nuclear-news

USA knew about nuclear meltdown risks long before Fukushima

  U.S. Warned About Multiple Nuclear Meltdowns Years Before Fukushima, Think Progress,By Jeff Spross   Jan 23, 2013 Four years before the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was warned about the possibility of a plant suffering simultaneous meltdowns due to a natural disaster. [NYTimes]

January 24, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

NRC knew years ago of the flood danger to nuclear reactors

An Early Nuclear Warning: Was It for Naught? NYT, By MATTHEW L. WALD January 22, 2013,  The accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011 alerted the American nuclear industry and its regulators to the possibility that operators at plants with more than one reactor might have to deal with more than one meltdown at a time in a flood, earthquake or other catastrophe. Officials are now working to assure that they could master that situation.

But documents uncovered by a group that is critical of nuclear safety show that a high-level safety analyst at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission posed the possibility to his superiors in July 2007, about four years before the earthquake and tsunami that led to three simultaneous meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi. The documents also show that in August 2008, the commission staff formally acknowledged the issue.

But until Japan’s disaster, progress in the American nuclear industry was glacial. Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which uncovered the documents, compares them to records located after the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in which engineers voiced concern that debris falling during a launch could damage an orbiter.

Action to prepare for a dual meltdown was not a case of “forewarned is forearmed,’’ he said, but more like “forewarned is forestalled.’’

The warning, which now seems prophetic, predicted “common cause failures,’’ meaning single events that disable different pieces of equipment that are supposedly independent and nearly invulnerable to failing simultaneously on their own. The risk analyst, Richard Sherry, wrote that flooding or earthquakes could disrupt both normal grid power and emergency backup power……http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/an-early-nuclear-warning-was-it-for-naught/

January 23, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Missouri’s West Lake Landfill Superfund Site- a radioactive time bomb

“Our community can no longer tolerate delays—we’re sitting on a ticking toxic time bomb,”

Community, Environmentalists, Teamsters Tell EPA: Stop Nuclear Fires At Republic Landfill In Missouri,  Daily Markets,  ST. LOUIS, Jan. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Last night, more than 300 people from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Missouri Jobs with Justice, and the Teamsters Union attended a public meeting held by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There, community leaders spoke out against the increasingly dangerous and volatile situation at West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Bridgeton, Mo. The landfill is operated by Republic Services [NYSE: RSG], the nation’s second-largest trash company.

January 19, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

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