Fracture danger in Belgian and USA nuclear plants
“Emergency situation” as fractures suspected at nuclear reactor http://enenews.com/official-emergency-situation-as-fractures-suspected-at-reactor-10-u-s-nuclear-plants-may-use-same-component— Ten U.S. plants may use same component — “Likely to reignite a debate over the risks of nuclear energy” -Financial Times
August 10th, 2012 By ENENews
Follow-up to: FOX: Nuclear reactor halted on “suspicion of cracks”; “We have found anomalies,” says Belgium official — AFP: Possible cracks in reactor vessel?
Title: Belgium shuts down nuclear power plant
Source: Financial Times
Author: James Fontanella-Khan
Date: August 9, 2012 5:47 pm
Emphasis Added
Belgium has temporarily shut down one of its seven nuclear power plants after the country’s atomic energy regulator discovered “several anomalies”, including possible cracks, in the tank containing the reactor’s core. […] suspected fractures at the Doel 3 reactor […]
Several other nuclear sites around the world – including the US, Germany and Spain – use tanks produced by the same company, according a nuclear energy expert who asked not to be named. Continue reading
Former head of Fukushima nuclear plant says plant is not safe
‘Fukushima reactors not stable’ – plant ex-boss RT.com. 13 August, 2012, The reactors at crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant are not stable, says its former head. He urged for international expertise to be called in to make the site of one of world’s worst nuclear disasters safe.
“People won’t come back to Fukushima until the plant is stabilized and we still need to find a way to do that,” Masao Yoshida said as cited by The Australian newspaper. “We have to bring people in from around the world. It will require people, technology and wisdom from all corners.”
Yoshida, 57, was speaking on Saturday after a 17-month silence in a video message, in which he described his experience of leading a desperate drive to tame the disabled plant. He and his men, dubbed the Fukushima 50 in Japan, were working to hold down melting down reactors at the facility hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
He said he had no right to go public with his warning until four investigations into the disaster were concluded. Yoshida, who is currently in hospital suffering cancer of the esophagus, said he and his workers cooperated with the probes, but since their human stories did not enter the official reports, he agreed to an interview.
“It was clear from the beginning that we couldn’t run,” Yoshida said. “Reactors five and six would have also melted down without people staying on site.
“My colleagues went out there again and again. The level of radiation on the ground was terrible, yet they gave everything that they had.”
The former Fukushima manager said he feared for his life three times in the first days of the disaster. Three huge explosions of hydrogen released from water injected into reactors rocked the facility, ripping through the roof and sending debris flying.
“At the time we didn’t know they were hydrogen explosions,” he said. “When that first explosion occurred, I really felt we might die.”…..
Some in Japan hold Yoshida as a hero for refusing orders to stop the injection of seawater into one of the damaged reactors, thus preventing the disaster from becoming even worse. There is also a video shot in the command bunker that TEPCO recently released showing Yoshida suggesting he lead a suicide mission to restore the cooling of the reactors if the situation deteriorated.
Yoshida did not touch on either of those episodes in the interview.
The Fukushima plant is currently in cold shutdown, with no nuclear reactions happening inside the reactors. There are fears that the site could be further damaged by a new earthquake, should one occur. http://www.rt.com/news/fukushima-plant-yoshida-stabilize-505/
For the third time this month, Calvert Cliffs nuclear reactor shut down
Calvert Cliffs nuclear reactor shut down, Control rod malfunction reduces power By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun, August 13, 2012 Operators of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland have shut down one of the two reactors there because a control rod unexpectedly dropped into the reactor core, causing a reduction in power generation, a plant spokesman said Monday.
The incident happened Sunday afternoon, prompting the plant’s staff to shut the reactor down to find and fix the cause of the malfunction, according to Kory Raftery, spokesman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group. Control rods are used in a reactor to limit the fission taking place among the reactor’s enriched-uranium fuel rods.
An unplanned insertion of a control rod into a reactor core can “create an imbalance in the fissioning and pose challenges for reactor operators,” according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He described it as an infrequent occurrence
among U.S. nuclear plants…… It’s the third unplanned shutdown of Unit 1 in the past month; the reactor was taken out of service twice in July to fix a pair of leaks, ..
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/bs-gr-calvert-nuclear-shutdown-20120813,0,4708290.story
Nuclear industry stymied by NRC freezing licensing decisions
The NRC will be forced to analyze the potential for fires and leaks at wet spent fuel pools to comply with NEPA and to establish a timeline for how long the waste must be stored on site,
NUCLEAR WASTE: Industry, activists gird for fallout from waste debate Hannah Northey, E&E NewsGreenwire: August 10, 2012 The nuclear industry tried to quell anxiety yesterday about the government’s decision to freeze licensing decisions while tackling the country’s nuclear waste woes, but environmentalists and some experts say change is afoot for the nuclear fleet because of an underlying court case.
At issue is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision this week to delay final license approvals and extensions until it answers a federal appeals court’s ruling that found the commission’s “waste confidence” rule violated the National Environmental Policy Act.
The rule, the court said, didn’t fully consider the potential for fires and leaks at spent fuel pools and had inappropriately assumed Congress would find a final repository “when necessary.” The court vacated both the waste confidence decision and a separate storage rule (Greenwire, June 8)….. Continue reading
Potentially very dangerous radiation situation at Louisiana sinkhole
Sinkhole: H-Bomb explosion equivalent in Bayou Corne possible Examiner.com
BAYOU CORNE SINKHOLE DISASTER AUGUST 12, 2012 BY: DEBORAH DUPRE Louisiana State of Emergency: Oil and gas sinkhole disaster area risks and rights violations escalating
A possible breach of a butane-filled well 1500 feet from Bayou Corne’s sinkhole, the size of three football fields, is so “very serious,” it has Assumption Parish sheriff and local residents ordered to evacuate worried about a catastrophic explosion, one according to scientists in an Examinerinvestigation, would be in the range of one and a half B83 thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs, the most powerful United States weapons in active service.
“The disaster is made all the more worrisome because the hole is believed to be close to a well containing 1.5 million barrels of liquid butane, a highly volatile liquid that turns into a highly flammable vapor upon release,” CNNreported Friday about the declared State of Emergency…….
Since Saturday, disaster workers are required to wear respirators, although the public within the disaster area is not.
Government cover up continues angering residents and elected leaders“You can give us a straight answer because that’s all we want,” a woman said at the community meeting Tuesday. “We want to know when we can come home and be safe. Because you all go home after a days work. You’re safe, but we’re not,” she said, expressing sentiments of other locals with whom Dupré has spoken….. http://www.examiner.com/article/sinkhole-h-bomb-explosion-equivalent-bayou-corne-possible?CID=examiner_alerts_article
Palisades nuclear power plant shut down due to another leak
New water leak forces Palisades nuclear power plant to shut down again Michigan Radio 12 Aug 12 By LINDSEY SMITH The leak is somewhere in the containment building, the circular shaped one on the left. That’s where the nuclear reactor is housed. The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant near South Haven is shut down again. This is the second time this summer Entergy Corporation has had to shut down the plant for repairs. Continue reading
Mururoa Atomic Bomb test site in danger of collapsing
French Nuclear Test Site Mururoa Atoll in Danger of Collapse Report kept secret for 2 years By Raiatea Tahana-Reese Epoch Times , 10 Aug 12, The French government, since 2010, has kept secret that Mururoa Atoll, the site of French nuclear testing in the Pacific, is in danger of collapsing, according to Mururoa e Tatou (MET), the Nuclear Association in French Polynesia.
MET President Roland Oldham told ABC’s Radio Australia Pacific Beat program that the issue was detailed in a leaked report from the French Ministry of Defence and should have been made public long ago.
Mr Oldham said if the atoll were to collapse, radioactive material would be released into the Pacific Ocean, and could cause a 15-metre tsunami. “Just in that little area, there is over maybe 12 underground tests in that area, and we have to remember that France have done
altogether 193 nuclear test explosions in Mururoa,” he told Pacific Beat.
“In the soil of Mururoa, if something happens there are about 150 holes containing very dangerous radioactivity.” Continue reading
Belgium’s nuclear reactors – serious safety problems
Installing a replacement meanwhile has never been attempted anywhere because of the problem of high radiation levels.
The agency is also mulling the permanent closure “in the worst case” of a second reactor in the country’s south near Liege. The tests showed “faults in the steel base material” on which the reactor vessel is mounted
Belgian nuclear chief ‘sceptical’ reactor can be restarted http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5giMgDamP-y9XYqUMpuO7Y0Bxd5kQ?docId=CNG.31919a592d9f6a151c693e0dac609bdf.111 11 Aug 12, BRUSSELS — The head of Belgium’s federal agency for nuclear safety AFCN said on Friday he was “sceptical” that an ageing reactor closed over fears of cracks could be restarted. Continue reading
Nuclear weapons lab security – like a fish, it rots from the head down
Where’s the Oversight at Nuclear Labs? Hands-Off Approach Is Recipe for Disaster HUFFINGTON POST, Project on Government Oversight (POGO) 08/10/2012 By Peter Stockton and Lydia Dennett As the saying goes, “The fish rots from the head down.” This is certainly the case at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where an 82-year-old nun and two accomplices recently broke in, raising serious questions about the Department of Energy’s (DOE) security strategy.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement provided to the Knoxville News Sentinel on Monday: “The department has no tolerance for security breaches at any of our sites, and I am committed to ensure that those responsible will be held accountable.” But there is no denying that Y-12 was a giant failure of federal oversight. Now the people being axed are lower-level employees rather than those who have allowed the security standards to fall far below acceptable levels, such as Secretary Chu, himself. Continue reading
Australia’s inadequate nuclear safety agencies
Inadequate Safety Practices at Lucas Heights and Inadequate Regulation by ARPANSA, Friends of the Earth 10 Aug 12 Since 2007, a saga has been unfolding regarding contamination accidents at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), ANSTO’s handling of those incidents, ANSTO’s treatment of whistleblowers, the handling of the matter by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), and the independence or otherwise of ARPANSA.
The saga has exposed inadequate safety practices at ANSTO and an inadequate performance by the regulator ARPANSA. The problems would not have been exposed and partially rectified if not for a number of ANSTO whistleblowers.
A few snapshots of this saga are noted below and more details can be found on the Friends of the Earth website: Continue reading
How Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners undermined nuclear safety
Congressman releases blockbuster report detailing NRC conspiracy in wake of Fukushima http://enenews.com/just-in-congressman-releases-blockbuster-report-detailing-nrc-conspiracy-in-wake-of-fukushima December 10th, 2011
“Regulatory Meltdown” Reveals Efforts to Improve Nuclear Safety Undermined by Four NRC Commissioners New Report Details Conspiracy to Delay, Weaken US Nuclear Safety in Wake of Fukushima, Congressman Edward Markey, Dec. 9, 2011 (Emphasis Added):
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of his ongoing investigation into U.S. nuclear safety since the Fukushima meltdowns, today Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Congress’s leading voice for nuclear safety, released a blockbuster new report that details how four Commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) colluded to prevent and then delay the work of the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima, the entity tasked with making recommendations for improvement to NRC regulations and processes after the Fukushima meltdowns, the worst nuclear disaster in history. The Near-Term Task Force members comprise more than 135 years of collective experience at the NRC, and with full access to expert NRC staff completed a methodical and comprehensive review of NRC’s regulatory system. Continue reading
82 year old anti nuclear nun shows up security danger at nuclear weapons site
“these anti-Christ nongovernmental terrorists, Christian militias up in Michigan that are getting ready for Armageddon, to kill for Jesus, or the Nazi party or the Taliban, might just as easily have gotten to where we got, with evil intention.”
Security Questions Are Raised by Break-In at a Nuclear Site, NYT, By MATTHEW L. WALD and WILLIAM J. BROAD August 7, 2012 WASHINGTON — An 82-year-old nun and two fellow pacifists who penetrated the defenses of one of the nation’s most important nuclear weapons facilities last week are due in federal court in Knoxville, Tenn., on Thursday to face charges of trespassing and spray-painting antiwar slogans on a building that houses nuclear bomb fuel. But the incident has also put the Department of Energy’s security system on trial.
The security breach, at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, has prompted the Department of Energy to reappraise security measures across its nuclear weapons program and private experts to criticize the agency’s safeguarding of nuclear stockpiles.
The activists, who got past fences and security sensors before dawn on July 28, apparently spent several hours in the Y-12 National Security Complex before they were stopped — by a lone guard, they told friends — as they used a Bible and candles in a Christian peace ritual. In a telephone interview, Sister Megan Gillespie Rice, of Las Vegas, said she was not sure exactly how long they were there. “It was dark; we couldn’t see our watches,” she said. Continue reading
Seoul restarts aged nuclear reactor despite safety concerns
Korea Times, 7 Aug 12 The government decided Monday to restart an aged nuclear reactor that recently underwent months-long scrutiny over its safety, amid looming signs of a power shortage due to a record heat wave.
Operation of the Reactor-1 at Gori Nuclear Power Plant in Busan was
resumed earlier in the day with the reactor expected to reach its full
generation capacity on Friday, according to the Ministry of Knowledge
Economy….. The 578-megawatt reactor, located some 450 kilometers
southeast of Seoul, was manually shut down on March 12 after the Hydro
& Nuclear Power Co. belatedly reported a major safety breach during a
regular maintenance check the previous month, when the reactor, along
with its backup generator, temporarily lost power….. the reactor had
remained shut down amid widespread public concerns over safety of the
reactor whose initial 30-year lifespan ran out but was extended by 10
years in 2008….
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2012/08/123_116740.html
Heat danger, even when nuclear reactors are shut down
For Nuclear Power This Summer, It’s Too Darn Hot, Truth Out, 05 August 2012 By Gregg Levine, ”……when it comes to nuclear power, as global temperatures continue to rise and water levels in rivers and lakes continue to drop, an even more disconcerting threat emerges.
When a coal plant is forced to shut down because of a lack of cool intake water, it can, in short order, basically get turned off. With no coal burning, the cooling needs of the facility quickly downgrade to zero.
A nuclear reactor, however, is never really “off.”
When a boiling water reactor or pressurized water reactor (BWR and PWR respectively, the two types that make up the total of the US commercial reactor fleet) is “shutdown” (be it in an orderly fashion or an abrupt “scram”), control rods are inserted amongst the fuel rods inside the reactor. The control rods absorb free neutrons, decreasing the number of heavy atoms getting hit and split in the fuel rods. It is that split, that fission, that provides the energy that heats the water in the reactor and produces the steam that drives the electricity-generating turbines. Generally, the more collisions, the more heat generated. An increase in heat means more steam to spin a turbine; fewer reactions means less heat, less steam and less electrical output. But it doesn’t mean no heat.
The water that drives the turbines also cools the fuel rods. It needs to circulate and somehow get cooled down when it is away from the reactor core. Even with control rods inserted, there are still reactions generating heat, and that heat needs to be extracted from the reactor or all kinds of trouble ensues–from too-high pressure breaching containment to melting the cladding on fuel rods, fires, and hydrogen explosions. This is why the term LOCA–a loss of coolant accident–is a scary one to nuclear watchdogs (and, theoretically, to nuclear regulators, too).
So, even when they are not producing electricity, nuclear reactors still need cooling. They still need a power source to make that cooling happen, and they still need a coolant, which, all across the United States and most of the rest of the world, means water. http://truth-out.org/news/item/10707-for-nuclear-power-this-summer-its-too-darn-hot
Radioactive water leaked from Vermont nuclear plant
Vermont Yankee employees allow water to drain from spent fuel pool http://www.commonsnews.org/site/site05/story.php?articleno=5817&page=1 The Commons August 1, 2012 By Anne Galloway/vtdigger.org VERNON—About 2,700 gallons of water from the spent fuel pool at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant drained into a wastewater system on July 22.
The 300,000 gallon pool contains 2,500 spent fuel assemblies removed from the reactor core. The spent fuel assemblies are submerged below more than 20 feet of water.
The water drained about six inches over the course of about 30 minutes when employees who were working on the fuel pool cleanup system left drain valves open. Operators in the control room discovered the problem after an alarm system went off, according to Rob Williams, spokesman for the plant.
The radioactive water drained into a wastewater collection tank….
Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer and former member of a Vermont Yankee oversight panel, said several steps in a procedure were skipped by employees. He is concerned about oversight and employee training at the plant as older workers retire. Procedures, he said, must be much more specific.
“It’s a big deal, it’s a safety-related system, we’re not talking about mowing the lawn at VY,” Gundersen said. “There’s 300,000 gallons in the pool, and it lost 1 percent of the water in 30 minutes. It is radioactive water, it’s not like what you put in a water cooler.”
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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