Are Trump’s tweets undercutting U.S. diplomacy? Beyond apparent policy disagreements between the president and Rex Tillerson, the State Department struggles to absorb mixed signals. The Atlantic, KRISHNADEV CALAMUR 3 OCT 17, President Trump’s tweets Sunday, declaring it a waste of time to try to negotiate with North Korea, appeared to contradict the sentiments of his own chief diplomat, who is at least formally taking the lead on the administration’s North Korea policy. It wasn’t the first time the two men seemed to express different positions on significant foreign-policy issues. But there’s a deeper story beyond whatever temperamental or policy gulf may exist between Trump and Tillerson as individuals—and that is how the contradictions affect the sprawling foreign-policy apparatus Tillerson is supposed to run.
“One can never be sure whether the policies we’re working on will be supported by the president or not,” a State Department official, who was not authorized to speak to the press and asked for anonymity, told me. “It creates a great deal of uncertainty and obviously further harms morale in an environment in which morale is already very low.”……
at the State Department, reports about poor morale have abounded since Tillerson assumed his position in February. The secretary was described as aloof, his plans to reorganize the State Department were criticized, and the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the department’s budget by 30 percent was met with horror. A hiring freeze at the department, combined with the fact that most of the senior positions requiring Senate confirmation are still vacant, have also resulted in multiple news reports about dysfunction.
Added to all this is the perception that Trump doesn’t care about the work the State Department is doing. The president has not only appeared to contradict Tillerson publicly on Qatar, NATO, and Iran—besides North Korea—he has also appeared to suggest that his “America First” message is not simpatico with multilateral cooperation with America’s traditional allies.
At one point, he thanked Russia for its expulsion of U.S. diplomats in retaliation for a similar step by the Obama administration, as well as its seizure of Russian compounds in the U.S., because, in Trump’s words, “we’re trying to cut down our payroll.”…..https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/trump-tillerson/541671/
Will these rockets be powered by plutonium? And if so, what happens if there’s an accident, and one plunges into a city?
LANL engineer looks for partners for cheap space flight, LA Monitor, By Tris DeRoma, October 2, 2017
Joseph Archer wants to start a company to take ordinary citizens into space With all the millions of dollars spent on space tourism today, the Los Alamos National Laboratory radiological safety employee has a plan to do it more efficiently, and cheaper.
His first step is to get a group of investors together who are genuinely enthusiastic and interested in the idea…..The project will involve launching a one-ton payload into space within a year of the company’s formation. He estimates he could do it for an amount between $200,000-$600,000.
“As a group of retired professional and technical types, there is little doubt that we can accomplish such a modest objective,” he said in his statement……..
In his argument, he talks a lot about how the Germans were able to accomplish much with little when they built the V-2 rocket in World War II.
One Los Alamos resident, Alan Hack, said in a letter to the Los Alamos Monitor that there was a huge difference between the wartime German program and what’s happening today in civilian space travel.
“Comparing costs to manufacture the V-1 ignores that it was built by slave labor from the captured countries as the Nazi regime did not have enough German labor to meet the huge demands for war production. Your manned rocket cannot be as cheap as you estimate,” Hack said…..http://www.lamonitor.com/content/lanl-engineer-looks-partners-cheap-space-flight
The Energy 202: Rick Perry manages to unite oil, gas, wind and solar — against him, WP By Dino GrandoniOctober 3
As he did nearly a year ago to win the presidency, Donald Trump has done the seemingly impossible and brought together disparate coalitions of unlikely interests. This week, it happened again when Trump managed to unite an unlikely band of fossil-fuel and renewable-energy advocates.
These 11 energy associations are working together. Together, that is, against the Trump administration’s latest energy policy directive.
On Monday, a coalition of 11 energy lobbying groups asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to delay issuing and enforcing a new rule issued by the Energy Department. EnergySecretary Perry had asked for FERC to streamline the rulemaking process but the groups want time to weigh in during the traditional comment period.
The coalition attracted some strange bedfellows, including renewable-energy lobbyists such as the American Wind Energy Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association and oil and gas heavyweights such as the Natural Gas Supply Association and the American Petroleum Institute……..
In a letter and proposed regulation, Perry asked FERC to consider issuing new rules to ensure that nuclear and coal-fired plants are compensated not only for the electricity they provide to homes and businesses, but for the reliability they add to the grid…….
What the groups have on their side: While technically housed under the Energy Department, FERC is an independent agency. In the case of Perry’s recommendations, the 5-member commission has the leeway to accept or reject them wholesale. By allowing no more than three commissioners to be from the same party, the commission is supposedly untethered from party influence.
Nuclear – Power The Extraordinary – New Ad Campaign Touting Marvels of Atomic Technology, Forbes, Rod Adams, 30 Sept 17,The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) announced in early September that was starting a new advertising campaign with completely reimagined creative materials.Using the general tagline of “Nuclear. Power the Extraordinary” the U.S. nuclear industry’s trade organization will be speaking “to the critical role that nuclear technology plays in our lives. With dramatic visuals, the new campaign captures the far-reaching benefits that nuclear technology brings to air quality, economic vitality, public health and exploration of new worlds.”……..
Since taking over as NEI’s President and CEO last year, Maria Korsnick has emphasized the importance of taking a new approach to maximizing nuclear energy’s “immense potential.” She has stressed the need for the industry to advocate for itself.
“I am truly passionate about the role that nuclear energy can play for our nation and the world. I consider it the unsung hero of our energy mix…My focus is to get nuclear energy recognized as an essential part of the nation’s industrial and electrical infrastructure.”……..
Trump says North Korea talks are ‘waste of time’ President contradicts Tillerson’s statement that lines of communication are open Ft.com by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington, 2 Oct 17 Donald Trump dismissed the prospect of talks with Pyongyang as pointless barely a day after his secretary of state said the US was using new channels of communication to weigh the possibility of negotiations with North Korea about its nuclear programme. “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Mr Trump tweeted on Sunday morning. “Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”.
In a second tweet later in the day, he added: “Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.”
The US president’s interventions came after Mr Tillerson told reporters during a visit to China that Washington had three direct channels of communication with North Korea……..
Richard Haass, president of the US Council on Foreign Relations, slammed Mr Trump for undercutting his secretary of state. “Potus truly misguided here-& SecState should resign,” he tweeted on Sunday. Ian Bremmer, head of Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy, said the president’s comments were the “stupidest tweet on national security I’ve ever seen from a sitting head of state”………
After Mr Trump used a speech at the UN to describe Mr Kim as “Rocket Man . . . on a suicide mission” and threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, Mr Kim responded by calling the US president a “mentally deranged dotard” while his foreign minister said Pyongyang would consider detonating a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean…….
To send a strong signal to Mr Kim, the US has been conducting increasingly frequent high-profile exercises around the Korean peninsula, sometimes with Japan and South Korea. Last weekend, US warplanes flew farther north from the demilitarised zone — that separates South and North Korea — than at any point in the 21st century. In combination with the military warnings, Washington is leading a global campaign to ratchet up economic pressure on North Korea in an effort to squeeze the regime, cut off funding for weapons programmes, and force Pyongyang to the negotiating table. The UN has recently imposed two sets of harsh sanctions that — combined with previous measures — embargo 90 per cent of North Korean exports. The US has also imposed unilateral sanctions and has punished Chinese and Russian companies that have been accused of facilitating weapons development in North Korea.https://www.ft.com/content/cd2087a0-a5f1-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97 Follow Demetri Sevastopulo on Twitter: @dimi
Donald Trump to reward ‘reliable’ coal, nuclear power plants, THE AUSTRALIAN , TIMOTHY PUKO, The Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration is urging independent energy regulators to change how electricity is priced, proposing new rules that would bolster revenue for coal-fired and nuclear power plants.
The Energy Department is mandating that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission consider new rules that would effectively raise power prices to pay more to plants considered more resilient. The department suggests nuclear and coal-fired plants as potential recipients, and charges FERC with tweaking electricity markets so they give more of a reward to plants that have at least three months of fuel on site and can run uninterrupted through extreme weather, disasters or other emergencies.
Nuclear and coal-burning technologies were probably the only ones able to meet the requirements, experts said. Under the proposal, eligible plants would get paid enough to cover their costs and a “fair return on equity” whenever they run, even though they sell into competitive markets.
FERC, which regulates wholesale power markets, is under no obligation to make these changes, only to consider them. FERC officials were reviewing the proposal, a spokeswoman said. Any changes made would likely be implemented by the grid operators that run deregulated power markets under FERC’s oversight.
This type of intervention from the Energy Department is rare, according to energy lawyers and analysts. It appeared the department hadn’t made a similar request since 1979 when, at the height of that decade’s oil crisis, it encouraged FERC to help transition the country to natural gas and away from fuel oil, said David Doot, a lawyer at Day Pitney, which has been researching the topic.
The move is the administration’s latest attempt to support fossil-fuel businesses. It has worked to roll back or delay rules its officials say were unwieldy and unfair attempts by the Obama administration to promote renewable power.
But environmentalists and other critics see the trend as a political effort to follow up a Trump presidential campaign heavy on promises to the fossil-fuel industry and denials of climate change. Some critics claimed it was a bailout for failing nuclear and coal businesses, and criticised the proposal for blocking out options like batteries and smart-grid technologies that also could increase reliability.
Nuclear and coal-fired plants have become an urgent target because dozens have closed nationwide and others are threatened. Those plants, often referred to as baseload, have been the country’s primary source of power for decades, raising questions about how reliably the nation’s grid would function if those plants shrink to become only a minor source of power……
Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and abroad and highlights the efforts of those who are working for a nuclear free world. Here is our September 217 report.
As Hurricanes Batter the Caribbean and Southeast US, Nuke Plants in Texas And Florida Refuse To Shut Down, Heightening Risk To Already Devastated Communities.
On September 19 the Austin (TX) American-Statesman ran this story “South Texas Project stayed open during Hurricane Harvey.” South Texas Project is a nuclear plant with two reactors near Bay City, TX on the Gulf Coast, 90 miles from Houston.It has been operating since the late 1980s. Austin Energy is one of three utilities that owns it.
The newspaper article’s subtitle was “Some question decision to keep Texas nuclear plant open during Harvey.”
The American Statesman reported, “An evacuation of surrounding areas and flooding fears kept the plant’s storm crew in the plant for nine days.” But management had planned for a stay of only three days and the A-E also reported “the Colorado River is only two miles away” and “it was forecast to crest a week after the storm hit.”
Fortunately the floodwaters didn’t reach the plant, so the nuke kept operating at 100%.
But Kathy Hedden, director of Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) told the American-Statesman “the risk wasn’t worth keeping the plant running.” And although winds “topped off at 40 mph–well below the 73 mph that would have triggered mandatory shutdown for the nuke, the paper reported. “tornadoes touched down just miles from the site.”
Kathy Hedden asserted “The South Texas Plant nuclear reactors, 90 miles south of Houston, could have shut down to ensure our health and safety, but instead played radioactive roulette. They prioritized profit and continued operating. Picture a nuclear disaster on top of that.”
The situation was much the same in Florida as Hurricane Flora roared in. Florida Power & Light, owner of the Turkey Point and St. Lucie nuke plants, each with two reactors, was preparing to shut them down during the storm. But when winds fell to less than hurricane force, and the utility wasn’t required by law to take them offline, FPL kept them running full force, except when a faulty valve at one Turkey Point reactor closed it down.
By the way, both reactors at Turkey Point are over 40 years old, as is one of St. Lucie’s.
On September 11 Newsweek reported that FPL had been “operating during Irma although the plant had not met federal safety requirements implemented after Fukushima.”
The Fukushima catastrophe in March 2011 followed a severe earthquake and tsunami, resulting in the meltdown of three of its reactors and a disaster that continues today.
Although nuclear plants produce electricity, they are also dependent on outside sources for electrical power as well. If the grid is down, the risk of serious accidents can increase.Newsweek consulted two nuclear experts on this matter.
David Lochbaum is director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The pump room is the Achilles Heel at Turkey Point,” he commented. “Without Cooling Water during an accident, workers must deploy backup to the backup system. At Fukushima workers were unable to accomplish this task in time to prevent the reactor core from overheating.”
And Maggie Gundersen, co-founder of Fairewind Energy and Education, like Lochbaum a former high level nuclear employee, added “”When there’s a possibility to lose power, why would you take the risk of that? That’s just hubris and a hug risk to the population.”
State troubled by Vermont Yankee rubble plan, Vt Digger, By Mike Faher, Oct 1 2017 BRATTLEBORO – State regulators and anti-nuclear activists are taking a stand against a proposal to reuse large amounts of Vermont Yankee’s concrete as fill when the plant is decommissioned.
The latest objections to the so-called “rubblization” plan come from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and the state Public Service Department. Officials want to know whether concrete from the retired nuclear plant is safe for burial on the Vernon property.
“We want to feel comfortable … that the material is truly clean,” said Chuck Schwer, director of the agency’s Waste Management and Prevention Division…….
The restoration of the Vermont Yankee site appears to be the biggest point of contention. At issue is how much NorthStar, after satisfying the NRC’s radiological cleanup requirements, will safely restore the site for future reuse……..
even after decommissioning, Vermont Yankee’s spent fuel will remain on site under 24-hour security surveillance until the federal government develops a central repository for high level nuclear waste.
“I wouldn’t say you wouldn’t be able to live there. I’m just not sure people would want to,” State said.
Whatever the property’s future, NorthStar’s plan to bury rubble on site is coming under intense scrutiny……..
Schwer told the advisory panel that, contrary to Entergy’s claims, the full extent of radiation contamination at Vermont Yankee remains a mystery. And officials say it’s not yet clear how NorthStar will address contamination before crushing and burying the concrete.
Schwer wrote in testimony filed with the utility commission that if tainted concrete is buried, “there is the potential that residual contamination could remain undetected below the surface, spread over time and pose a risk to public health and the environment.”…… https://vtdigger.org/2017/10/01/state-troubled-vermont-yankee-rubble-plan/#.WdFrqI-CzGg
Predicted collapse reignites worker safety concerns at WIPP, Adrian C Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus Sept. 29, 2017 Worker safety could yet again become a concern at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
A rock collapse in a portion of the plant’s underground mine where nuclear waste is permanently emplaced is expected in four to six weeks.
The collapse is expected in Room 6 of Panel 7 in the underground, which was off limits to workers for at almost a year before a Thursday announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy of a potential collapse.
Since it was sealed, no ground control measures took place in Room 6………
Rick Fuentes, president of the United Steelworkers Union Local 12-9477, which represents WIPP waste handlers, said the mine is safe for now.
But Fuentes worried that the underground can be unpredictable, and a collapse could occur sooner than expected.
“We’re not going to take any chances,” Fuentes said. “The underground is unpredictable. It could move faster.”……..
“When you deal with mother nature, it’s hard to know what will happen,” Fuentes said. “Day in and day out we have to stay on our A-game to ensure workers are safe.”
When measurements show the ground is unstable or if stability deteriorates at a dangerous rate, Fuentes said all underground activity will cease until conditions become safe.
An Obscure Statute Is Helping Trump Save U.S. Coal, Nuclear, Bloomberg ,By Catherine Traywick and Jim Polson
Rule would allow certain plants to recover operating costs
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has 60 days to respond
The Trump administration is taking advantage of an obscure 30-year-old statute to make good on a promise to help America’s ailing coal industry
Rick Perry is using an authority granted to him as U.S. energy secretary to call on the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to change its rules and help coal and nuclear plants compete in wholesale power markets. Perry said he’s seeking to ensure dependable power plants recover “a fair rate of return.” Those capable of storing 90 days of fuel supplies at their sites, such as coal and nuclear generators, would be eligible.
The move underscores the Trump administration’s determination to aid fossil fuels and rescue money-losing coal and nuclear power plants that have seen their profits squeezed by cheaper natural gas and renewables. Federal Register filings show a U.S. energy secretary hasn’t used this authority to direct the energy commission’s work since at least 1994……..
The energy commission, an independent agency under the Energy Department, has authority over power markets, though the energy secretary may propose rules to the commission. Perry is seeking final action within 60 days.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman vowed on Friday to fight the proposal, saying it “puts the interests of special interests ahead of the health, safety, and wallets of New Yorkers.”
The American Petroleum Institute said it was concerned that the Energy Department had “mischaracterized” the lessons learned from severe weather events that have taken down power resources in the U.S. in the past.
“We need to be careful that government doesn’t put its thumb on the scale,” said Marty Durbin, executive vice president at the institute, which represents oil and gas producers. “It’s better to let markets choose.”
In this documentary, Motherboard explores the life and legacy of the father of the hydrogen bomb. According to North Korea’s Foreign Minister, Kim Jong-un is considering testing its hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean in response to rising tensions with President Trump. But in order to understand the significance of the hydrogen bomb, you need to understand the people who created it.
In a 2013 video documentary, Motherboard explored the life of Edward Teller: the father of the hydrogen bomb, and the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s character Dr. Strangelove.
According to Ralph Moir, Teller’s student and eventual colleague, Teller believed that scientists bear no responsibility for the use of their creations.
“He wanted to make a contribution to mankind, but he’s also very interested in science and anything new,” Moir told Motherboard in 2013. “It was patriotic to have a strong defense. But also, it was fascinating science.”
However, not everyone agreed with Teller. In the 1940s, this gave way to an ethical debate that split the world into two groups: Those who sided with Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atom bomb, believed that a stronger successor to the atom bomb was dangerous and unnecessary. Those who sided with Teller believed in a benefit to building a weapon so destructive that it exists only in obsolescence.
The scientific community almost entirely sided with Oppenheimer, but President Truman sided with Teller. In 1952, the US successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb.
Later in his life, Teller would help launch Plowshare, a US experiment for nuclear weapons use in building and construction. Teller also believed the US should invest in geoengineering, nuclear engines for spacecrafts, nuclear testing in space, and nuclear reactors powered by thorium rather than uranium. None of these ideas have yet come to fruition.
It’s been over a decade since his death, but Teller’s name remains controversial.
Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry just proposed a massive bailout for coal and nuclear power plants. The radical and unprecedented move is couched under a false premise that power plants with fuel located on site are needed to guarantee the reliability of the electricity system. The proposal relies on a mischaracterization of DOE’s own recent study of electricity markets and reliability (discussed here), which if anything demonstrated that this kind of proposed action is not justified.
If adopted, the proposal would essentially ensure that coal and nuclear plants in regions encompassing most of the country continue to run even where they are too expensive to compete in the energy market. It would saddle utility customers with higher costs, while posing obstacles to the electricity system integration of cleaner and less risky energy sources such as solar and wind.
NRDC is still carefully analyzing the proposal, but below is a very preliminary take:
The proposal would bail out expensive and uncompetitive coal and nuclear plants
The proposal asks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to take action within 60 days that would financially prop up “fuel-secure resources,” which must have “a 90-day fuel supply on site enabling [them] to operate during an emergency, extreme weather conditions, or a natural man-made disaster.” This requirement is aimed squarely at coal and nuclear power plants, which would generally be able to satisfy these criteria.
Many coal and nuclear units are very expensive and are having trouble competing in the wholesale electricity market (as discussed here). So the proposal asks FERC to bail out these power plants by essentially guaranteeing them profits and insulating them from competitive market forces. The proposal amounts to a massive subsidy that would ensure the plants continue to operate, rather than being economically retired when they are more expensive than other units (including wind and solar) that sell electricity at lower cost.
The proposal would radically reshape electricity regulation for most of the country
The rule would have a massive scope, covering regional wholesale markets where electricity is bought and sold to serve most of the nation’s customers. It would apply to areas where the electricity system is operated by regional entities known as Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) or Independent System Operators (ISOs), which administer competitive markets for electricity. The RTOs tell the more expensive plants not to operate when there’s cheaper electricity available from other plants.
As shown in the map, [on original] RTOs cover most of California, the Midwest and southern states in the middle of the country, as well as the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is not subject to FERC jurisdiction and would not be covered by the proposed rule, if adopted.
Secretary Perry’s proposal would be a radical departure from the way FERC currently regulates electricity prices in these regions. Under FERC’s system, electricity prices in RTOs are governed by competitive market forces. A power plant is only insulated from this system by FERC under extremely limited circumstances, where a detailed examination of the grid reveals that the plant is needed for reliability purposes. The plant is then guaranteed its costs of operating, but only on a temporary basis, until a replacement can be constructed.
The proposal would lead to higher energy bills and more pollution
Customers across the country would ultimately foot the bill for supporting these more expensive plants. While no credible analysis has been conducted of the costs (which can’t even be done given the vagueness of the proposed rule), it is safe to assume that the toll would be many billions of dollars.
The proposal also would favor more expensive and risker power plants over cleaner and safer energy sources such as wind and solar power. Coal power plants emit a massive amount of pollution. They are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases causing climate change. Coal plants also cause an array of other problems, such as acid rain and asthma. And while low-carbon, nuclear energy poses myriad health and safety risks (discussed here).
The proposal is unjustified
The purported basis for the proposal is that “[t]he resiliency of the nation’s electric grid is threatened by the premature retirements of power plants that can withstand major fuel supply disruptions caused by natural or man-made disasters.”
But DOE’s own reliability report found that all regions of the country have excess supply of energy resources needed to meet demand. Furthermore, while it included a brief discussion of the potential benefits of on-site fuel supply, it also highlighted examples of power plants with on-site fuel supply failing, such as coal plants that could not operate during the 2014 Polar Vortex when their fuel supplies froze in the extreme cold.
The lesson that no type of power plant is immune to weather-related disruptions was clear during the recent hurricanes. Nuclear power plants had to be taken off-line in preparation for Hurricane Irma. Natural gas plants and pipelines suffered disruptions during Hurricane Harvey, and the onsite coal pile at a W.A. Parish plant in Texas became so saturated with rainwater that the coal could not be delivered into storage silos, forcing the plant to switch to natural gas for the first time in eight years.
Ultimately, the proposal’s justification is as flimsy as Secretary Perry’s initial suggested basis for subsidizing coal and nuclear—that “baseload” is necessary for the system, a myth that has been thoroughly debunked (as discussed here and here).
DOE is asking FERC to rush to judgment
FERC has already adopted detailed regulations to ensure the reliability of the grid, and follows established processes to consider any necessary tweaks. As DOE’s own report explained, these systems have worked to meet the industry’s high reliability standards even as the mix of generation serving customers’ needs has changed dramatically.
DOE is asking FERC to sidestep that normal process by adopting its radical proposal in a mere 60 days, a timeline that would make it impossible to conduct any of the rigorous analysis that would surely be necessary before making such extreme changes. DOE’s proposal is so vague that FERC could not possibly adopt it as is, making it hard to see how FERC could possibly advance it in a manner that complies the procedural requirements for a formal rulemaking proposal.
FERC should reject Secretary Perry’s proposal
Perhaps the only silver lining in Secretary Perry’s proposal is that DOE has no independent authority to adopt this proposed rule, which is already eliciting pushback from leaders like NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. As discussed here, FERC, not DOE, is the agency primarily responsible for regulating electricity markets. FERC should reject Secretary Perry’s outrageous and poorly thought out request.
In the coming weeks, deep inside the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, large blocks of salt rock are expected to collapse inside a room containing six irradiated vehicles, each holding gasoline. The room is packed with radioactive waste, and the entrance has been sealed to prevent workers from entering.
It is expected to be the fifth rock fall event in the last year in an area of the underground storage facility, Panel 7, where maintenance has been neglected since a waste drum breached on Valentine’s Day 2014. The accident released radiation into parts of the waste facility and closed the site for nearly three years.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday they are closely monitoring increasing movement in the walls and ceiling and keeping employees who work in the area informed about developments.
The collapse is predicted in four to six weeks.
The salt mine is expected to “creep” over time and slowly encase radioactive waste inside. Rock falls are not uncommon. But unlike previous anticipated collapses — one of which was measured at half the length of a football field and 8 feet wide — this one threatens to occur as waste shipments have resumed in the area, increasing the number of workers present and the amount of waste being handled.
“Right now we are evaluating our work processes to get a better understanding of when the roof potentially could fall and take appropriate action for our workforce,” said Todd Shrader, manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, during a WIPP town hall meeting Thursday evening.
“It is not an exact science,” he said.
All workers in Panel 7 are wearing protective clothing and respirators because of existing contamination.
But Don Hancock, with the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, said WIPP should be taking more measures to protect workers.
“They can’t prevent the ceiling from collapsing,” he said. “That is going to happen. But they should be keeping workers out around the time they expect it to happen, and until after it happens.”
WIPP is composed of a maze of carved salt tunnels, each with an offshoot of rooms used to permanently place transuranic waste. This includes materials like soil, gloves, tools and other equipment that have been contaminated by radioactive materials heavier than uranium at the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons sites.
Since WIPP opened in 1999, Panel 7 has been one of the most problematic regions of the facility. It was there, inside Room 7 of Panel 7, that an improperly packed drum of transuranic waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory burst in 2014.
The radiation compromised the facility’s ventilation system, hampering workers’ maintenance efforts. As a result, regular repairs to the large bolts and steel mesh cage used to hold the salt mine in place have not been completed, making collapses more likely and frequent.
Hancock said there is a risk of further radiation exposure when Room 6 collapses, as well as the potential for fuel inside the vehicles to cause a small fire.
There are six vehicles in Room 6 that were irradiated when the drum burst next door, and they hold a collective 527 gallons of fuel.
WIPP officials initially planned to drain the fuel, Shrader told the New Mexico Environment Department, but the plan was abandoned when officials decided the risk of collapse was too great to re-enter the room.
Bruce Covert, president of Nuclear Waste Partnership, which manages WIPP, said during Thursday’s town hall that cloth and metal in the room should contain most of the radiation after the collapse, but officials anticipate some contamination to spread.
Meanwhile, officials said they planned to move forward with waste storage work in the area and hoped to begin mining a new panel by late October, with the assistance of a temporary ventilation system.
Since waste acceptance restarted in April, WIPP has received 68 shipments, and it anticipated taking 258 more shipments between August 2017 and August 2018.
WIPP has reached about 52 percent of its capacity and is expected to be full by 2026, according to a September report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. But the Department of Energy is considering a plan to expand the type of waste WIPP can take, as well as a physical expansion of the plant.
Given past events, Hancock said, “I expect more problems. You have a dangerous situation and you have a contractor who has demonstrated that are not capable of operating this facility safely.”
Rick Perry proposes sweeping new steps to support coal and nuclear plants, WP, By Steven Mufson and Chris MooneySeptember 29 2017,Energy Secretary Rick Perry took sweeping steps on Friday to buttress a pair of financially-strapped nuclear plants under construction and redefine how coal and nuclear plants are compensated for the electricity they provide — a move that, if agreed to by independent federal energy regulators, could tilt some of the nation’s complex power markets away from renewables and natural gas.
Perry announced the Energy Department would provide $3.7 billion in loan guarantees to three Georgia utilities struggling to complete a pair of nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle generating plant. These loan guarantees come on top of $8.3 billion in loans the department has already given to the project, but they still might fall short of what will be required to complete the costly reactors.
The nuclear project has been running far over-budget and behind schedule, and the utilities have been scrambling to come up with financing after the main engineering company, Westinghouse, declared bankruptcy earlier this year.
NRDC’s report America’s Clean Energy Frontier: The Pathway to A Safer Climate Future lays out a clean energy pathway for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas pollution 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. These emissions cuts are necessary to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change. Our analysis shows that the U.S. can reach its 2050 carbon goals even with a steep decline in U.S. nuclear power as American reactors age and the economics of new nuclear reactors remain extremely challenging.
NRDC’s plan relies on existing technologies to cost-effectively achieve a clean, low-carbon future. Energy use is cut by 50 percent through efficiency and electric investments, with our cars achieving an average of 100 mpg. Wind and solar energy grow 13-fold from today’s levels, with renewables providing at least 80 percent of our power, allowing us to electrify buildings and cars to run with renewable energy. And a stronger, smarter and more resilient electricity grid supports the integration of these clean energy resources. By 2050, nuclear power provides just 3% of U.S. electricity, down from about 20% today, as aging U.S. nuclear power plants reach the end of their operating licenses.
Modeling a Potential for U.S. Nuclear Decline
The reduced role of nuclear power in NRDC’s pathway model primarily stems from the economic challenges facing the nuclear industry and the aging of the existing U.S. nuclear fleet. Our core scenario has only 20 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power plant capacity operating in 2050: an 80 percent decline from today. Due to the high cost of constructing new nuclear power plants and the current wave of nuclear retirements before the expiration of their Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-issued licenses, NRDC’s modeling assumed that only four nuclear reactors would be built between now and 2050 (and that may be optimistic).
The United State has 99 operating nuclear power reactors, but early retirement plans have been announced for seven reactors because of economic pressures. In addition, most U.S. nuclear power plants were built in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. These reactors have 60-year extended operating licenses, most of which will have ended by 2050—the target date for reaching an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Some may be able to get and to use an additional 20-year extension—but we assumed that only about one in five existing plants would operate beyond 60 years due to economic and safety challenges. Our plan shows increased renewable energy deployment more than makes up for the lost low-carbon benefit of nuclear generation.We are also skeptical of the role of what is called “advanced nuclear” for generating the electricity to run our homes and businesses in the time frame to mid-century—acknowledging that other researchers have projected a significant contribution from advanced nuclear in their modeling of 80% carbon reduction by 2050. We believe that a crucial challenge for advanced nuclear is that no working prototypes of such reactor designs exist or are firmly planned, and thus deployment at scale is generally uncertain but highly unlikely in the first half of this century.
This isn’t ideological hostility to nuclear power; it is pragmatic skepticism. NRDC is not opposed in principle to nuclear power, and acknowledges its beneficial low-carbon attributes in a warming world. However, we take seriously the significant safety, global security, environmental, and economic risks that use of this technology imposes on society. They include: environmental harms from uranium mining; safety and security of nuclear plant operations; nuclear weapons proliferation impacts; and spent fuel disposal. This demands more stringent, improved policy and regulation of the complete nuclear fuel cycle, beginning with the mining and milling of uranium and ending with the final disposal of radioactive wastes. Until these risks are properly mitigated, expanding nuclear power should not be a leading strategy for diversifying America’s energy portfolio and reducing carbon pollution.
Reinforcing this perspective, nuclear power is uneconomical compared to alternate forms of low-carbon electricity generation—even without considering those risks. Faced today with the seemingly irreversible decline of nuclear energy in the United States, and the enormous potential to scale up energy efficiency and renewable energy on a stronger electric grid, NRDC’s analysis concludes we can meet our U.S. climate goals even with a much-reduced nuclear fleet…..
Conclusion
NRDC’s analysis and recommendations focus on the time period from today to 2050. Between now and 2050, it is likely that the majority of today’s nuclear power plants will retire based on economics and license expiration alone. NRDC’s modeling and analysis shows that, if such is the case, we can replace nuclear generation with clean, renewable energy instead. Nevertheless, deep geologic storage of spent fuel and nuclear weapons proliferation will remain important problems for the United States along a pathway to a safer climate future in 2050. Whether new forms of nuclear power emerge and play a role after 2050 remains to be seen. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/matthew-mckinzie/nrdc-analysis-nuclear-energy-and-safer-climate-future
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