Share

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Releases Expert Engineer’s Report Highlighting Major Roadblocks to Finishing Long-Abandoned Critically Compromised Reactor Project

KNOXVILLE,TN.///August 9, 2011///Efforts by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to resume construction at the long-shuttered, nearly 40-year-old Bellefonte nuclear reactor Unit 1 in Jackson County, Alabama, are unlikely to be successful due to seven major problems, including water damage to the reactor site foundation, compromised radiation containment in the unfinished reactor, and a lack of records about what exactly went on when the critical systems in the unfinished plant were cannibalized while the project lay dormant. The TVA Board is set to vote on this risky proposal at their August 18, 2011 meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Those are among the key findings of a new report prepared for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) by Arnold Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. The full report is available for download at www.cleanenergy.org. Gundersen is a nuclear engineer with more than 39 years of nuclear industry experience and oversight including being a former senior vice president nuclear licensee and reactor operator.

Gundersen’s expert analysis identifies seven specific areas of risk, which in Fairewinds’ opinion will cause further delays, additional costs and even possible suspension of the Bellefonte project if TVA decides to move forward with its construction. The key areas of concern highlighted by Gundersen are: (1) Bellefonte’s unique reactor design that lacks substantial worldwide operational history; (2) groundwater intrusion that is weakening the reactor site’s foundations; (3) missing critical nuclear Quality Assurance documents and incomplete records; (4) cannibalization of Bellefonte’s mechanical systems for small amounts of cash; (5) Bellefonte’s unique containment deficiencies; (6) historical precedents that don’t support TVA’s decision; and (7) costly post-Fukushima safety implementations.

Stephen Smith, executive director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said: “TVA is possibly about to embark on one of the greatest financial gambles in the history of the agency. The history of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Bellefonte site in Jackson County, Alabama is unique and complicated spanning nearly forty years. A total of four reactors have been proposed and billions of dollars have been spent, but none have ever been fully constructed and not a kilowatt of electricity has ever been produced. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has serious concerns about TVA’s push to complete the mothballed, abandoned Bellefonte reactors. Given the damage to the containment vessel at Bellefonte, which is similar to the damage and ongoing problems to the containment vessel at Progress’ Crystal River plant, this new information in the report coupled with Bellefonte’s troubled history leads us to believe that TVA should not go forward with completion of the reactor at
Bellefonte. This report documents those concerns and makes a strong case to the TVA Board that finishing Bellefonte is not a gamble worth taking.”
More on REPORT: TVA FACES “INSURMOUNTABLE” OBSTACLES TO COMPLETING STALLED BELLEFONTE REACTOR IN ALABAMA

There are lots of issues to be considered about nuclear power, and those that are heavily into the subject are likely to want to know more. Even if this article serves as no more than an introduction, nothing stops you from putting the information to good use.

Share

New Worldwatch Institute Report, Timed in Conjunction with Chernobyl Anniversary, Shows Nuclear Industry Was in Decline Even Before Fukushima

Washington, D.C.—-Even before the disaster in Fukushima, the world’s nuclear industry was in clear decline, according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute. The report, which Worldwatch commissioned months before the Fukushima crisis began, paints a bleak picture of an aging industry unable to keep pace with its renewable energy competitors.

“The industry was arguably on life support before Fukushima. When the history of the nuclear industry is written, Fukushima is likely to begin its final chapter,” said Mycle Schneider, lead author of the new report, The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-2011: Nuclear Power in a Post-Fukushima World, and an international consultant on energy and nuclear policy.

Some of the report’s key findings include:

· Annual renewable capacity additions have been outpacing nuclear start-ups for 15 years. In the United States, the share of renewables in new capacity additions skyrocketed from 2 percent in 2004 to 55 percent in 2009, with no new nuclear capacity added.

· In 2010, for the first time, worldwide cumulative installed capacity from wind turbines, biomass, waste-to-energy, and solar power surpassed installed nuclear capacity. Meanwhile, total investment in renewable energy technologies was estimated at $243 billion in 2010.

· As of April 1, 2011, there were 437 nuclear reactors operating in the world, seven fewer than in 2002. In 2008, for the first time since the beginning of the nuclear age, no new unit was started up. Seven new reactors were added in 2009 and 2010, while 11 were shut down during this period.

· In 2009, nuclear power plants generated 2,558 Terawatt-hours of electricity, about 2 percent less than the previous year. The industry’s lobby organization headlined “another drop in nuclear generation”-the fourth year in a row.

Despite predictions in the United States and elsewhere of a nuclear “renaissance,” the report concludes that the role of nuclear power was in steady decline even before the Fukushima crisis. The disaster will make the construction of new nuclear plants and extensions to the lifetime of current plants even more unrealistic.

“U.S. news headlines often suggest that a nuclear renaissance is under way,” said Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin. “This was a big overstatement even before March 11, and the disaster in Japan will inevitably cause governments and companies that were considering new nuclear units to reassess their plans. The Three Mile Island accident caused a wholesale reassessment of nuclear safety regulations, massively increased the cost of nuclear power, and put an end to nuclear construction in the United States. For the global nuclear industry, the Fukushima disaster is an historic-if not fatal-setback.”

GROUPS TO SEEK FULL “THREE MILE ISLAND STYLE” REVIEW OF FUKUSHIMA DISASTER IMPLICATIONS

Call for NRC Licensing Suspension In Keeping with Response to Less Severe TMI Accident in 1979

WASHINGTON, D.C., Organizations from across the U.S. will announce Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT that they are formally petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend, on an emergency basis, all pending U.S. nuclear reactor licensing decisions.

The petitioners will contend that before acting on any applications for new reactor construction permits or operating licenses, early site permits, renewed licenses for existing reactors, or design certification rulemakings for new reactors, the NRC should complete a full-“Three Mile Island style” investigation into the safety and environmental implications of the ongoing catastrophic nuclear facility accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Units 1-6 in Okumu, Japan.

The groups are concerned that the NRC’s “business as usual” approach to licensing, even going so far as to issue a renewed license for the Vermont Yankee reactor – which has the same boiling water reactor design as the Fukushima reactors – is completely inconsistent with the serious-minded review of U.S. nuclear power that took place after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, when the NRC Commissioners suspended all licensing decisions until it had investigated the regulatory implications of the accident.

Share

This article from the NY Times featuring leaked info from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission points out some very real dangers still posed from the damaged nukes in Japan. This is important reading folks!

United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semimolten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.

read the rest

Major Problems Found

Here is an overview of the major findings of the problems being faced revealed in confidential document.

* Measures taken to keep the plant stable have created a wide array of problems.
* The weight of the water injections have made the reactors vulnerable to ruptures during an aftershock.
* The release of hydrogen mixed with seawater raises the possibility of the explosion.
* The mixture of seawater with molten fuel is blocking fresh water from reaching and cooling the reactors.
* New explosions could lead to further breaches in the containment vessels resulting in a much more serious release of radiation and leave a radioactive mass that would stay molten for a very long period of time.
* Pouring water to cool the reactors may not be able to be sustained indefinitely
* Fragments and particles of nuclear materials may have blown up to one mile high in the sky.
* Radioactive material lying around the plant needed to be bulldozed over.
* Because of the wide array of complex problems in three different reactors a successful outcome is less certain than ever.
* Reactor 1 is likely fully blocked from new water entering to cool it and most likely has no water in it at all.
* Similar problems exist in reactor 2 and 3 although blockage is less severe.
* The spent fuel rods pose an even greater potential for damage then the reactors themselves.
* The hydrogen explosion at reactor for is believed to released lots of radioactive material into the environment in what is termed as “a major term release”.
* Spent fuel rods are being exposed directly to the environment as opposed to the reactors themselves which are still in their containment vessels.

The most blaring thing I read was that the radioactive materials from the plant were blown up to a mile in the sky during the hydrogen explosions.

The document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools above the reactors were blown “up to one mile from the units,” and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between two units and had to be “bulldozed over,” presumably to protect workers at the site. The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.

Many will find some of the other major points to be the most shocking, such as the weight of the radioactive water in the cooling pools could bust open the nuclear reactors at any minute and findings by experts that the situation could last indefinitely with no end in sight.

Personally, the news that the nuclear fragments and were blown up to a mile in the sky is very bad news.

Why? Because the most dangerous radioactive contaminant, the Plutonium in the “MOX” fuel, is very heavy. While kept near ground levels the devastation it can cause is kept localized. Now with the new news that it has been blasted up into the atmosphere, the risk of it spreading to the United states and around the globe is a very real and frightening prospect.

Share

The terrible tragedy in Japan is bad enough with all the lost lives and crushed cities and towns but now the battle to save the damaged nuclear power plants has the government scrambling to prevent an even larger disaster from happening which could impact beyond the Japanese borders if it does not resolve.

This article is from National Geo and is a good read on just how things are in Japan right now.

The nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant comes four years after another earthquake delivered a warning to Tokyo Electric Power Company that seismic risks at its atomic reactors could be far greater than plant engineers had reckoned.

TEPCO is now battling to avert a catastrophic meltdown at three of the six reactors at the Fukushima facility­, with a second hydrogen explosion early Monday morning signaling the difficulty of that effort.

But in 2007, the company escaped such peril at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the largest nuclear power station in the world, when it was damaged by a 6.8-magnitude earthquake that was up to three times larger than the plant’s design was built t­o withstand.

That underestimate touched off concern and study throughout the global nuclear industry, but officials have pointed to the incident as a demonstration of nuclear plant resilience, because no critical safety structures or systems were impaired. Industry critics have drawn a less comforting conclusion: “They were lucky,” says Arjun Makhijani, an engineer and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

In any case, there is no question that TEPCO’s seismic risk assessments now will be under renewed scrutiny.

read more here

What do you think of the nuclear crisis in Japan? Comment below to give us your thoughts.

Share

AFTER 50 YEARS, NUCLEAR POWER IS STILL NOT VIABLE WITHOUT SUBSIDIES, NEW REPORT FINDS
VALUE OF SUBSIDIES OFTEN EXCEED PRICE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY PRODUCED; OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WANTS TO NEARLY TRIPLE LOAN GUARANTEES

WASHINGTON (February 23, 2011) – Since its inception more than 50 years ago, the U.S. nuclear power industry has been propped up by a generous array of government subsidies that have supported its development and operations. Despite that support, the industry is still not economically viable, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The report, “Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable Without Subsidies,” found that more than 30 subsidies have supported every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining to long-term waste storage. Added together, these subsidies often have exceeded the average market price of the power produced.

“Despite the fact that the nuclear power industry has benefited from decades of government support, the technology is still uneconomic, so the industry is demanding a lot more from taxpayers to build new reactors,” said Ellen Vancko, manager of UCS’s Nuclear Energy and Climate Change Project. “The cost of this technology continues to escalate despite billions in subsidies to both existing and proposed plants. Instead of committing billions in new subsidies that would further distort the market in favor of nuclear power, we should focus on more cost-effective energy sources that will reduce carbon emissions more quickly and with less risk.”

Pending and proposed subsidies for new nuclear reactors would shift even more costs and risks from the industry to taxpayers and ratepayers. The Obama administration’s new budget proposal would provide an additional $36 billion in federal loan guarantees to underwrite new reactor construction, bringing the total amount of nuclear loan guarantees to a staggering $58.5 billion, leaving taxpayers on the hook if the industry defaults on these loans.

The key subsidies for nuclear power do not involve cash payments, the report found. They shift the risks of constructing and operating plants — including cost overruns, loan defaults, accidents and waste management — from plant owners and investors to taxpayers and ratepayers. These hidden subsidies distort market choices that would otherwise favor less risky investments.
More on Nuclear Power Still Not Viable in US Without Subsidies

Share

NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE IN DISARRAY: FRENCH MOVE TO SET ASIDE FUNDS FOR ANTICIPATED LOSSES AT TROUBLED CALVERT CLIFFS REACTOR, EVEN AS PRESSURE GROWS FOR $8-$10 BILLION U.S. BAILOUT

Case for Proposed EPR Reactor Grows Worse by the Week With Unresolved Safety Issues, Rising Costs and Doubts Raised by Former EdF CEO; Are U.S. Taxpayers About to be Stuck With “the Last Tickets for the Titanic”?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A big red warning light started flashing for U.S. taxpayers in recent days amidst growing indications that the proposed Calvert Cliffs-3 reactor project — the reported next-in-line recipient of a taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantee bailout — is in complete shambles.

Here are some of the indications of just how much danger U.S. taxpayers face if the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy puts the U.S. Treasury on the hook in the event of a default of the expected $8-$10 billion in loans for Calvert Cliffs:

Item No. 1: Last week, Electricite de France (EdF) – the French government controlled co-owner with Constellation Energy of the proposed Calvert Cliffs-3 reactor took a $1.4 billion provision against potential future losses on its $6.5 billion investment in Constellation’s nuclear program, including the $625 million it has invested in Calvert Cliffs. This sets up an astonishing scenario under which the French government is cutting its exposure to future losses while continuing to look to U.S. taxpayers to shoulder the risk of the increasingly troubled Calvert Cliffs project. (For more on the EdF write-off of its losses on Calvert Cliffs, see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-07-30/edf-reports-47-drop-in-first-half-profit-amid-french-u-s-nuclear-delays.html.)

Peter Bradford, former commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said: “So how will the Administration justify a loan guarantee to a project whose principal backer and beneficiary has just admitted to a multibillion dollar error in judgment about the value of nuclear output in U.S. markets? It would be like having U.S. taxpayers awarded the last handful of tickets on the Titanic after the iceberg forecasts were widely known.”

Item No. 2: The French-owned Areva’s EPR reactor design has not been approved by U.S. safety reviewers, who have indicated there are still significant unresolved problems with the reactor’s critical digital control systems. On July 22, the NRC told Areva that this key safety system “may not meet NRC regulations” and warned of further delays in certification of the EPR design. Yesterday, Areva announced it will take until next March before it can answer the NRC’s concerns. French nuclear regulators, in a letter released August 2, also are requiring new safety-related design changes on an EPR currently being built in France. (The NRC news release is at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2010/10-130.html. For more background on some of the safety concerns about the EPR, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/business/global/27iht-renepr.html.)

University of Greenwich Professor of Energy Studies Steven Thomas said: “The future of the EPR is clearly in doubt. Construction work on the two orders in Europe has gone appallingly wrong, the process of getting generic safety approval is long-delayed and continues to throw up serious unresolved issues, and estimated costs are continuing to escalate at an alarming rate. Until and unless these issues can be resolved committing public money to this design would be unjustifiable.”

Item No. 3: In another startling development, a former CEO of EdF has publicly admitted that the EPR design is flawed and may not be the way for EdF to proceed. In a recently issued report, former EdF chief Francois Roussely urged an overhaul of EdF and Areva to deal with a variety of problems. The report states: “The credibility of both the EPR model and the ability of the French nuclear industry for success in new construction have been seriously undermined by the difficulties encountered on the Olkiluoto site in Finland and at Flamanville [in France].” The complexity of the EPR model “including the level of power, the core catcher and the redundancy of safety systems is certainly a handicap for its implementation and therefore its cost. These factors explain in part the difficulties encountered in Finland and at Flamanville.” Roussely went even further in the report by indicating that reactors will need to be smaller than the EPR for EdF to succeed in the long run. (For more
on the Roussely report, see http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_France_considers_its_position_2807101.html.)

Meanwhile, EDF last week announced that construction in France of its Flamanville EPR, begun in 2007, is now two years behind schedule and its cost estimate has been increased by more than a billion dollars. (See http://theenergycollective.com/dan-yurman/40879/areva-under-pressure.)

Item No. 4: Last Wednesday, Constellation Energy announced that it would chop its spending for the proposed Calvert Cliffs reactors by a full third, from its current level of $1 million a day. Constellation also indicated that it might bring a complete halt to development work at the project. (See http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-29/u-s-nuclear-projects-await-delayed-decisions-on-federal-loan-guarantees.html.)

Michael Mariotte, executive director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said: “The French and their U.S. junior partners in Calvert Cliffs thought they could put the squeeze on Congress to get what they want, but really they are on the verge of collapsing under their own weight. What this means for the much-hyped ‘nuclear renaissance’ is clear: There will be no large-scale nuclear revival in the United States. Too many in Congress think that simply betting US tax dollars on UniStar/Constellation to build Calvert Cliffs-3 will solve these problems. But the problems are so deep-set that, even if the government puts up $10 billion or more, it will likely only temporarily salvage the project, which even Constellation Energy is no longer committed to carrying out. The fundamental economic woes for the proposed Calvert Cliffs are also generally true of the NRG South Texas Project.”

As a Baltimore Sun business columnist noted: “The fact that Constellation stock goes down every time it looks like the plant will be approved suggests that even the people who own the company don’t want it to happen.” (See http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-hancock-calvert-nuclear-20100801,0,7296439.column.)

For a DailyKos column on this topic by Michael Mariotte, please go to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/5/889695/-The-nuclear-renaissance-stalls-with-pending-collapse-of-Calvert-Cliffs.

Is nuclear power on the comeback trail? Well like it or not it seems that is the case. Nations willing to take the risk to fight off the growth of global warming and to fight the high cost of conventional fuels are starting to warm up to the idea of using more nuclear energy in their power structure.

China has built 11 plants and has plan to build 30 more by the year 2020. England has shown interest in developing more nuclear power, and there are more than 100 plants on the drawing boards around the world with half of them in the so called developing nations of the world such as India, South Africa and Brazil.

“We are facing a nuclear renaissance,” Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of the French nuclear energy firm Areva, told an energy conference. “Nuclear’s not the devil any more. The devil is coal.”

Philippe Jamet, director of nuclear installation safety at the International Atomic Energy Agency, describes the industry’s record as “second to none.” Still, he says that countries new to or still learning about nuclear power “have to move down the learning curve, and they will learn from (their) mistakes.”

“Are there special concerns about the developing world? The answer is definitely yes,” said Carl Thayer, a Southeast Asia expert with the Australian Defense Force Academy.

Well from a government stance they see it as viable. I wonder if the public will rise up again and protest this or will they be too pained by high gas prices and such to give it any real thought this time around. Do we want to take the chance on these plants around the world?

What do you think?

We reported a few weeks back about a bill being sponsored in CA that would among other things attempt to undue a three decade ban on the construction of new [tag-tec]nuclear power[/tag-tec] plants in the state of California. Well once it reached the legislative committee in Sacramento for discussion it was quickly shot down by the committee chairwoman Loni Hancock.

“You’ve spoken for five minutes … and I’m wondering if you can wrap up,” said Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley.

The vote was 6-3 against the bill as committee members voted along party lines. So it was basically dead in the water before the discussion even began. It seems funny now that a few weeks ago the media were covering this thing as though there were some sort of groundswell of public opinion that would lead to reconsidering the building of nuke plants in California.

Here is some of the coverage from the Chronicle:

It was clear that the legislation would get a chilly reception in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee when the chairwoman abruptly interrupted a presentation by the bill’s author, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine (Orange County), and asked him to finish his opening remarks.

As his main argument for the bill, AB719, DeVore called nuclear power the answer to meeting the state’s growing demand for electricity without exacerbating the problem of global warming.

His measure sought to repeal a 1976 moratorium on building new [tag-ice]nuclear [/tag-ice]reactors in California until the federal Department of Energy builds a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste. The federal agency has chosen a site in Nevada, but the effort has been stalled by technical, legal and political challenges.

AB719′s opponents — largely environmental and anti-nuclear groups — on Monday argued that nuclear waste is harmful to the environment, there is no permanent solution for storing spent fuel rods, and nuclear power plants could become targets of terrorism.

“[tag]Nuclear[/tag] technology is the most dangerous technology on earth,” said Dan Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a California-based anti-nuclear watchdog group.

So what does the bill’s sponsor Chuck Devore (R-Irvine) have to say? He was not surprised but is not giving up either.

“We’re going to keep bringing this back,” he said. “California’s energy needs are not going to go away.”

California was one of the first states to enter the [tag-tec]nuclear power[/tag-tec] industry for energy production some 40 years ago. It was also one of the first to have huge debate over the [tag]nuclear[/tag] option which resulted in the shutdowns of several plants and a moratorium of nuclear power plant development in the state.

Now there are signs that nuclear power as an option for power generation in this age of high priced foreign oil and instability of the energy marketplace may be back on the table for discussion.

A bill that is under discussion by the California State legislature would lift that moratorium on new nuclear power plants in California. This would give hopes ot investors lining up to build a [tag-ice]nuclear power plant[/tag-ice] in the central valley of California. The central valley is of course undergoing tremendous population growth in recent years and thus the need for more energy production.

The bill is being carried by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R)-Irvine who says that lifting the moratorium on nuclear plants before the federal government has a permanent storage option for spent fuel rods is necessary to meet the state’s demand for power.

Critics however abound in California for this type of proposal. Longtime critics of nuclear power point to the many concerns about nuclear power that originally led to this ban on new plants, such as the lack of long term storage options for spent fuel, concerns over seismic safety.

In a July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, 39 percent of Californians surveyed said they supported the building of additional nuclear power plants, while 52 percent opposed the idea. A year earlier, the results were 33 percent in support and 59 percent opposed.

Opinions have shifted even more dramatically among likely voters. Last summer, that group was split down the middle at 46 percent on each side of the issue. In 2005, the result was 37 percent in support and 55 percent opposed.

“The notion of global warming has had all kinds of ripple effects and unintended consequences,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s chief executive officer.

SFGate

“The state must build more nuclear plants for cheap, non-carbon-emitting electricity,” said John Hutson, the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group’s chief executive. “Or the Legislature needs to provide an alternative. But at this point, there isn’t one.”

Mr. DeVore’s bill has gotten the attention of one mayor who wants to build a nuclear power plant in his city.

“The entire Southern California area is really in a precarious position in terms of energy consumption and energy needs,” said Terry Caldwell, mayor of Victorville in San Bernardino County. “And it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”

Is this not classic knee jerk reaction to a situation. Let’s just forget the last twenty years of nuclear power history and just go with pie in the sky projections that safe storage will fall into our laps anytime soon.

Let’s be real, this is a ploy by Republicans to exploit the [tag]oil [/tag]situation in order to get something their constituents want despite the risk to the general population.