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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

EDF nuclear power company looks to a profitable future in small-scale, distributed RENEWABLE energy

Can EDF Make Big Money in Small-Scale Renewables?, Greentech Media

The world’s leading nuclear power generator is betting big on a future of small-scale, distributed energy.

KARL-ERIK STROMSTA APRIL 22, 2020 THE WORLD’S LEADING NUCLEAR POWER GENERATOR IS BETTING BIG ON A FUTURE OF SMALL-SCALE, DISTRIBUTED ENERGY.

Électricité de France operates 58 nuclear reactors in its home country and owns stakes in several U.S. nuclear plants that it’s now moving to sell. But EDF’s biggest stamp on the American power market has come in large-scale renewables: Its San Diego-based EDF Renewables North America subsidiary has developed and now operates gigawatts of wind and solar farms across the country.

Now, EDF Renewables is trying to replicate that success on a much smaller scale. How it fares in the distributed space will be of great interest to other 20th-century energy giants feeling their way toward a transformed, low-carbon future.

Over the past few years, and largely through acquisitions, EDF Renewables has amassed one of the most comprehensive U.S. distributed energy businesses, covering solar, energy storage, microgrids and electric vehicle chargers.

The coronavirus crisis may open the door to more dealmaking, said Raphael Declercq, who runs the Distributed Solutions unit at EDF Renewables North America. “There will be some casualties in our sector: Assets seemed overpriced up to a month ago; that may change and we may be able to grow through acquisitions,” Declercq told GTM.

Several European energy giants have been on a recent shopping spree for distributed energy companies in the startup-rich U.S. — notably Shell, EDF and Enel. Without their own U.S.-based utilities to worry about taking business from, they can roll up fleets of behind-the-meter energy assets and deliver power to customers in new ways, while learning lessons that can be applied in other markets.

“It’s a grab game right now, getting as much of that value chain as possible,” said Elta Kolo, content lead for grid edge research at Wood Mackenzie. “In a way, you’re almost seeing a new type of utility emerging in the market,” she said.

It’s a hazardous moment for the energy industry, oil companies and utilities alike. State-controlled EDF last week pulled its financial guidance for 2020 and 2021, saying it expects a sharp drop in its French nuclear output this year as the coronavirus outbreak depresses power demand…….

The rising importance of corporate renewables…….

A common thread runs through EDF Renewables’ businesses these days: the growing importance of corporate customers. In many markets around the world, and nowhere more so than the U.S., corporations are increasingly going around traditional utilities to buy clean power and energy services directly. ……..https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/can-edf-make-big-money-in-small-scale-renewables

April 23, 2020 Posted by | decentralised, France, USA | Leave a comment

16 hour days, 86 hour weeks for nuclear workers, amid pandemic panic?

Nuclear agency clears way for long days, weeks for Palo Verde employees, azfamily.comMorgan Loew 22 Apr 20,  PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the operator of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station permission to work its employees 16 hours per day and as many as 86 hours in a week, according to a letter from the NRC obtained by CBS 5 Investigates.

“Palo Verde Generating Station requested and received this exemption from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission early and proactively so that the option to modify work hours is immediately available in response to an extreme circumstance. Work schedules are not changing at this time, nor is a change imminent,” stated Jill Hanks in an email. She is a senior communications consultant at APS…..

environmentalists, like Steve Brittle from Don’t Waste Arizona, say they don’t think exemptions like these are a good idea. “All of the money this industry has, this is the best they can do?” said Brittle.

He said he only found out about the changes because of a standing records request he has on file with the NRC. “Government agencies as well as potential polluters – they all need to have somebody watching over them,” said Brittle.

The NRC has granted similar exemptions to other nuclear reactors across the country and allowed some facilities to postpone scheduled maintenance. Environmental groups warn that reducing maintenance, worker’s protections, and oversight could lead to accidents.

Morgan Loew’s hard-hitting investigations can be seen weekdays on CBS 5 News at 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.https://www.azfamily.com/news/investigations/cbs_5_investigates/nuclear-agency-clears-way-for-long-days-weeks-for-palo-verde-employees/article_116ace1e-844a-11ea-890d-b3c0d57fab8c.html 

April 23, 2020 Posted by | employment, health, USA | Leave a comment

Some Grand Gulf Nuclear Station employees impacted by COVID-19

Some Grand Gulf Nuclear Station employees impacted by COVID-19,   PORT GIBSON, Miss. (WJTV)22 Apr 20 Entergy confirmed some of its team members at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Claiborne County tested positive for the coronavirus…..  https://www.wjtv.com/health/coronavirus/some-grand-gulf-nuclear-station-employees-impacted-by-covid-19/

April 23, 2020 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Piscataway Community Energy Aggregation (PCEA) program DOES NOT INCLUDE NUCLEAR ENERGY

Clearing the Air on the PCEA: Nuclear power NOT included By ANN BASTIAN
April 19, 2020 

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/piscataway/sections/green/articles/clearing-the-air-on-the-pcea-nuclear-power-not-included    The Piscataway Community Energy Aggregation (PCEA) program, just rolled out for township residents, does NOT include nuclear power as one of its “renewable energy” sources.  The referendum voters passed last November required that the PCEA use only Class 1 Renewables: wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and other sustainable sources.

We passed the PCEA in order to move our town and state away from dirty power, from the air pollution of fossil fuels and the radioactive wastes of nuclear power.  Bulk purchasing as a community also gives us cost savings, along the way to addressing the climate crisis.

nd that’s what we’re getting: a win-win.  Residents can access 30% clean electricity by automatically staying in the basic plan, with a savings on their electric bill.  If residents want to “opt UP”, they can choose to go immediately to 50% Class 1 Renewables or to 100% Class 1 Renewables, at reasonable rates.  The whole town will move forward in stages, reaching 100% clean renewables in 2035.  Individual households can also opt out at any time, and businesses can opt in.

Still, there may be some confusion about how the PCEA will work:

1) SOURCING: The energy provider, EnergyHarbor, is a diversified power company, with some nuclear and fossil fuel holdings.  But its PCEA contract with the Township is only for clean energy.

(2) SHADE: The Mayor has always knocked the referendum, which let voters decide town policy, not the insiders.  OK, the people have spoken, 64%-36%, let’s move on.

(3) INFORMATION: The town website, which is hard to navigate for basic information, is nearly impossible to navigate for PCEA facts and options, including the choice to opt out.  We do need to inform ourselves. Here’s an upcoming forum for residents who have questions:

his Wednesday, April 22 at 6 pm: the town’s PCEA administrator, Good Energy LP, is holding an online Q & A session: https://www.tapinto.net/towns/piscataway/events/facebook-live-piscataway-community-energy-aggreg

And Piscataway Progressive Democrats, who endorsed the PCEA referendum, did a special segment explaining the PCEA and your PSE&G bill last Saturday, April 18:

https://www.facebook.com/pwayprogressivedems/?epa=SEARCH_BOX

Let’s celebrate this Earth Day by making Piscataway cleaner and greener! 

 

April 21, 2020 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Formal petition to close Fermi 2 nuclear reactor in Michigan, from coalition of watchdog groups

Watchdog groups file safety concerns on Fermi 2 nuclear reactor, Dave Battagello  Windsor Star  20 Apr 20, A coalition of watchdog groups have filed a formal petition to stop Fermi 2 nuclear reactor in Michigan from further operations, claiming long-required repair work needs to be fully completed in order to avoid a potential “major nuclear accident.”

Groups that include Beyond Nuclear and Don’t Waste Michigan have asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to halt reopening within the next week or so of Fermi 2 — currently shut down for routine scheduled maintenance.

The petition was filed Thursday and requires an NRC review board to make an emergency decision on the application over the next week on whether the groups have valid concerns or that Fermi 2 be allowed to resume operations when its current outage for “refuelling” is completed.

“It is a very high-risk situation,” said Michael Keegan of Don’t Waste Michigan. “It is dangerous since the plant, should it reopen, will be operating in a compromised position. They have got a problem that could be a major nuclear accident.”

A spokesman for DTE, which owns and operates the nuclear generating station, said Sunday that proper maintenance and repairs are being conducted and that the facility is safe.

Thousands of residents in Amherstburg and Boblo Island are among those at greatest risk of a nuclear accident at Fermi — which sits across Lake Erie — but there are also potential health risks for thousands more stretching through LaSalle and into Windsor, as well as Michigan, should a Fermi 2 incident occur.

The petition calls on NRC to take enforcement action to inspect Fermi 2 and make full repairs to what’s known as the “torus,” a donut-type structure at the base of the reactor. …….  https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/watchdog-groups-file-safety-concerns-on-fermi-2-nuclear-reactor/

April 21, 2020 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, safety, USA | Leave a comment

A warning to Idaho residents on the danger of Hanford’s nuclear wastes

A study released by the National Cancer Institute in 1997 showed that 25 states had citizens exposed to high levels of radiation due to nuclear testing.

“When there is an earthquake in that area, the radiation fallout will be equal to Chernobyl,” Brodesser said in her lecture. “When, not if.”

They know what they’ve done’: America’s nuclear past threatens Idaho’s future https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/they-know-what-theyve-done-americas-nuclear-past-threatens-idahos-future/article_a02826ba-b62f-5964-9b08-09dbe300d596.html, By ASHLEY MILLER amiller@idahopress.com  MERIDIAN — In a time before social distancing, the lecture hall of the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine was packed. Students, staff, politicians and community members sat intermixed in the seats, elbow to elbow.

But Kaaren Brodesser stood alone.

Before she started her lecture on March 10, she was introduced simply as an advocate. More than that, she is a witness, part of a small group of people fighting for the rights of Idahoans whose lives changed on July 16, 1945, when the U.S. conducted the first-ever nuclear test, setting off a series of events the world is still struggling to fully understand.

These are downwinders, and they are dying.

‘THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’VE DONE’

In the 1950s and ’60s, the bulk of America’s nuclear testing was done in a 680-square-mile piece of desert about 65 miles outside of Las Vegas. The Nevada Test Site was ground zero for America’s Cold War preparations, testing the effects and power of the nuclear bombs designed by the military. From 1951 to 1958, around 100 aboveground nuclear tests were conducted on the site. The site was chosen for its relative isolation from any densely populated cities; however, in the end, distance was not the solution it first seemed.

The term “downwinders” refers to anyone who lived in communities exposed to nuclear radiation during the end of World War II and the peak of the Cold War (roughly the late 1940s to 1980). During the construction and testing of nuclear weapons, wind patterns directed the fallout far beyond the safety perimeters of the sites, spreading radiation hundreds and even thousands of miles away.

In the book “Atomic Farmgirl,” author Teri Hein details her life growing up downwind of Hanford, Washington, where the bulk of America’s plutonium was produced for many decades. She explains the fallout like this: When Mount Saint Helens erupted in 1980, ash drifted far past the state lines of Washington. The wind carried and then settled the debris into neighboring states. Nuclear radiation fallout can be thought of in the same way. The testing locations in Nevada and the production plants in Hanford are the eruption. The radiation then drifted into Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and beyond.

The radiation was in the air and, more importantly, in the crops and livestock of these communities. According to the National Cancer Institute, a significant portion of the Intermountain West was exposed to high doses of radiation from the tests, specifically the radioisotope Iodine-131. Iodine-131 is processed in the thyroid, the gland in your neck that regulates hormones. This is why children seemed to be the hardest hit from the fallout: their thyroid is still developing and isn’t strong enough to process the high dosage of Iodine.

NCI’s list of medical issues tied to downwinders is long, ranging from multiple sclerosis to various forms of cancer that slowly eat away at your life. That’s something that Emmett resident Tona Henderson knows only too much about. Continue reading →

April 20, 2020 Posted by | environment, health, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

COVID-19 Lessons from Three Mile Island #2 — the NRC

I happen to think it is worse for a government in crisis to fake it than to admit they aren’t sure of the correct problem, much less the correct answer. To say that COVID-19 is “no worse than the flu” or that “it will disappear in a few weeks” when you don’t really know what you are talking about is dangerous. It costs lives.

No executive ego is worth loss of life. 

COVID-19 Lessons from Three Mile Island #2 — the NRC  https://www.cringely.com/2020/04/17/covid-19-lessons-from-three-mile-island-2-the-nrc/?fbclid=IwAR3GJkbLC9UyA344IclZfHkFACO4fdj9Oxd0nxfUZ3M8xJ9UC5_VmS-T124    By Robert X. Cringely April 17th, 2020   My last column was about crisis management lessons I learned back in 1979 while investigating the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (TMI). Let’s just say that FEMA wasn’t ready for a nuclear meltdown. Today we turn to the other federal agency I investigated at that same time — the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). While FEMA was simply unprepared and incompetent, the NRC was unprepared and lied about it.

Like FEMA, the NRC had recently undergone a rebranding from its previous identity as the Atomic Energy Commission — a schizoid agency that had been charged with both regulating nuclear power and promoting it. It’s difficult to be the major booster of technology while at the same time making safety rules for it. Think of the Trump Administration’s approach to coal as an example of such a paradox.

When the NRC was created to regulate nuclear power, that PR function was sent over to the U.S. Department of Energy. So all the NRC had to do at Three Mile Island was to make sure the utility was following the rules and to help them keep the public safe. Not much of either actually happened during the accident, mainly because nobody really had any idea of the actual state of the reactor. This suggests that maybe a bit more regulation should have been done during the reactor design phase.

Since almost nobody but me remembers any of this let’s get out of the way the two most important lessons of Three Mile Island. The first lesson explains why the accident was so bad while the second explains why nobody died.

The primary technical failing of TMI came down to a poor operator training combined with a major user interface glitch. All of the TMI operators were originally trained by the U.S. Navy, where they operated nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers. This was a deliberate policy on the part of General Public Utilities (GPU), the electric company that owned the plant. And it wasn’t a bad policy. The Navy vets were proven operators who didn’t panic and had been well trained on their ships. Alas, they weren’t especially well trained on the actual reactor they operated at TMI. In fact, they weren’t really trained to operate the reactor at all: they were trained to pass the reactor operator test.

This distinction between being trained to operate the reactor versus being trained to pass the test is crucial. GPU assumed the Navy veterans already knew plenty about reactors, so they concentrated solely in their training on the actual operation of reactor systems. This may sound okay, but what was missing was any deep understanding of what was actually happening inside the reactor that might have been helpful for troubleshooting.

By streamlining their training, the reactor operators may have known which valve to open or close, but not necessarily why they were opening or closing it.

Look at the picture above [on original] of the control room at Three Mile Island Unit 2. There is a lot going on in this picture from 1979. There are hundreds of switches and valves matched by hundreds of meters and gauges. Video screens on the back wall mainly verified the state (open/closed, on/off) of these valves and switches. In this entire control room there was ONE warning light and ONE horn or buzzer. When something went wrong this one light would start to blink red and the buzzer would sound an alarm.

In theory, when the buzzer sounded an operator could scan all the gauges and figure out what was happening inside the reactor. In real terms, however, this was close to impossible to do. There were just too many variables and — remember — the operators weren’t trained to understand the innards of the reactor, just how to run it.

What actually ran the reactor was a minicomputer. So when the warning light started to blink (by this time they’d turned-off the buzzer) the operators could go to that IBM Selectric printer in the foreground of the picture above where the minicomputer would print out a trouble code and description of what had gone wrong. This printer-based user interface was a key failing at TMI because within two minutes of the first alarm sounding, that printer queue was already six hours behind in printing trouble codes.

While designing this printer-centric system they’d apparently never considered what would happen if there were 100 or 1000 trouble codes hitting at the same time. Worse still, every time the system updated (which as I recall was every minute), it sent to the printer another 100 or 1000 codes.

Certainly, there was an engineer somewhere who understood that printing subsystem and could have found a way into the queue, but nobody in Harrisburg knew who that engineer was. That engineer didn’t work for GPU. So the utility was never able to get past this UI problem which made the reactor operators essentially blind. They had to guess what was happening inside the reactor, and their guesses had to be correct, they thought, or people might die.

No pressure here.

The reactor operators were clueless. The GPU executives called-in to help were clueless. And the NRC “experts” were clueless, too. In fact, nobody at the NRC had been through operator training for this particular class of reactor.

will shortly look in some detail at the NRC’s response, but first let’s cover that other lesson of TMI — why nobody died. That nobody died at Three Mile Island was a total fluke. There was at least one over-pressure event that should have blown the containment dome over the reactor, releasing radiation into Middletown, Pennsylvania. The only reason the containment wasn’t breached was TMI had been built extra-strong because it was right next to the Harrisburg International Airport.

In this picture [on original] notice the airport in the background. The final approach goes right past Three Mile Island. There were a dozen Babcock & Wilcox reactors in the U.S. identical to the two units at Three Mile Island, but only those two TMI reactors were built next to what had been a US Air Force B-52 base. So only those two reactors got an extra foot of concrete added to their containment domes, taking them from three feet thick to four feet thick, just in case a B-52 happened to crash into one.

Had the TMI accident happened at the otherwise-identical Rancho Seco reactor near Sacramento, California, people probably would have died.

So TMI-2 melted-down, but it was overbuilt and nobody was actually in danger. However, back in 1979 nobody knew this.

Let’s take a moment here to contrast TMI and Chernobyl, the difference being that there was no containment at Chernobyl. The accidents were comparable, but with no containment, Chernobyl directly killed 31 people with an estimated 4000 additional deaths over the years since from radiation-caused cancer.

Reactor containments are good.

Not knowing what was actually happening inside the reactor, the men controlling Unit 2 made some bad decisions that made things worse. And after the first few hours, those decisions were all made with the agreement of the NRC, which also didn’t have a clue what was happening. For the most part, whatever was done was based on guesses and more of those guesses were wrong than were right. But since the containment was extra-thick, it probably didn’t matter.

Now to the part about lying. It is common for people in positions of authority to prefer that they are seen as acting correctly. Certainly, that was the case with the NRC, which never in the months I investigated them said anything like the truth — that they had no idea what the fuck was happening inside that reactor. They wanted to be seen as professional and calm, not clueless and panicked. So their official accounts projected this professionalism and tended to point fingers mainly at the utility — GPU. The NRC story was that they saved the day.

With the benefit of 41 years of hindsight, it’s pretty clear that nobody saved the day at TMI. Nor was the day especially at risk, though that, too, wasn’t known at the time.

My job in 1979 was to understand what happened and how it was presented to the outside world and when I did interviews at the NRC it just plain felt wrong. If the agency had done everything right, why did the accident seem so perilous?

That’s when I phoned-into the NRC Emergency Operations Center and learned something the agency had failed to disclose.

In one of the documents I retrieved from the NRC I found a telephone number for the NRC Emergency Operations Center. Purely on a hunch, I called it. This was in July 1979 and the accident began in March of that year. Like all government phones 41 years ago, this one was answered by a person. The EOC was still in operation, still supporting the accident recovery. As I spoke on the phone I heard a beeping sound.

“What’s that beep?” I asked.

“That’s the recorder — this call is being recorded,” the person on the phone explained.

“Are all incoming lines recorded?” I asked.

“Yup, all 40 of them,” was the answer.

We were already a month into investigating the NRC and nobody at the agency had mentioned that all incoming lines to the Emergency Operations Center were recorded (this was very unusual at the time). Rather than listen to the NRC explain what had happened back in March, I could presumably listen to the recordings myself.

The NRC said, “no.”

Remember those FEMA guys tapping their West Point rings on the conference table? Ring tapping was common at the NRC as well, where the agency had a huge investment in looking infallible. Giving me access to those recordings could have blown their cover, so they rejected my request.

The NRC, which was part of the Executive Branch, rejected a request effectively from the President of the United States.

At this point, some writers might mention the Deep State. But that implies a conspiracy. What I think was going on here was more like hubris.

We subpoenaed the tapes. The NRC said they couldn’t give us the tapes (no reason was given, by the way — they just “couldn’t” do it). Nor could they copy the tapes for us. So we went to court and eventually the NRC offered to transcribe the tapes for us — a process they estimated would take six weeks. They wanted to wait until all the transcriptions were finished before providing any, so we went back to court for quicker access.

Does any of this make sense to you? If your state governor calls up the highway department and asks for some files, do you think they ever say “no?”

As the transcripts began to trickle out it was clear that something was wrong. Some of the transcriptions simply didn’t make sense. And key sections were missing entirely, with the transcription saying only that they were unintelligible. So it was back to court to get the original tapes, which the NRC still refused to give up. Instead, they set up a listening room at NRC headquarters where only one investigator at a time could go for a few hours per day to listen to the original tapes. We had to know which tapes to ask for based on the bad transcriptions that still weren’t all complete.

The NRC, so intent on maintaining security, had hired an outside transcription service. That service had no special knowledge of nuclear reactor operations, so when technical terms were used they often got them wrong or just said they were unintelligible. Things were unintelligible, too, when more than two people were on the line or when people were urgently speaking over one another. In other words, the most urgent moments were those moments least likely to be correctly transcribed.

Sitting in that NRC listening room, listening to the tapes after a month of fighting to get them, they were actually quite clear. By this time I was an expert, I knew the terms and I knew what the speakers were discussing and the context. When they said things like “Shit, I think it’s going to blow!” that wasn’t unintelligible to me.

The lesson of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at Three Mile Island was that they were incompetent and unhelpful. Part of this was a difficult relationship with GPU, part was that crazy printer-based user interface to the reactor computer, but a lot of it came down to the NRC having a huge investment in looking infallible. And that’s the lesson for COVID-19.

I happen to think it is worse for a government in crisis to fake it than to admit they aren’t sure of the correct problem, much less the correct answer. To say that COVID-19 is “no worse than the flu” or that “it will disappear in a few weeks” when you don’t really know what you are talking about is dangerous. It costs lives.

No executive ego is worth loss of life.

April 20, 2020 Posted by | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

Global heating dries up vast areas of the American West, could bring long-lasting megadroughts

April 18, 2020 Posted by | climate change, NORTH AMERICA | 2 Comments

Outcry as uranium industry exploits Covid 19 to call for financial bailout

 

April 18, 2020 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Climate change will bring regular major floods to USA – no longer “once in a lifetime” floods

US to have major floods on daily basis unless sea-level rise is curbed – study

  • New Orleans, Honolulu and Miami expected to be vulnerable
  • Research: advancing tides will ‘radically redefine the coastline’ Guardian,  Oliver Milman
    @olliemilman, Fri 17 Apr 2020 Flooding events that now occur in America once in a lifetime could become a daily occurrence along the vast majority of the US coastline if sea level rise is not curbed, according to a new study that warns the advancing tides will “radically redefine the coastline of the 21st century”.

    The research finds major cities such as Honolulu, New Orleans and Miami will become increasingly vulnerable to elevated high tides and stronger storms fueled by the global heating caused by human activity. Beach and cliff erosion will exacerbate this situation.

    The accelerating pace of sea level rise means that by the end of the century floods currently considered once in a lifetime, or once every 50 years or so, will become a daily high tide occurrence for more than 90% of the coastal locations assessed by researchers from the US government, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Hawaii.

    Within 30 years from now, these now-rare flooding events will become annual occurrences for more than 70% of the locations along the US coast according to the research published in Scientific Reports. This scenario threatens huge, multibillion-dollar damages and, potentially, the viability of some coastal communities.

    “If future sea-level rise causes once extreme but rare floods to occur frequently then … this may render some parts of the US coastline uninhabitable,” said Sean Vitousek, a scientist at the US Geological Survey.

    The disruption caused by frequent flooding will threaten the habitability of much of the US coastline as it is already widely projected to do to many low-lying islands in the Pacific, Vitousek added……. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/16/us-climate-change-floods-sea-level-rise

April 18, 2020 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection wants delay to license for moving radioactive Nuclear reactor 2 at Three Mile Island

Pennsylvania raises alarms on transfer of radioactive Three Mile Island reactor, State Impact, Pennsylvania, Susan Phillips , 17 Apr 20, 

Citing financial concerns and the COVID-19 emergency, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has asked the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to delay a decision over a license transfer of the radioactive Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Dauphin County.

The reactor, which sits on an island in the middle of the Susquehanna River, experienced a partial meltdown in 1979, the worst nuclear accident in United States history.

In an April 6 letter to NRC chair Kristine Svinicki, DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell detailed a number of issues, including a lack of funds to properly clean up the site, unknown levels of radiation that remain on site, how and where the remaining radioactive materials will be disposed of, and how the process could affect the health of the Susquehanna River.

“The TMI Unit 2 nuclear accident resulted in damage to the majority of the reactor core, released millions of curies of radioactive noble gases into the environs, and grossly contaminated the interiors of the containment and auxiliary buildings,” McDonnell wrote in the letter. “… Despite the limited entries into the containment building to remove damaged nuclear fuel in the 1980s, there are vast areas in the plant with unknown radiological conditions related to the TMI Unit 2 accident. I firmly believe TMI Unit 2 is the most radiologically contaminated facility in our nation outside of the Department of Energy’s weapons complex.”

GPU Nuclear (now a subsidiary of FirstEnergy), the company that operated the plant during the meltdown, plans to transfer its license to Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions, one of a few companies that purchase shuttered nuclear facilities to take over the decommissioning of the sites, with the goal of dismantling and disposing of radioactive materials cheaper and faster.

Each nuclear facility has a mandated trust fund — known as the Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund, or NDT, and financed with ratepayer dollars — to cover the costs of the decommissioning. Companies such as EnergySolutions and Holtec International, which bought the license of the shuttered Oyster Creek facility in New Jersey, hope to turn a profit by spending less than the dollars remaining in the trust fund to dispose of the radioactive waste.

Eric Epstein, chair of the anti-nuclear watchdog group TMI Alert, opposes the transfer and has petitioned the NRC for a hearing. Epstein argues that the transfer is an illegal taking of public funds.

“TMI-2 Solutions, an investment vehicle based in Delaware, wants to come in and clean the plant up, something that nobody’s been able to do in 41 years, and do it cheaper and faster than anybody else,” Epstein said. “… there’s over $1 billion in public money sitting in the decommissioning fund. And that’s what this is about, them coming in, taking the money, and then getting whatever is left over.”

Epstein said it’s an easy way for FirstEnergy to get the cleanup of the plant off its books. EnergySolutions has decommissioned a number of shuttered nuclear plants, including the Zion nuclear power plant in Illinois, the La Crosse plant in Wisconsin, the Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska and the San Onofre plant in California.

Work done in the 1980s removed all the spent fuel at TMI Unit 2 and transferred it to a Department of Energy site in Idaho. The Three Mile Island site was decontaminated to the extent possible and sealed off. But some damaged fuel from the reactor vessel remains, as well as an unknown amount of radioactive material.

AmerGen, now Exelon, bought the neighboring TMI Unit 1 reactor in 1999, operating it until September, when Exelon shut it down. That plant will be put into what is called “SAFSTOR” status, in which the facility’s radiation is left to decay naturally over time, before the plant is dismantled.

GPU Nuclear continues to hold the license of TMI’s Unit 2. In October, EnergySolutions signed an agreement between FirstEnergy and its subsidiary GPU Nuclear. At the time, GPU Nuclear president Greg Halnon said the transfer to EnergySolutions freed FirstEnergy from its “decommissioning obligations.”

EnergySolutions created a joint venture with New Jersey-based construction company Jingoli to do the decommissioning of TMI-2, which they have named ES/Jingoli Decommissioning LLC. EnergySolutions also created a subsidiary known as TMI-2 Solutions.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission published a notice in the Federal Register of review of the transfer on March 26, setting a 30-day period for public comment.

In his letter to the NRC, McDonnell, the Pennsylvania DEP secretary, said the recent shuttering and planned decommissioning of TMI-1 was never meant to jump-start the decommissioning of the contaminated remains of TMI-2.

“With the announcement of GPU Nuclear Corporation planning to shed its responsibility for TMI Unit 2 to TMI-2 Solutions, we now understand that TMI-2 Solutions plans to immediately begin the decommissioning of TMI Unit 2 with the accrued $800 million in the financial assurance fund that GPU Nuclear Corporation and the NRC currently control,” McDonnell wrote.

DEP pointed out in the letter that cost estimates for the clean-up for TMI-2 are $1.2 billion, but said it could be more given the unknown status of the unit, which has remained inaccessible for 27 years.

In a report issued to the NRC by GPU Nuclear dated March 18, 2020, the trust fund is listed at approximately $899 million, while the estimated clean-up costs are $1,353,638,075.

Epstein, who directs TMI Alert, said costs could run significantly higher.

“This company doesn’t have the experience or wherewithal to clean the place up,” Epstein said. “Their plan is to speed up the decommissioning. It’s on an island in the middle of a river. The building itself is radioactive.”

It’s unclear how the company will close the gap in funding and still make a profit, or who would be responsible for the clean-up should the current trust fund not cover the full costs…..

They’re operating off old data from the ’80s and ’90s in terms of the technical side of the equation,” he said. “And they’re operating off old data from last year in terms of the financial situation. We don’t think the money’s there.”

In a brief filed with the NRC, DEP attorneys asked for more time to review the company’s plan to make sure Pennsylvania taxpayers aren’t left holding the bag if the funds do run out.

DEP Secretary McDonnell also raised questions in his letter about where the radioactive material would end up, including whether any of the low-level waste would be disposed of in Pennsylvania landfills.

“Equally important, we require firm legal assurances that financial resources are available to complete decommissioning once started, including bonding between the Commonwealth and licensee,” he wrote. “I also expect no radioactive waste from TMI Unit 2 will be left on Three Mile Island.”…..

A spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that “staff reviewing the application will carefully consider any comments submitted.”

Comments are due April 27. https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/04/17/pennsylvania-raises-alarms-on-transfer-of-radioactive-three-mile-island-reactor/

April 18, 2020 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Georgia’s Nuclear Plant Vogtle, workforce cut due to coronavirus, costs increase, and costs flow through communityflow

April 18, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Increased tensions between USA and China, as U.S. accuses China of secret nuclear tests

Times 17th April 2020, Relations between China and the United States have plunged to a new low
after the release of a report that suggests Beijing may have conducted
secret nuclear tests, in contravention of arms treaties. Compiled by the US
state department, it says that extensive excavations have been carried out
in the desert of Lop Nur, northwest China, along with the construction of
“explosive containment” chambers. The work coincided with the blocking
of transmissions from sites that monitor levels of radiation and seismic
activity, it added.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/china-denies-groundless-reports-it-carried-out-nuclear-tests-vd5hqppsw

Daily Mail 16th April 2020, China accuses the U.S. of ‘confounding black and white’ with a ‘fabricated’
report after State Department warned Beijing might be conducting small
nuclear bomb tests.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8224941/China-accuses-U-S-confounding-black-white-fabricated-nuclear-test-claims.html

April 18, 2020 Posted by | China, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Impacts of coronavirus on the technical, financial and legal mess that is the Vogtle nuclear project in Georgia, USA

April 16, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, health, Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Will nuclear refuelling workers at Limerick nuclear station spread Coronavirus to each other, and to the wider community?

April 16, 2020 Posted by | health, safety, USA | Leave a comment

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