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ARTICLE ARCHIVE

Nuclear Power

Nuclear power cannot address climate change effectively or in time. Reactors have long, unpredictable construction times are expensive - at least $12 billion or higher per reactor. Furthermore, reactors are sitting-duck targets vulnerable to attack and routinely release - as well as leak - radioactivity. There is so solution to the problem of radioactive waste.

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Entries by admin (883)

Saturday
Apr062013

Entergy Watch: ANO, Palisades, Pilgrim, Vermont Yankee

Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO)

One worker, 24-year old Wade Walters, was killed, and eight more were injured, when a 600-ton generator stator plunged through the floor at the twin reactor ANO station. A fire fighting water system was damaged, and the flood waters short circuited electrical systems causing loss of offsite power to the plant. Emergency diesel generators were needed to supply electricity to cooling, emergency, safety, and other systems for days on end. Federal investigations into the fatal accident are underway.

Palisades

Local residents and environmental representatives -- from groups such as Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste MI, MI Land Trustees, MI Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service -- yet again called for the shutdown of the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor, before it melts down. The calls came during the public comment session following the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's annual performance review of Entergy at Palisades, at a public meeting in South Haven, less than five miles from the atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Local grassroots groups, including recently formed Michigan Safe Energy Future chapters in Kalamazoo and on the shoreline, continue to meet on a regular basis, including on Sat., April 6th at 1 PM at the South Haven Memorial Library.

David Lochbaum, the Nuclear Safety Project Director at Union of Concerned Scientists, will speak in Kalamazoo and South Haven on Thursday, April 11th. Beyond Nuclear is a co-sponsor of the events. Lochbaum has documented three near-misses at Palisades in the past few years alone, making it one of the most risky atomic reactors in the entire country.

Pilgrim

Opponents came out in force for NRC's annual performance review in Plymouth, MA on Tuesday. EcoLaw has demanded full transparency about Pilgrim's proposed new dry cask storage facility for high-level radioactive waste, but the Town of Plymouth has invoked secrecy for safety and security reasons, it says. Pilgrim Watch has called for reactor and radioactive waste storage safety upgrades, and real-time, fully transparent monitoring on the dry cask storage. Cape Downwinders protested the "casual...open house" format for the NRC meeting, demanding instead a formal, town mall meeting format. They conducted an Occupy Wall Street style "Mike Check," refusing to become "radiation refugees," and calling for Pilgrim's permanent shutdown.

Vermont Yankee

More than 500 people paraded and rallied in Brattleboro on March 30th, protesting another year of "Leaks, Lies, and Lawyers," and calling for Vermont state law to be obeyed and enforced, and for Vermont Yankee to be permanently shutdown

Friday
Apr052013

White House approves of major regulatory rollback on dirty bomb/nuclear power disaster clean up standards, setting dangerous precedent for all things nuclear

As reported by Douglas P. Guarino of National Journal Group's Global Security Newswire, the Obama White House approves of a proposal put forth by the National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP) to do away with current 1 in 10,000 permissible cancer incidence rates for a lifetime of exposure to artificial radioactivity in the environment, and allow instead a shocking 1 in 23 cancer incidence rate.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hired NRCP to set up a panel composed of federal officials from DHS, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emergency response and radiation divisions, as well as assorted state government agency officials. The NCRP panel's draft proposal parrots a DHS proposal from 5 years ago calling for a nearly identical regulatory rollback, which was prevented from being implemented due to pressure by officials from EPA's Superfund office, various state governments, and a coalition of environmental watchdogs.

The currently proposed rollback, if implemented now, would set a dangerous precedent that could be cited in an attempt to justify and approve the weakening of environmental, public health, and safety regulations and protections on radioactive waste dumps and shipments, nuclear power plants during reactor operations and decommissioning, other radiologically risky facilities, and perhaps even the radioactive contamination of the food chain.

NCRP suggests that a 2 Rem per year radiation dose is acceptable after a dirty bomb attack, or nuclear power catastrophe. This is the same level allowed, even for radiological exposure to children, in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. It also happens to be the allowable level of exposure for German nuclear power plant workers. Apparently, the U.S. federal proponents feel that ordinary citizens should not object to suffering radiation dose rates as high as nuclear power industry workers. Guarino reports that a 2 Rem/year dose, over the course of 30 years of exposure, will cause 1 in 23 exposed persons to develop cancer.

Even the lower end of NCRP's "clean-up" standard -- 100 millirems per year -- would cause 1 in 466 exposed persons to develop cancer after 30 years of exposure. This is a cancer incidence rate more than 20 times worse than EPA's current Superfund clean-up standards.

Guarino reports:

'...Remarks one EPA emergency management official made recently might shed some light on how some staff in that office view [the EPA] Superfund’s applicability to nuclear disasters, however.

Speaking at a March 12 symposium hosted by the Defense Strategies Institute, Paul Kudarauskas, of the EPA Consequence Management Advisory Team, said events like Fukushima would cause a “fundamental shift” to cleanup.

U.S. residents are used to having “cleanup to perfection,” but will have to abandon their “not in my backyard” mentality in such cases, Kudarauskas said. “People are going to have to put their big boy pants on and suck it up.”...'

Suck up carcinogenic radioactive contamination, it would seem he means. Very dangerous amounts of it, in fact.

Please contact President Obama, your U.S. Senators, and your U.S. Representative to protest this absolutely outrageous proposal. Urge them in the strongest possible terms to retain current EPA Superfund radioactivity contamination clean-up standards as the norm for dirty bomb and nuclear power plant disaster recovery efforts. You can be patched through to your Members of Congress via the U.S. Congressional Switchboard at: (202) 224-3121.

President Obama can be contacted by calling the White House at 202-456-1111, writing him online via the White House web form, or writing him at: President Obama; The White House; 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW; Washington, DC 20500.

Monday
Apr012013

1 killed, 4-8 injured, offsite electricity lost due to drop of 500 ton load at Entergy's Arkansas Nuclear One plant

NRC's file photo of Entergy's Arkansas Nuclear One twin reactor stationAs reported by Dow Jones Business News, a 24-year-old worker named Wade Walters of Russellville, Arkansas was killed when a crane dropped a 500-ton piece of equipment called a generator stator at Entergy's twin reactor Arkansas Nuclear One station (see photo, left), located six miles west-northwest of Russellville in London, Arkansas. Eight other workers were injured, one of whom remains hospitalized.

In 2001, NRC rubber-stamped a 20-year license extension on top of Unit 1's 1974 to 2014 original operating permit, blessing its operation till 2034. In 2005, NRC followed suit at Unit 2, enabling it to run not from 1978 till 2018, but till 2038.

As the article reports: "When the generator stator fell, it damaged other equipment and a water pipeline used for extinguishing fires. Water spilled from the pipeline into the building that contains the power turbine, the NRC said. The water seeped into an electrical component, causing a short-circuit that cut off power to the plant from the electric grid, according to Entergy and the NRC."

Unit 1 was reportedly shut down for maintenance at the time of the accident, but Unit 2 was operating at full power. For a yet to be explained reason, Unit 2 "automatically" shut down after the accident. Emergency diesel generators are reportedly supplying electricity to emergency, safety, cooling, and other systems at both reactors.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "Current Reactor Status Report" shows that both Arkansas Nuclear One reactors are at zero power levels. An Event Notification Report has been posted at the NRC's website. Note that the Event Notification Report filed by Entergy reports only four injuries. The extent of damage to Unit 1 facilities has yet to be determined.

Saturday
Mar302013

"The Catastrophe Waiting to Happen at Palisades, and What YOU Can Do to Prevent It!"

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps presented this power point at the meeting of the local grassroots group Michigan Safe Energy Future at the Kalamazoo Public Library on Feb. 27, 2013.

Friday
Mar292013

Entergy Watch: "Every Challenge Imaginable," Palisades, Vermont Yankee

In his March 15th article entitled "Entergy's Power Struggle" (which appeared in The Street's "Real Money"), Glenn Williams -- despite a clear pro-nuclear industry bias -- lays bare the many challenges faced by Entergy at multiple atomic reactors operating in multiple states. In fact, Williams concludes "Entergy faces every challenge imaginable. Simultaneously, it faces outdated federal regulations, hostile states and declining power markets." 

Palisades

119 people watchdogged a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Webinar on Palisades reactor pressure vessel (RPV) embrittlement on March 19th. Palisades has the worst embrittled RPV in the U.S., at risk of pressurized thermal shock (PTS), which could cause a RPV breach, Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA), reactor core meltdown, catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment, and thousands of deaths and injuries, as well as over $100 billion in property damage, downwind and downstream. 85 questions were asked during NRC's arbitrarily short Webinar, few of which have yet to be addressed. Media coverage reported that Palisades' violation of NRC PTS safety standards could force the reactor's permanent shutdown by 2017 led to defensive, official denials by both Entergy and NRC. 

On March 25, 20 concerned local residents and environmental group representatives met with NRC Commissioner William Magwood IV, as well as his Chief of Staff Patty Bubar, NRC Region 3 Administrator Chuck Casto, and NRC Region 3 Branch Chief Jack Geissner. The meeting, which lasted three hours, took place in South Haven, near Palisades, which the NRC delegation toured the next morning. The environmental-citizen coalition communicated their many concerns about the problem-plagued plant.

On April 2nd, NRC will hold its annual End of Cycle performance review public meeting near Palisades. On April 11th, the Union of Concerned Scientists' David Lochbaum will present his concerns about Palisades in two west Michigan presentations.

Vermont Yankee

Entergy's woes in the Green Mountain State continue to mount.

Mechanical errors have beset the plant for the past couple weeks. Last week, three system failures lined up in a reactor building blow out panel incident. And this week, flood control seals failed, allowing water to creep precariously close to safety-significant electrical cables.

Although the State Supreme Court has, for now, rejected New England Coalition's (NEC) lawsuit seeking immediate VY shutdown due to the lack of a Certificate of Public Good (CPG) from the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB), NEC's attorneys remain hopeful that they will prevail once their case becomes ripe. The PSB is set to decide whether or not to grant a new CPG to Entergy this August.

Even the NRC is questioning Entergy's financial qualifications to safely operate, and ultimately decommission, VY, after the company admitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission that VY's sale price has lost two-thirds of its value.

And the Safe and Green Campaign will join with the Bread and Puppet Theater this Saturday, March 30, to make one year of "Leaks, Lies, and Lawyers" since VY's original 40 year operating license expired, and its NRC-rubberstamped, Vermont-opposed 20-year license extension kicked in.