nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Distress and disarray in the U.S. nuclear industry

Distress in the US nuclear industry, https://www.financierworldwide.com/distress-in-the-us-nuclear-industry#.WTSVQZKGPGh  BY Fraser Tennant June 2017  

Financier Worldwide Magazine A US nuclear industry in distress is a development likely to cause concern among even the hardiest – yet ‘distress’ does not quite do justice to the extent of the issues currently troubling the industry stateside.

The origin of this elevated distress is the plight of Westinghouse Electric Company (WEC), the Toshiba Corporation-owned US nuclear company which has been haemorrhaging billions of dollars due to severe difficulties with a number of key projects and, as a result, has now filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Indicative in many ways of the struggles facing the global nuclear industry, WEC’s indigenous operations – in the main, four nuclear plants under construction in Georgia and South Carolina – have been hit by massive cost overruns and delays of nearly four years, leaving the Japanese conglomerate with a forecasted annual loss of 1.01 trillion yen ($9.1bn).

Satoshi Tsunakawa, Toshiba’s chief executive, has stated there is no risk of additional losses from overseas nuclear projects (which includes the £10bn Moorside nuclear project in the UK, Europe’s largest planned nuclear power plant). “The filing by WEC is an important step toward recovery,” said Mr Tsunakawa. “It is also in-line with our goal of limiting risk from overseas nuclear operations.”

On the other hand, Dr Paul Dorfman, from University College London’s Energy Institute, concludes that Toshiba’s nuclear gamble with Westinghouse has been the cause of the nuclear company’s financial problems. “Both corporations are in dire straits and face a relatively dismal future without significant public and governmental financial input,” he says. “In this sense, the situation mirrors that of new nuclear worldwide – because of the sheer expense of nuclear construction, without huge public and government subsidy, new nuclear is being left behind by the renewable evolution.”

Irreversible dark age

Considered to be something of a coup at the time, the $5.4bn purchase of Pittsburgh-based WEC by Toshiba in 2006 was swiftly followed by deals to build four reactors in 2008 – the first US nuclear plants to be approved by regulators since the controversial Three Mile Island incident in 1979. Today, WEC’s major power plant problems, not to mention its bankruptcy filing, threaten to plunge the US nuclear industry into an irreversible dark age.

“The Westinghouse bankruptcy is a huge blow to the US nuclear industry,” says Steve Clemmer, director of energy research for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Climate and Energy Program. “After three decades of not building new nuclear plants in the US, only a handful of companies are left in the world with the expertise to build new reactors. Westinghouse is building all four reactors currently under construction in the US and the bankruptcy will make it much harder for power companies in Georgia and South Carolina to finish these projects and collect money Westinghouse owes them. It will also have reverberations across the nuclear supply chain, because Westinghouse is holding $508m in claims from its top 30 creditors.”

More renewable, less new nuclear

As one might expect, the huge losses being incurred by WEC/Toshiba is serving to prompt the exploration of renewable energy opportunities rather than the pursuit of new nuclear projects. “Westinghouse’s recent experience clearly shows that building new nuclear plants in the US is considerably more expensive than new natural gas, wind and solar projects,” says Mr Clemmer. “Increased energy efficiency in homes and businesses is also reducing electricity demand and the need for new power plants. Utilities in South Carolina have already raised consumer electricity rates by nearly 20 percent since 2009 to pay for the construction of the new reactors, even though they have not generated any electricity yet.”

Concurrently, and bolstering the case for a renewed focus on renewable energy opportunities, the cost of wind and solar projects installed in the US has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2009. Furthermore, over the same period, US wind and solar capacity has almost tripled, adding 86,000 megawatts of new capacity – a quantity equivalent to the electricity produced by more than 23 new nuclear reactors.

“The key problem with new nuclear is cost-effectiveness,” states Dr Dorfman. “Solar costs have fallen by 50 percent in the last five years, and now significant new offshore wind projects will be built in Germany without any subsidy. With these very significant drops in renewable costs, nuclear is simply not cost-effective.”

Making nuclear competitive

Across the globe, the outlook for the nuclear industry looks bleak in the near-term, with the construction of new reactors hindered by significant cost and time overruns, and a number of existing nuclear plants economically vulnerable due to historically low natural gas prices. “Over the long-term, if new nuclear plants are to play a role in achieving deep reductions in global warming emissions by 2050 under the Paris Agreement, policies that put a price on carbon and invest in research and development will likely be needed to make nuclear competitive,” concludes Mr Clemmer.

In the US, while bankruptcy proceedings continue, Toshiba and WEC have been working with the owners of the Georgia and South Carolina projects to develop arrangements for the continuation of construction during an interim period – an arrangement which, although keeping work at the sites going and preventing further distress, is likely to do little toward finding a comprehensive solution that can reinvigorate the prospects of new nuclear in the US in the long-term.

June 5, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Escalating costs for South Carolina’s nuclear reactor project

Once-secret records reveal pattern of costly mistakes at troubled nuclear project,  BY SAMMY FRETWELL  sfretwell@thestate.com  4 June 17 Since 2009, companies working to build twin nuclear reactors in Fairfield County have made nearly three dozen changes to the project that drove up costs by about $325 million, according to recently released records and a state agency tracking the work’s progress.

The amount is a fraction of the escalating costs of the $14 billion V.C. Summer expansion project, but documents released May 24 by state utility regulators provide insight into why some of the costs have risen at a time of increasing concern by ratepayers.

The $325 million worth of changes represents the costs of additional work that was not expected when Westinghouse Electric and South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. launched the project about eight years ago. Some of the changes were to improve training for those who would operate the new reactors, while others were for better equipment and construction upgrades, the documents show.

 Dukes Scott, director of the state Office of Regulatory Staff, said documents known as “change orders’’ – construction jargon for project changes – had previously been kept confidential. The state Public Service Commission last month ordered their release………….

SCE&G customers already have paid at least $1.4 billion for the reactor project. About 18 percent of a customer’s current bill goes toward the plant’s construction. Customers have been hit with nine rate hikes to finance the work, and critics predict efforts to raise rates further if the project continues…….http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article154261279.html

June 5, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Legacy of Shoreham nuclear power plant (in pictures)

Generating controversy: The Shoreham nuclear power plant, http://www.newsday.com/long-island/history/generating-controversy-the-shoreham-nuclear-power-plant-1.13702920 [large set of excellent photos] June 2, 2017 The nuclear power plant built in Shoreham was initially sold as a solution for a power-hungry Island, a safe and economical source of electricity that would light 500,000 homes and last for several decades. The LILCO project instead generated intense controversy.

An estimated 15,000 people rallied in a driving rainstorm outside Shoreham’s gates on June 3, 1979, in what was then believed to be the biggest demonstration of any kind in Long Island history. Before the protest was over, 571 people were peacefully arrested. In the years after the protest, questions about the plant’s safety and its ballooning costs led to a state takeover of the Long Island Lighting Co. and the decommissioning of the plant. LIPA, which owns the property and operates a substation and other power facilities there, continues to express interest in redeveloping the site. But despite occasional calls to convert it for other uses, the property’s future remains uncertain.

The plant’s legacy included $6 billion in debt related to its closure and LIPA taking over LILCO, with $1 billion left to be paid, and vivid memories of a demonstration that captivated the Island on June 3, 1979.

After years of controversy, the Shoreham nuclear power plant was ordered closed on May 25, 1988. It was fully decommissioned in 1994.

June 5, 2017 Posted by | history, USA | Leave a comment

American cities, states, businesses and banks rally in support of Paris climate accord

Times 3rd June 2017 A coalition of American cities and states, led by the economic powerhouse of California, have vowed to resist President Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord. The United States Climate Alliance also includes dozens of US businesses and banks, including Goldman Sachs, which fear being excluded from a green energy revolution that willyield contracts worth billions.

As many as 30 states have already pledged to wean themselves off fossil fuels. The Democratic governors of Washington, New York and California plan to negotiate with the United Nations to be recognised as parties to the 195-nation pact — a highly unusual effort that underscored how Mr Trump’s decision has split the US.

The three states, which together account for about a fifth of US economic output, said they would stick by the commitment Barack Obama made under the Paris deal in 2015 to reduce emissions by at least 26 per cent from 2005 levels.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/thirty-states-defy-trump-and-refuse-to-abandon-paris-accord-mkpvgrrfz

June 5, 2017 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

New York ex-mayor Bloomberg leads the way in generous offer to make up USA’s funding to UN climate action

Independent 2nd June 2017, Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he will personally make up the $15m in funding that the United Nations will lose after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord.

The US would have been required to contribute that amount towards efforts to prevent catastrophic
climate change under the historic agreement between 195 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.“Americans are not walking away from the Paris climate agreement,” Mr Bloomberg said on Thursday, according to the Washington Examiner. “Just the opposite – we are forging ahead.

Mayors, governors, and business leaders from both political parties are signing on to a statement of support that we will submit to the UN and together, we will reach the emission reduction goals the United States made in Paris in 2015. The billionaire philanthropist added: “Americans will honour and
fulfil the Paris agreement by leading from the bottom up — and there isn’t anything Washington can do to stop us.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/former-new-york-city-mayor-michael-bloomberg-has-said-he-will-personally-make-up-the-15m-in-funding-a7769416.html

June 5, 2017 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Global warming is killing off America’s coral reefs

Scientists warn US coral reefs are on course to disappear within decades
New Noaa research shows that strict conservation measures in Hawaii have not spared corals from a warming ocean in one of its most prized bays, Guardian, Oliver Milman, 30 May 17, Some of America’s most protected corals have been blighted by bleaching, with scientists warning that US reefs are on course to largely disappear within just a few decades because of global warming.

New research has shown that strict conservation measures in Hawaii have not spared corals from a warming ocean in one of its most prized bays, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting yet more bleaching is likely off Hawaii and Florida this summer.

“I’m concerned because we could very well see bleaching return to Florida, parts of the Caribbean and Hawaii,” said Mark Eakin, a coral reef specialist at Noaa.

“It won’t be as severe as 2015, but we’ve now moved into a general pattern where warmer than normal temperatures are the new normal. US reefs have taken a severe beating. We are looking at the loss or at least severe degradation of most reefs in the the coming decades.”

A global coral bleaching event has shifted between the northern and southern hemispheres since 2014, affecting around 70% of the world’s reefs. The “terminal” condition of Australia’s sprawling Great Barrier Reef, which suffered bleaching along two-thirds of its 1,400-mile length in 2016 and 2017, has provoked the greatest alarm.

 But scientists have pointed out that America’s main reefs, found off Hawaii, Florida, Guam and Puerto Rico, are facing a largely unheralded disaster.

“The idea we will sustain reefs in the US 100 years from now is pure imagination. At the current rate it will be just 20 or 30 years, it’s just a question of time,” said Kim Cobb, an oceanographer at Georgia Tech. “The overall health of reefs will be severely compromised by the mid-point of the century and we are already seeing the first steps in that process.”

Bleaching occurs when prolonged high temperatures in the ocean cause coral to expel the symbiotic algae that provides it with food and colour. The coral turns a ghostly white, and can die if tolerable conditions don’t return. The world’s oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the extra heat generated by the release of greenhouse gases from human activity.

Cobb said regular annual bleaching events, which recent research has forecast happening by the 2040s, will “undercut the resilience of these ecosystems”. Corals not killed off by bleaching are left weakened by the process and are less likely to survive if repeatedly subjected to above-average temperatures.

“As scientists we are breathlessly trying to catch up,” said Cobb. “Things started to run away from us around 10 years ago but we were perhaps a little naive in not realizing that.”

In 2014 and 2015, Hawaii’s coral reefs suffered up to 90% bleaching, with some areas losing half of their coral cover. New research now shows that even one of the most protected parts of the Hawaiian coast was ravaged by coral bleaching………

Severe bleaching has swept across the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, with some areas altered beyond recognition. More than 80% of shallow water reefs off Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, have died, while images released from a survey last year showed 90% bleaching of reefs around Okinawa, Japan……..

Coral reefs are found in less than 1% of the world’s oceans but support a riot of colour and life, with around a quarter of all marine species relying upon the nooks and crannies of reefs for food or shelter. Reefs also act as a crucial coastal buffer from storms and provide food and livelihoods for millions of people. A study published this month foundthe global reef tourism industry is worth around $36bn.

“In the US our reefs are worth a huge amount but I don’t know if people realize that, more attention would not hurt,” said Dona, co-author of the Hawaii reef study.

“There are places in the world that have lost a tremendous amount of coral and we have the same prognosis if we continue to burn fossil fuels in the way we are doing. We need to cut our carbon emissions because the corals just can’t handle it.”https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/30/us-coral-reefs-global-warming-climate-change

June 5, 2017 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s pullout from Paris climate accord is NOT a good sign for the nuclear industry

Trump Paris About-Face Likely To Hurt, Not Help Nuclear, Coal Sectors, Wamstead on Energy, 

June 1, 2017 President Trump, with his fossil fuel fantasists in tow, made it official Thursday, announcing that he would pull the United States from the Paris climate change accord in order to “make America great again.” ….The issue at hand is the decision’s likely negative impact on the U.S.’ already-battered nuclear and coal industries.
For years the nuclear industry has been making the case that it was vital to the country’s climate change mitigation efforts because of its emissions-free generation profile. While accounting for just 20 percent of the nation’s annual electric generation, the industry noted ad infinitum, it was responsible for 60 percent of the carbon dioxide-free emissions . In a carbon-constrained world, that would be a valuable attribute. But the Trump administration has now made it clear that it places no value on CO2-free generation sources.
That, in turn, could be a major problem for the industry, as the effort to secure nuclear subsidies—successful so far in Illinois and New York (although now tied up in court), still pending in Ohio, Connecticut and now Pennsylvania—has relied in large part on the sector’s glowing greenhouse gas attributes. In an interesting twist, just before the administration’s head-in-the-sand announcement, Chicago-based Exelon said it would close the 837-megawatt Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in late 2019 because the facility couldn’t compete in the PJM electricity market, which sprawls across 13 states and the District of Columbia. The company largely blamed the market’s structure, including its failure to reward the plant for its emissions-free generation, for its decision to shutter the plant…..
the argument falls apart when the federal government, from the very top on down, essentially says such generation has no special value, and that is exactly what the administration has just done. If nuclear can’t clear the market economically—and TMI has not for the past three years—and policymakers don’t value its one unique attribute—emissions-free power—how then can you make a persuasive argument to keep the facility open……
What Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature and Democratic governor will do remains to be seen, and there are good arguments to be made on both sides. But unless the state’s Republicans have the fortitude to stand up to President Trump and his toadies, nuclear’s environmental attributes no longer have any value.
The same is true for the surprisingly bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill to expand tax credits and approve other measures designed to spur the development of carbon capture and storage technologies.  One such measure, the Carbon Capture Improvement Act introduced this spring in both the Senate and House, would allow companies to use private activity bonds issued by states or localities to finance carbon capture projects. These bonds, commonly used for infrastructure such as water and sewer projects, are tax exempt and have a longer repayment period, lowering a project’s development cost……
Today, we have an administration that doesn’t even believe in climate change, let alone carbon capture, so what value is there in offering federal support for such projects……..
The administration’s action undercuts those arguing to keep open the nation’s existing fleet of economically challenged but emissions-free nuclear plants; challenges the need for future nuclear construction (Why, for example, should the four over-budget, long-delayed reactors under construction in Georgia and South Carolina receive any preferential federal aid if climate change concerns are off the table?); and puts yet another nail in coal’s coffin by obliterating any justification to fund CO2 capture technologies. http://www.wamstedonenergy.com/2017/trump-paris-about-face-likely-to-hurt-not-help-nuclear-coal-sectors

June 5, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

What’s the real reason behind Trump’s pullout from the Paris climate agreement?

Why Trump Actually Pulled Out Of Paris  It wasn’t because of the climate, or to help American business. He needed to troll the world—and this was his best shot so far. Politico, By MICHAEL GRUNWALD June 01, 2017 Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement was not really about the climate. And despite his overheated rhetoric about the “tremendous” and “draconian” burdens the deal would impose on the U.S. economy, Trump’s decision wasn’t really about that, either. America’s commitments under the Paris deal, like those of the other 194 cooperating nations, were voluntary. So those burdens were imaginary.

No, Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from this carefully crafted multilateral compromise was a diplomatic and political slap: It was about extending a middle finger to the world, while reminding his base that he shares its resentments of fancy-pants elites and smarty-pants scientists and tree-hugging squishes who look down on real Americans who drill for oil and dig for coal.

He was thrusting the United States into the role of global renegade, rejecting not only the scientific consensus about climate but the international consensus for action, joining only Syria and Nicaragua (which wanted an even greener deal) in refusing to help the community of nations address a planetary problem. Congress doesn’t seem willing to pay for Trump’s border wall—and Mexico certainly isn’t—so rejecting the Paris deal was an easier way to express his Fortress America themes without having to pass legislation.

Trump was keeping a campaign promise, and his Rose Garden announcement was essentially a campaign speech; it was not by accident that he name-dropped the cities of Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, factory towns in the three Rust Belt states that carried him to victory. Trump’s move won’t have much impact on emissions in the short term, and probably not even in the long term. His claims that the Paris agreement would force businesses to lay off workers and consumers to pay higher energy prices were transparently bogus, because a nonbinding agreement wouldn’t force anything. But Trump’s move to abandon it will have a huge impact on the global community’s view of America, and of a president who would rather troll the free world than lead it.

Of course, trolling the world is the essence of Trump’s America First political brand, and Thursday’s announcement reinforced his persona as an unapologetic rebel who won’t let foreigners try to tell America what to do, even when major corporations, his secretary of state, and his daughter Ivanka want him to do it. He was also leaning into his political identity as Barack Obama’s photographic negative, dismantling Obama’s progressive legacy, kicking sand in the wimpy cosmopolitan faces of Obama’s froufrou citizen-of-the-world pals.

But it’s important to recall what Obama did and didn’t do when he led the community of nations to a deal in Paris. He didn’t let the world dictate U.S. energy policy, because Paris is only a mechanism for announcing national commitments to cut emissions, not for enforcing those commitments. He didn’t commit America to unrealistically ambitious emissions goals, either, just a 27 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2025, not that drastic considering that the U.S. led the world in emissions before Obama and led the world in emissions reductions under Obama. Our electricity sector has already achieved that 27 percent goal, thanks to the continuing decline of coal power, and while our transportation sector has a long way to go, Obama’s strict fuel-efficiency standards and the expansion of electric vehicles has it heading in the right direction. The real triumph of Paris wasn’t America’s promises; it was the serious commitments from China, India and other developing nations that had previously insisted on their right to burn unlimited carbon until their economies caught up to the developed world…….http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/01/why-trump-actually-pulled-out-of-paris-215218

June 3, 2017 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s increased nuclear weapons budget will just continue the present modernization project

Trump seeks to spend more on nuclear weapons but buys little added capability, Salon.com,
Cost overruns are eating up a substantial portion of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons budget PATRICK MALONE, THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY , 2 June 17 President Trump’s proposed budget for 2018 aims to pump an extra $589 million into building nuclear bombs. What will he get for that sum? Pretty much the same results that President Obama expected a year ago, when they appeared to cost much less.

The Trump administration has proposed to make room for the new nuclear weapons spending by cutting expenditures in other areas at the Department of Energy, including scientific research that looks at alternatives to fossil fuels. It also has proposed a 65-percent cut in the budget for a program that helps other countries keep the ingredients for a nuclear weapon out of terrorists’ hands.

“That is certainly a broad statement of priorities,” observed Matthew Bunn, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government who has worked as an advisor to the government on nuclear security and terrorism.

Despite the new funds, mostly to be spent for modernization of four warheads, the timetables for the completion of these programs wouldn’t be accelerated, and none of the additional money would be spent on new initiatives surpassing Obama’s aggressive nuclear modernization plans.

“In this budget, they’re not doing any new nuclear weapon projects, they’re just continuing the Obama administration’s modernization plan,” said Hans Kristensen, an analyst at the Federation of American Scientists who closely follows nuclear weapons programs. “It’s not clear to me that this budget increase is going to amount to more and quicker.

It’s not surprising that the expense of holding the status quo went up, according to Kristensen. In fact, he expects the costs of Obama’s modernization campaign, estimated by independent groups to total around $1 trillion over the next three decades, will continue to climb.

“There will almost certainly be a greater expense. No doubt about it. Unless some miracle has happened, this is always the trend with these massive programs,” he said. “They will not come in on time or on budget. That’s a fact. To portray [it] otherwise is just a little silly.”

The NNSA has long understated the costs of modernizing America’s nuclear arsenal, according to a report last month by the Government Accountability Office. Its auditors flagged what they called a “misalignment” between NNSA’s budget requests to the president and the agency’s internal estimates of what modernizing the arsenal will cost………

Trump’s budget seeks an additional $524 million to modernize aging buildings at the NNSA’s eight major sites, plus $111 million for an exascale super-computing effort. It also would curtail construction spending for the controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Plant at the Savannah River Nuclear Site in South Carolina, as the Obama administration had proposed. The plant was begun as a way to convert 34 metric tons of war-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants, but has since become a problem-plagued symbol of DOE and contractor mismanagement, with heavy cost overruns.

But in several other ways, the Trump budget proposal would reverse course from the Obama years. It would, for example, eliminate an initiative — hailed by then-Secretary of State John Kerry — to accelerate the disassembly of older nuclear warheads that have been retired from the stockpile. “The intention here is that [the Trump administration] didn’t want to have extra resources going into dismantlement that could go into beefing up” the weapons modernization program, Kristensen said.

The proposed cut in spending to reduce the nuclear terrorism threat appears to contradict one of the priorities spelled out by Trump before he became president. “The biggest problem we have is nuclear — nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon,” Trump said in a Dec. 2015 debate between Republican presidential candidates. “That’s in my opinion, that is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now.”

Yet his proposed budget would cut $84 million from the international nuclear security program, bringing it from its present level of $130 million to $46 million. “Is the risk of nuclear terrorism over? I would say no,” Harvard’s Bunn said in a phone interview. “So this is not the time to be slashing funding for this work.” His colleague Nickolas Roth, a research associate specializing in nonproliferation issues at Harvard’s Managing the Atom program, called the proposed cuts to nonproliferation programs “very, very concerning” because it takes money away from “the primary mechanism the U.S. has” to help countries guard weapon-useable nuclear materials from theft……..

It’s worth noting, finally, that while the nonproliferation budget is shrinking, spending for image-making by the Department of Energy — which includes the NNSA — would grow. The pot of money for its public affairs office would nearly double to $6.2 million from its enacted 2016 level of $3.4 million. And the Chief Information Officer’s division responsible for spreading feel-good news about the Energy Department would get a 25 percent boost to $91 million.

Reporter Peter Cary contributed to this article.

The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit, independent investigative news outlet. For more of its stories on this topic go to publicintegrit y.org. http://www.salon.com/2017/06/02/trump-seeks-to-spend-more-on-nuclear-weapons-but-buys-little-added-capability_partner/

June 3, 2017 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nominees for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission really ought to be asked some hard questions

Questions for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmation hearings, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, William J. Kinsella, 2 June 17  Throughout the first four months of the Trump presidency, a troubling scenario seemed possible at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)—the organization entrusted with ensuring the safety of the nation’s civilian nuclear energy infrastructure. Two of the commission’s five seats were vacant when the new administration took over, and one commissioner’s term was set to expire on June 30. Much of the commission’s work requires a three-member quorum, so the prospect of disruption loomed large.

The administration addressed the situation on May 22 by nominating Chairman Kristine Svinicki for reappointment and naming two additional nominees to fill the vacant seats. The nominees now face a confirmation process involving the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, followed by a full Senate vote.

What questions should senators ask the NRC nominees? All three are nuclear insiders, familiar with the commission’s mission and broad scope of activities as well as current and emerging challenges facing the agency. If the senators engage directly and substantively with the nominees about these matters, there can be an opportunity to explore the underlying philosophies and commitments they would bring to their work as commissioners.

Five broad principles of good regulation, summarized on the NRC’s website, provide some guidance, but the conversation needs to go much deeper. There are questions all three nominees should answer, and questions specific to each nominee.

Regulatory independence and transparency. Considering the entanglements surrounding so many of the administration’s appointments to date, any potential financial and political ties to the nuclear industry are an obvious area of concern. Senators should question each nominee directly about such possibilities.

More subtle institutional influences can be harder to evaluate. The commission’s purpose is to ensure the safety of nuclear technologies, rather than to promote them or protect their economic viability. But faced with competition from renewable energy and cheap natural gas, the US nuclear industry is struggling to survive. The industry claims that “regulatory burdens” are part of the problem, and has been pushing aggressively for regulatory changes.

The industry’s advocacy and lobbying group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, has praised all three nominees, and their backgrounds suggest considerable sympathy with the industry’s position. Critical public interest groups regard at least two of them as “nuclear industry picks.”

In the current anti-regulatory political climate, senators will have a range of opinions about how to strike the right regulatory balance. The confirmation process should expose where each nominee stands in this regard, and may reveal where some senators stand as well. All the nominees will likely assert their unequivocal commitment to safety, but in practice, nuclear safety is always a negotiated process, accomplished by addressing particular problems and challenges.

Challenging times for nuclear safety. I have written elsewhere about some of thepressing challenges facing the NRC. Nuclear plant safety issues include the industry’s increasing reliance on aging facilities, efforts to extend reactor lifetimes to as much as 80 years, oversee decades-long plant decommissioning projects, and prepare for the possibility of regulating a proposed new generation of reactors.

Nuclear waste issues are perennially contentious, and have been flash points for conflict surrounding a number of previous NRC appointments. After years on hold, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project is back on the political agenda. Although the project remains controversial, and key steps in the licensing decision process remain to be completed, all three nominees appear to support it.

Senators should ask the nominees whether they see themselves as neutral referees in the Yucca Mountain process, or as advocates for moving the project forward. Related issues involve the storage and transportation of nuclear wastes, proposed new interim storage sites, and managing the wastes accumulating at operating and closed nuclear power plants across the nation…..

Two more broad issues deserve mention. Despite the Commission’s efforts to promote a strong safety culture, critics continue to raise questions about trust, accountability, and whistleblower protection at the agency and across the nuclear industry. Finally,cybersecurity has been a growing concern for some time, and is sure to remain one in the escalating threat environment.

Meet the nominees…… http://thebulletin.org/questions-us-nuclear-regulatory-commission-confirmation-hearings10808

June 3, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive waste storage plans

Nuclear Insider 31st May 2017 Holtec’s two-phase licensing approach for its $280 million consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) project in New Mexico allows the company to use recent learnings in U.S. and Ukraine to accelerate approval for all
storage canisters.

In April, Holtec started the second phase of a CISF licensing program which would make it the first company to store all
canisters types currently used at U.S. plants. Holtec and Waste Control Services (WCS) are competing to build the U.S.’ first CISF facility, ahead of a proposed state-owned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada.

There is currently around 78,620 metric tons (MT) of used nuclear fuel stored at decommissioned and active reactor sites across 35 states. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed a pilot facility for consolidated storage be in place by 2021, followed by a larger storage facility by 2025 and a permanent repository by 2048.

Holtec plans to build a $280 million CISF to host 10,000 storage canisters, representing 120,000 MT of spent fuel, between the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs. The company has launched a two-phased licensing approach, initially seeking to store Areva-supplied 24PT1-DSC canisters using Holtec’s HI-STORM UMAX dry spent fuel storage system. In a second phase, the company will file a series of license amendment requests to include all canisters currently in use at
U.S. plants– supplied by Areva, Pacific Nuclear, Vectra, NAC, Sierra Nuclear and BNFL Solutions & Westinghouse.
http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/holtec-builds-first-kind-learnings-race-license-us-storage-facility

June 3, 2017 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Donald Trump excelling himself in policies to ruin not only America, but the world

Trump just cemented his legacy as America’s worst-ever president https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jun/01/donald-trump-just-cemented-his-legacy-as-americas-worst-ever-president  Dana Nuccitelli

Trump is doing his best to ruin the world for our children and grandchildren

In an inexplicable abdication of any semblance of responsibility or leadership, Donald Trump has announced that he will begin the process to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate treaty, joining Nicaragua and Syria as the only world countries rejecting the agreement. It now seems inevitable that the history books will view Trump as America’s worst-ever president.

Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris treaty is a mostly symbolic act. America’s pledges to cut its carbon pollution were non-binding, and his administration’s policies to date had already made it impossible for America to meet its initial Paris climate commitment for 2025. The next American president in 2020 can re-enter the Paris treaty and push for policies to make up some of the ground we lost during Trump’s reign.

However, withdrawing from the Paris treaty is an important symbolic move – a middle finger to the rest of the world, and to future generations. America is by far the largest historical contributor to climate change. Ironically, on the heels of Trump’s claim that most NATO members aren’t paying their fair share to the organization, America has announced that we won’t do our fair share to curb the climate change threats that we are the most responsible for.

The Rotting Republican Party

And the GOP has become the Party of Trump. His decision was reinforced by a letter from 22 Republican senators urging withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty. Those senators have coincidentally received over $10m in donations from the fossil fuel industry over the past five years.

Their reasoning was dubious at best, arguing that environmental attorneys will cite the international agreement in their efforts to prevent the Trump administration from eliminating President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. By law, the US government is required to regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act, because it poses a threat to public welfare. The Republican Senators wrote:

 Environmentalists will argue that these [Clean Air Act] Section 115 requirements are, in fact, met more easily by the Paris Agreement because it includes enhanced transparency requirements in Article 13, which establishes a process for nations to submit plans to reduce emissions to one another and then to comment on the plans of one another.

As National Resource Defense Council climate and clean air program senior attorney David Doniger explained to me, this argument is nonsense:

They are making things up. EPA did not rely on Paris to justify the Clean Power Plan, and none of the parties defending the Plan has cited Paris as a legal basis. On Clean Air Act Section 115, no one I know has made, or even thought of, this argument.

It’s difficult to discern the Republican Senators’ motivations behind this letter. Even big oil and coal and many of America’s largest companies supported America staying in the Paris agreement. Industries don’t like the uncertainty involved in lurching in and out of international treaties, and experts are concerned about the effect on America’s international influence from tearing up this critically important agreement that we helped broker less than two years ago, that was signed by nearly every world country.

Perhaps the Republican Senators are trying to ride Trump’s nationalist, anti-globalist coattails. Maybe they think that their right-wing base will be excited if they stick it to the rest of the world on Paris. However, majorities of voters in every single county in the US support regulating carbon as a pollutant, and 71% of Americans (including 57% of Republicans) think the US should participate in the Paris agreement.

In short, efforts to pull out of the Paris treaty are woefully misguided, and almost everyone knows it. Everyone except 42% of Senate Republicans including leader Mitch McConnell, James Inhofe, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and of course Trump’s senior advisor Steve Bannon and his EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Additionally, the Koch brothers and Vladimir Putin are not fans of the treaty. Those two factors may best explain this decision by Trump and the Republican senators.

Good luck kids, you’ll need it

Political calculations aside, pulling America out of the Paris agreement is grossly immoral. Human-caused climate change puts the well-being of our children and grandchildren at risk. That’s especially true for poorer countries that lack the resources to adapt to its impacts, and that contributed the least to the problem. However, the move will also hurt the American economy, as Joseph Robertson wrote on these pages earlier this week:

With China, India, and the EU all moving toward record investments in clean energy and high-efficiency construction, transport and industrial production, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement risks making the US into an economic backwater. Withdrawal would effectively deprive American businesses and communities of the most efficient ways to boost investment, hiring, innovation, and return on investment.

Some Republican leaders are struggling to preserve their party’s credibility and viability. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned against the withdrawal. 20 House Republicans have now joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, whose goal is to craft economically beneficial climate policies that both parties can support. And a group of Republican elder statesmenincluding Secretaries of State and Treasury to Presidents Reagan, George HW Bush, and George W Bush met with the White House seeking support for a revenue-neutral carbon tax plan.

So far, these leaders’ laudable efforts have failed. Trump and the majority of Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to increase American carbon pollution. They want to repeal all of America’s climate policies with no replacement plan. In short, they’re happy to let the world burn, and for our children and grandchildren suffer the consequences.

2020 election will be a climate referendum

This is the rotten state of today’s GOP. They’re happy to sell out the future of humanity for their own short-term political gain. Noam Chomsky was right – the Republican Party may be the most dangerous organization in human history. This move comes at a time when the need to act on global warming has been clear for decades, but the GOP has blocked all American climate policy efforts, and we’re now running out of time to avoid dangerous climate change.

America’s withdrawal from the Paris treaty will take four years, meaning that the 2020 election (and the 2018 midterms) will be a referendum on Trump’s decision today. American voters must send the world a signal in that election. In the meantime, it will be up to the rest of the world – particularly China and the EU – to take up the mantle of leadership on climate change that America has left behind.

June 2, 2017 Posted by | climate change, politics, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Trump: U.S. will withdraw from Paris climate accord

Trump: U.S. will withdraw from Paris climate accord

Paris climate deal: Donald Trump withdraws US from the accord, SMH, 2 June 17 Valerie Volcovici and Jeff Mason  Washington: President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will withdraw the United States from the landmark 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, spurning pleas from US allies and corporate leaders in an action that fulfilled a major campaign pledge.

“We’re getting out,” Trump said at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden in which he decried the Paris accord’s “draconian” financial and economic burdens.

“In order to fulfil my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” Trump said. But he added that the United States would begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or “a new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.”

With Trump’s action, the United States will walk away from nearly every nation in the world on one of the pressing global issues of the 21st century. The pullout will align the United States with Syria and Nicaragua as the world’s only non-participants in the accord.

The United States was one of 195 nations that agreed to the accord in Paris in December 2015, a deal that former US President Barack Obama was instrumental in brokering.

Supporters of the accord condemned Trump’s move as an abdication of American leadership and an international disgrace.

“At this moment, when climate change is already causing devastating harm around the world, we do not have the moral right to turn our backs on efforts to preserve this planet for future generations,” said US Senator Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination last year.

“Ignoring reality and leaving the Paris agreement could go down as one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our nation’s history, isolating the US further after Trump’s shockingly bad European trip,” Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse added.

Former US president Barack Obama, who signed on to the accord, wasted no time in criticising Trump’s move. In a statement, Obama said the Trump administration was rejecting the future by pulling out of the climate pact……..

Under the pact, which was years in the making, nations both rich and poor committed to reducing emissions of so-called greenhouse gases generated by burning fossils fuels and blamed by scientists for warming the planet.

The United States had committed to reduce its emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2025. The United States, exceeded only by China in greenhouse gas emissions, accounts for more than 15 per cent of the worldwide total.

Trump, who campaigned for president last year with an “America First” message, promised voters an American withdrawal.

US supporters of the pact said any pullout by Trump would show that the United States can no longer be trusted to follow through on international commitments……..

In a statement backed by all 28 EU states, the EU and China were poised to commit to full implementation of the agreement, officials said.

Trump has already moved to dismantle Obama-era climate change regulations, including the US Clean Power Plan aimed at reducing emissions from main coal-fired power plants.

Some US states, including California, Washington and New York, have vowed to continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and continue engaging in the international climate agreement process.

Oil majors Shell and ExxonMobil Corp supported the Paris pact. Several big coal companies, including Cloud Peak Energy, had publicly urged Trump to stay in the deal as a way to help protect the industry’s mining interests overseas, though others asked Trump to exit the accord to help ease regulatory pressures on domestic miners.    Reuters http://www.smh.com.au/world/paris-climate-deal-donald-trump-withdraws-us-from-the-accord-20170601-gwiord.html

June 2, 2017 Posted by | climate change, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Some big business leaders abandoning Donald Trump

Paris climate deal: Donald Trump to lose Elon Musk, Disney boss from advisory council, ABC News, 2 June 17 Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and Disney chief executive Bob Iger say they will leave President Donald Trump’s advisory councils after he confirmed the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord…..

While the move was welcomed by conservative groups and Republicans, several business leaders — including Mr Musk and Mr Iger, and the heads of companies including Google, Facebook Shell and Amazon — have spoken out against the decision.

“Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world,” Mr Musk said in a Twitter post. Mr Musk, who founded SpaceX and Tesla among other companies, had been a member of Mr Trump’s infrastructure council, manufacturing jobs council and his strategic and policy forum……

A couple of hours after Mr Musk’s announcement, Mr Iger also said he will be stepping down from the advisory council “as a matter of principle”.  Other business leaders, such as Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft president Brad Smith and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt have tweeted that they were “disappointed” with the decision.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said stopping climate change is “something we can only do as a global community”.

Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children’s future at risk,” he wrote on Facebook.

Other global companies, including Intel, HP, Dell, Amazon and oil giant Shell have released statements expressing support for the Paris agreement.

“We believe that robust clean energy and climate policies can support American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth,” Amazon wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the governors of three US states — New York, California and Washington — announced they would form a “United States Climate Alliance” to convene states “committed to upholding the Paris climate agreement”.

“If the President is going to be AWOL in this profoundly important human endeavour, then California and other states will step up,” a joint statement read…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-02/paris-climate-deal-donald-trump-to-lose-elon-musk-as-adviser/8582560

June 2, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, climate change, USA | Leave a comment

New research on Three Mile Island nuclear accident linked to thyroid cancer

Three Mile Island nuke accident linked to thyroid cancer, USA TODAY NETWORK, Brett Sholtis, York (Pa.) Daily Record May 31, 2017 A new Penn State Medical Center study has found a link between the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident and thyroid cancer cases in south-central Pennsylvania.

The study marks the first time the partial meltdown of Unit 2’s reactor can be connected to specific cancer cases, the researchers have said.

The findings may pose a dramatic challenge to the nuclear energy industry’s position that the radiation released had no effect on human health.

The study was published Monday in the medical journal Laryngoscope, one day before Exelon Corp. (EXC) announced that Three Mile Island would close in 2019. It’s likely to come as another blow to a nuclear-power industry already struggling to stay profitable…….

Dr. David Goldenberg, a surgeon and thyroid researcher, led the study after seeing anecdotal evidence for a connection.

“I’m always wary when people say ‘there’s nothing to see, here,’ ” he said…….

Although Pennsylvania has the nation’s highest rate of thyroid cancer, most of that cancer has nothing to do with Three Mile Island, Goldenberg said.

However, thyroid cancer caused by low-level radiation has a different “mutational signal” than most thyroid cancer, he said. He and his colleagues used molecular research that had been pioneered after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to find that genetic signal.

The scientists screened out many thyroid cancer patients, limiting their study to 44 people who were born in counties around Three Mile Island, present during the March 28, 1979, accident and treated at Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

“We found a change in this signal from sporadic to radiation-induced in the affected timeline to those exposed to low-dose radiation,” Goldenberg said. Those people developed thyroid cancer on average five to 30 years after exposure and about 11 years earlier than the average thyroid cancer case.

Goldenberg stops short of saying that the accident “caused” the thyroid cancer, instead saying the accident and the cancer have a “possible correlation.” I do stop short, and I’ll tell you why,” Goldenberg said. “This is the furthest we’ve come. There are 44 patients in this study. It’s by no means conclusive.”

The next step is to expand the study through tapping into resources from other regional hospitals, he said.

The study contradicts conclusions about Three Mile Island from many nuclear energy proponents, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Three Mile Island gets its name because the island on which the nuclear plant sits is 3 miles down the Susquehanna River from Middletown, Pa.; it’s also less than 15 miles downriver from Pennsylvania’s state capital of Harrisburg.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center completed a study in 2000 that found the accident did not cause an increase in cancer mortality among people living within a five-mile radius of the plant, said Neil Sheehan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.

The NRC is eager to review the new findings, Sheehan said……..https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/01/three-mile-island-cancers/359995001/

June 2, 2017 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »