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The dangerous business of dismantling America’s aging nuclear plants

The NRC has given Holtec permission to pare back safety and security requirements at its plants, including security personnel, cybersecurity, emergency planning, terrorist attack drills and accident insurance, according to documents on the agency’s website.

“The NRC has not figured out a permanent solution” to nuclear waste………. “They are using Holtec as a Band-Aid.”

  Accidents at New Jersey’s Oyster Creek power plant have spurred calls for stricter oversight of the burgeoning nuclear decommissioning industry  Washington Post, By Douglas MacMillan  PORKED RIVER, N.J. — The new owner took over the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 2019, promising to dismantle one of the nation’s oldest nuclear plants at minimal cost and in record time. Then came a series of worrisome accidents.

The new owner took over the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 2019, promising to dismantle one of the nation’s oldest nuclear plants at minimal cost and in record time. Then came a series of worrisome accidents.

One worker was struck by a 100-ton metal reactor dome. Another was splashed with radioactive water, according to internal incident reports and regulatory inspection reports reviewed by The Washington Post. Another worker drove an excavator into an electrical wire on his first day on the job, knocking out power to 31,000 homes and businesses on the New Jersey coast, according to a police report and the local power company.

All three incidents occurred on the watch of Holtec International, a nuclear equipment manufacturer based in Jupiter, Fla. Though the company until recently had little experience shutting down nuclear plants, Holtec has emerged as a leader in nuclear cleanup, a burgeoning field riding an expected wave of closures as licenses expire for the nation’s aging nuclear fleet.

Over the past three years, Holtec has purchased three plants in three states and expects to finalize a fourth this summer.  The company is seeking to profitably dismantle them by replacing hundreds of veteran plant workers with smaller, less-costly crews of contractors and eliminating emergency planning measures, documents and interviews show. While no one has been seriously injured at Oyster Creek, the missteps are spurring calls for stronger government oversight of the entire cleanup industry.

In the nearly three years Holtec has owned Oyster Creek, regulators have documented at least nine violations of federal rules, including the contaminated water mishap, falsified weapons inspection reports and other unspecified security lapses. That’s at least as many as were found over the preceding 10 years at the plant, when it was owned by Exelon, one of the nation’s largest utility companies, according to The Post’s review of regulatory records.,…………………

Holtec is pioneering an experimental new business model. During the lifetime of America’s 133 nuclear reactors, ratepayers paid small fees on their monthly energy bills to fill decommissioning trust funds, intended to cover the eventual cost of deconstructing the plants. Trust funds for the country’s 94 operating and 14 nonoperating nuclear reactors now total about $86 billion, according to Callan, a San Francisco-based investment consulting firm.

After a reactor is dismantled and its site cleared, some of these trust funds must return any money left over to ratepayers. But others permit cleanup companies to keep any surplus as profit — creating incentives to cut costs at sites that house some of the most dangerous materials on the planet.

Even after reactors are shut down, long metal rods containing radioactive pellets — known as spent fuel — are stored steps away, in cooling pools and steel-and-concrete casks. Nuclear safety experts say that an industrial accident or a terrorist attack at any of these sites could result in a radiological release with severe impacts to workers and nearby residents, as well as to the environment.

(Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent federal agency tasked with overseeing safety at nuclear sites, conducts regular inspections during the decommissioning process. But state and local officials say the NRC has failed to safeguard the public from risks at shut-down plants, deferring too readily to companies like Holtec.

“The NRC is not doing their job,” said Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has pushed the agency to adopt stricter regulations around plant decommissioning. “We need a guaranteed system that prioritizes communities and safety, and we don’t have that right now.”

The NRC’s leadership is divided over the role regulators should play. The agency was created in 1974, as the first generation of commercial reactors was going online, and its rules were mainly designed to safeguard the operation of active plants and nuclear-material sites. As reactors shut down, the NRC began reducing inspections and exempting plants from safety and security rules.

Last November, the NRC approved a new rule that would automatically qualify shut-down plants for looser safety and security restrictions.

Continue reading →

May 14, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

Devious nuclear zealots at it again in Ohio – new Bill to lead to subsidising ”next-generation nuclear reactors”

Lyman and Bradford found it odd for HB 434 to follow so soon on the heels of HB 6, the nuclear and coal bailout law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing corruption scandal.

“You’d think after that fiasco the legislature would be a little more cautious,”

Ohio bill would open door to subsidize next-generation nuclear power work, Nuclear power critics say the legislation could amount to a blank check for private companies researching nuclear reactor technology, while supporters say it would create jobs and bring in federal contracts. Energy News Network,  by Kathiann M. Kowalski 10 May 22,

Three years ago, Ohio lawmakers attempted to bail out the state’s aging nuclear power plants with a law to make utility customers pay more than $1 billion in subsidies for those former FirstEnergy plants.

The nuclear subsidies were eventually repealed, but now some lawmakers are pushing legislation to help private companies develop a type of next-generation nuclear technology in the state known as a molten salt reactor.

House Bill 434 does not include any direct funding but would establish a state nuclear development authority meant to attract federal research contracts. It would also be eligible for state economic development funding and would have the authority to acquire property.

Representatives of a Cleveland-based nonprofit organization, eGeneration   [who are they?], testified for the bill and stressed the potential benefits of developing the project in Ohio. Supporters say the technology could generate carbon-free power for centuries using spent fuel depleted at conventional nuclear power plants or by converting thorium into fuel.

Critics see the bill as another attempt by Ohio lawmakers to favor a particular form of generation. They’re also concerned about the potential lack of transparency with state economic development spending, much of which is handled by a group not subject to the state’s public records law. The Ohio Nuclear Free Network calls the bill a “radioactive taxpayer subsidy.”  

What the bill would do

HB 434 would set up an Ohio nuclear development authority with members appointed by the governor after a nomination process resembling that of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. The authority, in turn, would be within the state’s Department of Development……..

The nuclear authority set up by the current bill would seek authority from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or Department of Energy for the research and development of advanced nuclear technology. And it would promote commercialization of that technology, ranging from the manufacture of components to treatment, storage and disposal technology for spent fuel……………………….

Sarah Spence, executive director of the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum, testified in favor of the bill. The group supports energy innovation in Ohio and aims to promote an all-of-the-above strategy, she said. Nonetheless, she said, the group would have concerns if in practice the bill were used to subsidize one or two companies at the expense of others.

An unknown price tag

Under HB 434, the newly formed state nuclear authority would perform “an essential government function [on] matters of public necessity for which public moneys may be spent and private property acquired.” But the bill doesn’t hint how much money might be spent.

Any fiscal impacts wouldn’t be known until an agreement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or Energy Department is in place, Stein said. 

HB 434’s lack of spending limits is a red flag for critics like Connie Klein, an organizer for the Ohio Nuclear Free Network. An early version of a similar bill introduced by Stein in 2019 would have written eGeneration’s role into the law and let it spend up to $1 million per year

Meetings of the nuclear authority would be deemed public meetings. But the nuclear authority could use staff or experts at the Department of Development, which delegates many activities to JobsOhio, a statutorily created corporation that is exempt from Ohio’s public records law. Funding for JobsOhio comes from Ohio Liquor pursuant to a partnership with the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Liquor Control.

The Department of Development did not return a phone call seeking clarification of what role JobsOhio might play if HB 434 is enacted. 

“It’s hard to know who’s going to be more disappointed — the citizens of Ohio if that bill becomes law and they actually spend any money trying to promote a molten-salt thorium-based reactor, or the promoters of the bill if anyone takes a serious look at how much it would cost actually to incubate a thorium fuel-cycle in Ohio,” said Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner who has also served as utility regulator in New York.

“Nuclear power’s biggest problem is its cost,” and thorium-based molten salt reactors are more expensive than other designs, Bradford said. “Also, they are at least a decade away from being licensed and building a prototype, which would still have to prove itself to be reliable and economically competitive, which it is unlikely to be able to do.” He estimates it would take about $10 billion to build a prototype, but it probably wouldn’t be able to produce power economically.

Additionally, it’s unclear what, if anything, the bill could actually authorize without a go-ahead from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Department of Energy. The nuclear authority couldn’t build a molten salt reactor on its own without a federal go-ahead. Stein said a legislative resolution had requested a delegation of authority from the federal government some years ago, but that has yet to happen.

“It’s not obvious really that [HB 434] does much more than lend comfort to the tub thumpers for thorium or small reactors generally,” Bradford said.

Simply no guardrails’

Ed Lyman, director of nuclear safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that to his knowledge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not licensed any authority to a state for licensing a molten salt reactor.

Moreover, Lyman said, “there’s already a lot of work on the federal level” focused on small nuclear reactor designs. Although Elysium Industries has done some limited work funded by the Department of Energy, big players at that level haven’t lined up behind the Ohio bill, Lyman said.

“There isn’t one technology,” for small nuclear reactors, said Jess Gehin, associate laboratory director for the Nuclear Science and Technology Directorate at Idaho National laboratory. The Department of Energy is doing research and working with companies on a range of technologies, including water-cooled and gas-cooled designs, as well as some in the molten salt arena. 

But other designs are closer to coming online than the molten salt reactor envisioned by HB 434’s supporters.

“A molten salt reactor isn’t going to be the next one over the finish line,” Gehin said.

Neither Elysium Industries nor eGeneration responded to requests for comment. Meanwhile, Lyman and Bradford found it odd for HB 434 to follow so soon on the heels of HB 6, the nuclear and coal bailout law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing corruption scandal.

“There is not even a requirement that there be board members well versed in energy economics or selecting among energy resources or consumer protection or environmental protections,” Bradford said. “There’s simply no guardrails or safeguards against any of the abuses that Ohio citizens or customers have suffered in the last five or six years, which is pretty breathtaking.”

“You’d think after that fiasco the legislature would be a little more cautious,” Lyman said.

HB 434 passed in the Ohio House at the end of March. Hearings have not yet been scheduled in the Ohio Senate’s Energy and Public Utilities Committee. https://energynews.us/2022/05/10/ohio-bill-would-open-door-to-subsidize-next-generation-nuclear-power-work/

May 12, 2022 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Anti- Russian hysteria

U.S. Plays ‘Dangerous Game’ in Trying to ‘Cancel’ Russia, Ambassador Says

NewsWeek, BY TOM O’CONNOR  5/11/22 MOSCOW’S ENVOY IN WASHINGTON HAS WARNED THAT A GROWING BACKLASH AGAINST ALL THINGS RUSSIA-RELATED IN THE UNITED STATES IN RESPONSE TO THE WAR IN UKRAINE HAS SURPASSED EVEN COLD WAR-ERA LEVELS, TELLING NEWSWEEK THAT NOT ONLY DIPLOMATIC TIES BUT ALSO CULTURAL, EDUCATIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC WERE UNDER UNPRECEDENTED STRAIN.

“The United States has been swamped by a wave of Russophobia fuelled by the media at the instigation of the ruling circles,” Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov told Newsweek. “The situation has taken the worst forms of the anti-communist paranoia and witch-hunt of the McCarthy era.”

He argued that the present state of affairs has sunken below even that of the infamous “red scare” led by late Senator Joseph McCarthy in the aftermath of World War II, as he stated that the scope of targets was now broader.

“Even during the Cold War, our nations continued cultural, educational and scientific contacts,” Antonov said. “I just hope that common sense will prevail and help end the dangerous game of canceling Russia, bordering on the ideas of racial superiority.”…….

Pointing to some recent examples, he said that “anti-Russian hysteria has quickly spread to everyday life.”

Among the more high-profile incidents has been the decision by a number of major musical institutions to drop performances by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev, both prominent supporters of Putin, shortly after the conflict in Ukraine erupted. In some cases, even classical songs have been removed from the bill, including the works of 19th-century composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, renowned for ballets such as “Swan Lake,” “The Nutcracker” and the “1812 Overture.”

Also on the chopping block have been longstanding associations between professionals in the U.S. and Russia. The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates has suspended certification for Russian citizens and the oncology group OncoAlert has severed ties with Russian doctors, both actions taken in displays of solidarity with Ukraine…………………   https://www.newsweek.com/us-plays-dangerous-game-trying-cancel-russia-ambassador-says-1705770

May 12, 2022 Posted by | media, psychology - mental health, USA | Leave a comment

COST OVERRUNS AT GEORGIA NUCLEAR REACTORS OFFER CAUTIONARY TALE 

STATEMENT: COST OVERRUNS AT GEORGIA NUCLEAR REACTORS OFFER CAUTIONARY TALE   https://uspirg.org/news/usf/statement-cost-overruns-georgia-nuclear-reactors-offer-cautionary-tale

Ratepayer funds would be better spent advancing efficiency, renewable energy

For immediate release

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2022  ATLANTA – THE ONLY NUCLEAR REACTORS UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES ARE NOW PROJECTED TO COST MORE THAN $30 BILLION — AND THE PRICE TAG FOR PLANT VOGTLE NEAR AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, DOESN’T EVEN INCLUDE $3.68 BILLION THAT THE PROJECT’S ORIGINAL CONTRACTOR PAID TO THE OWNERS AFTER GOING BANKRUPT.

The $34 billion total is $20 billion more than the original cost estimate of $14 billion. The two reactors under construction are now more than five years behind schedule. Contractor delays, rework projects, the inability to complete tasks on time and the bankruptcy of reactor designer Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC have more than doubled the project’s costs.

Customers of Georgia Power, which owns 46% of the project, are already paying a fee that not only covers a portion of Vogtle’s financing costs, but also feeds the utility company’s profits on the project. The average residential Georgia Power customer will have paid more than $850 in such fees before the project ever delivers power to customers.

In response to the Plant Vogtle debacle, experts from Environment Georgia Research & Policy Center, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Environment America Research & Policy Center released the following statements:

Environment Georgia Research & Policy Center’s State Director Jennette Gayer said:

“This exercise in futility is playing out and costing our neighbors big bucks while Georgia doesn’t even need nuclear power. Georgia has been the seventh-fastest growing state for solar power  since 2011. Imagine where we would be now if we’d spent the $30 billion we’ve poured into Plant Vogtle into saving energy and getting more of it from truly clean sources. Even a decade ago, it was clear that nuclear power was too slow and too expensive to be our best response to the climate crisis, and that’s even more true today. “

U.S.PIRG Education Fund’s Consumer Watchdog Teresa Murray said:

“The cost overruns and delays at Plant Vogtle should be a cautionary tale to the rest of the country when it comes to building new nuclear reactors. If a project at my house cost more than double the budget and was a half-decade behind schedule, I’d never want to go through that again. Georgia ratepayers have already dished out hundreds of dollars for this misguided project, and electrons aren’t even flowing. Evidence shows that there are cheaper, cleaner and safer ways to keep the lights on than building new nuclear plants.”  

Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Senior Director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy Johanna Neumann said:

“Harnessing America’s renewable energy sources is more efficient and affordable than ever. Investing in energy efficiency remains the cheapest and fastest way to meet our energy needs, and America has vast untapped solar and wind potential. It’s time to stop throwing good money after bad. Regulators and policy makers should put in place goals and drive action toward powering our future with 100% renewable energy.” 

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Tulsi Gabbard Says Biden Is Risking Nuclear War With Russia Over Ukraine

NewsWeek, BY GERRARD KAONGA ON 5/11/22  Speaking to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night, former Democratic Representative for Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard warned Joe Biden and his administration to take the threat of nuclear war by Russia seriously and said that Russia has been clear it is not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons.

“What [U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin] is not telling the American people is that Russia has also made it clear that if we even get close to ‘winning’ or achieving this mission and goal he has outlined, Russia has said very clearly they will have no other option than to resort to the use of nuclear weapons.

“Starting first with tactical nuclear weapons and, if necessary, escalating to the use of strategic nuclear weapons.

“This is not fear-mongering to point this out, the American people need to know this is the track that this administration has put us on and [that] very dire consequences will occur if we continue down to this path. This is the reality we are facing.”

She also said that the real intention of the U.S. government is not to defend Ukraine but the “destruction of the Russian state.”

A clip of her interview has gone viral on Twitter and has been viewed over 150,000 times.

“The Biden administration policies, words and actions, it has just been made very clear to us what their real goal is and their real goal is the destruction of the Russian state,” she said.

She went on to quote Austin and comments he made in April on Russia and the war in Ukraine………….

Under Russia’s official military deployment principles, the country is allowed to use nuclear weapons when Russia’s enemies are using nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction on Russian territories and/or its allies; if Russia receives reliable data on a launch of ballistic missiles attacking its territory or that of Russian allies; if Russia’s critical government or military sites are attacked by the enemy in a way that would undermine nuclear forces’ response actions; or if the country faces an existential threat through the use of conventional weapons. https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-joe-biden-russia-nuclear-weapon-ukraine-tucker-carlson-1705505

May 12, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Meet the nuclear booster who could unseat an energy appropriator

  E&E

By Timothy Cama | 05/10/202

Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur is likely facing her toughest reelection battle yet from a former nuclear energy worker who has been linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and the QAnon conspiracy theory.

J.R. Majewski, a political newcomer, emerged this week as the winner of a four-way primary to be the Republican nominee for northwestern Ohio’s 9th District, centered in Toledo, in this year’s midterm elections (E&E Daily, May 4).

Kaptur, who chairs the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, has rarely faced a competitive election and is the longest-serving woman in the House with nearly four decades of tenure, owing in part to the strong Democratic lean in her district.

But in the redistricting process, GOP state lawmakers redrew the 9th District to include more rural areas and give Republicans a significant leg up. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a project of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, rates the race a “toss-up.”

Majewski entered the race a year ago, before the district was made more Republican. But

But redistricting has significantly increased the chances he could go to Congress next year………..

Majewski’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview. But in other media interviews, he’s cited his 19 years of experience in the nuclear power sector as a qualification to take on issues surrounding “energy independence,”…………

He’s also repeatedly called for the United States to invest more in nuclear power, including improving the licensing regime for new nuclear technologies…………….

Holtec International, which operates in nuclear segments including spent fuel and decommissioning, said in a 2019 Facebook post that Majewski worked for the company. Spokesperson Joseph Delmar said Majewski does not currently work for Holtec but would not provide further details on when he worked there or what his position was.

The Blade reported earlier this month that Majewski is currently an executive at “a company that specializes in safe storage of spent nuclear fuel,” though it’s unclear what company that is. He started his career at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Oak Harbor, Ohio, where he eventually became project manager, according to the campaign website………….

Media reports have linked Majewski to QAnon, and he has expressed sympathy with its adherents and used social media hashtags referring to it. The movement, which is generally supportive of Trump, refers to a broad set of false conspiracy theories accusing politicians and others of satanism, child abuse and other crimes.

A recent CNN review found numerous instances in which Majewski approvingly shared QAnon material and slogans. He changed the “Trump 2020” sign to read “Trump 2Q2Q” for some period of time, the network found……… https://www.eenews.net/articles/meet-the-nuclear-booster-who-could-unseat-an-energy-appropriator/

May 12, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Talen Energy subsidiary files for bankruptcy, company still plans nuclear data center, Company says

Cumulus nuclear data center project unaffected by ‘restructuring’ May 11, 2022 By Dan Swinhoe

Talen Energy, which is developing a data center campus at one of its nuclear power stations, has seen one of its subsidiaries file for bankruptcy.

This week Talen Energy Supply (TES), a unit of Talen Energy Corp (TEC) that holds several of its power plants, filed for Chapter 11 protection………………..

The company is aiming to reduce its $4.5 billion debt pile and bring in $1.65 billion in new equity from bondholders. TES has secured $1.76 billion of debtor-in-possession financing (the “DIP Facilities”) led by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and RBC Capital Markets. The DIP Facilities are comprised of a $1 billion term loan, a $300 million revolving credit facility, and a $458 million letter of credit facility. The $1 billion term loan is being provided by an investor group of leading financial institutions.

The company said the process would “advance carbon-free data center growth initiatives, and maximize value to stakeholders.”  https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/talen-energy-subsidiary-files-for-bankruptcy-company-still-plans-nuclear-data-center/

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

US House passes extension of Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

https://www.knau.org/knau-and-arizona-news/2022-05-11/us-house-passes-extension-of-radiation-exposure-compensation-act KNAU News Talk – Arizona Public Radio | By KNAU STAFF  11 May 22.  The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a short-term extension of a federal law that provides compensation to residents and workers in the West who were exposed to radiation during the Cold War.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is set to expire in July and the two-year extension is designed to give lawmakers more time to craft a long-term solution supporters hope will extend the program until 2040 and broaden eligibility for people known as downwinders.

Tribal leaders in the Southwest want the law to include more uranium industry workers and increase the compensation to those eligible.

The U.S. Senate recently approved the measure and it now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk.

May 12, 2022 Posted by | Legal, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Company Agrees to Further Tests of Nuke Plant’s Wastewater

The company dismantling a former nuclear power plant along Cape Cod Bay won’t release radioactive water into the bay unless tests confirm local marine life won’t be harmed, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s office said Wednesday.The Massachusetts Democrat held a hearing in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Friday about nuclear safety and security issues, where the decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station by Holtec International was discussed.

Markey said Holtec officials assured him they wouldn’t discharge radioactive water from the plant into the bay without the consent of stakeholders. The company followed up with a letter this week to Markey, which his office released…….. 

Local residents, shell fishermen and politicians fiercely oppose discharging the water into the bay. Alternatively, Holtec could evaporate the contaminated water or truck it to a facility in another state.

Local residents, shell fishermen and politicians fiercely oppose discharging the water into the bay ……. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/company-agrees-to-further-tests-of-nuke-plants-wastewater/2717659/

May 12, 2022 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Westinghouse Electric’s parent company wants to put the nuclear company on the market

ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1 May 22,

Brookfield Business Partners is looking to sell all of its interest in Cranberry-based nuclear icon Westinghouse Electric Company, four years after buying it out of bankruptcy.

The reason? Westinghouse has been so profitable, Brookfield has accomplished everything it wanted to, company executives told analysts last week. It’s time to move on, they said.

Brookfield Business Partners, an arm of the Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management, owns a 44% interest in Westinghouse. The remaining 56% is owned by private equity funds that are managed by Brookfield.

If Westinghouse is such a profit machine, why not keep it and grow it in-house? That’s what one analyst wondered.

……………………..   Brookfield now wants to sell its entire interest in Westinghouse.

…………… “Today, Westinghouse is the only alternative to the Russian companies to supply fuel to Russian reactors outside of Russia,”  Westinghouse’s CEO Patrick Fragman   said. “And we are already in intense discussions to provide fuel to several operators of those Russian reactors in Eastern Europe, including in the EU.”

……………….  Mr. Fragman also talked up the company’s eVinci microreactor, which he dubbed a “nuclear battery.”

……………………………….  https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2022/05/10/westinghouse-for-sale-brookfield-energy-nuclear-sale-russia-ukraine-europe-evinci-microreactor-temelin-climate/stories/202205100052

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

US military wants nuclear rocket ideas for missions near the moon

The space agency is collaborating on the DRACO project “using non-reimbursable engagement with industry participants

Space.com, By Elizabeth Howell published 1 day ago

The U.S. military hopes to see a flight demonstration in 2026. The U.S. military is ready to take the next step in developing a nuclear rocket to help monitor Earth-moon space, an area it has deemed a high strategic priority.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced May 4 that it’s seeking proposals for the second and third phases of a project to design, develop and assemble a nuclear thermal rocket engine for an expected flight demonstration in Earth orbit by 2026.

“These propulsive capabilities will enable the United States to enhance its interests in space and to expand possibilities for NASA’s long-duration human spaceflight missions,” DARPA officials said in a statement.

The proposals will support DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, which aims to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system for use in Earth-moon space. DRACO is part of the U.S. military’s larger push to keep an eye on cislunar (Earth-moon) space as government and commercial activities increase in this sector in the coming decade…………

Phase 1 for Draco included awards in April 2021 for General Atomics, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. The phase was scheduled to last 18 months across two independent tracks. 

Track A, for General Atomics, included the preliminary design of a nuclear thermal propulsion reactor, along with a propulsion subsystem. Track B, pursued by Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin independently, aimed to create an “operational system spacecraft concept” to meet future mission objectives, including a demonstration system.

In September 2020, DARPA also awarded a $14 million task order for DRACO to Gryphon Technologies, a company in Washington, D.C. that provides engineering and technical solutions to national security organizations…………

The space agency is collaborating on the DRACO project “using non-reimbursable engagement with industry participants where technology investments have common interest to both organizations,” NASA officials wrote in the $26 billion budget request for fiscal year 2023, which was released in March. ………. https://www.space.com/darpa-nuclear-rocket-earth-moon-space

May 12, 2022 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

$6 Billion to Keep Uncompetitive Nuclear Plants Alive

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $6 billion to create a credit program to extend the life of existing nuclear power plants, the largest source of carbon-free energy in the nation. The first deadline to bid for credits is May 19.

Planetizen, May 11, 2022, By Irvin Dawid

“While the Infrastructure Bill is wide-reaching, it includes a number of nuclear energy-related provisions, including support for keeping nuclear power plants facing economic hardship operating and funding for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program,” write Amy Roma & Stephanie Fishman for the law firm, Hogan Lovells, on November 15, 2021, the day President Joe Biden signed the bill.

An example of a projected funded through that demonstration program is TerraPower’s (a Bill Gates’ startup) Natrium reactor that will replace a coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming (see AP article, Jan. 18, and the Planetizen post when it received the funding from the Energy Department last November shortly after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act became law.

Civil Nuclear Credit Program

In February, the Energy Department established a $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit Program to tackle the first issue – extending the life of existing nuclear plants, particularly those that are facing imminent closure largely for economic reasons, by “allowing owners or operators of commercial U.S. reactors to apply for certification and competitively bid on credits to help support their continued operations,” according to their press release on Feb. 11………………………..

Let the Bidding Begin

Two months later, the Energy Department announced that it was seeking applications for the new program.

“The guidance published today directs owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down due to economic circumstances on how to apply for funding to avoid premature closure,” states their press release on April 19.    

The credit program “aims to give a financial lifeline to plants facing imminent shutdown for economic reasons,” writes Evan Halper for The Washington Post (source article) on April 19.

The first round of credits are set aside for plants that have already announced plans to close. There are at least two such operations in the United States: Diablo Canyon in California and Palisades in [Covert] Michigan.

But the nation still has a sizable nuclear fleet, with 55 plants in 28 states. Most of them have at least two reactors. Many of them have fallen under financial hardship as the prices of renewable energy and natural gas dropped in recent years.

The Office of Nuclear Energy has set May 19 as the deadline for applications 

for the first cycle of civil nuclear credit awards…………………………….  https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/05/117103-6-billion-keep-uncompetitive-nuclear-plants-alive

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Vitrification of Hanford’s nuclear waste is plagued with problems, would emit toxic vapours

Turning Hanford’s nuclear waste into glass logs would emit toxic vapors, says document,  https://www.opb.org/article/2022/05/09/turning-hanfords-nuclear-waste-into-glass-logs-emits-toxic-vapors-says-document/

By Allison Frost (OPB) May 10, 2022  The Hanford nuclear reservation in south central Washington state holds 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. The facility produced plutonium for U.S. atomic bombs in WWII, and it kept producing for the country’s nuclear weapons through the late 1980s.

The plan to contain that waste by turning it into glass logs, or vitrification, has been plagued with problems for decades. Some of the waste contained in underground tanks is leaking into the Columbia River. Workers have sued over exposure to toxic waste, and the current federal funding for cleanup is less than federal and state lawmakers say is needed.

Now, an internal Department of Energy document says that the vitrification process would create a toxic vapor. The next public hearing on the nuclear plant will be held Tuesday, May 10, and public comments are being accepted through June 4. We’re joined by freelance reporter John Stang who’s been covering Hanford for three decades and obtained the internal DOE document.

May 10, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Plutonium contamination in Ohio, USA

Russian nuclear warheads bought, processed and material shipped to Southern Ohio,  https://local12.com/news/investigates/russian-nuclear-warheads-bought-processed-and-shipped-material-to-southern-ohio-cincinnati-duane-pohlman-investigate-investigative-weapons-ship-russia-government-contaminated-radioactive by DUANE POHLMAN, 9 May 22,

QUESTIONS OF CONTAMINATION AND CANCER

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) is a massive facility, dominating the landscape in Pike County. It was also a massive fixture in America’s front lines during the Cold War.

For nearly five decades, from 1954 to 2001, PORTS processed uranium, critical to making America’s nuclear arsenal and fueling its nuclear navy.

Now closed and partially dismantled, PORTS is considered “ground zero” for claims of radioactive contamination in nearby communities, now riddled with rare cancers that are claiming children.

“We’ve got alarming cancer rates,” said Matt Brewster, noting Pike County is number one in Ohio for cancer rates, as compiled by the state health department.

THE PLUTONIUM PUZZLE

The US Department of Energy (DOE) which continues to oversee PORTS, insists radiation around the plant is at safe levels.

However, some of the radioactive particles in the air around PORTS are not the uranium you would expect to find, but something much more deadly: plutonium.

“The chemical and radiological toxicity associated with plutonium is many, many times worse than uranium,” notes Dr. David Manuta, who was the chief scientist at PORTS from 1992 to 2000.

Plutonium and plutonium-related particles are being picked up around Ports, both by the DOE’s own instruments and by independent studies.

In 2017, a DOE air monitor across from the now-closed Zahn’s Corner Middle School, picked up Neptunium-237. The following year, the same monitor found Americium-241. Both elements are byproducts of plutonium.

Ketterer Report by Local12WKRC on Scribd   AT TOP  https://local12.com/news/investigates/russian-nuclear-warheads-bought-processed-and-shipped-material-to-southern-ohio-cincinnati-duane-pohlman-investigate-investigative-weapons-ship-russia-government-contaminated-radioactive

May 10, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

US nuclear power: Status, prospects, and climate implications

that final abdication can’t rescue nuclear power, which stumbles33 even in countries with impotent regulators and suppressed public participation. In the end, physics and human fallibility win. History teaches that lax regulation ultimately causes confidence-shattering mishaps, so gutting safety rules is simply a deferred-assisted-suicide pact.

 Science Direct,  Amory B.Lovins,  Stanford University, USA    The Electricity Journal, Volume 35, Issue 4, May 2022, 

Abstract

Nuclear power is being intensively promoted and increasingly subsidized in both old and potential new forms. Yet it is simultaneously suffering a global slow-motion commercial collapse due to intrinsically poor economics. This summary in a US context documents both trends, emphasizing the absence of an operational need and of a business or climate case.

In 2020, the world added1 5.521 GW (billion watts) of nuclear generating capacity—just above the 5.491 GW2 of lithium-ion batteries added to power grids. The average reactor was then 29 years old—39 in the United States, whose fleet is the world’s largest—so it’s not surprising that in 2020, maintenance or upgrade costs, safety concerns, and often simple operational uncompetitiveness caused owners worldwide to close 5.165 GW. The net nuclear capacity addition was thus the difference, 0.356 GW. Yet in the same year, the world added3 278.3 GW of renewables (or 257 GW without hydropower)—782× as much. Adjusted for relative US 2020 average capacity factors4, renewables’ net additions in 2020 thus raised the world’s annual carbon-free electricity supply by ~232× as much as nuclear power’s net additions did. That is, nuclear net growth increased the world’s carbon-free power supply in all of 2020 only as much as renewable power growth did every ~38 hours. Renewables also receive5 ~10–20 times more financial capital—mostly voluntary private investments—while nuclear investments used mainly tax revenues or capital conscripted from customers. These ratios look set to continue or strengthen6. Indeed, in 2021, world nuclear capacity fell by 1.57 or 2.48 GW—the seventh annual drop in 13 years9—while renewables were expected to add ~290 GW10.

In a normal industry, such market performance, let alone dismal economics (below), might dampen enthusiasm. Yet the nuclear industry’s immense lobbying and marketing power continues to yield at least tens of billions of dollars in annual public subsidies, still rapidly rising.

This reflects broad bipartisan support among US and many overseas political leaders (strong nuclear advocates lead seven of the ten nations with the biggest economies)—often contrary to their citizens’ preferences and, as we’ll see, to the goal of stabilizing the Earth’s climate. To explore this seeming paradox, here is my frank personal impression of nuclear power’s status, competitive landscape, operational status, prospects, and climate implications in the United States.

1. Status

When nuclear power emerged, from the mid-1950s through the 1960s, US utilities—vertically integrated, three-fourths private, technically and culturally conservative—didn’t want it. Yet powerful Federal actors offered heavily subsidized fuel and let them own it, largely relieved them of accident liability, and ultimately tempted and coerced them into a vast nuclear building spree, under implicit threat of displacing them with Federal nuclear utilities11………………….

As construction costs and durations relentlessly rose12, regulators and customers were assured their initial pain would usher in decades of low-cost generation. This too proved false. Some plants failed early, others’ operating costs rose, and decades later, owners are demanding huge new subsidies to keep running. After these scarifying experiences, capital markets are disinclined to invest in nuclear newbuild in the US or elsewhere. Contrary to a widely cultivated myth, the successive accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi) widely blamed for this rejection all occurred after the business case and investor confidence had collapsed13……

………………….The US supply chain to sustain the 93 existing reactors persists, more or less, but of the four original US reactor vendors, all have merged (GE with Hitachi), exited, or failed, most recently Westinghouse19—bought by Toshiba, bankrupted20 by its new US projects, then restructured by a Canadian private-equity partnership (which recently considered selling it21) to maintain the plants it once built. Export markets have proven elusive: as Siemens’ power engineering CEO foresaw in 199122, “The countries that can still afford our nuclear plants won’t need the electricity, and the countries that will need the electricity won’t be able to afford the reactors.” Yet strong government promotion persists…………… Market appetite for big new reactors is anemic overseas and zero at home—and only for as many smaller units as taxpayers will largely or wholly pay for……………….

US public acceptance of nuclear power fluctuates, and depends strongly on how, by whom, and to whom the question is put. Nuclear advocates reported an even split in the 2019 Gallup Poll25 after long and intensive publicity campaigns, though renewables attract far larger and more consistent support…………………..

After decades of intense political pressure, industry capture26 of US nuclear safety and security regulation appears complete, with rules and processes arranged to the operators’ liking. The skill and integrity of some US Nuclear Regulatory Commission technical experts are commendable, but on major matters, their role is only to advise, not decide. ………………  new “reforms” are taking a singularly dangerous turn: as I summarized elsewhere29,

SMRs’ [Small Modular Reactors’] novel safety30 and proliferation31 issues threaten threadbare schedules and budgets, so promoters are attacking bedrock safety regulations. . NRC’s proposed Part 5332 would perfect long-evolving regulatory capture—shifting its expert staff’s end-to-end process from specific prescriptive standards, rigorous quality control, and verified technical performance to unsupported claims, proprietary data, and political appointees’ subjective risk estimates.

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May 9, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, ENERGY, politics, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

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