common-sense objections to a huge natural gas pipeline passing underneath a crumbling nuclear power plant on a fault line 25 miles north of the largest city in America, the fact is that both the pipeline and the plant have continually obtained regulatory approvals. And Spectra, the company building the pipeline, points out that it has older, smaller pipelines across the Indian Point property already, and they’ve operated without incident for decades……..
Here’s where that goring ox comes in. Jewish law is clear, in general and in detail, that it is negligent to create a risk to the public. If you let an ox loose, and it gores someone, you are responsible, because you placed the risk in the public domain.
The Indian Point plan is a modern-day ox. But as long as it remains open, or its waste remains on site, so is the Spectra Pipeline.
Indeed, the Pipeline-plus-Plant risk gets even worse. Perversely, the NRC includes terrorism in its purview, but only for the plant itself. The pipeline, meanwhile, has not been deemed a terrorist target at all, even though if you can blow up the pipeline, you might be able to blow up the plant……..
We need religious, as well as environmentalist, voices on this issue. We need to reframe our public discussion of environmental risk to include ethical, moral and religious traditions within it. And if we don’t, we may not be legally liable for what might happen, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. http://forward.com/opinion/335647/what-jewish-law-says-about-crumbling-indian-point-nuclear-plant/#ixzz42dEdxuQo
Belgium’s nuclear sites in danger: military protection to be set up
Belgian army to protect nuclear sites: interior ministry http://www.reuters.com/ article/us-belgium-nuclear- security-idUSKCN0W61KR, 4 Mar 16 Belgium has ordered its military to protect nuclear sites such as power plants in the country to safeguard them against possible militant attacks, the country’s interior ministry said on Friday.
Some 140 soldiers will be mobilized to protect locations such as Belgium’s two nuclear power plants at Tihange and Doel as well as nuclear research and storage facilities, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.
“We are setting up a special police unit for this sort of security task but that will take some time for it to be operational,” the spokesman said, adding that the army would take over in the meantime.
In February, Belgian investigators searching houses linked to suspects in the Islamist militant attacks in Paris last November found a video tracking movements of a man linked to the country’s nuclear industry.
The spokesman said there was no direct link between the discovery of the video and the decision to take the additional security measures. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners urgently call for correcting reactor cooling systems flaw
Dangerous Flaw Threatens to Close Nation’s Nuclear Fleet Energy Matters, By Roger Witherspoon, 4 Mar 16
After four years of increasingly tense internal discussion, seven Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineers have formally petitioned the governing Commissioners to either order the nation’s nuclear power plants to immediately correct a design flaw governing their reactor cooling systems or order them all to shut down.
The flaw is in the original design of the electrical system, and has escaped notice for decades. According to the engineers’ petition, as well as a series of staff analyses on file at the NRC, the design flaw occurs in what is called a “single phase” condition in which little or no electricity is entering the plant to operate its backup cooling systems in the event of a blackout or other event cutting off power from the grid. The result is that the motors of backup generators are underpowered and this can cause their motors to burn out. When that happens, there is no way to keep the reactor core cool.
The seven members of the Electrical Engineering Branch in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, led by Acting Chief Roy K. Mathew, stated in the petition that “the staff determined that all nuclear facilities are susceptible to this design vulnerability except one plant, and recommended that the NRC take prompt regulatory action.”
As a result, the petition states, if the plants are not ordered to immediately redesign their electrical systems then the Commissioners should “issue Orders to immediately shutdown the operating nuclear power plants since the licensees are operating their facilities without addressing the significant design deficiency…and with inoperable electric power systems….”
The situation evolved from an unplanned shutdown in January 30, 2012 in Unit 2 of the Byron Station Nuclear Power Plant in Illinois. At the time, it was thought that the shutdowns resulted from a string of unfortunate coincidences. But further examination by the NRC’s electrical engineering branch found something more alarming…………
Officials from Exelon, which owns and operates Byron and 10 other nuclear power plants, as well as inspectors from the NRC initially thought that the shutdown was the result of a series of unfortunate coincidences. But On Feb. 28, 2012, there was a similar interrupted and undetected phase which caused a shutdown at Byron’s Unit 1. And, as in the earlier event, it disabled the plant’s cooling systems. That caused Mathews and the electric unit he led to investigate further and see if there had been any other shutdowns in which an undetected phase disruption disabled the cooling pumps. Their initial look found identical shutdowns at the Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 1 in Pennsylvania in November, 2007; and in New York, the James Fitzpatrick and the neighboring Nine Mile plants, which share a power substation, shut down in December, 2005.
The staff analysis concluded that the design of the electrical systems was “inadequate because it did not consider the possibility of the loss of a single phase… This situation resulted in neither the onsite nor the offsite electric power system being able to perform its intended safety functions” to provide electric power to the plant’s safety systems. Plants are required to have two separate sets of electrical power lines and monitors for their core cooling systems so that operators can still control the reactor even if one line, or train, is damaged by fire or another event.
The loss of a single phase of alternating current, the NRC staff found, “can potentially damage both trains of the emergency core cooling system.” In that case, there is nothing to prevent a meltdown………..
“In addition,” the staff assessment concluded, “the generic AP1000 plant operating procedures are under development and the licensees’ review of the generic procedures did not identify specific operator actions related to phase voltage verifications of the three phases.”
As a result, the electrical group concluded, all of the nation’s nuclear plants are violating the terms of their operating licenses and must either be brought into compliance or shut down.
According to NRC statutes, this is a major issue.
NRC regulations governing the operating licenses dictate that “the safety systems shall be designed so that, once initiated automatically or manually, the intended sequence of protective actions of the execute features shall continue until completion.”
The group’s petition states “any failures in an offsite power system or onsite power system must not disable the safety functions of emergency core cooling and vital safety systems to protect the health and safety of the public.”
With the current system, they assert, the plants are violating a mandatory condition of their operating licenses ( http://bit.ly/21OiouL ). As the issue was debated within the agency, the Mathews group cast a wider net and began looking at the root causes of shutdowns in the US and abroad, while pushing the agency to more forcefully addresses the design problem. To their surprise, they found 13 “open phase events” over a 14-year period, with the latest taking place at the Oconee Nuclear Power Station in South Carolina in December, 2015………… https://spoonsenergymatters.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/dangerous-flaw-threatens-to-close-nations-nuclear-fleet/
Florida Nuclear Station is leaking radioactive material into Biscayne Bay
FPL nuclear plant canals leaking into Biscayne Bay, study confirms
Radioactive ‘tracer’ detected at up to 215 normal levels near canals
County commission set to discuss cooling canal problems Tuesday
Threat from pollution to public, marine life not addressed in report
A radioactive isotope linked to water from power plant cooling canals has been found in high levels in Biscayne Bay, confirming suspicions that Turkey Point’s aging canals are leaking into the nearby national park.
According to a study released Monday by Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, water sampling in December and January found tritium levels up to 215 times higher than normal in ocean water. The report doesn’t address risks to the public or marine life but tritium is typically monitored as a “tracer” of nuclear power plant leaks or spills.
The study comes two weeks after a Tallahassee judge ordered the utility and the state to clean up the nuclear plant’s cooling canals after concluding that they had caused a massive underground saltwater plume to migrate west, threatening a wellfield that supplies drinking water to the Florida Keys. The judge also found the state failed to address the pollution by crafting a faulty management plan.
This latest test, critics say, raise new questions about what they’ve long suspected: That canals that began running too hot and salty the summer after FPL overhauled two reactors to produce more power could also be polluting the bay………
Over the last two years, problems with the canals have worsened exponentially. After the 2013 plant expansion to increase power output by 15 percent, the canals began running dangerously high. FPL officials blamed problems on an algae bloom that worsened after the canals were temporarily shut down during the project. But when a summer drought hit in 2014, temperatures spiked. At least twice, when temperatures soared to 102 degrees, the utility was nearly forced to power down reactors.
After obtaining permission from nuclear regulators to operate the canals at 104 degrees, the hottest in the nation, FPL officials began plotting a course to fix the canals by pumping in millions of gallons of fresh water from a nearby canal as well as increasing the amount of water drawn from the Floridan aquifer.
But the growing saltwater plume triggered regulatory scrutiny. After the county complained, the state ordered a new management plan, called an administrative order, to address problems……..
Over the last five years, the report said, cooling canal water typically has tritium at levels 60 to more than 800 times higher than in the bay. Tritium at the bottom of the bay close to the canals ranged from more than 130 to 215 times higher — high enough to suggest a consistent flow from the sprawling cooling system.
County staff concluded the findings are “the most compelling evidence” that canal water has spread into the bay.
Deep seated concern about Canada’s nuclear safety
Can the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission do better? http://www.waterkeeper.ca/blog/2016/3/2/can-the-canadian-nuclear-safety-commission-do-better by Mark Mattson.
If your drinking water comes from Lake Ontario, then you’re one of the millions of people who count on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Committee to do its job perfectly. The same is true for other Canadians who work in the nuclear industry or live near a facility.
In an interconnected, hi-tech world, we rely on regulatory agencies to keep us safe. We assume that buildings are well constructed, that toxic products will be banned, that the water coming out of our faucets will be safe to drink – and if any of these things doesn’t happen, we assume we will be warned.
When we are wrong, the consequences can be grave. Think of the Walkerton tragedy or the crisis in Flint.
Of course, the consequences of poor regulation aren’t always obvious. They may be difficult to detect or very distant from the root cause. Imagine low levels of a carcinogen (say PFOA) in a town’s drinking water, for example. If the regulator fails to prevent this, it is unlikely that the residents will detect its presence. Even if rare cancers begin to appear, making the connection can be difficult.
The CNSC is responsible for protecting Canadians from the risks associated with the nuclear industry. This means ensuring that Canada never has to deal with the pandora’s box of problems that would stem from a complete or partial meltdown, or major release of radioactive material into the environment. It means protecting Canadians from those insidious, day-to-day harms that are harder to detect, like low level radiation or the slow release of radionuclides into the watershed. It also means protecting Canadians from the impact of non-nuclear contaminants, habitat loss, and environmental destruction.
If you’ve followed some of our previous work, you’ll know that Waterkeeper questions whether the CNSC effectively serves the public as an impartial regulator. We believe the CNSC relies on an inadequate licensing process, demonstrates limited appreciation of environmental risks, and has a tendency to downplay or ignore concerns raised by the public.
When regulatory agencies show signs of failing to meet their public duties, it’s important to speak up. In fact, any individual or organization that has such concerns has an obligation to share them. After all, you rely on us to help keep you safe, too.
For this reason, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper is joining Greenpeace Canada, Ecojustice, the Canadian Environmental Law Association and others in calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to initiate a twenty year review of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. This is the legislation that dictates how the CNSC operates.
Reviewing the Act would provide an opportunity to address deep-seated concerns about the CNSC and improve nuclear regulation in Canada. You can read the open letter that has been sent to Prime Minister Trudeau below. (on original)
Trudea called upon to fix Canada’s nuclear law and oversight
Groups urge Trudeau to fix Canada’s nuclear law and oversight, National Observer By Mike De Souza March 8th 2016 Canada needs to fix its nuclear safety law and put a stop to internal political strategizing by its industry watchdog that is putting public safety at risk, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was told in an open letter released on Tuesday.
The groups released the letter along with a federal strategy document showing that staff at the watchdog were recommending that management consider the “political environment” in 2015 prior to developing any changes needed to improve nuclear oversight.
Greenpeace Canada said this indicates there was political strategizing by the watchdog, theCanadian Safety Nuclear Commission, and demonstrates why the Liberal government has to clean up Canadian nuclear oversight………
All 14 groups, including MiningWatch Canada, EcoJustice and the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said that Japan and the European Union have increased the independence and transparency of their nuclear watchdogs in the wake of the disaster. But the groups argued that the previous federal government, led by former prime minister Stephen Harper, failed to keep pace with the other jurisdictions to prepare the country for any similar disaster in Canada.
“While the (Canadian watchdog) carried out a review of the technical failures that led to radioactive releases at Fukushima, it did not consider how institutional failures and industry-led regulation caused the accident,” said the letter to Trudeau. “This should be addressed as part of a public review process leading to the modernization of the (law).”…..
Greenpeace Canada nuclear analyst Shawn-Patrick Stensil said Trudeau needs to put a stop to the commission’s internal strategizing.
“In public the CNSC says Canada’s nuclear safety laws are fine, but behind closed doors they’re strategizing on how to amend the law without public input,” Stensil told National Observer. “If they’re not being honest with the public about things like this what else are they trying to hide? This is why Trudeau should clean house at the CNSC.”……..http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/08/news/groups-urge-trudeau-fix-canadas-nuclear-law-and-oversight
Japan’s Nuclear Regulator urges vigilance, has doubts on efficacy of underground ice wall around Fukushima
Japan’s nuclear watchdog chief urges safety vigilance by government, utilities, Japan Times, KYODO MAR 8, 2016 The head of the Nuclear Regulation Authority is urging the government and utilities to redouble their vigilance to ensure reactor safety, warning them not to drop their guard simply because units have cleared the NRA’s tough safety screening.
NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said passing the screening is “not enough” during an interview Monday ahead of Friday’s fifth anniversary of the Fukushima No. 1 disaster……..
The NRA chairman said the situation at Fukushima No. 1 is calm, with cleanup work making steady progress.
But he expressed doubts about the efficacy of an underground ice wall that Tepco has built around reactor buildings to prevent groundwater from flowing into their basements.
The wall “will not essentially help reduce the risk” of an increase in toxic water, he said……http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/08/national/japans-nuclear-watchdog-chief-urges-safety-vigilance-government-utilities/#.Vt80nX197Gh
Tokyo came close to nuclear catastrophe – former Japan PM Kan
Fukushima: Tokyo was on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, admits former prime minister, Telegraph UK, 6 Mar 16 Five years on from the tsunami, the former Japanese prime minister says the country came within a “paper-thin margin” of a nuclear disaster By Andrew Gilligan, Tokyo Japan’s prime minister at the time of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has revealed that the country came within a “paper-thin margin” of a nuclear disaster requiring the evacuation of 50 million people.
In an interview with The Telegraph to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, Naoto Kan described the panic and disarray at the highest levels of the Japanese government as it fought to control multiple meltdowns at thecrippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
He said he considered evacuating the capital, Tokyo, along with all other areas within 160 miles of the plant, and declaring martial law. “The future existence of Japan as a whole was at stake,” he said. “Something on that scale, an evacuation of 50 million, it would have been like a losing a huge war.”
Mr Kan admitted he was frightened and said he got “no clear information” out of Tepco, the plant’s operator. He was “very shocked” by the performance of Nobuaki Terasaka, his own government’s key nuclear safety adviser. “We questioned him and he was unable to give clear responses,” he said.
“We asked him – do you know anything about nuclear issues? And he said no, I majored in economics.”
Mr Terasaka, the director of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, was later sacked. Another member of Mr Kan’s crisis working group, the then Tepco chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata, was last week indicted on charges of criminal negligence for his role in the disaster……….
Dramatic CCTV footage from the plant, released in 2012, showed a skeleton staff – the so-called “Fukushima 50” – struggling to read emergency manuals by torchlight and battling with contradictory, confusing instructions from their superiors at Tepco. At one stage, an appeal went out for workers to bring batteries from their cars so they could be hooked up to provide power for the crippled cooling systems.
Total disaster was averted when seawater was pumped into the reactors, but the plant manager, Masao Yoshida, later said he considered committing hara-kiri, ritual suicide, in despair at the situation…….
[Mr Kan] – “I knew that even based on what little we were hearing, there was a real possibility this could be bigger than Chernobyl. That was a terrible disaster, but there was only one reactor there. There were six here.”
Although the Fukushima disaster caused no immediate deaths from radiation, it did force the evacuation of almost 400,000 people, most of whom have still been unable to return to their homes. Hundreds of thousands more fled in panic and much of Fukushima province ceased functioning.
An area within 20km (12.5 miles) of the plant remains an exclusion zone, with no-one allowed to live there. Some studies have identified a higher incidence of child cancer in the wider region.
Mr Kan said that the nuclear accident is “still going on” today. He said: “In reactors 2 and 3, the radioactive fuel rods are still there and small amounts of [radioactive] water are leaking out of the reactor every day, despite what Tepco says.”
He said the experience had turned him from a supporter of nuclear power into a convinced opponent. “I have changed my views 180 degrees. You have to look at the balance between the risks and the benefits,” he said. “One reactor meltdown could destroy the whole plant and, however unlikely, that is too great a risk.”……..
He criticised his successor as prime minister, Shinzo Abe, for restarting some of the country’s nuclear power stations, all of which were shut down after the crisis, saying that Japan had “not learned the lessons enough” and was “closing its eyes” to the risk of a second disaster. He has joined protest demonstrations against the plant reopenings.
“There is a clear conflict between government policy and the wishes of the public,” he said. “Additional protective measures against tsunamis have been taken, such as raising the protective walls, but I don’t think they go far enough. We shouldn’t be building nuclear power plants in areas where there is a population to be affected. After the tsunami, Japan went without nuclear power for years, so it can be done.”…….. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12184114/Fukushima-Tokyo-was-on-the-brink-of-nuclear-catastrophe-admits-former-prime-minister.html
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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