Nuclear weapons and nuclear power races on, despite serious safety risks
Plutonium Pie in the Sky: the Dangerous Delusion of New Nukes CounterPunch by JAMES HEDDLE MARCH 22, 2016
“……Faith-Based Nuclear Policy According to a recent Cornell University study, there have been nuclear reactor 174 accidents worldwide since 1946. The researchers rate the accidents in 2013 dollars and define an accident as “an unintentional incident or event at a nuclear energy facility that led to either one death (or more) or at least $50,000 in property damage.”
Based on their extensive data, they predict
*a 50% chance that a Fukushima event (or larger) will occur in the next 50 years
*a Chernobyl event (or larger) will occur in the next 27 years
*a TMI event (or larger) will occur in the next 10 years.
According to a Guardian study, a major nuclear accident has happened on average every 5 years since 1952.
Recently, alarmed at the failure of their repeated attempts to go through ‘proper channels,’ seven engineers at America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) – which then Senator Obama dubbed in 2007 ‘a moribund agency’ – filed a petition as private citizens.
They stated that they have identified a long-undiscovered electrical design flaw common to virtually all U.S. nuclear plants that could prevent cooling and allow meltdowns to occur. Their petition asks that the NRC mandate that plant operators either fix the problem or shut down the reactors.
Not to mention that twenty-three U.S. reactors share the same design flaws as those that melted down at Fukushima.
The obvious take-home lesson: because of the dependence of their cooling systems on off-site power supplies, every nuclear facility, wherever its geographic location, is vulnerable to grid blackouts from cyber attacks and extreme weather events, and constitutes both a potential terrorist weapon-in-place and danger to the entire planet, and should be treated as such by the ‘international community.’ Yet, a New Nuclear Weapons race and a New Nuclear Power race are both currently in progress………….http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/22/plutonium-pie-in-the-sky-the-dangerous-delusion-of-new-nukes/
India’s poor nuclear safety record is alarming
This is not the first time that India is facing safety issues regarding its nuclear program. In historical context one can generate a list of leaks, fires and structural damages that have been faced by India’s civilian nuclear power sector. There are abundant examples of oil leaks, hydrogen leaks, fires and high bearing vibrations which often shut down numbers of nuclear reactors in India.
Lack Of Nuclear Sanity In India Anaya Shahid Mar 20 16, http://www.eurasiareview.com/19032016-lack-of-nuclear-sanity-in-india-oped/ Ironically on March 14, 2011 after the Japan’s nuclear disaster, India was the first country to announce that Fukushima reactors were safe. Top officials of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) were of the view that Indian nuclear reactors will continue to work as they are safe and also claimed that what happened in Fukushima was not a “nuclear accident”.
S.K. Jain, the Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation was propagating on Fukushima accident that, “There is no nuclear accident or incident in the Japan’s Fukushima plants. It is a well-planned emergency preparedness program which the nuclear operators of the Tokyo Electric Power company are carrying out to contain the residual heat after the plants had an automatic shutdown following a major earthquake.”
Now it is really scary that on the 5th anniversary of Fukushima, an emergency has been declared at the Kakrapar nuclear plant in Gujarat near Surat after a major heavy water leak in a nuclear reactor. The authorities are disseminating the situation by saying that all safety systems worked fine and the technicians has successfully been able to shut down the unit. The declaration of an on-site emergency and the fact that the heavy water leak affected the reactor’s cooling system, which also has high radioactivity, raises many questions on Indian nuclear expertise.
The Fukushima disaster forced Indian nuclear establishment to initiate a safety audit process and it was conducted within by NPCIL. After the extensive review, Indian auditor general informed that the nuclear program of the country is insecure and unregulated with many disorders. Furthermore the parliamentary report on nuclear safety regulation in India had pointed out serious organizational flaws and numerous failings relative to international norms.
When in opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party was the major contrasting party to civil nuclear expansion and had strong reservations on limiting nuclear liability. It was also supporting the just protests in Kudankulam and wanted environmental clearance for Jaitapur nuclear power plants. Now in government, it has taken a complete U-turn and seeks to bring same old vine in new bottles. This year, Dr. A Gopalakrishnan labeled the Indian government plans punier than the existing regulatory framework and despite this the government is introducing the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority bill in Parliament.
This is not the first time that India is facing safety issues regarding its nuclear program. In historical context one can generate a list of leaks, fires and structural damages that have been faced by India’s civilian nuclear power sector. There are abundant examples of oil leaks, hydrogen leaks, fires and high bearing vibrations which often shut down numbers of nuclear reactors in India.
- March 1991: Heavy water leak at Madras Atomic Power Station takes four days to clean up.
- July 1991: A contracted laborer mistakenly paints the walls of Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) with heavy water before applying a coat of whitewash.
- December 1991: A leak from pipelines in the vicinity of CIRUS and Dhruva research reactors at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Trombay, Maharashtra, results in severe Cs-137 soil contamination of thousands of times the acceptable limit.
- January 1992: Four tons of heavy water spilt at RAPS.
- May 1992: Tube leak causes a radioactive release of 12 Curies of radioactivity from Tarapur Atomic Power Station.
- March 1993: Two blades of the turbine in Narora Atomic Power Station’s (NAPS) Unit I break off, slicing through other blades and indirectly causing a raging fire, which catches onto leaked oil and spreads through the turbine building. The smoke sensors fail to detect the fire, which is only noticed once workers see the flames.
- February 1994: Helium gas and heavy water leak in Unit 1 of RAPS. The plant is shut down until March 1997.
- May 1994: The inner surface of the containment dome of Unit I of Kaiga Generating Stationcollapses (delaminates) while the plant is under construction.
- March 1999: Somewhere between four and fourteen tons of heavy water leaks from the pipes at MAPS at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, during a test process. The pipes have a history of cracks and vibration problems. Forty-two people are reportedly involved in mopping up the radioactive liquid.
- April 2000: A leak of about seven tons of heavy water from the moderator system at NAPS Unit II.
- November 2001: A leak of 1.4 tons of heavy water at the NAPS I reactor, resulting in one worker receiving an internal radiation dose of 18.49 mSv.
- May 2002: Tritiated water leaks from a downgraded heavy water storage tank at the tank farm of RAPS 1&2 into a common dyke area.
- January 2003: The failure of a valve in the Kalpakkam Atomic Reprocessing Plant in Tamil Nadu results in the release of high-level waste, exposing six workers to high doses of radiation.
- April 2003: Six tons leak of heavy water at reactor II of the NAPS in Uttar Pradesh.
- November 2009: Fifty-five employees consumed radioactive material after tritiated water finds its way into the drinking water cooler in Kaiga Generating Station.
- April 2011: Fire alarms blare in the control room of the Kaiga Generating Station in Karnataka.
India’s nuclear establishment is hasting for nuclear energy though it has obstinately missed targets and delivered a portion of the promised electricity with uncertain safety. The Indian government is irrationally pursuing for nuclear power without explaining its destructive potential and answering critiques. Nowadays, the U.S. and major powers are trying to “normalize” India’s nuclear weapons through special waivers and numerous nuclear deals. Therefore, France is using such normalizing strategy to bargain for cash-strapped Areva. Meanwhile, its complement is the disaster-in-waiting called Jaitapur. The secrecy shrouded to Indian nuclear program has subjugated its energy policy and budgets to an unaccountable, self-propagating, pampered technocracy and degrading their democracy.
*Anaya Shahid graduated from Defense & Diplomatic Studies, Fatima Jinnah Women University Rawalpindi.
Sendai nuclear station has useless radiation tools installed for evacuation orders
Useless radiation tools installed for evacuations near Kagoshima plant THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, 20 Mar 16,
Nearly half of the radiation monitoring posts installed for issuing evacuation orders around the Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima Prefecture are actually useless for that purpose, The Asahi Shimbun has learned.
In the event of a nuclear accident, evacuation orders are issued immediately when airborne radiation levels reach 500 microsieverts per hour. But 22 of the 48 monitoring posts around the Sendai plant can only measure radiation levels up to 80 microsieverts per hour, according to a survey on the equipment……..http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201603140026
Armed UK vessels secretly take weapons grade plutonium from Japan to USA
The Pacific Egret and its escort ship Pacific Heron are reportedly lightly armed UK flagged vessels and arrived in Kobe port from Barrow-in-Furness, England on March 4th. The Egret docked in Tokai for pre-transport logistics last week. Both ships after departing Tokai port will sail together most likely through the South Pacific to the east coast of the United States.
NPT and Nuclear Security Risks’ Exposed by Secret Plutonium Shipment: NGOs, March 18, 2016 Tokyo- (PanOrient News) A coalition of five non-governmental organizations warned today that a shipment of weapons-grade plutonium scheduled to
depart the port of the Japanese Tokai nuclear station in Ibaraki prefecture this coming weekend highlights the failure, but also the proliferation risks, of the current Japanese nuclear policy.
A cargo of 331kg of plutonium will be loaded on to the Pacific Egret, an armed British nuclear transport ship, prior to departure under armed escort to the United States. It will be the largest shipment of separated plutonium since 1.8 tons of plutonium was delivered to Japan by controversial Akatsuki-maru in 1992. The two month voyage to the Joint Base Charleston-Weapons Station will then see the plutonium dumped at the Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, which is responsible for the shipment, has identified that storage in Japan poses a security risk justifying its removal.
The organizations, Citizen Nuclear Information Center (Japan); Green Action (Japan); Savannah River Site Watch (U.S.); CORE (England), and Greenpeace, said in a statement they condemn the shipment as a dangerous distraction from the major problem in Japan which is its overall nuclear energy policy, where over 9 tons of plutonium remains stockpiled and there are plans to produce many tons more during the coming decade. The representatives of the five organizations have worked together over the past quarter century against Japan`s plutonium and nuclear fuel cycle program.
For the U.S. and Japanese government, the Tokai shipment will be mistakenly hailed as demonstrating their commitment to reducing the threat from fissile materials, the statement noted. Both Prime Minister Abe and President Obama plan to announce the ‘success’ of the removal from Japan, at the fourth Nuclear Security Summit from March 31st -April 1st in Washington, D.C., while Japan will be desperate to avoid any discussion of the proliferation and security threat posed by its plutonium fuel cycle program.
“If 331 kg of plutonium warrants removal from Japan on the grounds of its vulnerability and in the interests of securing nuclear weapons material, then there is no credible justification for Japan’s current program and future plans to increase its plutonium stockpiling. Hailing a shipment of hundreds of kilograms of plutonium as a triumph for nuclear security, while ignoring over 9 tons of the weapons material stockpiled in Japan and in a region of rising tensions, is not just a failure of nuclear non proliferation and security policy but a dangerous delusion,” said Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany, who is currently in Japan. ……..
Cocaine use among staff at Nuclear Missile Base
Air Force Investigating Cocaine Use at Nuclear Missile Base http://gawker.com/air-force-investigating-cocaine-use-at-nuclear-missile-1765720042 Sam Biddle 18 Mar 16, Cocaine and nuclear weapons: A good mix? That’s what an official probe into coke abuse by “about a dozen airmen” at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming will investigate, the AP reports.
The coked-up airmen in question are, reassuringly, not the people who have their fingers on the literal button required to begin a nuclear war. But they are, scarily, the people tasked with defending the 150 Minuteman III ICBMs (each with an explosive yield roughly eight times greater than the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, easily capable of destroying an entire large modern city) from the rest of the world. As the AP notes, they’re crucial to the operation and safety of America’s vast nuclear stockpile:
Security forces at nuclear missile bases are entrusted to patrol the missile fields and respond to any security emergencies. They are highly trained and given enormous responsibility. Just last month, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work visited F.E. Warren and observed a demonstration by security forces of the techniques and equipment they would use to recapture a missile silo that had been taken over by intruders.
In other words, not the kind of people you want doing key bumps in the bathroom. This is the second time in two years that F.E. Warren has been under investigation: In 2014, missile officers responsible for actually launching those ICBMs were caught cheating on their proficiency tests and also doing a lot of illegal drugs.
This sounds like it would be a very fun job were it not for the possibility of fucking up and beginning a nuclear holocaust.
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/
1 This Month
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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