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Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory – more leaks discovered

More leaks discovered at troubled SC nuclear fuel factory; feds investigating, The State.com BY SAMMY FRETWELL, sfretwell@thestate.com  August 31, 2018 HOPKINS 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take a closer look at a troubled nuclear fuel factory on Bluff Road as information surfaces about leaks that date back at least a decade, federal officials said.

NRC officials said they have learned about leaks from 2008 that were not reported to the agency by Westinghouse, the owner and operator of the 49-year-old atomic fuel assembly plant. The NRC said it should have been told about the pollution leaks, even though notice was not always legally required.

To learn more, the NRC will reopen an environmental study of whether the Westinghouse facility poses a danger to Richland County if the company receives a new operating license, agency officials said at a community meeting Thursday night in Hopkins.

Westinghouse is seeking a 40-year license, but the NRC must satisfy federal concerns before the agency can make a decision on the Westinghouse request. The NRC completed an environmental study in June that said the plant does not pose a major hazard to the surrounding environment, even though the facility has had past problems.

“We are going to be asking for additional information from Westinghouse on the various leaks,’’ said Brian Smith, a deputy director for safety and environment at the NRC’s Maryland headquarters.

After the meeting, Smith told The State the decision to reopen the environmental study “was based on new information,’’ including leaks tied to a 2011 uranium spill beneath the plant. The NRC has said it did not know about the 2011 uranium spill until the fall of 2017.
Now, it has learned of pipe breaks in the same area beneath the plant that occurred in 2008, said Smith and Tom Vukovinsky, a senior fuel facility inspector with the NRC in Atlanta. Westinghouse disclosed this information to the NRC amid growing questions about the 2011 leak, officials said.

“They identified a couple of previous leaks,’’ Smith said. “Westinghouse, in responding to all the recent events, has started going back through their records and made us aware of this.’’

The 2008 pollution leaks are the third to surface publicly this summer. In July, the NRC learned that uranium drained through a hole in the floor of the plant building. The NRC’s environmental report in June mentioned the 2011 uranium leak that had not been reported. In examining the circumstances surrounding the 2011 spill, leaks from 2008 were discovered, according to the NRC.

A consultant’s letter, obtained Friday by The State, indicates that a broken pipe spilled radioactive material into the soil in 2008. The letter said Westinghouse found “elevated radionuclide concentration’’ in both process wastewater from the plant and the soil. The company then fixed the pipe, the letter said. Three years later, contamination was found in the soil after Westinghouse discovered pipes were “highly corroded,’’ according to the May 31 letter from consultant AECOM to DHEC.

Uranium is a radioactive material used in the production of nuclear fuel. People exposed to significant amounts of uranium can suffer kidney damage or other ailments. A key unanswered question about all the spills is how much leaked into the ground.
The NRC’s decision to reopen the environmental study is significant because it delays an agency decision on whether to grant the new license, which would keep the plant operating another 40 years. Depending on what the agency learns about leaks, the NRC could shorten the time the license is good for or take enforcement action against Westinghouse.

Thursday’s announcement was welcome news to many in the crowd gathered at a county building adjacent to Lower Richland High School………..

The plant, however, has had plenty of troubles through the years. It has had dozens of run-ins with the NRC over nuclear safety issues and has polluted groundwater on the site. Some of the groundwater pollution has existed since the 1980s. Efforts to clean up groundwater have not succeeded in ridding the site of contamination. …….

Citizens have since formed their own committee to monitor Westinghouse. The area near the site is composed of a mixture of modest homes and exclusive hunt clubs. The site is on Bluff Road between Congaree National Park and Interstate 77, just outside Columbia. https://www.thestate.com/latest-news/article217622890.html

September 3, 2018 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

USA negotiations with North Korea may be on the verge of breakdown

The current US negotiating strategy with North Korea is doomed, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Perry World House, August 30, 2018 US negotiations with North Korea over the latter’s nuclear weapons program appear to have hit a major roadblock. While North Korea has temporarily suspended nuclear and missile testing and partially destroyed its nuclear test site, both steps are reversible, and North Korea has largely balked at US President Donald Trump’s demand for “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization.” Consequently, negotiations with Pyongyang may be on the verge of breakdown. Trump recently cancelled his secretary of state’s planned trip to the country, and the administration has gone back and forth in the last few days about whether Washington will continue to suspend joint military exercises with South Korea, a concession Trump made to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their historic summit in June. Given this critical juncture in negotiations, it is time to reevaluate what talks can actually achieve. It would be great if Kim agreed to hand over all of his nuclear weapons, but the reality is that North Korea will not be completely, verifiably, or irreversibly denuclearizing anytime soon. Therefore, if the Trump Administration wants to salvage the negotiations, it needs a new strategy.

Why North Korea won’t denuclearize. The first step to a successful negotiating strategy is understanding how your opponent thinks. So why does North Korea want nuclear weapons in the first place? For the same reason Israel, France, India, and others wanted them—security. Specifically, security against the United States.

North Korea’s murderous dictator has good reason to worry about an American intervention to overthrow his regime. First of all, the United States is much more powerful than North Korea. While the size of North Korea’s entire economy is about $40 billion at most, America spends over $700 billion on its military alone. Second, this fact, combined with Washington’s long history of military interventions, is enough to make any despot shake in his shoes. Finally, the specific history between the United States and North Korea is not reassuring to Kim. The two countries fought against each other in the Korean War, President George W. Bush branded North Korea part of the “axis of evil,” and Trump threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Like many relatively weak countries facing a threat, North Korea turned towards nuclear weapons not because its leader is crazy, but to deter a stronger power. By threatening to punish the United States and its allies with a nuclear response if it is attacked, North Korea is able to effectively dissuade Washington from such attempts. Since Kim’s top priority, like most autocrats, is regime security, he will only give up the protection of his nuclear weapons if he is very confident that he can retain his power without them. Though Trump committed to guaranteeing North Korea’s security in the Singapore Declaration, a number of recent historical episodes will make it difficult to convince Kim he can remain safe if he surrenders all his nuclear weapons.

One example involves Libya. In 2003, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi agreed to give up his nascent nuclear weapons program and permit international inspections. In return, US President George W. Bush promised that Libya could “regain a secure and respected place” among nations. However, just eight years later, in 2011, the United States led a NATO military intervention in Libya that resulted in the brutal killing of Gaddafi. In recent months John Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor, has repeatedly said that Washington has the “Libya model” in mind for North Korea, probably the least reassuring example that could be communicated to Kim.

A second leader who did not do well after suspending his nuclear weapons program was Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. While states that possess nuclear weapons can almost always effectively deter military intervention, states that do not, like Iraq in 2003, are vulnerable. In a fate not much better than Gaddafi’s, Saddam was removed from power by an American military intervention in 2003 and ultimately hung in 2006…….

Trump personally undermined American negotiating credibility in two ways; one indirect and one direct. Indirectly, he hurt Washington’s credibility by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, even though, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran was complying with its terms. The Trump Administration has now moved to severely punish Iran for its compliance by instituting tough sanctions………..

Given this record, North Korea is very unlikely to agree to fully denuclearize in the short or medium-term, and demanding that it do so is only likely to lead to negotiation failure. To make real progress on this issue, the White House will need to take a different tack.

What Washington’s strategy should be. The Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck said, “politics is the art of the possible, the attainable.” If North Korea will not be handing over its entire nuclear stockpile anytime soon, what possible, attainable options might curtail the threat? The most extreme option, of course, would be to launch a massive military attack against North Korea in an effort to destroy all of its nuclear weapons and infrastructure—the “fire and fury” Trump threatened. However, such an operation would be reckless to the point of insanity. North Korea has the ability to deliver nuclear missiles to South Korea, Japan, and American military bases in the Pacific. If even one or a handful of nuclear missiles survived an American first strike, hundreds of thousands could die beyond those killed in the initial US attack. Furthermore, even if the United States could reliably locate and destroy all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons in a first strike, Pyongyang would still be able to inflict tens of thousands of casualties daily using conventional and chemical weapons. Given that there is no imminent threat from North Korea’s nuclear program, a preventive war of this type would be nonsensical.

The most sensible option to address the nuclear threat from North Korea would be to pursue an approach dubbed “less for less” by nuclear scholar James Acton. Rather than demanding total denuclearization, the United States should seek a smaller-scale deal that puts significant restrictions on North Korea’s nuclear program in return for moderate sanctions relief and other limited concessions. ……….

Though the prospect of living with a nuclear-armed North Korea for the foreseeable future may seem unacceptable, the world has survived with a nuclear-armed Russia for the last 69 years, China for the last 54 years, Pakistan for the last 20 years, and, yes, North Korea for the last 12 years. Just as North Korea’s nuclear weapons have effectively deterred the United States from a major military intervention, America’s vastly superior nuclear arsenal and conventional capabilities will almost certainly deter North Korea.

This column was written by Joshua A. Schwartz, a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Pennsylvania. https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/the-current-us-negotiating-strategy-with-north-korea-is-doomed/?utm_source=Bulletin%20Newsletter&utm_medium=iContact%20email&utm_campaign=August31

September 3, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Call for immediate removal of nuclear waste from San Onofre area

Environmental Group Wants Immediate Removal of Nuclear Waste From San Onofre Area,  https://www.theinertia.com/environment/an-environmental-group-is-pushing-for-the-transport-of-nuclear-waste-away-from-san-o-stat/   Dylan Heyden, 30 Aug 18, 

The ever-evolving situation at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station and its nuclear waste problem has become a hot-button issue for residents of San Clemente, Oceanside, and beyond. It’s immensely complex, but allow me, if you will, to oversimplify.

Spent nuclear fuel goes through a years-long cooling process in pools before it can be moved to dry storage where it further cools until it is safe for transport to long-term storage. “Long-term” storage facility, though, is a misnomer. It’s essentially the permanent resting place for nuclear waste stored in extremely thick metal canisters. The problem at San Onofre and many decommissioned nuclear generation stations across the country, though, is there is no long-term storage facility. Or rather, one was planned for an area called Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but in 2011 the Feds pulled the plug. As a result, short-term solutions have become defacto long-term solutions, which is where we are today at San Onofre.

Back in February, Southern California Edison and contractors involved in the SONGS decommissioning process began transferring spent nuclear fuel from pools to dry storage – or dry cask storage. Tens of thick metal canisters of spent nuclear fuel have since been stored on site adjacent to the generators beneath a concrete pad called the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI).

When I toured the facility back in May (more on that later), SoCal Edison employees were adamant that public safety was of the utmost importance, and that these thick metal casks were not “buried in the sand” but rather safely stored in concrete for the interim. Employees also emphasized that Southern California Edison’s goal is to move the spent fuel as expeditiously and safely as possible. “Don’t forget, our families go in the ocean nearby, too,” many said.

But Congressional gridlock and an inability to designate a feasible long-term storage site means what was once thought to be a safer short-term solution (dry storage is passive and doesn’t require energy to cool as in cooling pools) may need re-thinking.

That’s why a group of activists, called the Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles recently launched a letter-writing campaign urging the California State Lands Commission to authorize the local transfer of spent nuclear fuel to an area further east in Camp Pendleton.

“3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego is currently in the process of being buried on the beach, just 100 feet from the ocean and a mere few feet above the water table,” their website reads. “Send in a comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and demand a better solution: the nuclear waste should be moved off the beach to a new, above-ground concrete-reinforced temporary storage facility located further east in Camp Pendleton—where it can be protected from sea level rise and potential terrorist attack.”

A sub-group of PSRLA called the Committee to Bridge the Gap has created a petition page, urging concerned citizens to put their name on a letter voicing their discontent.

According to their website, the group claims this revised plan has garnered the support of former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chief Greg Jaczko, U.S. government advisor on nuclear waste Tom English, and retired Navy Admiral Len Herring.

The campaign explains that the failure to even consider the idea of moving the fuel east of the primary ISFSI site is a serious oversight on the part of those involved in the decommissioning process.

The letter PSRLA is urging residents to sign implores the State Lands Commission to step in. “As public servants and members of the CSLC you have a moral duty to protect our safety. Please do not take that responsibility lightly,” it says.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Terrible sickness price paid by Americans for 1,032 nuclear bombs the govt dropped on America

America Has Dropped 1,032 Nuclear Weapons (On Itself)  In the form of nuclear tests.  https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/america-has-dropped-1032-nuclear-weapons-itself-30042 by Kyle Mizokami, 31 Aug 18, 

During the early years of nuclear testing it was anticipated that nuclear weapons would be used on the battlefield, and that the Army and Marine Corps had better get used to operating on a “nuclear battlefield.” During the 1952 Big Shot test, 1,700 ground troops took shelter in trenches just seven thousand yards from the thirty-three-kiloton explosion. After the test, the troops conducted a simulated assault that took them to within 160 meters of ground zero. This test and others like them  led to increases in leukemia, prostate and nasal cancers  among those that participated.

In 2002,  the Centers for Disease Control estimated  that virtually every American that has lived since 1951 has been exposed to nuclear fallout, and that the cumulative effects of all nuclear testing by all nations could ultimately be responsible for up to eleven thousand deaths in the United States alone. The United States did indeed learn much about how to construct safe and reliable nuclear weapons, and their effects on human life and the environment. In doing so, however, it paid a terrible and tragic price.
 
Nuclear weapons have a mysterious quality. Their power is measured in plainly visible blast pressure and thermal energy common to many weapons, but also invisible yet equally destructive radiation and electromagnetic pulse. Between 1945 and 1992, the United States  conducted 1,032 nuclear tests  seeking to get the measure of these enigmatic weapons. Many of these tests would be today be considered unnecessary, overly dangerous and just plain bizarre. These tests, undertaken on the atomic frontier, gathered much information about these weapons—enough to cease actual use testing—yet scarred the land and left many Americans with long-term health problems. 

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August 31, 2018 Posted by | Reference, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Talks are going nowhere

Why the U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Talks Have Stalled, Bloomberg, By David Tweed, August 29, 2018 Just a few months after Donald Trump’s historic handshake with Kim Jong Un in June, nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea are going nowhere.

Last week the U.S. president publicly acknowledged for the first time that discussions weren’t going according to plan, canceling a trip to Pyongyang by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. North Korean state media then accused the U.S. of “double-dealing attitudes” and returning to “gunboat diplomacy.”

The problem is, neither side can agree on what the Singapore Declaration signed by both leaders actually means. Pompeo asserts that Kim accepted the “final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea.” North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho says all four provisions must be implemented simultaneously, not denuclearization first.

……… The failure to formally resolve the 1950-53 Korean War lies at the heart of the dispute, with each side using the continued threat of attack to justify its own military activities. Thus, the agreement between Trump and Kim — like earlier deals by their predecessors — included a pledge to “build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”

Signing a peace treaty without a disarmament deal carries risks for the U.S. because it could legitimize Kim’s control over half of the peninsula and undermine the rationale for stationing 28,000 or so American troops in South Korea. Although Trump suspended some military drills with South Korea, he has so far refused to accept a symbolic peace declaration. That’s prompted the North Koreans to accuse the U.S. of backtracking on its commitments.

 Denuclearization

Despite Trump’s post-summit claim that North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat,” his agreement with Kim provided no timetable for giving up his nuclear weapons. Even the phrase “complete denuclearization” — a term preferred by North Korea’s that could be read to include nuclear-capable U.S. bombers and submarines — was left open to negotiation.

While Kim has followed through on pledges to refrain from weapons tests and dismantle testing facilities, those were moves he committed to before meeting with Trump. Pompeo has conceded before the U.S. Senate that Kim’s regime continues producing fissile material and has provided no inventory of its nuclear program and facilities. North Korea has warned that the U.S.’s focus on “denuclearization first” risks derailing talks.……… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-29/why-u-s-north-korea-nuclear-talks-have-stalled-state-of-play

 

August 31, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | 1 Comment

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen’s involvement in shady deals to secure huge funding for nuclear project

Senator requests documents on Michael Cohen’s ‘pay to play’ work for nuclear developer
Illinois senator wants communications between DOE and President Trump’s former lawyer. Think Progress, MARK HAND, AUG 29, 2018 A Democratic senator wants more information about efforts by Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s embattled former attorney who recently pleaded guilty to committing multiple felonies, to get the Department of Energy (DOE) to approve a huge nuclear loan application for one of his clients.

Franklin Haney, who donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, reportedly hired Cohen to secure a $5 billion loan guarantee from DOE. Haney agreed to pay Cohen $10 million if he succeeded in getting the department to approve the loan guarantee.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) sent a letter on Tuesday to Energy Secretary Rick Perry asking him for more information on how the agency is evaluating the loan application. She wants the department to provide a list of DOE political appointees, career employees, and contractors who had contact with Cohen or Haney — or representatives of either — in regard to the loan application for the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant project in Alabama.

Duckworth is also seeking all memorandums, meeting notes, emails, and any other records related to Haney’s loan application and communications with Cohen.

“This unseemly pay-to-play arrangement raises serious questions of conflict-of-interest, corrupt practices, and potential violations of lobbying disclosure laws,” Duckworth wrote in her letter to Perry.

Haney, a Tennessee real-estate mogul who owns the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant site in Alabama, reached the agreement with Cohen just days before federal agents raided Cohen’s home, office, and hotel room, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

The Wall Street Journal article noted that Cohen lobbied several DOE officials to support Haney’s loan application and speed up the review process, even though public records show that Cohen has never registered as a lobbyist.

Duckworth said she is requesting the documents to help her office better understand how the DOE is evaluating Haney’s loan application. In her letter, she asked Perry for a “prompt and thorough response” to the document requests.

Duckworth is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has congressional oversight jurisdiction over DOE the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Earlier this year, Duckworth introduced legislation to protect whistleblowers who are employed by DOE and the NRC. Currently, DOE and NRC whistleblowers are at risk of retaliation, even when they report critical public safety concerns, because of administrative law rulings that allow the two agencies to dismiss any whistleblower claim brought against them under the Energy Reorganization Act’s employee protection authorities.

Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal also reported that Haney agreed to pay Cohen a monthly retainer for his work on behalf of the nuclear plant. The loan application submitted by Haney’s company, Nuclear Development LLC, is still pending at DOE.

In 2016, Nuclear Development entered into a contract to purchase the partially completed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) at auction for $111 million and invest up to an additional $13 billion to complete construction of the nuclear energy facility.

The site includes two partially constructed nuclear reactors, which are 55-percent completed, two high-voltage switchyards, reinforced containment buildings, and used fuel storage pools and high capacity cranes for fuel loading……….

federal authorities are also currently investigating whether Cohen engaged in unregistered lobbying in connection with his consulting work for corporate clients after Trump entered the White House. It is unclear if the deal with Haney’s Nuclear Development LLC is part of the investigation into Cohen’s consulting work or if it will be incorporated into the investigation……….https://thinkprogress.org/senator-requests-documents-on-michael-cohens-pay-to-play-work-for-nuclear-developer-47f3a26acbc6/

August 31, 2018 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Safety measures for America’s nuclear weapons complex to be unravelled

Under siege: Safety in the nuclear weapons complex, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Robert Alvarez, August 30, 2018 The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board—which oversees and reports on safety practices in the US nuclear weapons complex—is under siege. Congress created the board almost 30 years ago to address years of lax safety practices. Now, the Energy Department is seeking to block the board’s access to safety information, excluding the board from overseeing worker protection at dozens of facilities and blocking board staff from interacting with contractors that operate the department’s nuclear sites. At the same time, the board is undergoing an internal crisis that affects staff morale and, ultimately, its critical role in ensuring the safety of the government’s largest high-hazard research and industrial enterprise.

Largely unknown to the general public, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is a small organization, but it has played a critical role in dragging the US nuclear weapons complex away from decades of operating outside the mainstream of nuclear safety practice. With an annual budget of $31 million, the board oversees safety at 10 Energy Department sites that employ 110,000 people and occupy a land base larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. These sites store and handle some of the world largest and potentially most dangerous inventories of nuclear materials. Since its inception the board has been largely responsible, among other things, for:


  • Removing and safely packaging large amounts of unsafe nuclear explosive materials from several sites.
  • Reducing explosion and fire hazards, a dominant concern.
  • Increasing emergency planning and response to major nuclear accidents.
  • Upgrading antiquated safety systems at nuclear facilities.

Despite this record of achievement, the board now faces difficulties that include the actions of some if its own members, who either don’t want or can’t seem to execute its mission. Last year, Sean Sullivan, the acting chairman installed at the request of Senate Republicans, tried to secretly convince the Trump White House to get rid of the board entirely, claiming it was “a relic of the Cold-War era defense-establishment.” Sullivan failed and was compelled to resign after his effort was revealed to the public.

As he attempted to eliminate the safety board, Sullivan also created a “secondary proposal” that would impose deep staffing cuts; outlined in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget, this fallback proposal was meant to go into effect if efforts to terminate the board went nowhere. The new acting chair of the safety board, Bruce Hamilton (also selected by Senate Republicans), unveiled the secondary proposal on August 15. The plan would “restructure by reducing the size of the workforce and relocating most of the technical staff to defense nuclear sites. This restructuring would reduce agency employees by at least 32 percent, down to 82 from the current 120.”

Although the restructuring plan has some positive elements—notably an addition of inspectors in the field—the deep budget and staff cut could disrupt and cripple the safety board’s effectiveness. Contention among board members is a symptom of crisis that has led to a loss of staff morale and high turnover. More than 60 percent of its technical staffers have left in less than the last four years. In May, the inspector general who oversees the safety board reported that it was ranked last by employees of 28 small federal agencies in terms a being a desirable place to work. According to the inspector general, more than a third of the safety staff surveyed in 2017 planned to leave, largely because of a “stark disagreement among board members, on how and when [safety] reporting requirements should be issued.” According to the inspector general, “two board members [Sullivan and Hamilton] routinely disapproved staff reports that included reporting requirements and instead proposed amendments to remove the reporting requirements.”

The restructuring plan cannot be considered in isolation from the Trump administration’s aggressive dismantlement of oversight across the government, especially in light of the Energy Department’s constantly stumbling efforts to build new nuclear weapons at its antiquated facilities. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that US nuclear weapons laboratories and supporting activities will cost $261 billion over the next three decades. The board’s restructuring plan is expected to begin by October 18 of this year and follows the Trump administration’s playbook of slashing safety oversight in federal agencies, as has happened with the Chemical Safety Board, responsible for investigating industrial chemical accidents. Unless Congress intervenes, the restructuring of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board will proceed.

Safety and conflict in the nuclear weapons complex. Unlike the commercial nuclear power industry, which consists of a relatively small number of reactor designs, the nuclear weapons complex includes a host of one-of-a-kind facilities, many built 50 to 70-plus years ago. Over the decades, each Energy Department site in the complex has created its own unique culture, shaped by secrecy, isolation, and demands of the Cold War nuclear arms race. Since making the most dangerous weapons in the world involves working with some of the world’s most dangerous materials, the employees in the nuclear weapons complex need a high degree of protection against workplace exposure to radiation and toxic materials. The United States is already paying a stiff price for the harm caused to the workers who made nuclear weapons through the 1980s. To date, 120,599 deceased and sick nuclear weapons workers have been paid $15.37 billion in compensation and medical care.

Via a semi-autonomous subunit known as the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Energy Department manages the US nuclear weapons complex in an unusual manner. In the complex, private contractors control at least 10 times more employees than federal managers. And unlike the rest of the government, the Energy Department self-regulates its workplace safety performance, primarily through a system of “orders” that are not on their own legally binding, but rather are enforced as requirements in contracts with private companies. With its origins in what the US Governmental Accountability Office has described as an “undocumented policy of blind faith in its contractor’s performance,” this regime is largely dependent on an honor system, in which contractors are expected to self-report their safety problems. ………

Though the Cold War is long over, the Energy Department’s antiquated, contractor-dominated management system—in which safety goal posts are easily moved behind closed doors—continues to endure and, in some cases, thrive. Without the meaningful oversight of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the nuclear weapons complex will predictably march back to a time, in the no-so-distant past, when public and worker safety was an afterthought—with serious consequences. https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/under-siege-safety-in-the-nuclear-weapons-complex/ 

August 31, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Trump administration partners with weapons contractors removes Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board power to oversee worker safety

August 31, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Agreement for USA commercial nuclear power to provide tritium for nuclear weapons

NNSA, TVA agree to ‘down-blend’ uranium to produce tritium for weapons, Oak Ridge Today  AUGUST 29, 2018, BY JOHN HUOTARI The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority announced last week that they intend to enter into an agreement to “down-blend” highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium in order to help produce tritium, a key “boosting” component in nuclear weapons.The highly enriched uranium used for the “down-blending” is processed, packaged, and shipped from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, according to the NNSA. Y-12 is the main storage facility for certain categories of highly enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear weapons and in naval reactors.

Low-enriched uranium, or LEU fuel, is used in a commercial power reactor run by TVA at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1 near Spring City in Rhea County, southwest of Oak Ridge. Tritium is produced there by irradiating lithium-aluminate pellets with neutrons in rods known as tritium-producing burnable absorber rods, or TPBARs.

The irradiated rods are then shipped to the Savannah River Site, an NNSA production facility near Aiken, South Carolina. The Savannah River Site extracts the tritium from the irradiated rods, purifies it, and adds it to the existing inventory, according to the NNSA’s Fiscal Year 2018 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that has two neutrons and one proton. It has been described as an essential component in every nuclear weapon in the U.S. stockpile. It occurs naturally in small quantities but must be manufactured to obtain useful quantities. It enables weapons to produce a larger yield while reducing the overall size and weight of the warhead in a process known as “boosting,” the U.S. Department of Energy said in an environmental impact statement about 20 years ago.

But unlike other nuclear materials used in nuclear weapons, tritium decays at a rate of 5.5 percent per year—its half-life is about 12 years—and it must be replenished periodically…….

The new agreement follows a determination by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on August 21 that allows the NNSA to continue transfers of enriched uranium from DOE’s inventories in support of national security, the NNSA said in a press release.

The rest of this story, which you will find only on Oak Ridge Today, is available if you are a member: a subscriber, advertiser, or recent contributor to Oak Ridge Today.  https://oakridgetoday.com/tag/tritium-production/

August 31, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Lawmaker presses for quicker action to help military clean-up crews of USA’s 1966 nuclear accident in Spain

 https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2018/08/29/lawmaker-presses-for-quicker-action-to-help-clean-up-crews-of-a-deadly-military-nuclear-accident/, By: Leo Shane III WASHINGTON — Veterans exposed to radioactive debris more than five decades ago haven’t made much progress in the courts to have their illnesses recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs, so now they’re hoping Congress can intervene.

On Wednesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., joined a group of advocates to unveil new legislation that would force VA to offer presumptive status to veterans involved the 1966 cleanup of an accident involving nuclear bombs in Palomares, Spain, an incident that may have given radiation poisoning to more than 1,600 American service members.

“These veterans were exposed to nuclear materials without any warning or protection that today would be considered routine,” Blumenthal said. “The quickest way to get them what they deserve now is for Congress to act.”

Veterans involved in the accident have been unsuccessfully petitioning VA on their case since the mid-1970s, after a host of strange cancers and other illnesses began appearing among individuals involved in the Palomares incident.
In January 1966, seven airmen were killed and four more injured when a B-52 crashed into a KC-135 during a refueling mission off the coast of Spain. The B-52 was carrying four nuclear weapons at the time of the accident, and two of them exploded near the town of Palomares, spreading radioactive plutonium over hundreds of acres.

U.S. officials quickly ordered military personnel into the area to collect contaminated debris, crops and soil in an effort to repair the damage.

But veterans involved in that clean up say they were given no protective clothing or respiratory devices, and told very little about the potential long-term health effects about exposure to the nuclear material.

John Garman, one of the first airmen on the scene, said he remembers loading thousands of 55-gallon drums with contaminated top soil that was sent back to the United States for safe disposal.

“The civilians who buried those barrels in South Carolina were covered under federal law, but not us,” said Garaman, who developed bladder cancer at age 35 and multiple respiratory problems in later years. “Since I first filed in 1981, the VA has denied all of my claims.”

Department officials have long insisted that not enough scientific evidence exists to classify all of the health problems as service-related illnesses, and spotty Air Force records of the work and contamination levels have added to the problem.

Last December, the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School filed suit against VA to force recognition of the illnesses and benefits payouts, but that case has yet to move forward. Officials from Vietnam Veterans of America said many of the affected troops are elderly or deceased, meaning further delays could prove tragic.

Blumenthal called VA’s refusal to address the Palomares issue the latest in a long line of controversial decisions related to wartime exposure.

Recently, VA has come under criticism for its opposition to grant presumptive benefits status to so-called “blue water veterans” who served in ships off the coast of Vietnam and claim extensive Agent Orange contamination in their daily work. Several veterans groups have also accused the department of not doing enough to document illnesses connected to the use of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

VA officials have warned that deivating from long-held scientific standards for benefits awards could create financial problems for the department, by opening up support payments to tens of thousands of additional veterans.

Blumenthal said he does not believe this group presents a significant new financial burden for the department. But, he also called the cost issue irrelevant.

“This is about the principle of helping these veterans,” he said.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | health, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Colorado River polluted since 1969 by nuclear explosion fracturing experiments

Ken Raskin 31 Aug 18  They detonated 5 nuclear bombs under parachute Colorado and Rangley. Not so far from Aspen Colorado. The radionuclides have been pouring  into the headwaters of the Colorado river and Colorado for years. Rangely and  Parachute have 15 times normal average for cancer.

Following the Project Gasbuggy test, two subsequent nuclear explosion fracturing experiments, 5   nuclear bombs total, were conducted in western Colorado in an effort to refine the technique. They were Project Rulison in 1969 and Project Rio Blanco in 1973. In both cases the gas radioactivity was still seen as too high and in the last case the triple-blast rubble chimney structures disappointed the design engineers. Soon after that test the ~ 15-year Project Plowshare program funding dried up. The underground aquifer and gas still radioactive

These early fracturing tests were later superseded by hydraulic fracturing technologies.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

A second Hanford radioactive waste tunnel in danger of collapse

Second Hanford radioactive tunnel collapse expected. And it could be more severe, BY ANNETTE CARY, acary@tricityherald.com, August 28, 2018   RICHLAND, WA 

The possible collapse of a second Hanford tunnel storing radioactive waste is both more likely than thought a year ago and the effects potentially more severe, according to Hanford officials.

The risk of failure, based on Department of Energy nuclear safety standards, has increased from “unlikely” to “anticipated,” and the potential severity has been increased from “low” to “moderate,” according to the ranking.

The severity of the possible collapse is still not ranked as “high,” but it would be a significant event with the potential for the airborne release of radioactive particles, said Dan Wood, chief operating officer of the CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., a Hanford contractor.

After the partial collapse in May 2017 of the older of two tunnels storing radioactive waste at Hanford’s PUREX processing plant, an initial structural analysis of the second and longer tunnel was conducted.

The analysis concluded that the second tunnel, built in 1964, needed to be stabilized.

But concerns increased after a video inspection of the interior of the tunnel was done this spring, Wood said. At a hearing Monday night, he explained the risks posed by the nuclear reservation’s second tunnel……..

The first tunnel, which is 360 feet long and stores eight railcars loaded with contaminated equipment, was filled with grout by November 2017. Ecology allowed the grouting under emergency conditions without a public hearing.

A second public hearing is planned at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 5 at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St., Seattle.   https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article217470425.html

August 31, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

The way that Donald Trump could start a nuclear war

Here’s how Donald Trump could start a nuclear war, Quartz, By Tim Fernholz, August 28, 2018 The more you know about nuclear weapons, the more worried you might be.

Jeffrey Lewis is an arms control expert and analyst of the high-stakes diplomacy conducted around North Korea’s nuclear program. He is also so worried about the future that he wrote a book explaining how easily Donald Trump could stumble into nuclear war.

The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States, published by HMH on Aug. 7, is a work of speculative fiction that draws on deep factual knowledge. It is framed as the report of future government commission investigating a nuclear conflict that has left 1.4 million Americans dead, with Lewis acting as its rapporteur.

While Trump’s well-documented impulsiveness and shoddy policymaking process weigh heavily, Lewis does not depict the president’s character recklessly launching nuclear missiles at rivals. Instead, the reality depicted in The 2020 Commission demonstrates how the assumptions of all parties—the South Korean government, Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian state, and the US government—leave perilously little room for error.

Far more readable than your average government report, the story is centered on an all-too-believable scenario and I will avoid spoilers. By and large, the public—and perhaps many lawmakers—believe that North Korea cannot yet attack the US with a nuclear weapon, that US air defenses could stop it, and that clear, timely communication between all parties is possible. But three key factors at the heart of the story are also likely to be true in real life:

  • North Korea likely has nuclear weapons capable of striking not just South Korea and Japan, but also the US, contrary to claims by government officials that the country does not yet have a “reliable” way to launch its weapons.
  • The US missile defense system is unlikely to stop any nuclear missiles launched at the US, and the US military has little ability to prevent the launch of missiles from North Korea ahead of time.
  • The lack of clarity around each country’s motivation, particularly the psychology of Kim Jong Un, leaves a grey area ripe for nuclear actors to mis-interpret each other’s signals of deterrence.
  • Nor, perhaps, do many Americans understand the nature of the nuclear threat against them, which Lewis depicts by drawing on graphic eye-witness testimony from the Hiroshima attacks.
  • Earlier in 2018, Trump said North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat after he held a summit with Kim. The summit produced no lasting agreement. Before and since, Lewis predicted that Trump would use any positive signals to declare that he had solved the problem of North Korea’s nuclear threat, and that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons. When these two realities collide, Lewis warned, Trump will have to lose face, or blame the North Koreans—a recipe for increasing tension. ……..https://qz.com/1370887/a-book-predicts-trumps-nuclear-war-with-north-korea/

August 29, 2018 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Slow death of nuclear power, leaving stranded radioactive trash

Radioactive waste stranded as U.S. shifts from nuclear energy, Lack of a long-term repository leaves communities as de facto storage sites, Chemical and Engineering News, by Jeff Johnson, special to C&EN, AUGUST 28, 2018 

The U.S. appears to be witnessing the slow death of nuclear power. Plants are aging out and retiring, and their place in the electricity marketplace is being captured by cheaper, simpler, and less controversial sources—particularly natural gas plants and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

But even as reactors shut down and communities eye former nuclear sites for redevelopment, a big problem remains: Despite more than 50 years of laws, regulations, lawsuits, and debates, the U.S. has no long-term repository for nuclear waste—nor even much of a plan for one.

A decade ago, more than 120 reactors generated electricity in the U.S., and the nuclear power industry and federal regulators were heralding a nuclear power renaissance. Today, however, operating reactors have dropped to 98. Twelve more reactors have committed to shutting down by 2024, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates nuclear power generators.

The rest of the current reactors will also likely close over the next two decades as they reach their expected lifetimes. Two power plants remain under some level of construction, half of the number planned a year ago.

As reactors shut down, radioactive spent fuel from decades of electricity production remains in pools and casks on the plant sites, much to the chagrin of nearby residents and civic leaders. They want the waste gone and the land put to productive use.

Al Hill is the mayor of Zion, Ill., a 25,000-resident community on the shore of Lake Michigan, 45 miles north of Chicago. In 1973, two reactors at Zion Nuclear Power Station began generating power for the region and operated until 1998. Since then, the plant has been successfully decommissioned, and by the end of this year, most concrete structures and the reactor cores will be hauled to low-level radioactive disposal sites, Hill says. However, 64 5-meter-tall, 150-metric-ton waste canisters will remain, lined up like giant bowling pins on a concrete slab 90 m from the lakeshore……….

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a U.S. geologic repository was to be operating by 1998. That act called for the creation of two waste repositories, one each in the eastern and western parts of the U.S. It also laid out a process to examine and select potential waste sites from several candidates. In 1987, however, Congress amended the law, modifying it in such a way that only Yucca Mountain in Nevada could qualify as a geological waste repository. The law was nicknamed the “screw Nevada bill.”

The state has opposed hosting a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain from the start, notes geologist Allison Macfarlane, who served as NRC head from 2012–14 and before that was a member of a special blue-ribbon committee that examined the site-selection process. Some geologists, Native American tribes, and environmental organizations have also opposed a Yucca Mountain repository. Nevertheless, geologic site studies, pilot plant construction, and policy planning slowly advanced.

But while campaigning for president in Nevada in 2008, Barack Obama promised to cancel the site. When elected, he followed through and killed Yucca, then created the 15-member commission that included Macfarlane. The commission did not reconsider the geological suitability of Yucca Mountain as a waste repository. Rather, it spent two years examining the site selection process. It ultimately recommended a total overhaul of the site assessment and selection process, including having the process led by a “single-purpose federal corporation” instead of the Department of Energy. The commission also recommended a “consent-based” process with incentives offered to encourage communities and states to accept the waste.

Commission members pointedly said the Yucca Mountain approach had been a “top-down, federally mandated solution” that was forced onto a community and eventually would fail. …….

“I don’t get the sense that nuclear waste is a high priority for the Trump administration,” former NRC head Macfarlane says. “There is no real group to put pressure to resolve the waste issue, except the people living near the shutdown sites. The nuclear industry is struggling right now, and they aren’t likely to pour money into this, and Congress appears willing to let it be.” Macfarlane still supports a consent-based approach for repository selection and would not comment on the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a repository

Meanwhile, NRC spokesperson McIntyre notes that two companies, Holtec International and Interim Storage Partners, are pursuing consolidated interim storage facilities and have applied for NRC licenses. The two sites are near one another in the southwest on both sides of the border between Texas and New Mexico.

Operations would be years away, McIntyre adds, and would require a complex—and also controversial—transportation plan to move the huge casks of radioactive material through much of the U.S.

Also, NRC is nearly ready to publicly release a proposed regulation to speed the decommissioning process. The regulation is needed, McIntyre says, because decommissioning is likely to become much more common and does not hold the same risks as an operating plant. Communities are watching closely for changes that might threaten safety, Hill says.

The regulation will have far-reaching impact, McIntyre notes, since the decommissioning process can legally take up to 60 years and will affect some 80 communities. But spent fuel removal will remain on hold, stored in casks or pools, until transportation and long-term repository issues are addressed. https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/Radioactive-waste-stranded-US-shifts/96/web/2018/08

August 29, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | 1 Comment

Nuclear waste stuck on California beach with nowhere to go

HOW A NUCLEAR STALEMATE LEFT RADIOACTIVE WASTE STRANDED ON A CALIFORNIA BEACH, Nuclear waste is all dressed up with nowhere to go, The Verge By Rachel Becker  Aug 28, 2018   When I got to the San Onofre State Beach about 60 miles north of San Diego, the red sun of fire season was sandwiched on the horizon between a layer of fog and the sea. Surfers floated in a line off the shore. It looked like any other California beach — except for the row of signs that warned “Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Area,” and the twin reactor domes rising above the bluffs.
I was there to see the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, a shuttered nuclear power plant right next to the Pacific Ocean. It once supplied electricity to Southern California, but was permanently shut down in 2013. It’s now scheduled to be dismantled, but even when that happens, more than 1,700 tons of spent nuclear fuel will remain — interred in enormous concrete casks behind a seawall. There’s nowhere else to put it.

On the beach, perspectives on the plant ranged from resignation to frustration. “It’s part of the landscape now,” said one man walking his dog. A woman who was roasting marshmallows in the sand with her family said it’s eerie to see the plant when she’s out surfing: “You turn around and take a wave, and you just see these nuclear boobs staring out at you.” Her husband wondered what will happen with the spent nuclear fuel now that the plant is no longer operating. “No citizen wants it here permanently, but nobody wants to take it,” he said. “So we’re just in a really hard spot. What are you supposed to do with it?”

It’s a question that nuclear power plants around the country are reckoning with as low natural gas prices, costly repairs, and political pressure have driven a half dozen reactors to retire early since 2013, according to the Department of Energy. More are slated to shut down in the next ten years — including Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant, Rob Nikolewski reports for The San Diego Union-Tribune. That leaves communities that are no longer benefiting from nuclear power saddled with its waste — cooling off in gigantic pools of water made out of reinforced concrete or steel and concrete containers called dry storage.

All those containers of fuel left behind mean that no one can use the land for anything else. And the problem is widespread: spent fuel from commercial reactors is scattered across roughly 80 sites in 35 different states, according to the Government Accountability Office. It wasn’t supposed to be like this: for decades, the plan has been to bury highly radioactive nuclear waste underground. (There were also proposals to bury the waste in the ocean or shoot it into the sun — but those weren’t as practical, according to a report by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.)

The idea is that a geologic repository would keep the waste away from people as the radioactivity decays — which can take hundreds of thousands of years, depending on the material. In the 1980s, the government settled on Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the most likely spot and planned to start taking shipments of spent nuclear fuel in 1998. In return, the deal was that utilities — really, their customers — would start paying ahead into a fund that would cover the costs. But Nevada politicians like Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) hated what became known as the “screw Nevada bill,” and the project has hit delay after delay ever since.
Now, utilities like Southern California Edison, which operated San Onofre, are stuck in a holding pattern: guarding the waste, and suing the government for billions of taxpayer dollars to pay for it. “The federal government has not fulfilled their obligation to come take the fuel from this plant site, or any commercial plant site,” Ron Pontes, team manager of decommissioning environmental strategy at San Onofre, told me. “So, until they do so, the fuel is here and we are charged with taking care of it.”
Verge Science’s video team and I went on a tour of the plant to see what it means to take care of that fuel.  ……….
There are a few possible fixes. Two different private companies have applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for licenses to construct interim storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico. But the key word there is interim: these sites would be temporary holding areas for fuel that will eventually move to a permanent repository — like Yucca Mountain, the controversial site in Nevada that’s about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and across the state line from Death Valley in California.

At first, the list of possible long-term repositories for highly radioactive waste was longer than just Yucca Mountain. Hanford in Washington state and Deaf Smith County in Texas also rose to the top, according to a report by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. Plus, there were supposed to be two repositories, so that one state wouldn’t be stuck with an entire nation’s nuclear waste. “And then the idea was you couldn’t do this quick and dirty, you’d spend several years and a billion dollars at each of those three sites,” says Robert Halstead, executive director of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects……….

 Now, a bill introduced by John Shimkus (R-IL) that passed the House in May proposes to clear the way for the licensing to proceed and would authorize interim storage facilities. It would let Nevada negotiate compensation in return for hosting the repository, ensure the DOE has the land rights it needs for the site, and increase the amount of waste that could be stored in the Yucca Mountain repository.

The bill probably won’t get anywhere. “Historically, the Senate’s not going to move,” Shimkus said in an interview with The Verge. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) called the bill“dead on arrival” in the Senate. But Shimkus says the bill shows the House’s collective support for funding Yucca Mountain. That’s key as the House and the Senate haggle over the budget for fiscal year 2019. “We’re waiting to see how this final dance happens,” Shimkus says.

Halstead, over at Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, said, “The bill is a declaration of war on the state of Nevada.” There are two big things wrong with it, according to Halstead: “They think that they can force this down Nevada’s throat, and they’re not going to be able to — and secondly, they think the Department Of Energy can carry out the program,” he says, adding that the state of Nevada can “whup the Department of Energy. So bring it on.”………https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/28/17765538/san-onofre-nuclear-generating-station-radioactive-spent-fuel-waste-yucca-mountain

August 29, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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