The U.S. Department of Energy recently released new estimates for the cost of cleaning up the Hanford nuclear site in central Washington state. That number could now reach a staggering $677 billion, with active cleanup ending in the year 2079. Under this scenario the federal government would spend, on average, more than $11 billion dollars every year for 60 years.
As leaders in the Tri-Cities — the community closest to and most impacted by the Hanford site — we believe that the United States simply must find a way to effectively address this problem at a price that taxpayers can afford. One clear step in the right direction is to begin managing the waste based on its actual contents and risks rather than an arbitrary definition developed decades ago.
To summarize, DOE is responsible for the cleanup of waste left over from decades of nuclear-weapons production, including approximately 53 million gallons in underground tanks at Hanford. Federal laws passed in 1954 and 1982 guide the agency’s management of this waste but do not clearly specify how the waste should be categorized. Rather than making a determination, the agency simply decided in the early 1980s to manage much of our nation’s defense nuclear waste as high-level, requiring the highest standards, regardless of the actual amount of radioactivity it contains or risk it poses.
DOE is now considering moving away from this well-intentioned, but overly costly and inaccurate approach. Instead of arbitrarily making decisions based solely on the origin of the waste, agency officials are proposing to manage this waste based on its actual physical characteristics. This is the same method that countries like France and Germany use to guide their waste-management decisions, and would bring the U.S. closer to international standards established by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Why does this matter? A risk-based approach would allow DOE to manage, treat and dispose of defense waste in a manner that accurately reflects its contents and the potential risks it poses to human health and the environment. Doing so could reduce cleanup costs by tens of billions of dollars, and has the potential to significantly speed up remediation efforts at Hanford and elsewhere.
DOE has been accused of proposing this change in order to save money and shirk its responsibilities, but this new approach would not mean that the federal government can simply walk away from its cleanup obligations. The federal government has committed to many billions of dollars’ worth of remediation work at Hanford and elsewhere, and budget shortfalls mean that important cleanup projects often don’t get started soon enough, or take too long to complete.
Treating waste based on its actual contents would allow DOE to direct the resources they save toward other important cleanup efforts that would otherwise languish, potentially for years to come. It could also open up pathways to get some waste out of Washington state more quickly. These waste streams would otherwise remain at Hanford for many more years, or even permanently.
In their letter to DOE opposing this proposed change, Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson stated, “our communities deserve to be heard on this dangerous idea.” We find it frustrating that in this case the governor and AG aren’t listening to the community that is most directly impacted by Hanford cleanup.
We do not feel that it is a dangerous idea and, to the contrary, believe that it will allow other important cleanup work at the Hanford site to happen faster.
Ultimately, there is high-level defense nuclear waste at Hanford and elsewhere that does need to be treated and disposed of in a deep geological repository. It is some of the most challenging and expensive material that our country has to address. We should not, however, delay cleanup progress and waste taxpayer funds by unnecessarily managing lower-level waste, which scientists agree can be safely disposed at permitted sites, in the same manner. After all, how can we expect to effectively address this problem if we aren’t even willing to accurately define it?
The Tri-City community wants the Hanford site remediated as quickly and effectively as possible, but we see no need to make an already difficult job even harder. Our hope is for DOE to meaningfully engage with the appropriate regulatory bodies, including the Washington State Department of Ecology, to determine, in a technically justified manner, that more waste can be managed as low-level.
Importantly, this will require the state government and our elected officials to keep an open mind and make a genuine effort to reach a reasonable consensus. If they are successful, it will open the door for faster, less costly remediation outside of Washington state while still allowing the work to be accomplished safely and responsibly.
We can then turn our attention and resources to other high-priority cleanup efforts at Hanford, and we will all be better off for it.
Robert Thompson is mayor of the City of Richland, the city closest to the Hanford site.
Carl Adrian is president of the Tri-City Development Council, which has advocated for the Tri-Cities on Hanford-related matters since 1963.
ANOTHER EXPERT CASTS DOUBT ON NEED FOR NJ TO SUBSIDIZE NUCLEAR PLANTS, NJ Spotlight, TOM JOHNSON | FEBRUARY 11, 2019
Economist also disputes PSEG’s contention that South Jersey plants will have to close within three years unless given subsidies. New Jersey should hold off awarding ratepayers’ subsidies to nuclear power plants until a federal agency decides whether to boost energy prices under a pending proposal from the regional grid operator, according to an independent economist.
The Independent Market Monitor for PJM urged a state agency to hold off a decision on granting subsidies to PSEG Nuclear and Exelon Generation who are seeking financial incentives — dubbed zero emission certificates — to keep three nuclear units in South Jersey from closing.
In a heavily redacted filing with the state Board of Utilities, Joseph Bowring, who oversees the competitiveness of the PJM market, also disputed the contention that the plants will have to close within three years unless given the subsidies. His rationale echoed the contention of an earlier filing by Stefanie Brand, director of the state Division of Rate Counsel.
“PSEG overstates its need for subsidies of Hope Creek and Salem I and Salem II units,’’ Bowring said. “PSEG understates forward energy revenues, understates capacity revenues, overstates costs and overstates the risk.’’
Decision expected in April
Bowring and Brand are the only two intervenors in the case that have been granted access to the companies’ financials, which will determine whether PSEG and Exelon are awarded the zero emission certificates. The subsidies are projected to cost ratepayers up to $300 million annually, if approved by the BPU.
The agency is expected to make a decision in the case in April. Nuclear power plants across the country have closed prematurely because of failing economics. Some states, including Illinois and New York, have approved similar financial incentives to avert shuttering nuclear units……….
Power suppliers also are opposed
In a separate filing by the PJM Providers Group, a coalition of power suppliers opposed to the subsidy, also urged the BPU to reject a subsidy it said “is not necessary and would serve nothing more than to pad the coffers of the plant owners and their shareholders.’’
A consultant retained by the group, Paul Sotkiewicz, a former PJM chief economist, projected the plants will make profits between $377-$477 million every year for the
Microanalysis of Particle-Based Uranium, Thorium, and Plutonium in Nuclear Workers’ House Dust Mary Ann Liebert Publishers , Marco Kaltofen
:4 Feb 2019
Abstract
Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM/EDS), a technique not routinely used to detect radiation, was used to identify radioactive particulate matter in house and environmental dust. The study focused on elements that are necessarily radioactive, including thorium, plutonium, americium, and uranium. Seventy-nine dust and 31 soil and sediment samples were collected from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the former Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, and from homes of workers or abutters of these nuclear facilities. Dusts containing percent levels of uranium, plutonium, americium, and both mineral and metallic thorium were detected outside of radiation-controlled areas. These radioactive dusts are a potential source of internal radiation exposure to nuclear site workers, or to their families via secondary contamination. Uranium and thorium-containing particles were fingerprinted as either natural minerals or processed industrial particles, based on elemental composition of the microparticles. Activities of individual uranium-, thorium-, or plutonium-bearing dust particles varied by five orders of magnitude, ranging from <0.005 mBq (millibecquerel) to 2,270 mBq. Hanford workplace dusts also had up to 564 ± 24 Bq/kg of137Cs. SEM/EDS techniques reliably detected environmental radioactivity in samples that had barely detectable results by gamma spectrometry. The technique was able to definitively show that thorium, plutonium, and uranium from nuclear facilities could be found in general population settings outside of radiation protection zones…………..
Conclusions
Dusts in this study contained radioactive particles of uranium, thorium, plutonium, and americium. This study found monazites, uranium mineral, and Th-P-REE particles that were likely of natural origin and industrial (plutonium-containing, metallic or metal oxide) radioactive microparticles.
Dust in the homes of workers and neighbors of Hanford, Los Alamos, and the former Rocky Flats nuclear facility contained radioactive microparticles connected to these sites. This creates potential radiation exposures outside of radiological protection zones. Given the small respirable size of these radioactive microparticles, they are a potential source of internal exposure from inhalation or ingestion.
SEM/EDS coupled with gamma spectroscopy and autoradiography proved a useful technique for distinguishing the origins of particulate-based radioisotopes that have both industrial and natural sources. Micron-sized radioactive industrial particles were detected in samples that had gross activity levels that were near background. This is an especially useful tool for nuclides, such as uranium and thorium, which have both natural and industrial sources. SEM/EDS distinguished metallic (more likely industrial) versus mineral (more likely natural or mining-related) forms of these elements by determining the complete elemental composition of each particle. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ees.2018.0036?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EES+FP+Feb+8+2019&d=2%2F8%2F2019&mcid=83805056&
Late last year, the Energy Department (DOE), began work on a new flagship nuclear project, the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR), a sodium-cooled fast reactor. If completed, the project will dominate nuclear power research at DOE. The department’s objective is to provide the groundwork for building lots of fast-power reactors. This was a dream of the old Atomic Energy Commission, DOE’s predecessor agency. The dream is back. But before this goes any further, Congress needs to ask, what is the question to which the VTR is the answer? It won’t be cheap and there are some serious drawbacks in cost, safety, but mainly in its effect on nonproliferation.
Congress has to ask hard questions: Is there an economic advantage to such reactors? Or one in safety? Or is it just what nuclear engineers, national laboratories, and subsidy-hungry firms would like to do?
The answer of DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory, which would operate the reactor, is cast in terms of engineering and patriotic goals, not economic ones: “US technological leadership in the area of fast reactor systems . . . is critical for our national security. These systems are likely to be deployed around the globe and U.S. leadership in associated safety and security policies is in our best national interest.” In other words, we need to build fast reactors because DOE thinks other people will be building them, and we need to stay ahead.
In the 1960s, when the Atomic Energy Commission concentrated on fast reactors (“fast” because they don’t use a moderator to slow down neutrons in the reactor core), it argued with a certain plausibility that uranium ore was too scarce to provide fuel for large numbers of conventional light-water reactors that “burned” only a couple percent of their uranium fuel. Fast reactors offered the possibility, at least in principle, of using essentially all of the mined uranium as fuel, and thus vastly expanding the fuel supply. To do this you operate them as breeder reactors—making more fuel (that is, using excess neutrons available in fast reactors to convert inert uranium to plutonium) than they consume to produce energy. The possibility of doing so is the principal advantage of fast reactors.
But we then learned there are vast deposits of uranium worldwide, and at the same time many fewer nuclear reactors were installed than were originally projected, so there is no foreseeable fuel shortage. Not only that, the reprocessing of fuel, which is intrinsic to fast reactor operation, has turned out to be vastly more expensive than projected. Finally, by all accounts fast reactors would be more expensive to build than conventional ones, the cost of which is already out of sight. In short, there is no economic argument for building fast reactors.
When it comes to safety, sodium-cooled fast reactors operate under low pressure, which is an advantage. But fast reactors are worrisome because, whereas a change in the configuration of a conventional nuclear core—say, squeezing it tighter—makes it less reactive, the corresponding result in a fast reactor is to make it more reactive, potentially leading to an uncontrolled chain reaction.
With regard to nonproliferation, the issue that mainly concerns us is that the fast reactor fuel cycle depends on reprocessing and recycling of its plutonium fuel (or uranium 233 if using thorium instead of uranium). Both plutonium and uranium 233 are nuclear explosives. Widespread use of fast reactors for electricity generation implies large quantities of nuclear explosives moving through commercial channels. It will not be possible to restrict such use to a small number of countries. The consequent proliferation dangers are obvious. And while it is doubtful the U.S. fast reactor project will lead to commercial exploitation—few, if any, projects from DOE ever do—U.S. pursuit of this technology would encourage other countries interested in this technology, like Japan and South Korea, to do so.
One should add that one of the claims of enthusiasts for recycling spent fuel in fast reactors is that it permits simpler waste management. This is a complicated issue, but the short answer is that rather than simplifying, reprocessing and recycling complicate the waste disposal process.
With all these concerns, and the lack of a valid economic benefit, why does the Energy Department want to start an “aggressive” and expensive program of fast reactor development? It’s true that so far only exploratory contracts have been let, on the order of millions of dollars (to GE-Hitachi). But the Department is already leaning awfully far forward in pursuing the VTR. It estimates the total cost to be about $2 billion, but that’s in DOE-speak. We’ve learned that translates into several times that amount.
But beyond that, the nuclear engineering community, and the wider community of nuclear enthusiasts, have never given up the 1960s AEC dream of a fast breeder-driven, plutonium-fueled world. Such reactors were to have been deployed by 1980 and were to take over electricity generation by 2000. It didn’t even get off the ground, in part because of AEC managerial incompetence, but mainly because it didn’t make sense.
After the 1974 Indian nuclear explosion and the realization that any country with a small reactor and a way to separate a few kilograms of plutonium could make a bomb, proliferation became a serious issue. In 1976 President Gerald Ford announced that we should not rely on plutonium until the world could reliably control its dangers as a bomb material. The plutonium devotees never accepted this change. Jimmy Carter froze construction of an ongoing fast-breeder prototype, the Clinch River Reactor, about three time the size of the proposed VTR. Ronald Reagan tried to revive it but, as its rationale thinned and its cost mounted, Congress shut it down in 1983. The plutonium enthusiasts thought they got their chance under George W. Bush with a fast reactor and a reprocessing and recycling program under of the rubric of Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. But it was so poorly thought out it didn’t go anywhere. More or less the same laboratory participants are now pushing the VTR.
The DOE advanced reactor program has many irons in the fire, mostly in the small reactor category. But do not be misled. They are mostly small potatoes without much future. Only the fast reactor project is the real thing, bureaucratically, that is. Although at this point DOE has only contracted for conceptual design, the follow-up will cost many millions and take many years. Nothing attracts national laboratories, industrial firms, and Washington bureaucracies as much as the possibility of locking into a large multiyear source of funding.
Congress needs to look hard at the rationale for a fast reactor program. This means getting into the details. At a Senate Appropriations hearing last month on advanced reactors, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said rather plaintively, “We cast the votes, and cross our fingers hoping nothing bad will happen.” That’s not good enough.
Victor Gilinsky is program advisor for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) in Arlington, Virginia. He served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Henry Sokolski is executive director of NPEC and the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (second edition 2019). He served as deputy for nonproliferation policy in the office of the U.S. secretary of defense in the Cheney Pentagon.
Report: Trump Inaugural Committee Under Investigation for Possible Finance Crime, Slate By MOLLY OLMSTEAD, DEC 13, 2018 “………..Prosecutors also asked for documents from Tennessee developer Franklin Haney, the Journal reported. Haney made a $1 million donation to the inaugural committee and, in April, hired Cohen to help him obtain a $5 billion loan from the U.S. government, among other funding, for a pair of nuclear reactors in Alabama. Prosecutors asked him for documents related to any correspondence with members of the committee. ……
Secret Underground Nuclear City In The Arctic | A Potential Threat
WW3 FEARS: Pentagon’s secret underground tunnels of MOBILE NUCLEAR bases REVEALED THE US government built a fully-functioning mobile nuclear base below the ice ofGreenland in preparation for war, it was revealed during a documentary. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1084951/ww3-fears-pentagon-mobile-nuclear-base-greenland-sptIn 1960, the United States ran a highly publicised project known as Camp Century on the island to study the feasibility of working below the ice. However, declassified files show it was actually a cover-up for a top-secret Cold War programme. Project Iceworm was the code name for the United States Army’s mission to build a network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites.
The ultimate objective was to place medium-range missiles under the ice — close enough to strike targets within the Soviet Union.
YouTube series “The Real Secrets of Antarctica” revealed how the project came to light in January 1995.
The 2017 documentary detailed: “Some very interesting disclosures were declassified about US military installations in Greenland which took place in the 1960s.
“They fed the American people a highly publicised story about advances in research and building an underground city below Greenland called Camp Century.
Only later did the truth about Project Iceworm surface.
“The Pentagon was attempting to put in place mobile nuclear launching sites to utilise thousands of miles of tunnels.”
Project Iceworm was to be a system of tunnels 2,500 miles in length, used to deploy up to 600 nuclear missiles, that would be able to reach the Soviet Union in case of nuclear war.
The missile locations would be under the cover of Greenland’s ice sheet and were supposed to be periodically changed.
A total of 21 trenches were cut and covered with arched roofs within which prefabricated buildings were erected.
These tunnels also contained a hospital, a shop, a theatre, and a church and the total number of inhabitants was around 200.
From 1960 until 1963 the electricity supply was provided by means of the world’s first mobile nuclear reactor, named PM-2A.
Water was supplied by melting glaciers and tested to determine whether germs were present, including tests for the plague virus.
However, just three years after it was built, ice core samples taken by geologists demonstrated that the glacier was moving much faster than anticipated and would destroy the tunnels and planned launch stations in about two years.
The facility was evacuated in 1965, and the nuclear generator removed.
Project Iceworm was canceled, and Camp Century closed in 1966.
Feds sue Hanford contractor, claiming kickbacks and lies defrauded taxpayers out of millions, Tri City Herald , BY ANNETTE CARY, FEBRUARY 08, 2019 RICHLAND, WA
The Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit Friday against Hanford contractor Mission Support Alliance, accusing it of defrauding the federal government out of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Also named in the lawsuit are former Mission Support Alliance President Frank Armijo, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Lockheed Martin Services Inc……….
The Justice Department is accusing Mission Support Alliance of using half-truths, omissions, kickbacks and outright lies before its purchase by Leidos to get the Department of Energy to consent to a $232 million subcontract to a company with which it had ownership ties.
Lockheed Martin Corp. was a principal owner of Mission Support Alliance in 2010, when Mission Support Alliance awarded a subcontract for information technology services at Hanford to Lockheed Martin Services Inc.
The lawsuit alleges that from 2010 to 2015 the defendants misrepresented billing rates charged to DOE, the effort estimated to be needed to complete work and the anticipated additional profit for the subcontractor.
“Defendants’ fraud allowed them to obtain grossly inflated and improper additional profit on the subcontract,” the Justice Department said in a news release.
The lawsuit said that estimates of costs for payment rates were inflated in some cases by basing them on far more employees to perform work than Lockheed Martin Services Inc. included in its internal budget.
In some cases DOE was billed by both Mission Support Alliance and Lockheed Martin Services Inc. for the same labor, the lawsuit said.
‘GROSSLY INFLATED PRICING’ CLAIMS
The profit paid for Lockheed Martin Services Inc. work was in addition to money Lockheed Martin Corp. was already earning on the same work through its partial ownership of Mission Support Alliance, according to the Justice Department.
DOE repeatedly made clear that the subcontractor, Lockheed Martin Services Inc., could not earn profit on top of what its owner was already being paid through Mission Support Alliance, the lawsuit said.
Armijo, and Rich Olsen, the Mission Support Alliance chief financial officer, also worked on behalf of Lockheed Martin Corp. and misused their positions at Hanford to help Lockheed Martin Corp. obtain grossly inflated pricing, the Justice Department alleged.
In addition to serving at times as the Mission Support Alliance president, Armijo also was a vice president of Lockheed Martin Corp., the lawsuit said.
HANFORD OFFICIALS ALLEGEDLY PAID KICKBACKS
The Justice Department said some employees, including Armijo, told DOE that the subcontractor’s pricing did not contain any additional profit for the subcontract for the same work on which Lockheed Martin Corp. was already earning profit through its ownership of Mission Support Alliance.
The millions of dollars that Armijo and other employees were paid in cash and stock as part of an incentive program amounted to kickbacks for improperly using their Mission Support Alliance positions to provide favorable treatment for Lockheed Martin Corp., the Justice Department alleges. ………https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article226014785.html
Central to the meeting in Vietnam is what the U.S. might offer Kim in return for concrete steps to relinquish his nuclear arsenal, WSJ, By Andrew Jeong andTimothy W. Martin, Feb. 8, 2019 SEOUL—The U.S. special envoy for North Korea concluded three days of nuclear-disarmament talks in Pyongyang ahead of the second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, scheduled for this month in Vietnam, expressing confidence that “real progress” was possible if both sides remain committed…….(subscribers only) https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-envoy-voices-optimism-ahead-of-north-korea-nuclear-summit-11549684347
How the Green New Deal Almost Went Nuclear on Its First Day, Yahoo Finance, Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bloomberg, February 9, 2019 — As Democrats unveiled their ambitious Green New Deal to fight climate change on Thursday, a controversy erupted over the role of nuclear power that threatened to undermine the whole effort.
A fact sheet distributed by the office of progressive newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic representative from New York, said there was no room in the nation’s all renewable-energy future for nuclear plants.
But the reference caught many off guard and back-peddling ensued.
Giselle Barry, a spokeswoman for Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is the Green New Deal’s lead Senate backer, disowned the fact sheet and said Markey’s office wasn’t consulted before it was sent out. “We did not draft that fact sheet,” she said.
The stumble irked potential supporters. It also illustrated the political challenges ahead as supporters of the Green New Deal struggle to build consensus on issues that divide environmentalists as well as lawmakers.
Markey sought to do damage control at a midday press conference, emphasizing the proposed resolution doesn’t address specific energy technologies. Language on nuclear power “is not part of this legislation,” he said. “The resolution is silent on any individual technology that can move us to a solution.”
The plan, in the form of a non-binding resolution, weaves together what had been a hodgepodge of progressive proposals and aspirations into a single initiative. It sets a goal of shifting the nation to 100 percent “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” within 10 years “to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.”
The proposal has gathered 60 co-sponsors in the House but has little chance of gaining support in the Republican-controlled Senate, let alone being signed into law by President Donald Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who hasn’t explicitly thrown her support behind the Green New Deal, didn’t appear at the unveiling. She described the plan at another event as “one among many” ways to address climate change.
Some of the biggest climate champions in the Senate, including Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island who delivers frequent floor speeches on the urgent need to act, were notably absent from the news conference unveiling the Green New Deal. For any effort to succeed, it will need support from long-time environmental policy advocates in Congress as well as the ardent activists that have rallied behind Ocasio-Cortez’s vision.
The scale and ambition of the initiative also presents problems. Ocasio-Cortez has pitched it not just as an environmental solution but also a World-War II-style “mobilization” against income inequality and social injustice.
That invites criticism that the whole gambit is socialism run amok. The Chamber of Commerce slammed the proposal in a statement that invoked “failed socialist policies.”
Opposition on the left emerged over the plan’s failure to eventually ban fossil fuels, the leading source of the carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.
Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica praised the resolution as “a good first step,” but said it was incomplete. “By failing to expressly call for an end of the fossil fuel era, the resolution misses an opportunity to define the scope of the challenge,” Pica said…………https://finance.yahoo.com/news/green-deal-almost-went-nuclear-090000153.html
https://www.rt.com/usa/451098-hanford-nuclear-lockheed-lawsuit/10 Feb, 2019 Contractors involved in a multibillion decontamination effort at the notorious Hanford nuclear site have been accused of defrauding US taxpayers, according to a lawsuit against Mission Support Alliance and Lockheed Martin.
MSA has a 10-year, $3.2 billion contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) to support the decontamination effort at the decommissioned nuclear production complex known as the Hanford Site. Allowed to pick subcontractors for the nation’s largest and most expensive environmental cleanup at its own discretion, MSA abused its authority and awarded “improper favorable treatment” for kickbacks, the Justice Department claimed this week.
The lawsuit alleges that Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC) and Lockheed Martin Services Inc. (LMSI) paid more than $1 million to executives of MSA – which was conveniently co-owned by another Lockheed subsidiary at the time – in order to secure a $232 million subcontract to provide management and technology support at the Washington state nuclear site from 2010-2016.
The services were provided at “inflated rates” and in some cases the DOE was even billed twice, by both MSA and Lockheed, for the same work. In addition, the suit accuses Jorge Francisco Armijo, who served as both the Vice President of LMC and President of MSA, of abusing his authority for financial gain by his simultaneously held posts.
“Where Congress has allocated money for specific purposes, we will not tolerate unlawful conduct by contractors who seek to enhance their profits at the expense of taxpayers,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division.
Lockheed immediately denied the allegations of being involved in the corruption scheme, rejecting any notion that the “corporation or its executives engaged in any wrongdoing.” MSA also brushed aside the accusations, claiming that the company “stands behind” their employees.
The 586-square-mile former nuclear research facility was used to produce plutonium for the nuclear bomb in the Manhattan Project. After over four decades of nuclear fuel production, the site was closed down in 1987, requiring an extensive clean-up of solid and liquid wastes left from the weapons production processes.
The fate of one of the world’s most dangerous atomic reactors is now in the hands of California governor Gavin Newsom.
His vital decision is whether to order cheap, simple, structural tests at Diablo Canyon Unit One, which is currently shut for refueling. Please call him and ask him to do so at (916) 445-2841 and/or sign our moveon.org petition, and contact me at solartopia.org. You may also FAX him: at (916)558-3160 or write him at the Capitol in Sacramento, CA 95814.
Like all things nuclear, the legal situation is complicated, but the economic and safety issues are not.
Diablo Canyon’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric, is bankrupt.
PG&E is also on legal probation, having been convicted of various felonies for killing eight San Bruno residents in an avoidable 2010 gas explosion. PG&E’s pipes blew up because the company deferred maintenance to save itself some money.
PG&E did the same to northern California power lines that ignited at least 17 fires in which scores died and a thousand homes burned.
The company has been sued for billions, forcing the bankruptcy. Its probation officer, Federal Judge William Alsup, recently asked PG&E’s president, should I “let you keep killing people?”
The rise and demise of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Henry Sokolski, February 6, 2019This year marks the 36th anniversary of the termination of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project, a federally funded commercial demonstration effort. In the very early 1980s, it was the largest public-works project in the United States. Japan, South Korea, China, France, Russia, and the United States are now all again considering building similar plants. For each, how and why Clinch River was launched and killed is a history that speaks to their nuclear future. This history involves more than cost benefit analysis. For the public and political leadership, facts and arguments rarely close an initial sale of a large government-funded, high-tech commercialization program. Nor do they generally goad officials to abandon such projects. Such acts are fundamentally political: Fears and hopes drive them. Certainly, to understand why the US government launched and subsequently killed Clinch River requires knowledge not just of what the public and its political leadership thought, but also of how they felt.
Unwarranted fears of uranium’s scarcity fueled interest in fast-breeder reactors. …….in 1945, uranium 235, a fissile uranium isotope that can readily sustain a chain reaction, was believed to be so scarce, it was assumed there was not enough of it to produce nuclear electricity on a large scale. Scientists saw the answer in fast-breeder reactors………
The Atomic Energy Commission publicly promoted their commercialization with confident, cartoonish optimism. In one publication, the commission asked the upbeat question: “Johnny had three truckloads of plutonium. He used three of them to power New York for a year. How much plutonium did Johnny have left?” The answer: “Four truckloads.”
Unfortunately, this pitch glossed over two stubborn facts. First, because plutonium is so much more toxic and difficult to handle than uranium, it is many times more expensive to use as a reactor fuel than using fresh uranium. Second, because plutonium fast-breeder reactors use liquid metal coolants, such as liquid sodium, operating them safely is far more challenging and expensive than conventional reactors.
When private industry tried in the early 1960s to operate its own commercial-sized fast-breeder, Fermi I, the benefits were negative. Barely three years after Fermi 1 came online, a partial fuel meltdown in 1966 brought it down. It eventually resumed operations before being officially shut down in 1972.
These facts, however, are rarely emphasized. Those backing breeders—whether it be in 1945, 1975, or today—focus not on reliability and economics, but rather that we are about to run out of affordable uranium. For the moment, of course, we are not. Uranium is plentiful and cheap as is enriching it. This helps explain why the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, no longer operate any commercial-sized fast-breeder reactors and are in no immediate rush to build new ones………
When the Atomic Energy Commission argued the case for building a breeder reactor in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it projected 1,000 reactors would be on line in the United States by the year 2000 (the real number turned out to be 103) and that the United States would soon run out of affordable uranium. Also, by the mid-1960s, the commission needed a new, massive project to justify its continued existence. Its key mission, to enrich uranium for bombs and reactors, had been completed and was overbuilt. The commission was running out of construction and research projects commensurate with its large budget. A breeder-reactor- commercialization program with all the reprocessing, fuel testing, and fuel fabrication plants that would go with it, seemed a worthy successor.
But the most powerful political supporter of Clinch River, then-President Richard Nixon, focused on a different point. Nixon saw the project less as a commercial proposition than as a way to demonstrate his power to secure more votes by providing government-funded jobs while at the same time affirming his commitment to big-science, engineering, and progress……….
the Energy Department videotaped safety tests it had conducted of how molten sodium might react once it came in contact with the reactor’s concrete containment structure. Concrete contains water crystals. Molten sodium reacts explosively when it comes in contact with oxygen, including oxygen contained in water. What the test demonstrated and the video showed was concrete exploding when it came in contact with liquid sodium.
This set off waves of worry at the department………
Just weeks before the final vote, the Congressional Budget Office released its financial assessment of the Energy Department’s last ditch effort to use loan guarantees to fund the project. Even under the most conservative assumptions, the budget analysts determined that the loan guarantees would only increase the project’s final costs. This helped push the project over a political cliff. The final Senate vote: 56 against, 40 for. All of the 16 deciding votes came from former Clinch River supporters.
No commercial prospects? Militarize. Nixon backed numerous science commercialization projects like Clinch River, including the Space Shuttle Program and the supersonic transport plane……… While the Space Shuttle Program won congressional support, the envisioned satellite contracts never materialized. The program became heavily dependent on military contracts. Finally, our national security depended upon it.
Although Clinch River never was completed, as its costs spiraled, it too attracted military attention. …….
Essentially, it didn’t matter when you asked–1971 or 1983—Clinch River was always another seven years and at least another $2.1 billion away from completion. ……
With Clinch River, what we now know, we may yet repeat. Fast-reactor commercialization projects and support efforts, such as Argonne National Laboratory’s Small Modular Fast Reactor, the US-South Korean Pyroreprocessing effort, the Energy Department’s Virtual (Fast) Test Reactor, France’s Astrid Fast Reactor Project, the PRISM Reactor, the TerraPower Traveling Wave reactor, India’s thorium breeder, Russia’s BN-1200, China’s Demonstration Fast-Breeder Reactor, continue to capture the attention and support of energy officials in Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, France, the US, and India. None of these countries have yet completely locked in their decisions. How sound their final choices turn out to be, will ultimately speak to these governments’ credibility and legitimacy.
In the case of Clinch River, the decision to launch the program ultimately rested on a cynical set of political calculations alloyed to an ideological faith in fast reactors and the future of the “plutonium economy.” Supporters saw this future clearly. As a nuclear engineer explained to me in 1981 at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the United States technically could build enough breeder reactors to keep the country electrically powered for hundreds of years without using any more oil, coal, or uranium. When I asked him, though, who would pay for this, he simply snapped that only fools let economics get in the way of the future.
This argument suggests that the case for fast reactors is beyond calculation or debate, something mandatory and urgent. That, however, never was the case, nor is it now. Instead, the equitable distribution of goods, which is a key metric of both economic and governmental performance (and ultimately of any government’s legitimacy and viability), has always taken and always must take costs into account. In this regard, we can only hope that remembering how and why Clinch River was launched and killed will help get this accounting right for similar such high-tech commercialization projects now and in the future. https://thebulletin. org/2019/02/the-rise-and- demise-of-the-clinch-river- breeder-reactor/?utm_source= Bulletin%20Newsletter&utm_ medium=iContact%20email&utm_ campaign=ClinchRiver_February6
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed to have a $7,250 fine levied Concerns over the operation of a nuclear reactor at the Denver Federal Center has one arm of the federal government proposing to fine another and a reactor supervisor has been reassigned with his access revoked.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed to have a $7,250 fine levied against the U.S. Geological Survey for “research reactor violations,” according to an NRC news release dated Tuesday.
The NRC carried out two separate investigations of the TRIGA (Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics) nuclear reactor, which is used for research, and found violations associated with staffing and training requirements, the release stated.
One investigation was completed on Jan. 18, 2018, the other on June 12, 2018, according to a notice of violation letter which identified the supervisor as Brycen Roy.
Roy, who was reached Friday night by phone, declined comment.
The USGS has “implemented corrective actions,” according to the release, but not before “pausing reactor operations to allow for an assessment of the violations and the operational culture of the reactor organization.”
One violation involved “deliberately falsified documentation showing that reactor operators had completed required training, when in fact the training never took place,” the NRC said. The supervisor presented “false documentation” to an NRC inspector, according to the release
A second investigation found that the supervisor “violated staffing requirements by performing certain reactor tests without a second qualified person present, as required by NRC regulations.”
The USGS can dispute the violation and penalty, or could agree to third-party mediation, the release stated.
The Denver Federal Center, a 623-acre campus which houses 28 agencies in 44 buildings, is surrounded by Lakewood. It’s west of Kipling Street, south of West 6th Avenue and north of West Alameda Avenue.
An inadequate focus on researching and understanding the role of the environment in cancer prevention is a failure for public health.Laura N. Vandenberg 8 Feb 19,
In his 2019 State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Trump called for $500 million over the next 10 years to fund research on childhood cancers.
Such funding is crucial to continue tackling the devastating disease. However, missing from the State of the Union—and most other conversations about tackling cancer—is a focus on prevention, specifically the need to research, understand and communicate the role environmental exposures play in cancer risk.
The numbers on cancer incidence and deaths are complex. Although childhood cancer mortality rates have dropped considerably from the 1960s, data from the American Cancer Society shows that incidence rates have increased 0.6 percent per year since 1975.
In this way, childhood cancers are like several others. Between 2005 and 2014, yearly cancer incidence rates rose for several types: thyroid cancer by 4 percent; invasive breast cancer by 0.3 percent in black women; leukemia by 1.6 percent; liver cancer by 3 percent; oral and pharynx cancers by 1 percent in Caucasians; pancreatic cancer by 1 percent in Caucasians; colon cancer by 1.4 percent in individuals younger than 55 years of age; rectal cancer by 2.4 percent in individuals younger than 55; and melanoma by 3 percent in individuals aged 50 and older.
While these cancer rates have increased, overall rates of cancer deaths have started to fall. In fact, since the 1990s, improved detection and treatment, as well as decreased smoking rates, have contributed to significant reductions in cancer mortality.
Reduced deaths from cancer are a great public health victory. These statistics prove that public health interventions like educational programs designed to curb smoking can have dramatic effects.
They also suggest that investments in improved detection and diagnosis are money well spent. A focus on treatments has also improved quality of life for cancer patients and their likelihood of remission.
But where is the call for better cancer prevention? As rates of numerous cancers continue to rise, the failure to identify the causes of cancer remains a disappointment for public health officials and researchers alike.
We know that environmental factors can contribute to cancer risk. Some, like smoking, are avoidable. Others are lifestyle factors that people can change like drinking less alcohol, decreasing consumption of processed meats, using protection from the sun, and increasing exercise.
Yet, other environmental factors like exposures to chemicals in the environment, including endocrine disruptors, have received little attention. While some NIH-funded programs like the Breast Cancer and Environment Research Program have worked to identify chemicals in the environment that promote cancer, funding for cancer prevention initiatives has stagnated.
Despite the limited resources invested in studies of environmental risk factors for cancer, we know enough to take action on some chemicals of concern.
For example, communities contaminated with perfluorinated chemicals, several of which are known to cause cancer, have demanded attention from government officials in addition to asking for more research.
Individuals living in these communities have the right to know how they are being exposed, and what their risks might be – for cancer and other diseases.
It is great that cancer research was raised in the President’s State of the Union speech, and that the difficulties associated with caring for a family member with cancer was mentioned in Stacey Abrams’ rebuttal.
But a failure to focus on prevention, a failure to acknowledge the role of the environment in causing cancer, and a failure to allocate funds to prevention research, are all failures for public health.
Dr. Vandenberg is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Her work on endocrine disrupting chemicals has been funded by the National Institutes of Health including the BCERP program, which focuses on the environmental causes of breast cancer
SSFL impasse – State disapproves of DOE’s final environmental study , Simi Valley Acorn, February 08, 2019, By Melissa Simon, melissa@theacorn.com State officials overseeing the cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Lab are criticizing a federal agency’s proposal to address contamination on its portion of the former rocket engine testing site. On Jan. 28, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control issued a letter accusing the U.S. Department of Energy of reneging on a 2010 cleanup agreement promising to remove all contamination in its part of the 2,850-acre field lab.
SSFL was used for 50 years in the development of ballistic missiles, rockets and space shuttle equipment. A partial nuclear meltdown occurred in Area IV in 1959, but it wasn’t made public until decades later. The DOE is responsible for removing soil and groundwater contamination in Area IV and the northern buffer zone.
“DOE ignores that its preferred alternative is inconsistent with the (agreement which) clearly defines DOE’s obligation to clean up soils in Area IV to background levels, or reporting limits if no background value exists, on a point-by-point basis,” DTSC officials said in the letter.
The state agency said it intends to hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable to the requirements of the previous agreement, which involves a more thorough cleanup of the property.
The letter also requested that DOE extend the 30-day comment period, which closed at the end of January, through March 1 to allow more “meaningful public participation and opportunity for comment.”
The letter is in response to the Department of Energy’s final environmental study, which was released Dec. 18.
In the study, the federal agency called for the removal of the remaining buildings in Area IV—a radioactive materials handling facility and a hazardous waste management facility—and recommended a combination of treatment and monitoring to deal with the groundwater. It also proposed a “risk-based” soil cleanup plan, in which any contaminant found is removed. Environmentalists have argued in favor of removing much more soil………..
Five activist groups lobbying for complete site remediation, meaning they want to see the property restored to what it was before SSFL was built, voiced their objections the same day DTSC issued its letter.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Southern California Federation of Scientists, Committee to Bridge the Gap, and the Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition all sent letters Jan. 28 accusing the DOE of breaching the legally binding 2010 agreement and violating fundamental environmental laws.
Denise Duffield, spokesperson for Physicians for Social Responsibility, told the Simi Valley Acorn this week that the DOE’s final study is an “unconscionable breach of its commitment to clean up all of its contamination at SSFL.”
DOE, Duffield asserts, wants to leave behind 98 percent of contamination and just “walk away from remediating much of the contaminated groundwater.”
“Polluters do not get to decide how much of their contamination they get to clean up,” she said. “Also, the (study) fails to take into account the devastating Woolsey fire, which started at and burned much of the contaminated SSFL in November.”
Duffield said her group wants local, state and federal officials to lean on the DOE to revise its final study……..
nuclear-news 