On Thursday, the four whistle-blowers, including a radiation safety officer who reported directly to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, gathered with environmentalists to describe the problems with the cleanup, which has cost the federal government $600 million. In the background, construction crews were at work redeveloping the property, where 1,200 units of housing, millions of square feet of commercial space and hundreds of acres of parks are planned.
David Anton, an attorney for the workers, said the Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency — as well as the district attorney and state attorney general — should immediately launch investigations into the cleanup, a process that should include interviews with former workers and the retesting of the soil at the site. Also, the nonprofit Greenaction for Healthand Environmental Justice filed a petition with the NRC to revoke the license of contractor Tetra Tech, which oversaw the cleanup at the Superfund site.
“Talk to the workers who were involved in the fraud. Find out what fraud was taking place, and then test and sample based on reality,” Anton said. “The Navy has fought at virtually every step a real look at contamination at Hunters Point.”
Questions over the accuracy of the soil tests emerged in October 2012, when the Navy discovered that some results were inconsistent with results from previous samples collected in the same areas. While the dirt in question was identified as having been collected from beneath a lab used to conduct radiation tests on animals, an internal investigation found that in at least 386 cases it had been pulled from areas already given a clean bill for radiological contamination.
On Thursday, the former workers said soil samples from areas known to be highly contaminated were switched with dirt gathered from the foundation of an old movie theater, where there were minimal toxic chemicals. Anton alleges that at least 2,500 samples were faked.
Robert McClain, a radiation technician who worked at the site in 2005, said Tetra Tech management ordered him to increase the speed of a conveyor-belt system he operated — even though the soil carried by the belt could not be properly tested for contaminants at the faster speed.
“Management was production-driven,” he said. “They wanted to run it faster so they could get the soil moved. I was told by Tetra Tech officials that I didn’t know what I was doing. I have 25 years experience in the nuclear power business.”
In a statement, Tetra Tech spokesman Charlie MacPherson said the company “emphatically denies the allegations made by individuals at today’s news conference that Tetra Tech engaged in a cover-up of fraud on the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.”
FivePoint Holdings, the company developing the property, said its “utmost concern is the safety of our residents and employees. We are confident in the oversight process of the Environmental Protection Agency and other local and state agencies to insure when we take title of a parcel it is up to the standard consistent with the designated uses.”
J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com
July 1, 2017
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By JON GAMBRELL, DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Once expunged from its official history, documents outlining the U.S.-backed 1953 coup in Iran have been quietly published by the State Department, offering a new glimpse at an operation that ultimately pushed the country toward its Islamic Revolution and hostility with the West.
The CIA’s role in the coup, which toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh and cemented the control of the shah, was already well-known by the time the State Department offered its first compendium on the era in 1989. But any trace of American involvement in the putsch had been wiped from the report, causing historians to call it a fraud.
The papers released this month show U.S. fears over the spread of communism, as well as the British desire to regain access to Iran’s oil industry, which had been nationalized by Mosaddegh. It also offers a cautionary tale about the limits of American power as a new U.S. president long suspicious of Iran weighs the landmark nuclear deal with Tehran reached under his predecessor……..
The 1,007-page report , comprised of letters and diplomatic cables, shows U.S. officials discussing a coup up to a year before it took place. ……..
The report fills in the large gaps of the initial 1989 historical document outlining the years surrounding the 1953 coup in Iran. The release of that report led to the resignation of the historian in charge of a State Department review board and to Congress passing a law requiring a more reliable historical account be made.
Byrne and others have suggested the release of the latest documents may have been delayed by the nuclear negotiations, as the Obama administration sought to ease tensions with Tehran, and then accelerated under President Donald Trump, who has adopted a much more confrontational stance toward Iran……
Die-hard opponents of Iran’s current government might look to 1953 as a source of inspiration. But the Americans involved in the coup acknowledged at the time they were playing with fire.
Widespread Iranian anger over the heavy-handed Western intervention lingered for decades, and fed into the 1979 revolution, when Iranians seized control of the U.S. Embassy and held those inside captive for 444 days. To this day Iran’s clerical leaders portray the U.S. as a hostile foreign power bent on subverting and overthrowing its government.
As President Dwight Eisenhower wrote in his diary in 1953, if knowledge of the coup became public, “We would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear.” Online:
State Department report: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Iran https://apnews.com/5111167bcaf84892b01eea93eea4bc01
July 1, 2017
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http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article158751159.html BY ANNETTE CARY acary@tricityherald.com A bill that would allow ill Hanford workers to more easily get worker compensation claims approved has popped up very late in the state legislative session.
It’s essentially the same as a bill passed earlier this year by the House. But the initial bill failed to be scheduled for a vote to pass out of the Senate Commerce, Labor and Sports Committee before an early April deadline.
Since then, three Democratic state senators from the west side of the state have introduced a new Senate bill that was scheduled to be discussed on Wednesday in an executive session of the same Senate committee. But the executive session was canceled after a hearing on another bill ran long.
Now the committee is unlikely to meet again this session as the Legislature works to pass a budget by Friday, making chances slim that the bill will advance this year. But the introduction of the new bill signals continued interest by lawmakers in the issue.
Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, introduced the new Hanford worker bill, SB 5940, out of concern for worker safety after the partial collapse of Hanford tunnel storing highly radioactive waste was discovered in May, according to her staff. Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, and Sen. Guy Palumbo, D-Maltby, also are sponsors.
The breach in the tunnel resulted in an emergency order for more than 3,000 workers to shelter in place, some for hours, before it was determined that no airborne radioactive material had been released. No one was injured.
But concern remains because of aging infrastructure at Hanford, some dating to the 1940s, while the Department of Energy is expected to continue cleanup of radioactive and hazardous chemical contamination at the nuclear reservation for decades to come. Hanford produced plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons programs from World War II through the Cold War.
Proving a worker compensation claim can be impossible for workers, when even DOE may not know precisely what workers are exposed to at Hanford, said workers and former workers who testified at hearings on HB 1723.
The state Department of Labor and Industries requires proof that an exposure to chemical vapors or other hazardous chemical or radioactive materials at Hanford caused a worker’s illness.
But the original bill that passed the House, HB 1723, and the new Senate bill, SB 5940, would require the state agency to presume that a wide range of illnesses were caused by working at Hanford. A worker would have to be assigned to just one eight-hour shift anywhere at Hanford to be covered.
DOE, which is self-insured and hires a contractor to administer worker claims, could rebut the presumption that disease was caused by Hanford exposure with evidence about a worker’s health, including smoking, weight, lifestyle, hereditary factors or exposure from other activities.
Covered diseases would include a wide range of cancers, respiratory disease, any heart problems experienced within 24 hours of an exposure, and neurological disease. The coverage would continue for a worker’s lifetime.
The Washington Self-Insurers Association opposed the bill, pointing out that one eight-hour shift on a site half the size of Rhode Island would entitle a worker to a presumption of coverage for life.
July 1, 2017
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Hackers breached a US nuclear power plant’s network, and it could be a ‘big danger’, Business Insider, SONAM SHETH JUN 30, 2017
- A US nuclear facility was breached in a cyberattack, outlets reported on Wednesday.
- The attack was contained to the business-associated side of the plant, and evidence indicates that critical infrastructure was not affected.
- But cybersecurity experts say that now that the network has been infiltrated, the nuclear systems have become “much more vulnerable.”
Unidentified hackers recently breached at least one US nuclear power plant and the situation is being investigated by federal officials, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News on Wednesday.
The name and location of the plant have not been released, but cyberattacks have affected “multiple nuclear power generation sites this year,” according to E&E News, which was the first to report the story.
It is not yet clear who launched the attack and whether it is connected to a global cyberattack that crippled several countries and corporations beginning on Tuesday.
The breach was contained to the business-associated side of the plant, officials said. So far, little information has come out about the origins of the hack, code named “Nuclear 17,” but evidence indicates that the attack was not serious enough to prompt alerts from the public safety systems at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the International Atomic Energy Agency, E&E reported. The information available thus far indicates that nuclear safety is not immediately at direct risk.
But cybersecurity experts say that now that hackers have infiltrated the system, nuclear safety could be at risk down the road. “If a nuclear power facility is attacked on the business side, that might actually serve as a way of information-gathering” for hackers, Paulo Shakarian, founder of the cybersecurity firm CYR3CON, told Business Insider. In some cases, hackers will try to “see if, by reaching that system, they can get more insight into what the facility is using on the operational side,” Shakarian said.
“This could be a big danger,” he added. “And it could lead to another attack that could be more serious.” Though nuclear power providers have rigorous practices in place to divide business and nuclear operations in their networks, experts say an attack on one could inform an attack on the other.
A breach to the business-associated end of a nuclear power plant “is very severe and very scary,” said Greg Martin, the CEO of cybersecurity firm
JASK. He said that while it was “wonderful” that network segmentation prevented hackers from being able to attack critical infrastructure directly, “the business side has tons of information about the more vulnerable infrastructure side of these types of plants.”
That information can include emails; communications involving design plans; information about security assessments; emails or documents that contain passwords; and more. Martin echoed Shakarian’s assessment and added that some information that can be gleaned from a breach like this can open up a window that “can be used to set up for future, more damaging attacks just based on the proprietary information they’re able to steal.”….
In the case of the nuclear power plant breach, Martin said once hackers had accessed the business network, “it is much, much more vulnerable” despite having a firewall and being segmented off from the operational side.
“And that can have dramatic effects,” he said.https://www.businessinsider.com.au/nuclear-power-plant-breached-cyberattack-2017-6?r=US&IR=T
June 30, 2017
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Nuclear experts warn of a march to war with North Korea, Salon,com Ex-nuclear commanders from around the world are urging Trump to engage in talks with North Korea instead, MATTHEW ROZSA, 29 June 17, A group of ex-nuclear commanders issued a strong warning on Wednesday that pointed out the world is at the precipice of a potential nuclear war, and urged America to open up dialogue with North Korea.
Hailing from China, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States, the Nuclear Crisis Group determined “that the risk of nuclear weapons use, intended or otherwise, is unacceptably high and that all states must take constructive steps to reduce these risks.” They called on the United States and NATO to establish military-to-military talks with Russia and recommended that India and Pakistan set up a nuclear hotline.
The group was created earlier in 2017 with the approval of Global Zero, an arms control group that ultimately wants to abolish nuclear weapons.
The letter came as H. R. McMaster, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters during a security conference with Homeland Security Chief John Kelly on Wednesday that “the [North Korean] threat is much more immediate now and so it’s clear that we can’t repeat the same approach – failed approach of the past.”…. http://www.salon.com/2017/06/29/nuclear-experts-warn-of-a-march-to-war-with-north-korea/
June 30, 2017
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House panel votes to advance Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, The Hill, BY TIMOTHY CAMA – 06/28/17 A House committee voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to advance a bill meant to move along the stalled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
June 30, 2017
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A near-disaster at a federal nuclear weapons laboratory takes a hidden toll on America’s arsenal , Science Repeated safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Laboratory’s work on the cores of U.S. nuclear warheads By The Center for Public Integrity, Patrick Malone Jun. 29, 2017 Technicians at the government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory settled on what seemed like a surefire way to win praise from their bosses in August 2011: In a hi-tech testing and manufacturing building pivotal to sustaining America’s nuclear arsenal, they gathered eight rods painstakingly crafted out of plutonium, and positioned them side-by-side on a table to photograph how nice they looked.
At many jobs, this would be innocent bragging. But plutonium is the unstable, radioactive, man-made fuel of a nuclear explosion, and it isn’t amenable to showboating. When too much is put in one place, it becomes “critical” and begins to fission uncontrollably, spontaneously sparking a nuclear chain reaction, which releases energy and generates a deadly burst of radiation.
The resulting blue glow — known as Cherenkov radiation — has accidentally and abruptly flashed at least 60 times since the dawn of the nuclear age, signaling an instantaneous nuclear charge and causing a total of 21 agonizing deaths. So keeping bits of plutonium far apart is one of the bedrock rules that those working on the nuclear arsenal are supposed to follow to prevent workplace accidents. It’s Physics 101 for nuclear scientists, but has sometimes been ignored at Los Alamos.
As luck had it that August day, a supervisor returned from her lunch break, noticed the dangerous configuration, and ordered a technician to move the rods apart. But in so doing, she violated safety rules calling for a swift evacuation of all personnel in “criticality” events, because bodies — and even hands — can reflect and slow the neutrons emitted by plutonium, increasing the likelihood of a nuclear chain reaction. A more senior lab official instead improperly decided that others in the room should keep working, according to a witness and an Energy Department report describing the incident.
Catastrophe was avoided and no announcement was made at the time about the near-miss — but officials internally described what happened as the most dangerous nuclear-related incident at that facility in years. It then set in motion a calamity of a different sort: Virtually all of the Los Alamos engineers tasked with keeping workers safe from criticality incidents decided to quit, having become frustrated by the sloppy work demonstrated by the 2011 event and what they considered the lab management’s callousness about nuclear risks and its desire to put its own profits above safety.
When this exodus was in turn noticed in Washington, officials there concluded the privately-run lab was not adequately protecting its workers from a radiation disaster. In 2013, they worked with the lab director to shut down its plutonium handling operations so the workforce could be retrained to meet modern safety standards.
Those efforts never fully succeeded, however, and so what was anticipated as a brief work stoppage has turned into a nearly four-year shutdown of portions of the huge laboratory building where the plutonium work is located, known as PF-4.
Officials privately say that the closure in turn undermined the nation’s ability to fabricate the cores of new nuclear weapons and obstructed key scientific examinations of existing weapons to ensure they still work. The exact cost to taxpayers of idling the facility is unclear, but an internal Los Alamos report estimated in 2013 that shutting down the lab where such work is conducted costs the government as much as $1.36 million a day in lost productivity.
And most remarkably, Los Alamos’s managers still have not figured out a way to fully meet the most elemental nuclear safety standards. ……
these safety challenges aren’t confined to Los Alamos. The Center’s probe revealed a frightening series of glaring worker safety risks, previously unpublicized accidents, and dangerously lax management practices. The investigation further revealed that the penalties imposed by the government on the private firms that make America’s nuclear weapons were typically just pinpricks, and that instead the firms annually were awarded large profits in the same years that major safety lapses occurred. Some were awarded new contracts despite repeated, avoidable accidents, including some that exposed workers to radiation…….
George Anastas, a past president of the Health Physics Society who analyzed dozens of internal government reports about criticality problems at Los Alamos for the Center, said he wonders if “the work at Los Alamos [can] be done somewhere else? Because it appears the safety culture, the safety leadership, has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
Anastas said the reports, spanning more than a decade, describe “a series of accidents waiting to happen.” The lab, he said, is “dodging so many bullets that it’s scary as hell.”http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/near-disaster-federal-nuclear-weapons-laboratory-takes-hidden-toll-america-s-arsenal
June 30, 2017
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Repeated radiation warnings go unheeded at sensitive Idaho nuclear plant Center fr Public Integrity 29 June 17
“…….Key findings
- The chairman of a safety committee at Idaho National Laboratory wrote a memo in 2009 warning that damaged plutonium plates could endanger workers. He said in a legal deposition that he shared it with 19 people at the lab, including high-ranking managers.
- The managers ignored most of his recommendations, he said. An accident occurred in which 16 workers inhaled plutonium dust particles. Two minutes beforehand, a supervisor who had been warned about the risks relayed an order for it to proceed.
- Three workers sued, claiming their inhalations brought injury and illness. Though BEA, the contractor running the lab, disagreed about the severity of the exposures, it settled the suits confidentially and then petitioned the federal government to pay its legal fees and settlement costs.
- Word of this incident reached local newspapers, but there were other radiation exposures at the lab — both before and after this incident — that did not attract public notice. Despite work stoppages and re-training of workers, unsafe conditions persisted, according to government reports.
- The year of the plutonium-exposure accident, BEA received 92 percent of all the profit its contract made available — $17.1 million. In 2012 the Energy Department withheld $500,000 in profits from BEA for radiation events, but later gave all of the money back to the company. In March 2014, the Department of Energy extended BEA’s contract to operate Idaho National Laboratory for five more years without holding a competition……..https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/repeated-warnings/
June 30, 2017
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“If President Trump wanted the United States to be truly ‘energy dominant,’ he’d invest in clean energy innovation instead of slashing renewable energy research. He’d have us lead on climate change, instead of retreating from leadership on the world stage by withdrawing the Paris climate agreement”
“Want to know what Trump’s idea of energy dominance looks like? Look no further than his crony cabinet. Thanks to this administration, Washington is more dominated by Big Oil, Gas and Coal executives and their shills than ever — and they’re having their way with American democracy,”
Trump’s road to ‘energy dominance’ excludes renewables http://reneweconomy.com.au/trumps-road-energy-dominance-excludes-renewables-16457/, By Mark Hand on 30 June 2017 ThinkProgress
President Donald Trump on Thursday touted a list of actions that he said will allow the United States to achieve “new era of American energy dominance,” while environmental groups decried the actions as gifts to corporate polluters that will harm both the climate and the clean energy sector.
The full potential of the nation’s “vast energy wealth” can be realized only “when government promotes energy development,” Trump said in a speech at the Department of Energy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
However, experts counter that the nation’s economic security depends on taking measures to address climate change. The vast amounts of fossil fuels in the United States and around the world will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change.
Trump told energy executives in the audience that they have “gone through eight years of hell.” Under his administration’s initiatives, “the golden era of American energy is now underway,” the president said. The president’s statement overlooked the tremendous growth in natural gas production and renewable energy that occurred during President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.
Declaring an end to the “war on coal,” Trump announced that the Department of Treasury will remove barriers to U.S. government financing of new coal plants overseas. Led by the Obama administration, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reached an agreement in 2015 that removed financial support for large coal-fired power plants, while allowing support for smaller coal plants in developing countries.
Studies show that building new coal-fired plants, including in developing countries, will disproportionately affect the world’s poor and. With most of the households in developing countries beyond the reach of electricity grids, new coal-fired power plants will unlikely bring them electricity.
Most experts also agree that low natural gas prices, not federal regulations or policy decisions, have had the greatest impact on declining coal production in the United States.
Other prominent items on the list were a presidential order to conduct a review of the nation’s nuclear energy policy. Trump also said his administration will implement a new offshore oil and gas leasing program that will create access to “the energy wealth right off our shores.” The Interior Department said Thursday that it is publishing a “request for information,” seeking comments from the public on what areas should be open for drilling, the first step in redoing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year plan.
As part of the theme of using exports to create “energy dominance,” Trump said the Department of Energy plans to approve two new applications for liquefied natural gas exports from the Lake Charles export terminal in Louisiana. He also said he has approved plans to build a new petroleum pipeline from the United States to Mexico. “It’ll go right under the wall,” Trump said.
With newly elected South Korean president Moon Jae-in scheduled to meet with Trump on Thursday, the president noted that San Diego-based Sempra Energy has formally agreed to negotiate a potential LNG export contract with South Korea.
Environmental groups condemned the administration’s list of actions. “Trump’s rhetoric on energy falls short of the reality in which he’s cancelling life-saving public health standards that protect clean air and water just to boost the profits of fossil fuel executives,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement.
Trump’s speech marked an “appalling conclusion” to what the administration has called “energy week,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters.
“If President Trump wanted the United States to be truly ‘energy dominant,’ he’d invest in clean energy innovation instead of slashing renewable energy research. He’d have us lead on climate change, instead of retreating from leadership on the world stage by withdrawing the Paris climate agreement,” Sittenfield said in a statement. “Without a doubt, Trump’s dirty energy week was a failure, with only vague policies that would benefit corporate polluters, while putting our natural heritage, our families’ health and our economic well-being at risk.”
Trump’s speech was preceded by a roundtable, moderated by energy industry consultant and author Daniel Yergin, that included Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Perry explained it was research conducted at the DOE’s national laboratories that helped create early-stage directional drilling that allowed companies to extract natural gas at a much cheaper cost.
As part of its budget, though, the Trump administration requested a cut that would take about $900 million from the Office of Science, which oversees the DOE’s 10 national laboratories.
Pruitt said the job of the EPA is to “let the markets make decisions on what provides stable, cost-effective fuel to generate electricity” and not stand in the away of technology that helps to meet emissions standards.
David Turnbull, campaigns director at Oil Change International, said the “energy dominance” tagline “reveals an attitude toward our environment and energy policy that would destroy communities and our climate in order to feed his own desire to feel powerful over others.”
“Want to know what Trump’s idea of energy dominance looks like? Look no further than his crony cabinet. Thanks to this administration, Washington is more dominated by Big Oil, Gas and Coal executives and their shills than ever — and they’re having their way with American democracy,” Turnbull said in a statement. “Someone should put the leash back on Donald Trump, while the rest of us keep working to make America the leader it needs to be in renewable energy innovation and job creation.”
Also in his speech Thursday, Trump again addressed his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, describing it as “one-sided” and burdensome to U.S. businesses. The president left the door open for re-joining the agreement. “Maybe we’ll be back into it some day, but it will be on better terms. It will be on fair terms,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
June 30, 2017
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House energy bill spends $3.6B more than Trump budget, The Hill BY DEVIN HENRY – 06/27/17 House appropriators on Tuesday introduced a spending bill for federal energy and water departments that spends $3.65 billion more in 2018 than President Trump requested for the agencies.
The bill, which funds the Department of Energy (DOE), nuclear weapons oversight, the Army Corps of Engineers and other departments, would spend $37.56 billion total in 2018, a $209 million cut from current funding levels.
But the measure is a rejection of Trump’s budget proposal, which looked to deeply slash spending for the initiatives funded by the legislation.
The House bill would cut funding for several DOE programs, including energy agencies, research, nuclear power and renewable energy programs, though few are close to the cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
Renewable energy research, for instance, is cut by $986 million over current levels, but that is $468 million less than the cuts for which Trump had aimed.
Fossil fuel research offices would receive $635 million under the bill, a $33 million cut compared to the $388 million cut President Trump had requested.
The bill increases funding for the DOE’s nuclear weapons security programs and the Army Corps of Engineers. It also contains $150 million to kickstart the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, a priority for Trump and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, but one that has garnered opposition from Nevada officials and lawmakers…….http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/339657-house-energy-funding-bill-would-spend-36b-more-than-trump
June 30, 2017
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Trump’s Plans for a Nuclear Revival Will Begin With a Study, Bloomberg, By Jennifer A Dlouhy, June 30, 2017,
-
As part of White House Energy Week, nuclear in the spotlight
-
Nuclear reactors face competition from gas and wind power
President Donald Trump has a plan to help the aging fleet of U.S. nuclear reactors estimated to be losing nearly $3 billion a year: study the issue.
At the culmination of the White House “Energy Week,” Trump is set to announce a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear regulation, stopping short — for now — of the big federal interventions advocates say are needed to revitalize the industry, which is struggling to compete against cheap natural gas and dispose of its radioactive waste.
“I have no idea what a review will tell us that we don’t already know,” said Mike McKenna, a Republican energy strategist with close ties to the administration. “For anyone who knows nuclear, there’s no doubt about what needs to be done. It’s a question of doing it — not talking about it.”
In his speech, Trump is also set to describe how growing exports of oil and natural gas are creating domestic jobs, helping allies abroad and boosting the global influence of the U.S., according to a person familiar with the matter. Along with the nuclear review, Trump will highlight U.S. coal exports to Ukraine, the person said, declining to be identified before the announcement. The nuclear assessment is set to go further than other, more discrete reviews by analyzing an array of regulatory challenges and possible prescriptions for fixing them.
Rescuing the nuclear industry is a costly, complex challenge for the Trump administration. Subsidizing at-risk nuclear reactors to keep them online through 2020 would require an estimated $2.9 billion annually, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. And making deeper market changes to better compensate nuclear power plants for the reliable, zero-carbon electricity they offer depends on action by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which lacks a working quorum.
And while a House committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would revive research on permanently stashing spent radioactive material at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the idea is politically fraught and opposed by most of that state’s lawmakers.
Top Trump administration officials have been touting nuclear power as an important economic and national security asset, with Energy Secretary Rick Perry promising to “make nuclear energy cool again” and insisting the U.S. needs to regain a “leadership role” developing it…….
ClearPath has pushed for the Energy Department to stage a “grand challenge” with the goal of getting at least four advanced reactors under construction within a decade. The group also advocates electricity market reforms that could give extra value to power that comes from resilient, reliable sources.
Nuclear enthusiasts — including some invited to attend Trump’s speech at the Energy Department Thursday — have advanced a slew of ideas to help the struggling power source with its chief problems, which include a costly government licensing process for new designs. The administration’s planned nuclear review could address the barriers holding back new advanced reactors that rely on sodium, lead and molten salt to for cooling.
Without waiting for Congress, the administration could stand up a government Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and begin securing land and water rights for Yucca Mountain, McKenna said……
The Trump administration’s proposed budget would slash Energy Department funding for nuclear energy by more than 28 percent, including support for the development of small modular reactors.…https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-29/trump-s-plans-for-a-nuclear-revival-will-begin-with-a-study
June 30, 2017
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FT 28th June 2017, The White House has not ruled out providing government support for
Westinghouse, the bankrupt US nuclear group, as the Trump administration
works to ensure that the US remains a force in the nuclear industry. A
senior White House official said the administration is holding regular
discussions about Westinghouse since the company entered Chapter 11
bankruptcy proceedings in March.
Officials are trying to find a buyer for
Westinghouse to ensure it does not fall into Chinese or Russian hands, but
the White House is aware that without an acceptable private-sector solution
the group may need government help to remain under US control. https://www.ft.com/content/f1937a88-5c0f-11e7-9bc8-8055f264aa8b
June 30, 2017
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APPROPRIATIONS House bill would slash key DOE programs Geof Koss and Christa Marshall, E&E News reporters Greenwire: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 Department of Energy research and renewable energy programs would see a major funding reduction under the fiscal 2018 House energy-water appropriations bill released today, while the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) would be eliminated entirely.
The $37.5 billion bill, set for subcommittee markup tomorrow morning, would give DOE $209 million less than the fiscal 2017 spending level but $3.65 billion above the administration’s request, according to a GOP summary.
Funding priorities in the proposal include nuclear weapons activities and energy and water infrastructure, the summary said.
Nuclear weapons programs would see $13.9 billion under the bill, which House appropriators say equals a nearly $1 billion boost above fiscal 2017 enacted levels.
That amount includes $340 million for construction of South Carolina’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, a perennial source of tension between Congress and the executive branch.
Energy programs at DOE would see $9.6 billion next year under the bill, an amount the committee says represents a $1.7 billion cut from fiscal 2017 enacted levels but $2.3 billion more than the administration had sought.
The summary says the legislation prioritizes “early-stage research and development funding for the applied energy programs,” intended to help advance “the nation’s goal of an ‘all-of-the-above’ solution to energy independence.”……..
Yucca Mountain, Russia
House Republicans seized on President Trump’s embrace of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository that’s stalled in Nevada.
The spending bill includes $90 million to advance the project northwest of Las Vegas, which the Obama administration deemed unworkable under the watchful eye of former Senate Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, a fierce opponent.
According to the bill, money would come from the Nuclear Waste Fund. The House measure would also provide $30 million for DOE’s work on disposing of defense-related nuclear waste and $30 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue Yucca permitting activities.
The bill also lays out individual percentages that affected counties in Nevada would receive for hosting Yucca Mountain. Should the funding fail to be distributed, local officials would be cut off from future dispersals.
Furthermore, the spending bill stipulates that any money counties receive cannot be spent on litigation, interim storage or activities inconsistent with the legislation.
The bill does not otherwise include any money or language addressing interim storage of nuclear waste — a hot issue for senators eager to see solutions move forward given that Yucca could take years to complete……
The House bill also includes language that would bar any federally appropriated money from being used to forge new contracts or agreements with Russia related to nuclear nonproliferation projects without approval from the Energy secretary……… https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056660
June 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
ENERGY, politics, USA |
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Contract to manage LANL is up for bid, Albuqueque Journal SANTA FE, N.M. — The competition for a multibillion-dollar contract to manage the U.S. laboratory that created the atomic bomb is beginning as criticism intensifies over the troubled safety record of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday posted online its intent to conduct a competition for the lab’s management and operation contract.
The agency said the process will provide the best opportunity to improve the terms and conditions of the lucrative contract to provide performance incentives at the northern New Mexico nuclear weapons research center.
The current contract with Los Alamos National Security LLC – a private consortium that includes Bechtel and the University of California – expires in September 2018. The NNSA decided against extending the contract, which has a $2.2 billion annual budget, after a series of subpar performance reviews……https://www.abqjournal.com/1024832/up-for-bid.html
June 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA |
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Nuclear breach opens new chapter in cyber struggle, Blake Sobczak and Peter Behr, E&E News reporters Energywire: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 U.S. authorities are investigating a cyber intrusion affecting multiple nuclear power generation sites this year, E&E News has learned.
There is no evidence that the nuclear energy industry’s highly regulated safety systems were compromised. But any cybersecurity breach — targeted or not — at closely guarded U.S. nuclear reactors marks an escalation of hackers’ probes into U.S. critical infrastructure.
Electricity-sector officials confirmed yesterday that they are working to unpack the significance of the secretive cyber event, code named “Nuclear 17.”
Asked about the case, a representative from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) said the nonprofit grid overseer “is aware of an incident” and has shared information with its members through a secure portal.
U.S. energy utilities pass around information on the latest hacking threats and vulnerabilities through NERC’s Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center. That organization “is working closely with the government to better understand any implications this incident might have for the electricity industry,” NERC spokeswoman Kimberly Mielcarek said in an emailed statement.
E&E News has reached out to nearly two dozen owners and operators of nuclear power plants for comment. None of the companies that replied by last night shared additional information on the incident, the details of which may be classified…….
Nuclear 17 and recent threats
An incident of this kind would almost certainly attract the attention of the Department of Homeland Security and the broader intelligence community, though a DHS spokesman did not confirm whether the agency was involved yesterday. If the threat rises to a certain level, members of Congress with intelligence oversight would also be looped in. Senate staff members would not confirm if they’re looking into the nuclear breach when asked for comment yesterday afternoon.
Even relatively routine cyber intrusions at sensitive facilities can trigger a high-level response from government and industry, given the potential stakes involved. In another recent nuclear breach, a South Korean state-owned utility reported losing potentially sensitive data to hackers in 2014 and 2015, though the attackers didn’t get into operational systems (Energywire, July 14, 2015).
Earlier this month, however, back-to-back cybersecurity warnings from U.S. officials put grid operators on high alert.
The twin threats came from Hidden Cobra, the U.S. government’s nickname for North Korean government-sponsored hackers, and Electrum, a separate group that cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc. has linked to a first-of-its-kind hacking tool designed to disrupt power grids.
NERC posted its first public alert of the year this month about that grid-focused malware, which Dragos calls “CrashOverride.” Experts claim it was used last December to briefly knock out power to part of Ukraine in an attack tentatively linked to Russia-based hackers. DHS issued its own alert about CrashOverride, then followed up with a separate report on a far-reaching campaign of North Korean cyber activity hitting “critical infrastructure sectors” in the United States and globally.
It’s not clear where Nuclear 17 fits into that timeline of recent cyber events. But even if it never jeopardized nuclear processes or grid reliability, a successful breach of non-safety systems at a nuclear power plant is troubling, said David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“If they are able to introduce mayhem there, what else could they do?” he said.
Nuclear plants had an extra margin of safety in their legacy controls that were “old tech” and thus harder for outsiders to penetrate. “As more and more systems are converted to digital controls, there could be more and more opportunities for problems to crop up, deliberate or inadvertent,” Lochbaum said.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry are not unaware of that threat,” he added. Even if safety systems were not apparently affected as part of Nuclear 17, malicious actions directed against comparatively less critical equipment could still have knock-on effects if hackers managed to unexpectedly disconnect a nuclear plant from the grid, experts say.
Such a sudden disruption would send a pressure “pulse” back to the reactor and turbine, which would still be generating electricity with no place to send it. The reactor would immediately “trip,” setting in motion a series of planned actions designed to bring the reactor to a safe shutdown condition…… https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056628
June 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
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