nuclear-news

Nuclear Regulatory Commission rushing report so as to relicense reactors?

After the Court of Appeals decision, NRC chair Allison Macfarlane decided that the NRC would produce a full environmental impact statement in response to the ruling, as opposed to a less rigorous environmental assessment.

Watchdogs say NRC rushing nuclear waste report Rutland Herald, By DAVID McCUMBER Hearst Newspapers | January 13,2013 WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rushing a court-ordered evaluation of the risks of storing spent nuclear fuel at the country’s nuclear plants, according to two dozen watchdog groups.

In detailed public comments solicited by the NRC, the groups together contended that the agency’s two-year timeline for an environmental impact statement on the spent-fuel risks is inadequate.

The NRC “would be well-advised to slow it down, quite apart from anybody’s position on nuclear power … They just don’t have the data,” Continue reading →

January 14, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

South Texas nuclear reactors – fire on Jan 8, relicensing hearing on Jan 15

Fire at South Texas Project Nuclear Reactor Site – Just Before Re-licensing Hearing, Herald Online,  January 11, 2013  By Sustainable Energy & Economic Development Coalition  AUSTIN, TEXAS, JAN. 11, 2013 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –– A fire that shot 50 foot flames into the air erupted January 8th in the main transformer at the South Texas Project site near Bay City, Texas, about 90 miles southwest of Houston. Reactor 2, which was out of commission for five winter months in 2011-2012, has not been operating since the fire.

The fire occurred just one week prior to a hearing on re-licensing the two South Texas Project reactors, which will be held January 15th from 2-5 pm and 7-10 pm at the Bay City Civic Center, 201 Seventh St…… “Any nuclear reactor is at risk from fires, explosions, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, lack of cooling water and terrorist attacks, as well as accidents due to human error and mechanical failure,” said Karen Hadden, Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition.

“This is like a used car deal – made fourteen years in advance. Why not wait until 2025 to see what shape the reactors are in before even considering re-licensing? The reactors, now 24 and 25 years old, are licensed to run 40 years – until 2027 and 2028. It’s time to plan for their replacement, not court disaster by giving aging reactors twenty additional years.”

The NRC Event report and hearing information are online at www.NukeFreeTexas.org.

January 11, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Regulatory Commission gives slaps on the wrist for safety violations

 Hurricane Sandy blew through, spinning houses off foundations,
blowing holes in barrier islands and wrecking lives. In the midst of
this mayhem, Oyster Creek sounded a modest alarm.

there is the impression, built up year after empirical year, that
the N.R.C. is a tiger denuded of claws. Even the agency’s internal
monitors found it was notoriously cautious about actions that might
cost plants time and money.

 “I get the feeling we’re
regulating with our fingers crossed.”

At a Nuclear Plant, Hurricane Brings More Worry, NYT By MICHAEL POWELL
January 7, 2013“……Rising waters in Barnegat Bay threatened to
submerge the pumps the plant uses to pull in water to cool its reactor
and spent-fuel pools. Had workers with Exelon Corporation, which owns
Oyster Creek, been forced to turn off the water-intake pumps, they
might have had to dip fire hoses into the floodwaters to refill the
ever-hot pool. The plant issued an alert, the second lowest on the
four-stage scale established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

At the same time, 39 of 42 warning sirens, which are perched on poles
for miles around the plant and intended to warn local residents in
event of a nuclear emergency, lost power. Continue reading →

January 9, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Radiation violations by California’ s Caltrans’ Transportation Laboratory

The Public Eye: Caltrans cited for radiation violations with test
meters, Sacramento Bee, By Charles Piller, Jan. 6, 2013  Caltrans’
Transportation Laboratory, which houses the agency’s radiation-based
testing equipment, was cited by the California Department of Public
Health in October for numerous radiation handling and training
violations. Many of the transgressions, according to documents
released to The Bee late last month, had gone on for years and
involved devices used to test concrete in the foundations of some
freeway structures. The test meters, called gamma-gamma loggers, also
were implicated in problems reported by The Bee last year in which a
former state technician falsified data. Continue reading →

January 7, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear speak about nuclear weapons accidents

When two nukes crashed, he got the call, Orange County Register, 31
Dec 12,  First of two parts: After two nuclear bombs fell out of a
plane in 1961, the U.S. turned to Jack ReVelle. Read Part 2.    By
KEITH SHARON  In the U.S. military’s
euphemistic lexicon of nuclear warfare, there are four terms no one
wants to hear. A “dull sword” is a minor incident involving a nuclear
weapon. A “bent spear” is a breach in the handling of a nuclear
weapon.
An “empty quiver” is a nuclear weapon that has been stolen or lost.
And then there is a “broken arrow,” a nuclear weapon that has somehow
gone awry. According to the book “Broken Arrow: The Declassified
History of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents,” published in 2008, the
United States government has publicly acknowledged 36 broken arrows in
history.
Only one of those involved the potential detonation of two megaton
nuclear bombs on U.S. soil. Only one of those could have wiped out
half the state of North Carolina and, in the process, triggered a
nuclear war.
That broken arrow involved a guy named Jack ReVelle…..
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/revelle-381835-nuclear-bombs.html

January 3, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment