Hunterston and Continuous Decommissioning
nuClear News No136 Dec 21, Hunterston and Continuous Decommissioning The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s 2021-24 Business Plan (1) says it has reviewed the Magnox reactor decommissioning strategy and endorsed a site-specific approach to Magnox reactor decommissioning which will involve a mix of decommissioning strategies. For some sites this will result in their decommissioning being brought forward whilst for others a deferral strategy will be the chosen approach. New Site-Specific Strategies will be developed for each Magnox station across Britain. These will support optimal sequencing of reactor dismantling – a rolling programme of decommissioning which will maximise the opportunity for sharing any lessons learned, developing and implementing new technologies and strengthening wider capability.
These new site-specific decommissioning strategies are currently being defined. A timetable will be set that best suits each site and a business case developed to set out the benefits and cost and schedule impacts of any changes.
Reactor dismantling at the Hunterston A Magnox station, which ceased generation in 1990, is now expected to start in 2035. The previous strategy was to place the reactors into care and maintenance for up to 85 years to allow for radioactivity to decay. The current work programme which involves packaging various waste, sludges etc and placing the packages into an Intermediate Level Waste store will now take until 2030, 40 years after it ceased operation. The plant opened in 1964, so by 2030 Hunterston A will have spent longer being cleaned up than it actually spent generating electricity. Originally the current work programme was expected to be completed by 2022, but problems associated with retrieving waste in 5 bunkers has caused delays. The period between 2030 and 2035 will be spent demolishing various buildings.
Under the old strategy the NDA was going to install a “weather envelope” around the old Magnox reactors. Work on this has now been suspended.
Hunterston B Meanwhile, Hunterston B – Reactor 3 switched off for final time on 26th November. The reactor was first switched on on 6th February 1976. When EDF acquired the power station it was expected to end generation in 2016. (2) Hunterston B Reactor 4 – is scheduled to shut down in January, which will see the end of power generation for the site in North Ayrshire, Scotland. (3)
Reactor 3 and Reactor 4 were taken offline on 9 March and 3 October 2018, respectively, after cracks in their graphite cores were discovered during routine inspections. In August 2020, the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) gave approval to EDF to restart Reactor 4 in August 2020 and Reactor 3 the following month. The reactors were taken offline earlier this year for further inspections of their graphite cores. In April, the ONR gave permission for the units to be switched back on. However, it said continued operation would be for up to a total of 16.7 terawatt days for Reactor 3 and 16.52 terawatt days for Reactor 4 – about six months of operation for each reactor. Reactor 3 returned to service on 23 April and Reactor 4 on 5 June.
In June, the UK government and EDF agreed on improved arrangements to decommission the UK’s seven AGR nuclear plants that are scheduled to close this decade. This followed an announcement by EDF that it had decided not to restart the first of the AGRs, Dungeness B, and to begin defuelling with immediate effect. (4) Each of the AGR sites will move across to the NDA on a rolling basis once defueling and fuel free verification are complete, for the decommissioning work to be overseen and managed by the NDA’s Magnox division. However, EDF’s defueling work will be supported by the NDA divisions Sellafield Ltd and Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) alongside other parts of the NDA group. Spent fuel from Hunterston B will be sent by train to Sellafield. (5)
EDF has now submitted a defueling safety case to ONR. First there will be what’s called “defueling outage” which will last about 60 days – making sure everything is safe to commence defueling. Defueling is then expected to start in March 2022 and will take around 3 years.
After defueling the NDA will take control of the AGR reactors. Under the old regime it would have taken until about 2030 to prepare the reactors for a period of care and maintenance. Now Hunterston B will develop a site-specific decommissioning strategy which should involve reactor dismantling sooner rather than later, thus providing the prospect of more continuous employment on the site.
The NDA, EDF and Magnox have been working together to investigate the feasibility of Hunterston B sharing the use of the Hunterston A Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) store and processing facility. Seems obvious that they should, but EDF has recently been working on plans for a standalone store. EDF and NDA have now agreed to share the Hunterston A store and EDF has suspended work on a Hunterston B store. ONR & SEPA still need to be consulted and a planning application made to North Ayrshire Council (NAC). (6) https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/nuClearNewsNo136.pdf
Hunterston nuclear reactor 3 closed, but there will be decades from defuelling through dismantling
SafeEnergy E Journal No.92. December 2 Hunterston Reactor 3 is expected to come off line at the end of November and Reactor 4 before 7th January 2022. There would then be 2 months of statutory outage and then defueling would commence. EDF is hoping to despatch 4 rather than 2 spent fuel flasks every week to Sellafield during defueling.
Defueling will take around three years and will continue to draw on the skills of EDF’s specialist staff and contractors. It will then take around 5 or 6 years to prepare the plant for a period of 40 to 50 years of care and maintenance. Final dismantling could begin around 2070. https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/SafeEnergy_No92.pdf
Humboldt Bay Power Plant decommissioning; problem of nuclear waste buried not far from sea level, in a seismic area
PG&E completes decommissioning process, ends nuclear facility license
But more work remains: 37 tons of nuclear waste are in an eroding bluff near King Salmon, By ISABELLA VANDERHEIDEN | ivanderheiden@times-standard.com | Times-Standard October 30, 2021 Following a years-long effort to decommission the former nuclear power plant in Humboldt Bay, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. recently filed a request with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to terminate the power plant’s license marking a “major milestone” for the Humboldt County community……..
Decomissioning
Decommissioning efforts for the Humboldt Bay Power Plant Unit 3, a 63-Megawatt electric boiling water reactor, began in June 2009, more than 30 years after the power plant had ceased operations. It operated from 1963 to 1976 and was permanently defueled in 1984.
At the time of the power plant’s construction, atomic energy was hailed as the solution to global energy needs……….
Why was the power plant short-lived? As it turns out, seismically active regions are not ideal locations for nuclear power……………
More to be done
Buried deep into Buhne Point, a highland bluff directly northeast of King Salmon, is an underground nuclear waste storage facility known as the Humboldt Bay Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, or ISFSI. While the ISFSI will effectively contain the 37-tons of nuclear waste for approximately 50 years, it is not a permanent solution.
“All of the high-level waste that was ever produced at the power plant including all the spent fuel rods the reactor cut up into pieces, all that stuff is buried on top of the hill at King Salmon,” Kalt said. “The ISFSI is really what the Baykeeper is concerned about at this point.”
Corral said the “five casks of spent nuclear fuel and one cask of Greater than Class C waste” will remain on site until an offsite repository is available, “as promised by the federal government.”
However, Kalt said the waste will never be removed “because nobody wants it.”
I really just don’t think it’s appropriate anyway. It would be so dangerous to move it and it would be unfair to put that on another community,” she said.”There is no such thing as ‘away’. If you’re going to have something that toxic in your community, you should understand that this is in perpetuity.”
The ISFSI will have to be relocated at some point as the bluff continues to erode and the sea level continues to rise.
“The projections indicate that the sea level will be four feet higher in 50 years than it is today,” Kalt said. “The ISFSI is on the top of an eroding bluff, it’s 44-feet above sea level, it’s buried to 30 feet below the surface, so the bottom is only 10 feet above sea level currently. …What are we going to do, you know? It’s pretty clear that there needs to be a plan to at least move it back from the bay, it’s going to be really expensive and controversial, but leaving it there is not a plan. It’s a nightmare.”
It won’t be easy, but Kalt said there needs to be a community process in deciding where to relocate the ISFSI……………….https://www.times-standard.com/2021/10/30/2687577/
Ontario’s Unfunded Nuclear Decommissioning Liability is in the $18-$27 Billion CAD Range
Ontario’s Unfunded Nuclear Decommissioning Liability is in the $18-$27 Billion CAD Range
https://tinyurl.com/5a9du4mz Editorial Team, August 6 2021 Late last year I worked up the likely amount of public money that would have to be thrown at the nuclear industry in order to successfully and safely decommission the 100 operational reactors and the now shut down ones. Unsurprisingly, the nuclear industry had been very optimistic in its estimates of decommissioning costs and timeframes, when the global empirical averages were trending to a billion USD and 100 years per reactor.
Recently I was asked by an Ontario journalist what I thought the likely situation in Ontario would be, and whether the decommissioning trusts were equally underfunded. I was unsurprised to find that Canada is in the same boat as the US, with highly optimistic schedule and cost projections which belie Canadian empirical experience with the CANDU reactor, and that the fund had nowhere near the money necessary for the job. Let’s run the numbers. [diagram on original]
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is the chunk of the provincial utility that was carved apart in the late 1990s by the Mike Harris Conservatives to handle generation alone. It operates 18 aging CANDU reactors across three sites: Bruce, Pickering, and Darlington.
Table of operational nuclear generation reactors in Ontario
OPG has a nuclear decommissioning fund of about $5 billion CAD or US$4 billion right now. If the experience of other countries on the actual cost of a billion USD per reactor and an actual timeline of decommissioning of a century holds true, and I see no reason why it doesn’t, that means that there is currently a $17.5 billion CAD gap in Ontario, in addition to the existing $19.3 billion CAD in debt still being serviced from their construction. When the government of the era split up the utility, it moved all of the debt off of the components and into general debt. One of the many appropriate and sensible things that the McGuinty Administration did in the 2000s, in addition to shutting down coal generation entirely, was to move the debt back into the utility and set about servicing it from utility bills.
Most of the reactors at Bruce Nuclear are aging out, with several over 40 years old and the remainder approaching 40. Darlington’s are around 30, so they have a bit of runway. Pickering’s reactors are going to be shut down in 2024 and 2025 and start decommissioning in 2028. While refurbishment could bridge Ontario’s for another 20 years in many cases, that’s expensive and typically won’t pass any economic viability assessment compared to alternatives.
The likelihood is that all reactors in Ontario will reach end of life by 2035, and be replaced by some combination of renewable energy and HVDC transmission from neighboring jurisdictions, with both Manitoba and Quebec having excellent, low-carbon hydroelectric to spare.
Does the empirical experience of shutting down CANDU reactors track to the roughly billion USD that’s seen for other reactors? According to the World Nuclear Association, no.
The fourth unit is Gentilly 2, a more modern Candu 6 type, which was shut down at the end of 2012 after 30 years operation. It is being defuelled and the heavy water was to be treated over 18 months to mid-2014. A decommissioning licence was issued for 2016 to 2026 and the main part of the reactor will be closed up and left for 40 years to allow radioactivity to decay before demolition. All 27,000 fuel bundles are expected to be in dry storage (Macstor) by 2020. The decommissioning cost is put at C$ 1.8 billion over 50 years.”
That translates to US$1.44 billion, so it would appear as if CANDUs are on the expensive side to decommission. If that holds true, Ontario’s gap is actually in the range of $27 billion CAD.
Nuclear decommissioning funding comes from reactors operating revenue. In the US, it’s 0.01 to 0.02 cents per kWh as a set aside. I wasn’t able to find the required set aside for Ontario’s fleet, but obviously they aren’t setting aside sufficient funds now, or have absurdly optimistic fund growth expectations. They only have a decade to set aside more money from operating reactors, and have only set aside $5 billion CAD after 50 years, so the most generous assumption is that they will set aside perhaps $7 billion CAD in the OPG fund by end of life of the reactors, and have a liability for decommissioning of $15.5 to $27 billion CAD. For the next step, let’s assume $20 billion CAD for the sake of round numbers.
Given the likelihood of all of Ontario’s reactors being off of the grid by 2035, with major decommissioning occurring every few years until then, the kWh generated by Ontario’s nuclear fleet from now through 2060 will be in the range of about 1000 TWh assuming there are no lengthy outages at any of the plants, which to be clear is an awful lot of low carbon electricity.
However, $20 billion is a big number too. It turns into about 19 cents per kWh if you only count electricity generated from today through end of life for the reactors. It’s obviously a lot lower if you calculated from beginning of the lifetime of the reactors. However you count it though, that’s only the unfunded Ontario liability, and it’s on top of subsidized security costs Canada and Ontario and municipalities bear, and it’s on top of the outstanding $19.3 billion in debt that has only been receiving servicing on the interest since the McGuinty government brought it back into the utility. It’s likely that the majority of that debt will be outstanding in 2035 still, as it has gone from $20 billion to $19.3 billion in the last 11 years, so expecting it to be gone by 2035 is not realistic.
So yes, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarians to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.
Nuclear, the gift that keeps on giving.
This article was originally published by Cleantechnica.com.
Read the original article here.
Samuel Lawrence Foundation loses court case to keep spent fuel pools as safety backup at San Onofre nuclear station
Judge tosses out lawsuit that sought to stop San Onofre nuclear plant dismantlement, Ruling says Coastal Commission properly granted permit, San Diego Tribune, BY ROB NIKOLEWSKI , . 20, 2021
Deconstruction work at the now-shuttered San Onofe Nuclear Generating Station — known as SONGS for short — will continue after a judge in Los Angeles County turned back a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group that looked to put a halt to it.
Deconstruction work at the now-shuttered San Onofe Nuclear Generating Station — known as SONGS for short — will continue after a judge in Los Angeles County turned back a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group that looked to put a halt to it.
In a 19-page decision, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ruled last week the California Coastal Commission acted properly when it granted a permit in 2019 to Southern California Edison — the operators of the plant — to proceed with dismantlement efforts.
The Samuel Lawrence Foundation filed the suit, arguing the commission violated its own regulations and provisions by issuing the permit………….
Samuel Lawrence Foundation president Bart Ziegler said in an email that his group “will continue to push for strict monitoring, protocols and handling facilities at Edison’s nuclear waste dump.”
The heart of the lawsuit centered on two spent fuel pools that are scheduled to be torn down.
At commercial nuclear power plants, when the highly radioactive fuel rods used to generate electricity lose their effectiveness, operators place the assemblies in a metal rack that is lowered about 40 feet into a “wet storage” pool, typically for about five years, to cool.
Edison has since taken the assemblies out of the pools, placed them into stainless steel canisters and moved them into two “dry storage” facilities on the north end of the plant. One facility holds 50 canisters and another, more recently constructed site, holds 73 canisters.
Edison says now that the spent fuel has been transferred to dry storage, the pools are unnecessary and should be dismantled.
The Samuel Lawrence Foundation argued Edison should keep the pools in case the canisters ever get damaged or degrade over time………..
Despite issuing the permit and related measures, the commission has complained about being put in a tough position.
Edison says now that the spent fuel has been transferred to dry storage, the pools are unnecessary and should be dismantled.
Schwartz said until the federal government comes up with a long-term storage site, “we are forced to live with the increased risks of storing (waste) on our coast. Commissioners and staff have communicated to the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) the urgency of moving these spent fuel facilities out of the coastal hazard zone, and we will continue to press the NRC on this issue.”
There are 3.55 million pounds of used-up fuel in the canisters at SONGS, which is located between the Pacific and Interstate 5.
But keeping the waste on-site is not unique to San Onofre. About 80,000 metric tons of spent fuel has stacked up at 121 commercial nuclear sites in 35 states………..
Under a “special condition” agreed to in 2015, the commission is allowed by 2035 to revisit whether the storage site should be moved to another location in case of rising sea levels, earthquake risks, potential canister damage or other scenarios……
SONGS’ dismantlement began in March 2020 and is expected to take about eight years to complete. Roughly 2 billion pounds of equipment, components, concrete and steel will be removed from the plant.
The two distinctive containment domes, each nearly 200 feet high, are scheduled to come down around 2027.
About 450,000 tons of material labeled low-level nuclear waste will be shipped — mostly by rail — to a disposal facility in Clive, Utah. Another 35 tons of low-level waste will get shipped by truck to a facility in the West Texas town of Andrews.
According to Edison’s plans, all that will remain at SONGS will be two dry storage facilities, a security building with personnel to look over the waste, a seawall, a walkway connecting two beaches north and south of the plant, and a switchyard with power lines. The rest of the property will revert to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2021-09-20/judge-tosses-out-lawsuit-that-sought-to-stop-san-onofre-nuclear-plant-dismantlement
Small nuclear reactors, uranium mining, nuclear fuel chain, reprocessing, dismantling reactors – extract from Expert Response to pro nuclear JRC Report
.
………… If SMRs are used, this not least raises questions about proliferation, i.e. the possible spread of nuclear weapons as well as the necessary nuclear technologies or fissionable materials for their production. ………..
By way of summary, it is important to state that many questions are still unresolved with regard to any widespread use of SMRs – and this would be necessary to make a significant contribution to climate protection – and they are not addressed in the JRC Report. These issues are not just technical matters that have not yet been clarified, but primarily questions of safety, proliferation and liability, which require international coordination and regulations.
The volume of waste arising from decommissioning a power plant would therefore be significantly higher than specified in the JRC Report in Part B 2.1, depending on the time required to dismantle it
Measures to reduce the environmental impact The JRC Report is contradictory when it comes to the environmental impact of uranium mining: it certainly mentions the environmental risks of uranium mining (particularly in JRC Report, Part A 3.3.1.2, p. 67ff), but finally states that they can be contained by suitable measures (particularly JRC Report, Part A 3.3.1.5, p. 77ff). However, suitable measures are not discussed in the depth required ……..…
Expert response to the report by the Joint Research Centre entitled “Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the ‛Do No Significant Harm’ criteria in Regulation (EU) 2020/852, the ‛Taxonomy Regulation’” 2021
”…………………3.2 Analysing the contribution made by small modular reactors (SMRs) to climate change mitigation in the JRC Report
The statement about many countries’ growing interest in SMRs is mentioned in the JRC Report (Part A 3.2.1, p. 38) without any further classification. In particular, there is no information about the current state of development and the lack of marketability of SMRs.
Reactors with an electric power output of up to 300 MWe are normally classified as SMRs. Most of the extremely varied SMR concepts found around the world have not yet got past the conceptual level. Many unresolved questions still need to be clarified before SMRs can be technically constructed in a country within the EU and put into operation. They range from issues about safety, transportation and dismantling to matters related to interim storage and final disposal and even new problems for the responsible licensing and supervisory authorities
The many theories frequently postulated for SMRs – their contribution to combating the risks of climate change and their lower costs and shorter construction periods – must be attributed to particular economic interests, especially those of manufacturers, and therefore viewed in a very critical light.
Today`s new new nuclear power plants have electrical output in the range of 1000-1600 MWe. SMR concepts, in contrast, envisage planned electrical outputs of 1.5 – 300 MWe. In order to provide the same electrical power capacity, the number of units would need to be increased by a factor of 3-1000. Instead of having about 400 reactors with large capacity today, it would be necessary to construct many thousands or even tens of thousands of SMRs (BASE, 2021; BMK, 2020). A current production cost calculation, which consider scale, mass and learning effects from the nuclear industry, concludes that more than 1,000 SMRs would need to be produced before SMR production was cost-effective. It cannot therefore be expected that the structural cost disadvantages of reactors with low capacity can be compensated for by learning or mass effects in the foreseeable future (BASE, 2021).
There is no classification in the JRC Report (Part A 3.2.1, p. 38) regarding the frequently asserted statement that SMRs are safer than traditional nuclear power plants with a large capacity, as they have a lower radioactive inventory and make greater use of passive safety systems. In the light of this, various SMR concepts suggest the need for reduced safety requirements, e.g. regarding the degree of redundancy or diversity. Some SMR concepts even consider refraining from normal provisions for accident management both internal and external – for example, smaller planning zones for emergency protection and even the complete disappearance of any off-site emergency zones.
The theory that an SMR automatically has an increased safety level is not proven. The safety of a specific reactor unit depends on the safety related properties of the individual reactor and its functional effectiveness and must be carefully analysed – taking into account the possible range of events or incidents. This kind of analysis will raise additional questions, particularly about the external events if SMRs are located in remote regions if SMRs are used to supply industrial plants or if they are sea-based SMRs (BASE, 2021).
Continue readingThe final costly burden of Ontaria’s nuclear decommissioning will fall to the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021
So yes, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarians to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.
Ontario’s Unfunded Nuclear Decommissioning Liability Is In The $18-$27 Billion CAD Range eTransport News, 12 Aug 21, Late last year I worked up the likely amount of public money that would have to be thrown at the nuclear industry in order to successfully and safely decommission the 100 operational reactors and the now shut down ones. Unsurprisingly, the nuclear industry had been very optimistic in its estimates of decommissioning costs and timeframes, when the global empirical averages were trending to a billion USD and 100 years per reactor.
Recently I was asked by an Ontario journalist what I thought the likely situation in Ontario would be, and whether the decommissioning trusts were equally underfunded. I was unsurprised to find that Canada is in the same boat as the US, with highly optimistic schedule and cost projections which belie Canadian empirical experience with the CANDU reactor, and that the fund had nowhere near the money necessary for the job. Let’s run the numbers.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is the chunk of the provincial utility that was carved apart in the late 1990s by the Mike Harris Conservatives to handle generation alone. It operates 18 aging CANDU reactors across three sites: Bruce, Pickering, and Darlington.
OPG has a nuclear decommissioning fund of about $5 billion CAD or US$4 billion right now. If the experience of other countries on the actual cost of a billion USD per reactor and an actual timeline of decommissioning of a century holds true, and I see no reason why it doesn’t, that means that there is currently a $17.5 billion CAD gap in Ontario, in addition to the existing $19.3 billion CAD in debt still being serviced from their construction. When the government of the era split up the utility, it moved all of the debt off of the components and into general debt. One of the many appropriate and sensible things that the McGuinty Administration did in the 2000s, in addition to shutting down coal generation entirely, was to move the debt back into the utility and set about servicing it from utility bills.
Most of the reactors at Bruce Nuclear are aging out, with several over 40 years old and the remainder approaching 40. Darlington’s are around 30, so they have a bit of runway. Pickering’s reactors are going to be shut down in 2024 and 2025 and start decommissioning in 2028. While refurbishment could bridge Ontario’s for another 20 years in many cases, that’s expensive and typically won’t pass any economic viability assessment compared to alternatives.
The likelihood is that all reactors in Ontario will reach end of life by 2035, and be replaced by some combination of renewable energy and HVDC transmission from neighboring jurisdictions, with both Manitoba and Quebec having excellent, low-carbon hydroelectric to spare……………….
Nuclear decommissioning funding comes from reactors operating revenue. In the US, it’s 0.01 to 0.02 cents per kWh as a set aside. I wasn’t able to find the required set aside for Ontario’s fleet, but obviously they aren’t setting aside sufficient funds now, or have absurdly optimistic fund growth expectations. They only have a decade to set aside more money from operating reactors, and have only set aside $5 billion CAD after 50 years, so the most generous assumption is that they will set aside perhaps $7 billion CAD in the OPG fund by end of life of the reactors, and have a liability for decommissioning of $15.5 to $27 billion CAD. For the next step, let’s assume $20 billion CAD for the sake of round numbers.
Given the likelihood of all of Ontario’s reactors being off of the grid by 2035, with major decommissioning occurring every few years until then, the kWh generated by Ontario’s nuclear fleet from now through 2060 will be in the range of about 1000 TWh assuming there are no lengthy outages at any of the plants, which to be clear is an awful lot of low carbon electricity.
However, $20 billion is a big number too. It turns into about 19 cents per kWh if you only count electricity generated from today through end of life for the reactors. It’s obviously a lot lower if you calculated from beginning of the lifetime of the reactors. However you count it though, that’s only the unfunded Ontario liability, and it’s on top of subsidized security costs Canada and Ontario and municipalities bear, and it’s on top of the outstanding $19.3 billion in debt that has only been receiving servicing on the interest since the McGuinty government brought it back into the utility. It’s likely that the majority of that debt will be outstanding in 2035 still, as it has gone from $20 billion to $19.3 billion in the last 11 years, so expecting it to be gone by 2035 is not realistic.
So yes, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarians to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.
Nuclear, the gift that keeps on giving. https://etransportnews.com/2021/08/06/ontarios-unfunded-nuclear-decommissioning-liability-is-in-the-18-27-billion-cad-range/
Stockton Professor: Nuclear Power is “Terrible Neighbor
Stockton Professor: Nuclear Power is “Terrible Neighbor” https://ocnjdaily.com/stockton-professor-nuclear-power-terrible-neighbor/ By MediaWize – August 8, 2021 By DR. JOHN AITKEN Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Physics, Stockton University
Opponents of the Ocean Wind turbine project spoke in favor of using nuclear power as an alternative to the wind power at the July 27 Michael Shellenberger presentation sponsored by Save Our Shores in Ocean City.
The speaker stated that that while climate change is indeed real, the only solution to reducing carbon emissions is nuclear power, contrary to the position of many environmental organizations.
His proposals to pursue solely nuclear power did not mention its disadvantages and costs. Nuclear power operates carbon free as do solar and wind power, but unlike them, nuclear generates large quantities of dangerous waste that are difficult to dispose of and costly to manage.
Nuclear power can supply an unlimited amount of power but creates an unlimited amount of hazardous nuclear waste requiring storage for at least 300 years. Nuclear power may be a useful servant but it is a terrible neighbor.
Take the example of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant 35 miles north of Atlantic City. After approximately 50 years of service it is being decommissioned due to its inability to compete with cheaper natural gas.
In the 1960s, Lacey Township signed up to host the plant. What they did not realize at the time was that they had signed a deal with devil. The town had traded its own long-term safety for the benefits of good paying jobs and reduced property taxes.
Due to environmental and transportation concerns, nuclear waste storage sites in Nevada or Washington state promised by the federal government never materialized, leaving local plants on their own to store their nuclear waste on site for decades if not centuries.
The costs associated with decommissioning the nuclear site, estimated between $800 million and $1.4 billion, are another legacy left by the plant. The original owner/operator of the plant, Exelon, sold the plant to another company who will execute the decommissioning plan. For the rest of this article I will refer to this decommissioning company as DC.
While the project is supported by a decommissioning fund, likely cost overruns will be paid by future generations through their utility bills. The costs cover the removal and deactivation of spent nuclear fuel, control rods, the reactor and associated buildings, which themselves have become radioactive from exposure to radiation.
But now, with decommissioning approaching, the township is paying the piper dearly for the good years. Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant has been shut down. The spent nuclear fuel and radioactive debris from the reactor and the associated buildings will be stored in 68 cylindrical casks, each 22 feet high and 11 feet in diameter, emitting low levels of radiation on the now-defunct site. The casks must remain intact for at least 300 years to allow the radioactivity of the waste inside to decay to handleable levels.
DC is now in charge of the decommissioning project. DC makes no commitment as to how long, decades or even centuries, these casks will have to remain on the Lacey Township site in close proximity to homes and schools.
Nor is there a guarantee that the casks, manufactured by DC, will remain intact during the 300-year storage period. Lacey Township at first sued DC to prevent the storage of these casks on the site. After a long legal battle, Lacey settled the lawsuit with them, acquiescing to the onsite storage on the condition that DC would build and assign another cask for emergency use by the township.
The Lacey Township decision shows it is a virtual prisoner of DC, which now owns the nuclear waste but is also the town’s only hope of restoring the site to radiation-free conditions.
Operating nuclear plants are also a continual hazard to the communities where they are sited. Nuclear plants do not pose a threat of nuclear explosion. Their Achilles heel is the plumbing, which brings water in and out of the reactor vessels.
The water pipes, degraded by the nuclear reactions, develop cracks and eventually leak water with radioactive contaminants. This water can leak into the local water supply and cause cancer or DNA damage to people who drink it.
As shown by the Oyster Creek experience, nuclear power is costly, dangerous and unmanageable. Those in favor of nuclear power should be ready to accept nuclear power stations in their own backyards and relive the Lacey Township experience. Nuclear power makes a terrible neighbor.
Delay in demolition of Three Mile Island Nuclear Station
Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Demolition Delayed
WKOK Staff | August 8, 2021 MIDDLETOWN – Stateimpact Pennsylvania is reporting…The company responsible for decommissioning the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is delaying demolition of the reactor’s two cooling towers, the project director said Wednesday. Frank Helin told the TMI-2 Community Advisory Panel that the towers will come down in 2022 instead of this fall.The decommissioner, TMI-2 Solutions, is a subsidiary of EnergySolutions, a Utah-based company that tries to turn a profit by dismantling inactive nuclear sites under budget. TMI-2 Solutions acquired the reactor’s license from FirstEnergy in December. The company plans to start removing what remains of TMI-2’s damaged core by mid-2022. It expects to complete the entire clean-up process by 2037. EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said the delay in taking down the cooling towers does not affect the rest of the process…………
Eric Epstein, chair of the watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert, said that while he is not concerned about the cooling towers, he believes the reactor building may have more radioactive material than the company is prepared to deal with.
“Our concern is making sure that the plant is finally cleaned up 42 years later,” he said. “We don’t believe the company that owns TMI-2 has the technology, the expertise, or the resources to clean the plant up.” On its website, TMI-2 Solutions says it anticipates the project will cost $1.06 billion. It says the trust fund dedicated to the reactor’s decommissioning contains about $877 million, but that fund growth over time will provide enough money to cover the costs. https://www.wkok.com/three-mile-island-nuclear-plant-demolition-delayed/
Costly dismantling of France’s Brennilis nuclear power plant continues, 35 years after shutdown.
The dismantling of the Brennilis nuclear power plant, in the Monts
d’Arrée (Finistère) will be completed by 2040 and will have cost 850
million euros, the departmental council of Finistère said on Thursday.
These operations began over 35 years ago.
France Bleu 15th July 2021
The 44 year process for demolishing TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 2 nuclear station, – with nowhere to put the radioactive trash.
TEPCO grants 1st peek at work to scrap Fukushima No. 2 plant, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14389389 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, July 7, 2021
Work to prepare for the decommissioning of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant is under way in Fukushima Prefecture, a mammoth project the operator plans to complete in about 44 years.
However, TEPCO has not yet secured a location to dispose of a large amount of radioactive waste, a difficult task that it plans to tackle in the years to come.
The project is expected to prove an enormous challenge to TEPCO as the utility needs to proceed with it while simultaneously taking on the even more formidable task of cleaning up the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Together, 10 reactors are housed at the two plants: four at the No. 2 plant and six at the No. 1 plant.
The company will need to train workers for the decommissioning, secure a workforce for the lengthy project that will span decades, and put measures in place to ensure the safety of the facilities when hit by natural disasters such as torrential rain, earthquakes and tsunami.
On July 6, reporters were granted access to the decommissioning work at the Fukushima No. 2 plant so they could show the work to the public for the first time since the process began on June 23.
The No. 2 plant is located on the coastal side of the towns of Tomioka and Naraha, and the work on July 6 revolved around decontamination at its No. 1 reactor building.
Donning protective gear, 12 workers from TEPCO and contractors cleaned up pipes around water tanks with a high-pressure washer in a room for inspecting the equipment that inserts and removes control rods from the reactor core.
The work to decommission the No. 2 plant will be divided into four stages, with each stage spanning a decade or so, according to TEPCO.
In the first stage, operators will focus on decontaminating the facility to prepare for the following stages.
After that, TEPCO expects to move on to the second stage, which involves the demolition and removal of equipment surrounding the nuclear reactors. The reactors will be dismantled and cleared in the third stage, and then finally the reactor buildings in the fourth stage.
“We are determined to steadily and safely proceed with the decommissioning work while gaining support and understanding from local residents,” said Takaki Mishima, the head of the plant.
Perhaps the most crucial question that must be resolved will be where high-level and low-level waste that will be produced from the decommissioning process should be temporarily stored before a permanent disposal site is found.
A total of 9,532 spent nuclear fuel rods–highly radioactive materials–are stored at the plant.
Fukushima officials are demanding they be removed from the prefecture by the time the decommissioning wraps up in fiscal 2064.
But no municipalities in Japan want to accept and house such dangerous materials in their backyards.
TEPCO estimates the amount of low-level radioactive waste will total 52,000 tons.
To dispose of the waste, it needs to be buried underground at a depth from several meters to more than 70 meters from the surface, depending on the levels of radioactivity.
But as of now, no potential sites in Japan for temporary storage have been determined, not to mention a final disposal site.
“That is a question we will address later,” an official from the utility said.
Although the Fukushima No. 2 plant was damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of 2011, it was spared from a meltdown and has been idle since.
TEPCO’s decision to pull the plug on the plant came at the insistence of the prefectural government and local residents.
(This article was compiled from reports by Shigetaka Kodama, Tetsuya Kasai, Yu Fujinami and Tsuyoshi Kawamura.)
Taiwan Shuts Another Reactor as Part of Nuclear-Free Goal,
Taiwan Shuts Another Reactor as Part of Nuclear-Free Goal, Jul 7, 2021, Power, by Darrell Proctor
Taiwan’s move to end the country’s use of nuclear power continues, with Unit 1 of the Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant being shut down. The reactor was taken offline at the end of June, six months ahead of its scheduled Dec. 27 retirement, with officials saying spent fuel-storage capacity constraints meant the unit could not be refueled…..
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has made closing the country’s nuclear power plants a goal of her administration, saying the three remaining reactors will go offline by mid-2025. The 985-MW Kuosheng unit, which officials said generated about 3% of the nation’s total electricity, is the third of what were six operating reactors to be shuttered……
Decommissioning Plan
Taipower first proposed its decommissioning plan for Kuosheng Unit 1 in 2018, and it was approved by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in October 2020. The plan included construction of a dry storage facility for used fuel, but a dispute between the city of New Taipei and Taipower has delayed the project.
Officials in New Taipei have yet to issue a permit for the storage facility, which would house the used fuel rods from Unit 1. The New Taipeil government has said it does not want a permanent spent nuclear fuel storage facility within the city……..
Tsai, who took over as Taiwan’s first female president in 2016, is the leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The DPP has championed a “nuclear-free homeland.” The president in her opening remarks at the renewable energy-focused EnergyTaiwan event in October 2020 called on Taiwan to be “a leading center of green energy in the Asia-Pacific region.”
New policy initiatives have supported that goal, including amendments to the country’s Electricity Act that mandated nuclear power generation be ended no later than 2025. The government has said it expects moving away from coal-fired and nuclear power, and support of gas-fired generation and renewable energy, will generate about $36 billion in investment in the country’s energy sector by 2025, along with creating 20,000 jobs………..
Voters also on Aug. 28 will be asked about a plan to restart construction of the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant 4. That plant, designed with two General Electric advanced BWR reactors and generation capacity of 2,700 MW, was expected to be completed in 2004 after construction began in 1999. Numerous delays, cost overruns, and government opposition put the project on hold in 2014. Even if voters approve a restart, analysts have said it’s unlikely the project would resume under the current administration. https://www.powermag.com/taiwan-shuts-another-reactor-as-part-of-nuclear-free-goal/
Taiwan on its path toward denuclearization
Taiwan on its path toward denuclearization. The Taiwanese government shut
down the No. 1 generator at its Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli
District, New Taipei City, on Thursday (July 1) to prepare for the unit’s
full closure.
The nuclear generator went online on Dec. 28, 1981. A General
Electric Boiling Water Reactors Type-6 model, the unit was licensed to run
for 40 years, which will expire on Dec. 27, 2021. It has produced more than
270 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity for the past 40 years as
well as 800 tons of radioactive waste, according to the Environment
Information Center.
The generator is being decommissioned early because the
spent fuel pool is nearly at capacity. If the generator keeps operating,
there will be not be enough space to store nuclear waste, the Taiwan Power
Company (TPC) explained.
Taiwan News 4th July 2021
French corporation EDF will close down all 7 of its advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power stations in Britain within the next decade.
French-based global power developer EDF Energy vowed to put all seven of its advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom into the defueling and decommissioning stages within the next decade.
The company’s agreement with the UK government calls for shutting down the AGR stations by 2030. At that point EDF’s generating capacitywill consist of Sizewell B, HPC, potentially Sizewell C (currently under construction) and renewables including solar, onshore and offshore wind.
Power Engineering 25th June 2021
Senator Markey urges the NRC to improve safety and security of nuclear decommissioning process.
SENATOR MARKEY URGES THE NRC TO IMPROVE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING PROCESS, https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-urges-the-nrc-to-improve-safety-and-security-of-nuclear-decommissioning-process In a letter, Markey requests stricter safeguards as 23 nuclear power plants, including the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, undergo decommissioning in the U.S.
Washington (June 25, 2021) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chair of the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), urging the agency to address safety and security concerns before approving the draft rule, “Regulatory Improvements for Production and Utilization Facilities Transitioning to Decommissioning,” and putting out a proposed rule for public comment. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must prioritize the safety and security of the nuclear plants it oversees,” said Senator Markey. “As currently written, the proposed rule would allow the NRC and plant operators to cut corners on safety and limit public participation, which is critical to the decommissioning process. The communities around our nuclear plants deserve better than this.”
A copy of the letter can be found HERE.In his letter, Senator Markey requests that the NRC:
- propose a defined and exact set of rules on how plants should navigate the decommissioning process;
- improve public participation during the NRC’s consideration of any license transfers requested in connection with a nuclear plant’s decommissioning process;
- acknowledge and address the fact that spent fuel could remain onsite for long periods of time, perhaps indefinitely; and
- reevaluate its proposal to reduce financial protections for offsite and onsite liability claims for plants that are in the process of decommissioning.
Senator Markey also requests that the NRC ensure that the twenty-three nuclear reactors, such as Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, that have already begun the decommissioning process adapt their operations to reflect stronger standards. The NRC should also establish the proper checks to ensure the safety and security of the eight additional nuclear power plants that have already declared their intent to decommission. Senator Markey has consistently urged the NRC to prioritize safety and public participation in the nuclear decommissioning process. Last Congress, Senator Markey reintroduced the Dry Cask Storage Act, which was aimed at improving the storage of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear plants across the nation.
As the Pilgrim Power Station commenced its decommissioning process, Senator Markey continued to fight to ensure that the NRC prioritized safety and public participation. In August 2019, Senators Markey and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Representative William Keating (MA-09) wrote to the NRC to urge it to delay ruling on the proposed license transfer for Pilgrim from Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. to Holtec International until after the Commission considered and ruled on extant petitions and motions. In October 2018, Senator Markey and Rep. William demanded clear details from Holtec and Entergy about the safety and security issues involved in the ownership, transfer, and eventual decommissioning of the power plant.
1 This Month
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
of the week – STOP SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN CANADA
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