The risk of nuclear disaster grows every day
From Three Mile Island to Chernobyl, the story of atomic energy is littered with catastrophes
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/the-risk-of-nuclear-disaster-grows-every-day By Oliver-James Campbell , October 6, 2022
Atoms and Ashes: From Bikini Atoll to Fukushima by Serhii Plokhy (RRP: £25).
In his new book, Ukrainian-born Harvard professor Serhii Plokhy tackles a topic that has greatly influenced his life: nuclear disaster. Atoms and Ashes, a must-have for anyone interested in the history of nuclear energy, details six major nuclear mishaps that have shaped how we view nuclear energy: Bikini Atoll in Oceania, Kyshtym in Russia, Chernobyl in Ukraine, Three Mile Island (TMI) in the US, Windscale in the UK and Fukushima in Japan. Despite the vast political and socio-economic differences between the countries responsible for these projects, Plokhy shows up the common thread of mismanagement.
The author sketches vivid pictures of the events that led up to—and resulted from—each incident, exploring the lives of those the disaster affected most, whether it’s an unfortunate power plant employee or an entire displaced community. But most striking is how much pressure the scientists, engineers and project managers faced—brought about by the Cold War arms race or other geopolitical fallouts—that resulted in subsequent disaster.
In his acknowledgements, Plokhy explains that Atoms and Ashes was written as a response to questions surrounding his earlier work, Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy. His intention was to show how project mismanagement and risk oversight were not specific to Chernobyl.
Nuclear disasters have, understandably, led to a rise in anti-nuclear sentiment. The world has since changed its tune. As Plokhy says, “Ukraine derives about half its electricity from nuclear reactors”—one of which, Zaporizhzhia, is the largest in Europe. It also happens to be caught between forces in Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The UN has called for the demilitarisation of the reactor, as the risk of a catastrophic nuclear incident appears to grow larger every day.
Swiss Government wants command centre in case of ‘nuclear event’
Government wants command centre in case of ‘nuclear event’
The Swiss government on Friday laid out responsibilities in case of a nuclear attack or nuclear disaster linked to the war in Ukraine. September 30, 2022
While the defence ministry currently considers this unlikely, the government says it is necessary to be prepared and be able to react rapidly.
It has tasked the defence ministry to set up a Federal Strategic Command Staff if there were to be such an event or it looked likely. This Command Staff will be headed by the secretary-general of the defence ministry and include the secretary generals of all the ministries, the federal government spokesperson, heads of the federal health, civil defence, energy and other key offices as well as representatives of the army, police and fire brigade…………………..more https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/government-sets-chain-of-command-in-case-of–nuclear-event-/47943850
Amid increased threats to military and civilian targets, Sweden increases security around nuclear power stations
Sweden has stepped up security around two nuclear power stations after the
bombing of two subsea gas pipelines in the Baltic. The national security
agency said the threat to military and civilian targets had “broadened
and deepened” and that it was taking additional measures to protect the
reactors at Forsmark, north of Stockholm, and Ringhals, south of
Gothenburg.
Norway promised to make its armed forces “more visible”
around oil and gas installations after the suspected attack on the Nord
Stream 1 and 2 pipelines from Russia to Germany. This morning Nato said the
damage had been caused by “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of
sabotage” after a fourth leak was detected in the waters of Sweden’s
maritime economic zone, meaning that all four pipelines along the Nord
Stream route have been disabled within days.
Times 29th Sept 2022
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant: Energoatom denies fire in power unit 2
Yahoo News, Ukrainska Pravda, September 29, 2022, STANISLAV POHORILOV —
Energoatom, a Ukrainian state enterprise operating nuclear power stations in this country, has denied information about power unit No. 2 of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) being on fire, and explained what has happened.
Source: press service of Energoatom
Quote: “Telegram channels are spreading false information about power unit No. 2 of the ZNPP being on fire. We hereby officially confirm that this is not true. As of 15:40, 29 September 2022, no fires have been detected in power units of the ZNPP.”
Details: Energoatom added that an emergency, not related to the fire, could occur due to a mine explosion, since the perimeter around the power plant is mined by occupiers, and explosions happen because of wild animals (boars, foxes, dogs) wandering around.
Today, there was an explosion on the perimeter, on a line of voltage supply to an oxygen station of power unit No. 6. The explosion damaged the line, and a power surge resulted in a short circuit in one of the voltage transformators, causing minor smoke.
There was no need to involve a fire brigade, which arrived at the scene.
Background:………………….. https://news.yahoo.com/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-energoatom-134651082.html
Two UK nuclear stations were due for closure in 2014. Now EDF wants to extend their lifetime yet again.
EDF considers extending life of two UK nuclear plants due to energy crisis. Hartlepool and Heysham 1, operational for four decades, are due to close in 2024 but EDF says that is under review.
Guardian Alex Lawson Energy correspondent, 29 Sep 2022
France’s EDF is considering extending the life of two British nuclear power plants due to the severity of the energy crisis.
EDF said on Wednesday that it would review whether there was a case to keep open the Hartlepool nuclear power plant in County Durham and Heysham 1 on the north-west coast of England near Lancaster. Both plants had been scheduled to close in March 2024.
EDF operates all of Britain’s eight nuclear power plants, five of which are still providing power to the grid, about 13% of the UK’s electricity. The entire fleet is due to shut by 2028 apart from Sizewell B, which will close in 2035.
When EDF took over the nuclear fleet in 2009, Heysham 1 and Hartlepool were due to run until 2014. After technical reviews, that was extended to 2019 and then, in 2016, a further five-year extension was approved after further reviews.
Sources said any extra lifespan for the stations was likely to be far shorter than previous extensions……..
EDF said it had decided to launch the review “in light of the severity of the energy crisis and the results of recent graphite inspections” and said an extension would “depend on the results of graphite inspections over the coming months”…………………………………………………………
Some power-generation companies, including those on nuclear, old solar and windfarm contracts have landed an unexpected windfall from the jump in electricity prices while their costs have not risen, triggering calls for a windfall tax……………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/28/edf-considers-extending-life-of-two-uk-nuclear-plants-due-to-energy-crisis-hartlepool-heysham
Missile strike near Ukrainian nuclear plant raises new fears. But the real question is why is it there at all?
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/09/26/another-close-call/ By Linda Pentz Gunter, 28 Sept 22,
“What is Russia thinking?” asked CNN news anchor Ana Cabrera of her guest, retired Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton, after reports that Russian missiles landed within 328 yards of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant on September 19.
But here’s the question that should have been asked — but rarely is: why are we still using such a profoundly dangerous technology to generate electricity? What are WE thinking? (We will leave aside here the conflicting accusations about who is shelling the reactors. The point is their very presence in a war zone and all that implies.)
Nothing has brought that risk into sharper focus than the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where 15 operational reactors at four sites are sitting duck targets that could release a radioactive nightmare if struck — whether accidentally or deliberately — by either side as battle rages.
When the invasion began on February 24, it was the closed Chornobyl site — scene of the world’s worst, and most notorious, nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 — that was first occupied. Although none of the four reactors there are operating any longer, there is a significant radioactive waste inventory on site. This was stirred up by Russian forces and their heavy equipment. Soldiers even dug sleeping trenches, apparently unaware of the radiation exposure risks that resulted.
This time around, however, Chornobyl is of lesser concern than the four other nuclear sites in Ukraine, although it remains a potential disaster scene largely due to the irradiated fuel stocks on site.
The four active nuclear sites — at Rivne and Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine, and South Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia in the south and eastern regions— are generally described as “newer” than Chornobyl, but this is only true in the technological sense. Chornobyl was an old Soviet RBMK design, lacking containment. Incredibly, Russia still reportedly operates 10 Chornobyl-style RBMK reactors, albeit modified to try to avoid the fatal design flaws that contributed to the 1986 explosion and meltdown.
The operating reactors in Ukraine are VVER pressurized water reactors similar to those used in the United States, for example. The VVER is also a Russian design but with an actual containment, so in theory, more robust than the old RBMKs. However, there is a great deal of doubt that the VVERs, like any reactor today, are robust enough to withstand an onslaught of missiles under war conditions.
Yet, in another sense, the VVER reactors are far older than Chornobyl Unit 4 was when it exploded. That reactor had only been operating approximately two years when disaster struck. The present day 1,000 megawatt reactors in Ukraine have been operational mostly since the 1980s, accumulating much larger radioactive inventories.
As Beyond Nuclear has continued to warn, the radiological — and therefore health — consequences of a major breach of one of these reactors would be far worse than those of the 1986 Chornobyl accident.
But it needn’t take a war. The dangers presented by commercial nuclear power plants are inherent. They are there every day. They are made worse by warfare, which increases the likelihood of a nuclear disaster — and that same war now also increases the danger that nuclear weapons might be used.
And yet, as we continue to “play with fire”, as even IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi described the insanity of shelling near or at nuclear plants in Ukraine, the obvious connection isn’t made.
We’ve seen scientists and media outlets map out how far a deadly radioactive plume would spread if, say, Zaporizhzhia suffered a fatal missile strike. But scarcely if ever do they go on to observe that we are only holding our collective breath so tightly because of the persistent threat that these reactors pose on any given day.
We don’t need to use nuclear power today. We never needed it. And it is a totally insane way to boil water.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
White House requests Ukraine nuclear security funding to expand assistance due to nuclear power plant concerns
By Phil Mattingly, CNN, September 27, 2022,
The White House requested $35 million be included in the short-term government funding bill to assist Ukraine’s nuclear security as US officials continue to closely watch the precarious conditions around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, according to an administration official.
The additional funds would serve to bolster the significant assistance already provided by the US National Nuclear Security Administration to Ukrainian officials in the months since Russia invaded the country, the official said. It comes as US officials and their international counterparts have been on high alert over the potential for a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.…………………….
The facility, held by Russian troops since March, has for weeks served as an increasingly hazardous flashpoint in the war. Shelling at and around the site has damaged infrastructure, cut power lines and drawn a sustained international effort to de-escalate the situation. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the shelling…………………… https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/27/politics/ukraine-funding-request-nuclear-power-plant/index.html
Poland distributes iodine pills as fears grow over Ukraine nuclear plant
WARSAW, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Poland, concerned about fighting around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, has distributed iodine tablets to regional fire departments to give to people in the event of radioactive exposure, a deputy minister said on Thursday…………………………………… (subscribers only) more https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-distributes-iodine-pills-fears-grow-over-ukraine-nuclear-plant-2022-09-22/
Nuclear Weapon Development and Manufacturing Needs More Cybersecurity, Watchdog Says
Next Gov, By Kirsten Errick,.Tech Reporter, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
The National Nuclear Security Administration, its contractors and subcontractors need to take cyber steps, according to a new report.
As the National Nuclear Security Administration and its contractors increasingly utilize advanced computers and digital systems to “integrate information systems into nuclear weapons, automate manufacturing equipment and rely on computer modeling to design weapons,” it needs to implement foundational cybersecurity risk management because these systems can be targets of cybersecurity attacks, according to a report released on Thursday.
The Government Accountability Office report noted that federal law and policies identify six practices for a cybersecurity management program. These practices are as follows: “identify and assign cybersecurity roles and responsibilities for risk management”; “establish and maintain a cybersecurity risk management strategy for the organization”; “document and maintain policies and plans for the cybersecurity program”; assess and update organization-wide cybersecurity risks”; designate controls that are available for information systems or programs to inherit”; and “develop and maintain a strategy to monitor risks continuously across the organization.”
However, GAO found that NNSA and its contractors have not fully implemented these key cybersecurity practices. NNSA has three types of technology or digital environments: traditional informational technology, operational technology and nuclear weapons information technology. GAO stated that NNSA has not fully implemented the cybersecurity practices in its operational technology and nuclear weapons information technology environments………………………………………….
GAO made nine recommendations for NNSA. For example, GAO suggested that the agency should fully implement a continuous cybersecurity monitoring strategy; determine the resources needed for operational technology efforts; delegate risk management roles and responsibilities; develop a nuclear weapons risk strategy; enhance oversight and monitoring of subcontractor cybersecurity. …. https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2022/09/nuclear-weapon-development-and-manufacturing-needs-more-cybersecurity-watchdog-says/377578/
War fears at another Ukraine nuclear site
The Australian 22 Sept 22, A vast crater several metres deep in empty land strewn with wild grass bears witness to the shelling this week at the Pivdennoukrainskpower plant site in southern Ukraine, the latest sign of nuclear risk in the war-scarred nation.
Small shards of grey metal, similar to rocket and missile fragments that litter innumerable fighting-damaged Ukrainian places, dot the loamy earth gouged out by the impact.
“That’s where the blast of the explosion went towards,” said Ivan Zhebet, security chief at the Pivdennoukrainsk plant in the southern Mykolaiv region.
A compass reading by an AFP journalist indicated that it was fired from the southeast, territory under Russian control.
The shell struck shortly after midnight on Monday, just minutes after an air raid warning sounded in nearby Yuzhnourainsk, a town that had until then been relatively calm.
Others said they saw a flash of light in the sky.
All the residents questioned by AFP worried that the nuclear site — which directly provides jobs for 6,000 of the town’s 42,000-strong population and indirectly for many more — would be hit.
Pivdennoukrainskis the third nuclear site to be caught up in a conflict that began with Russia’s invasion in February………………………………………..
Nataliya Stoikova, a department head at Pivdennoukrainsk, said:
“The danger is really frightening. If something were to happen (at Pivdennoukrainsk) or Zaporizhzhia, the accident at Chernobyl would be almost small” by comparison. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/war-fears-at-another-ukraine-nuclear-site/news-story/d81fe91e6bd375729e35eb4caaea2c95
Is Zaporizhzhia safer now?
What is “cold shutdown”? And what about the fuel pools?
Cold shutdown reduces risk of disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – but combat around spent fuel still poses a threat
By Najmedin Meshkati, University of Southern California
Is Zaporizhzhia safer now? — Beyond Nuclear International Energoatom, operator of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, announced on Sept. 11, 2022, that it was shutting down the last operating reactor of the plant’s six reactors, reactor No. 6. The operators have put the reactor in cold shutdown to minimize the risk of a radiation leak from combat in the area around the nuclear power plant.
The Conversation asked Najmedin Meshkati, a professor and nuclear safety expert at the University of Southern California, to explain cold shutdown, what it means for the safety of the nuclear power plant, and the ongoing risks to the plant’s spent fuel, which is uranium that has been largely but not completely depleted by the fission reaction that drives nuclear power plants.
What does it mean to have a nuclear reactor in cold shutdown?
The fission reaction that generates heat in a nuclear power plant is produced by positioning a number of uranium fuel rods in close proximity. Shutting down a nuclear reactor involves inserting control rods between the fuel rods to stop the fission reaction.
The reactor is then in cooldown mode as the temperature decreases. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, once the temperature is below 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 Celsius) and the reactor coolant system is at atmospheric pressure, the reactor is in cold shutdown.
When the reactor is operating, it requires cooling to absorb the heat and keep the fuel rods from melting together, which would set off a catastrophic chain reaction. When a reactor is in cold shutdown, it no longer needs the same level of circulation. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant uses pressurized water reactors.
How does being in cold shutdown improve the plant’s safety?
The shutdown has removed a huge element of risk. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is a pressurized water reactor. These reactors need constant cooling, and the cooling pumps are gigantic, powerful, electricity-guzzling machines.
Cold shutdown is the state in which you do not need to constantly run the primary cooling pumps at the same level to circulate the cooling water in the primary cooling loop. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that reactor No. 6 is now in a cold shutdown state like the facility’s five other reactors, and will require less power for cooling. Now, at least if the plant loses offsite power, the operators won’t have to worry about cooling an operating reactor with cranky diesel generators.
And by shutting down reactor No. 6, the plant operators can be relieved of a considerable amount of their workload monitoring the reactors amid the ongoing uncertainties around the site. This substantially reduced the potential for human error.
The operators’ jobs are likely to be much less demanding and stressful now than before. However, they still need to constantly monitor the status of the shutdown reactors and the spent fuel pools.
What are the risks from the spent fuel at the plant?
The plant still needs a reliable source of electricity to cool the six huge spent fuel pools that are inside the containment structures and to remove residual heat from the shutdown reactors. The cooling pumps for the spent fuel pools need much less electricity than the cooling pumps on the reactor’s primary and secondary loops, and the spent fuel cooling system could tolerate a brief electricity outage.
One more important factor is that the spent fuel storage racks in the spent fuel pools at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant were compacted to increase capacity, according to a 2017 Ukrainian government report to the IAEA. The greater number and more compacted the stored spent fuel rods, the more heat they generate and so more power is needed to cool them.
There is also a dry spent fuel storage facility at the plant. Dry spent fuel storage involves packing spent fuel rods into massive cylinders, or casks, which require no water or other coolants. The casks are designed to keep the fuel rods contained for at least 50 years. However, the casks are not under the containment structures at the plant, and, though they were designed to withstand being crashed into by an airliner, it’s not clear whether artillery shelling and aerial bombardment, particularly repeated attacks, could crack open the casks and release radiation into the grounds of the plant.
The closest analogy to this scenario could be a terrorist attack that, according to a seminal study by the National Research Council, could breach a dry cask and potentially result in the release of radioactive material from the spent fuel. This could happen through the dispersion of fuel particles or fragments or the dispersion of radioactive aerosols. This would be similar to the detonation of a “dirty bomb,” which, depending on wind direction and dispersion radius, could result in radioactive contamination. This in turn could cause serious problems for access to and work in the plant.
Next steps from the IAEA and UN
The IAEA has called on Russia and Ukraine to set up a “safety and security protection zone” around the plant. However, the IAEA is a science and engineering inspectorate and technical assistance agency. Negotiating and establishing a protection zone at a nuclear power plant in a war zone is entirely unprecedented and totally different from all past IAEA efforts.
Establishing a protection zone requires negotiations and approvals at the highest political and military levels in Kyiv and Moscow. It could be accomplished through backchannel, Track II-type diplomacy, specifically nuclear safety-focused engineering diplomacy. In the meantime, the IAEA needs strong support from the United Nations Security Council in the form of a resolution, mandate or the creation of a special commission.
Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California
Nukes Are Our Corporate Death Wish…the Sun is the People’s Cure
replacing nuke power and fossil fuels with solar, wind, batteries and LED/efficiency means a parallel apocalypse in the world of corporate power—-an end to the centralized multi-national control our global energy supply.
The Diablo deal clearly puts the global fossil-nuclear utility industry on the path to extinction. If these two immense reactors can be smoothly overtaken by cheaper, cleaner, safer renewable energy…what about the rest of the dying fossil/nuke fleet? What does that say about the future of centralized corporate power?
| Christina Macpherson <christinamacpherson@gmail.com> | 7:56 AM (0 minutes ago) |  | |
| to me |
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/21/nukes-are-our-corporate-death-wishthe-sun-is-the-peoples-cure/ BY HARVEY WASSERMAN, 21 Sept22,
Humankind’s ultimate extinction is now flowing through an atomic death spiral.
A single errant shell at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia…a single seismic shock at California’s Diablo Canyon…can bury us all in apocalyptic radiation.
The eruptions already stretch from Kyshtym, Iron Mike, Castle Bravo, Windscale, SL-1, Chalk River, Santa Susanna, Fermi I, Perry, Davis-Besse, North Anna, Tokaimura, Three Mile Island, Church Rock, Surry, Chernobyl, Vandellòs, Sosnovy Bor, WIPP, Fukushima, Fort Calhoun to South Texas and too many more.
It’s been clear since 1945 that A-Bombs can extinct the human race. Commercial reactors supply them with fissionable material and a work force.
Burning alongside thousands of nuclear warheads there are 400+ commercial reactors worldwide…decrepit, decayed, expensive, under-maintained, unstable and uninsured (except by token taxpayer funds). Six in Ukraine currently tremble in a war zone.
The average age of the 92 nukes in the US is nearly 40. The 1000+-square-mile dead zone around Chernobyl could be easily duplicated by any nuke. Just superimpose a similar lethal wound anywhere on a US map and calculate the damage.
But it’s a double-sided apocalypse.
Bombs & reactors can obliterate the human species with both explosive bangs and the agonized whimpers of radioactive murder.
But replacing nuke power and fossil fuels with solar, wind, batteries and LED/efficiency means a parallel apocalypse in the world of corporate power—-an end to the centralized multi-national control our global energy supply.
Cheaper, cleaner, safer, more reliable, more job-producing democratized green energy stands to obliterate the monetary and political death grip King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) has on our species’ throat.
The decentralized, community-controlled green vision is as terrifying to global energy barons as is biological extinction to the rest of us. And thus the atomic hucksters somehow try to convince us their apocalyptic reactors are “clean, green, carbon-free,” you name it.
The scam’s cutting edge is now in California, where would-be president Gavin Newson is pushing nuclear power while conspiring to kill renewables.
At the End Time vortex is Diablo Canyon.
For more than a half-century, plus grassroots citizens have fought two atomic power reactors on the central California coast, eight miles west of San Luis Obispo.
Unit One’s first components arrived on site in pre-digital 1967. By 1984-5, when the hardware was already obsolete, more than 10,000 citizens (including me) were arrested there.
As Jerry Brown’s greening Golden State has welcomed more than 17,000 wind turbines, 1.4+ million rooftop solar installations and massive advances in battery and LED/efficiency technologies now dwarf the output from the state’s one remaining nuke plant.
Some 1500 Californians now work at Diablo; over 70,000 work in renewables, batteries and efficiency. Shutting Diablo and replacing it with real green power would add thousands of jobs to the state’s energy mix.
Early on Pacific Gas & Electric vehemently denied that there were any active earthquake faults threatening Diablo. They refused to allow experts who said otherwise to testify in official hearings. They also refused to build in the safeguards required to withstand certain levels of seismic shaking.
But then in 1973 the company admitted that they knew about an active earthquake fault—-the Hosgri—-sitting just three miles from the reactor cores. Just 45 miles from the San Andreas, a dozen more fault lines intertwine near the core. Dr. Michael Peck, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s site inspector for five years, warned in 2014 a likely quake could shake Diablo to rubble.
But the NRC has refused to force PG&E to physically upgrade the facility. Instead a series of “waivers” let Diablo run where any number of fault lines could rattle it—-and millions of us downwind—-to outright oblivion.
The NRC has long since admitted that Unit One is seriously embrittled. It’s well-known throughout the industry that the steel cylinder containing its super-hot core reaction will shatter in a melt-down. Explosive radioactive death clouds will then pour into Los Angeles, the Central Valley and/or Bay Area….and into the jet-stream and around the globe, doing terminal damage to the human species.
Diablo has not recently—-if ever—-been independently inspected. It has no private insurance. There are no public evacuation plans for California’s major population centers.
In 2016-8, then-Governor Brown and now-Governor Newsom helped plan Diablo’s closure. Local citizens, elected officials, unions, regulators, environmental groups and more mapped out an orderly shut-down.
As a result, workers are being compensated, with some retiring, some staying for decommissioning, the younger ones being retrained to work in the booming renewable industry.
As a reward for not meeting legal safety and ecological requirements, PG&E has ducked a wide range of upgrades and maintenance The plant has been set to operate through the expiration of Unit One’s NRC license in 2024, then Unit Two’s in 2025. Its owner has been allowed to ignore routine upkeep, becoming more dangerous by the day.
Hot radioactive water still pours into ocean, killing billions of marine creatures. There remains just barely enough on-site space to accommodate the ensuing spent fuel through 2024-5. Managing more is an epic unknown, requiring at very least exceedingly dangerous manipulations of what’s already in the fuel pools, along with untenable expansions of the dry casks and concrete pads on the site.
The venerable Mothers for Peace—and thousands more—-want Diablo to immediately shut.
The nukes’ 2400 megawatts are already fading below a well-planned, cleanly executed symphony of solar panels, wind farms, batteries and LED/efficiency. Massive off-shore wind turbines will soon send mega-juice pouring into Diablo’s switching stations.
By public consensus the 2016 phase-out plan embodies as rational and well-calculated a transition as the human species could concoct…a model for winding down the other 90+ American reactors, and maybe even the 400+ worldwide. It offers a sustainable green escape from the obscene financial and ecological failures of atomic power to the proven reliability of a Solartopian future.
Which has pitched King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) into a Luddite state of terminal atomic panic.
The Diablo deal clearly puts the global fossil-nuclear utility industry on the path to extinction. If these two immense reactors can be smoothly overtaken by cheaper, cleaner, safer renewable energy…what about the rest of the dying fossil/nuke fleet? What does that say about the future of centralized corporate power?
With this giant hole poked into the obsolete energy Luddites’ Maginot line, what will happen to the trillions of dollars still sunk in the old ways of scorching the Earth? What will trillions of kilowatts of Solartopian electricity pouring into the grid do to the future of fossil/nuclear fuels?
The industry does not want to know—-and it does not want YOU to know.
Wind, solar, batteries and efficiency already sustain much of California’s and the nation’s grid, now commonly providing the flexible, reliable, low-cost, zero-aaron essential power needed to avoid blackouts, unsustainable rate hikes and lethal climate chaos.
First and foremost, King CONG’s anti-green blitzkrieg disrupts supply chains and assaults rooftop solar with taxes and regulations designed to kill it. Endless genuflections to the dead bird each big turbine kills per year accompany the assault. So do rightful worries over mining of lithium and cobalt, major polluters in regions with bad labor practices.
But these are solvable, non-plutonium-based problems in comparison with mining, milling and enriching uranium while failing to manage its wastes.
No windmill ever killed a fish, but nukes kill billions of marine creatures every day.
Every reactor burns at roughly 570 degrees Fahrenheit, spewing radiation, carbon 14 and lethal pollutants into the eco-sphere. Massive quantities of carbon pour from mining, milling, enrichment and disposal. All reactors and fuel pools can explode at any time.
The Trumpian Big Lie is that these ancient, uninsured instruments of mass extinction are somehow “emission and carbon free.”
So Newsom has strong-armed California’s legislature to trash Diablo’s shut-down deal and hand PG&E $1.4 billion to operate til the next quake blows the place apart.
With utility and fossil/nuke money in his presidential war chest, Newsom is poised to pursue the White House against a hard-right Ron DeSantis who actually vetoed solar taxes like the ones Newsom is pushing.
Polls in both Florida and California show 80% support for renewables. Fierce campaigns now rage against Diablo’s extension and Newsom’s attempt to kill rooftop solar.
The Governor now has the radioactive winds to his back.
But as fossil/nukes scorch the planet, and as their apocalyptic clouds pour over our biggest cities, and as their over-the-top inefficiencies bankrupt our economy, what will be left for his corrupt, cynical ilk to govern?
Harvey Wasserman wrote SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth. His Green Power & Wellness Show is at www.prn.fm.
Offsite power supply to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant destroyed
Offsite power supply to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant destroyed
Guardian Isobel Koshiw in Kyiv, 10 Sept 22,
A vital offsite electricity supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been destroyed by shelling and there is little likelihood a reliable supply will be re-established, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief has said.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said shelling had destroyed the switchyard of a nearby thermal power plant.
The plant has supplied power to the nuclear facility each time its normal supply lines had been cut over the past three weeks. The thermal plant was also supplying the surrounding area, which was plunged into darkness.
Local Ukrainian officials said work was under way to restore the connection, which has been cut multiple times this week.
Grossi, who said he had been informed of the situation by IAEA representatives at the plant, called for an “immediate cessation of all shelling in the entire area”. “This is an unsustainable situation and is becoming increasingly precarious,” he said, without apportioning blame for the shelling.
Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for shelling near Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine and within the perimeter of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, which has six reactors.
The thermal supply has been cut and restored multiple times this week and Enerhodar, the nearby town, has suffered several complete blackouts.
When the thermal supply has been cut the plant has relied on its only remaining operating reactor for the power needed for cooling and other safety functions. This method is designed to provide power only for a few hours at a time. Diesel generators are used as a last resort. The constant destruction of thermal power supply has led Ukraine to consider shutting down the remaining operating reactor, said Grossi. Ukraine “no longer [has] confidence in the restoration of offsite power”, he said.
Grossi said that if Ukraine decided not to restore the offsite supply the entire power plant would be reliant on emergency diesel generators to ensure supplies for the nuclear safety and security functions.
“As a consequence, the operator would not be able to restart the reactors unless offsite power was reliably re-established,” he said…………….. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/09/offsite-power-supply-to-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-destroyed
All 6 reactors at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant now completely stopped operating
Operations at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine
have been fully stopped as a safety measure, Energoatom, the state agency
in charge of the plant, said. The plant “is completely stopped” after thec
agency disconnected the number 6 power unit from the grid at 3.41am (local
time), it said in a statement. “Preparations are under way for its cooling
and transfer to a cold state.”
RTE 11th Sept 2022
https://www.rte.ie/news/ukraine/2022/0911/1321783-ukraine-russia/
Ukraine Considers Shutting Nuclear Plant After Loss of Backup Power
After shelling destroys key electricity supply, Zaporizhzhia facility may have to rely on generators with 10 days of fuel left
WSJ, By Drew Hinshaw and Laurence Norman Sept. 9, 2022
Ukraine is considering shutting down the sole remaining reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday, after shelling left the plant without a safe and sustainable source of backup power.
The plant, which has already shut down five of its six reactors, risks having only one remaining source of electricity to power its systems in case the sixth reactor has to go offline, said Director General Rafael Grossi in a statement..
Normally, if the plant can’t supply itself power,
it can draw electricity from a nearby thermal-energy plant. But shelling
overnight Thursday destroyed a switchyard that carries electricity out from
that coal-fired plant, Mr. Grossi said.
It is unlikely that it will be
repaired, he added, given the constant artillery fire, meaning the nuclear
plant would have no off-site emergency source of power. The plant could
turn to back up generators, but those only have enough fuel for about 10
days, according to Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear company, Energoatom. The
plant, occupied by Russian soldiers who patrol with grenades dangling off
their belts, is still operated by the company’s Ukrainian workforce.
Plant workers, meanwhile, have no electricity in their homes and the
shelling risks accelerating an exodus of essential staff. “This is an
unsustainable situation and is becoming increasingly precarious,” Mr.
Grossi said. “The power plant has no off-site power, This is completely
unacceptable. It cannot stand. ”The Zaporizhzhia plant is now producing a
minimal 250 megawatts, enough to monitor and sustain the temperature of its
cooling ponds, to pump water through the station, to clean the air inside
the plant, and to perform other basic safety functions, said Petro Kotin,
interim president of Energoatom.
If the last operating reactor goes down,
he said, the staff will need to supply 200 tons of diesel daily to the
generators. The IAEA said in a report Tuesday Ukraine had 2,250 tons of
diesel fuel available for the whole site. Procuring more would require
several truckloads of fuel to cross through an active conflict area
subjected to continual artillery fire, many times a day. Nuclear experts
said it could make sense to shut down the last reactor and work off backup
generators, because the earlier that is done, the cooler the reactor core
would be if Zaporizhzhia’s generators run out of fuel and there is an
accident.
Workers reached by The Wall Street Journal have blamed the
artillery fire on Russia. Plant technicians, backed by European officials
and independent nuclear analysts, have said the shelling serves the
Kremlin’s broader goal of severing Zaporizhzhia’s power connection to
Ukraine’s remaining territory and eventually rerouting it into
Russian-held areas. Russian soldiers have laid land mines around the
plant’s cooling ponds, parked heavy artillery near its reactors, and
turned its safety shelters—meant for plant workers to flee to in an
emergency—into a bunker for themselves, workers say.
When IAEA inspectors
visited the plant last week, they found that the alternative emergency
center that Russian soldiers offered the staff didn’t have its own
ventilation system to filter out radiation from the air, or its own source
of power—or even an internet connection.
Shutting down the plant, in the
midst of an active conflict, would pose enormous and unprecedented
challenges for the nuclear industry. Defunct or dormant nuclear plants
still require electricity and careful maintenance by trained staff to
monitor and safeguard spent nuclear fuel, among other safety operations.
The plant currently suffers obstacles sourcing the spare parts and fuel
that would be required. Compounding difficulties, the Zaporizhzhia plant
has seen a considerable amount of its workforce flee, slipping out through
Russian checkpoints to Ukrainian-held ground.
Wall Street Journal 10th Sept 2022 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-considers-shutting-nuclear-plant-after-loss-of-backup-power-11662747396
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series.
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
-
Archives
- February 2026 (76)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 