9 States, NCSL, and Vermont NGOs join VT AG's appeal of Entergy Vermont Yankee atomic reactor ruling

Vermont Attorney General William SorrellThe Attorney General of the State of Vermont, William Sorrell (pictured left), fresh off his victory against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision" at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, has filed his brief in New York City appealing a Brattleboro, VT federal district judge's ruling in January which enabled the Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee atomic reactor to continue operating, in contravention of State of Vermont laws. AG Sorrell's brief was supported by "friend of the court" briefs from nine states (Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, and Utah), as well as the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. Also filing "friend of the court" briefs in support of VT AG Sorrell were VT NGOs Conservation Law Foundation, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the New England Coalition, and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Vermont is unwilling "host" to Entergy Nuclear's Vermont Yankee GE BWR Mark I, an identical design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1-4. Connecticut "hosts" the permanently closed Millstone Unit 1 Mark I -- although the high-level radioactive waste generated there is still stored on site. Iowa "hosts" the Duane Arnold Mark I. Massachusetts "hosts" the Pilgrim Mark I near Boston -- and is only 8 miles down the Connecticut River from Vermont Yankee. New Hampshire, for its part, is directly across the Connecticut River from Vermont Yankee. New York "hosts" the FitzPatrick and Nine Mile Point Unit 1 Mark Is at Scriba, 6 miles outside Oswego, on the Lake Ontario shore, as well as the co-located, very similarly designed Nine Mile Point Unit 2 Mark II.

Beyond Nuclear's "Freeze Our Fukushimas" pamphlet lists these, and the other Mark Is and IIs located in the U.S.

"What is the U.S. government waiting for?"

Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumura, more than anyone, has raised the alarm about the structural integrity of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool. Matsumura has published a new essay explaining the Japanese government's inaction, and calling for international action. Matsumura argues that the U.S., in order to protect its own interests, must urge the Japanese government to allow in an independent assessment team to determine the status of the Unit 4 pool, and the best path forward on removing its irradiated nuclear fuel, before another big earthquake strikes.

Geologists predict a 90% chance of a Magnitude 7.0 quake hitting the Fukushima area in the next three years. Unit 4's collapse could result in its high-level radioactive waste catching fire, unleashing a global catastrophe. Unit 4's high-level radioactive waste pool contains 8 to 10 times the Cs-137 released by Chernobyl, but its release would put in jeopardy all seven high-level radioactive waste storage pools at Fukushima Daiichi, containing 85 times, or more, Chernobyl's Cs-137. Such a worst-case scenario would certainly result in significant radioactive fallout on the North American mainland, not to mention further contamination of the Pacific Ocean, and radioactivity bio-concentration in the food chain. 

Please contact the White House, and urge President Obama to offer cooperative assistance to the Japanese government, in order to independently assess the Unit 4 pool, and determine how best to quickly remove the irradiated nuclear fuel before the reactor building collapses.

Of course, the U.S. has potentially catastrophic risks of its own, as well. There are 23 still operating GE BWR Mark Is (identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi's Units 1-4), and an additional 8 Mark IIs (very similar in design).

However, whereas Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 had 219 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) stored within -- the most at any of the four wrecked reactors -- U.S. Mark I pools contain multiple times that much HLRW. As but two examples, the Mark Is at Pilgrim, MA and Fermi 2, MI each hold more than 600 metric tons of HLRW in their storage pools. In fact, they both still hold every single irradiated nuclear fuel assembly ever generated in those reactors.

Pilgrim now has an NRC rubberstamp permit for dry cask storage, so is supposed to slowly begin offloading a small fraction of its HLRW into ground level dry casks in the not so distant future.

Fermi 2 has had an NRC rubberstamp permit for dry cask storage for several years now, but has yet to move a single irradiated fuel assembly out of its pool. Why? Because, 40 years, Fermi 2 either forgot or decided not to install structural welds in its reactor building. The reactor building is not strong enough to hold a crane, and its nearly 100-ton waste transfer cask loads. Presumably, Fermi 2 is now installing those structural welds, albeit 40 years late.

Update on November 18, 2013 by admin

In this sense, Fermi 2 and Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 have a lot in common. It took Tokyo Electric from Marcy 2011 to November 2013 to rebuild the reactor building's infrastructure to the point where such crane operated offloads were even possible. Today, November 18, 2013, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has begun the slow process of removing both new (un-irradiated), as well as irradiated (highly radioactive) nuclear fuel assemblies from Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2. The transfer job is supposed to take until the end of 2014 to complete. However, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds has warned that some of the irradiated fuel in the Unit 4 pool could well be damaged -- corroded from salt water used as emergency coolant in the first days of the catastrophe, or bent by the explosion which sent a certain amount of debris crashing down into the pool, or simply stuck in deformed fuel channels in the storage pool itself. That is, the fuel transfer operation might not go smoothly.

Update on January 1, 2014 by admin

Remarkably, Tepco gave its Unit 4 fuel transfer project workers two weeks off for the New Year's holiday. Never mind that the precarious Unit 4 pool, holding a couple hundred tons of high-level radioactive waste, could unleash a global catastrophe if the cooling water drains down suddenly, or even boils down in slower motion. The releases of Cs-137 alone from a pool fire could be orders of magnitude worse than what's already occurred at Fukushima Daiichi since March 2011. The storage pools, after all, are not surrounded by any radiological containment whatsoever. Although the radiological containment structures around the Units 1, 2, and 3 reactor cores were too small, too weak, and were either severely damaged or even outright destroyed -- releasing catastrophic amounts of radioactvity -- supposedly the motherlode of radioactivity is still contained within those wrecked structures. However, the storage pools had very little radiological containment to begin with -- industrial grade reactor buildings. But after the hydrogen explosions that wrecked the reactor buildings, the storage pools are Units 1, 3, and 4 have been "open air."

Inviting atomic catastrophe as NRC looks to run reactors for 80 years

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a meeting this week to consider having nuclear power plants run 80 years - although they were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling metal parts and otherwise causing safety problems. But, as Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman writes, on the Huffington Post and elsewhere this week, "By extending the operating licenses of nuclear plants, the NRC is inviting catastrophe. It's asking for it. The gargantuan problem is that the "it" is atomic catastrophe which, as the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster and last year's Fukushima catastrophe have demonstrated, impacts on huge numbers of people and other forms of life."

As the 23 U.S. GE Mark I BWRs are among the oldest operating reactors in the country, they would be the first to reach their extended 60-year operating license expirations. The oldest operating reactor in the U.S. is Oyster Creek, NJ, a Mark I operating since 1969.

NRC's long list of 73 rubberstamped 20-year license extensions shows that most Mark Is and IIs across the U.S. have already won approval for 60 years of operations. The only ones yet to receive 60-year permits are: the two Limerick Mark IIs in PA; the Fermi 2 Mark I in MI; and the two LaSalle Mark IIs in IL.

The NRC's Latest Crazy Idea: An 80-Year License to Kill?

Indian Point, NY's steam generator tube rupture in Feb. 2000, and Davis-Besse's Hole-in-the-Head reactor lid corrosion in 2002 were examples of "break-down phase" accidentsInvestigative journalist Karl Grossman, who has been exposing the nuclear industry's cover ups for decades (Karl's first book, published in 1980, was entitled Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power) published an article today at Counterpunch entitled "The NRC's Latest Crazy Idea: An 80-Year License to Kill?" Since the year 2000, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has rubberstamped 73 license extensions for 20 additional years of operations at U.S. atomic reactors, on top of the original 40 year licenses. 13 additional atomic reactors are now lining up, hoping to get their 20 year extensions rubberstamped. But Beyond Nuclear is helping lead environmental coalitions against the Seabrook, NH and Davis-Besse, OH rubberstamps; Natural Resources Defense Council is challenging the Limerick, PA applications; and Missouri Coalition for the Environment is opposing the Callaway, MO license extension. Most of the remaining 20 atomic reactors in the U.S. also plan on applying for 20 year license extensions in the years ahead.

In addition, the NRC has rubberstamped scores of "power uprates" (with many more applied for), allowing atomic reactors to generate more electricity, in order to boost profits, by running hotter and harder than they were originally designed to operate.

But the insatiable greed and technical arrogance of the nuclear establishment knows no bounds. On Thursday, NRC will sit down with the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, as well as the nuclear industry's Electric Power Research Institute, to consider allowing atomic reactors to split atoms for 80 years, despite the radioactive bullets -- "break down phase" risks -- we have already been dodging by the skin of our teeth for many years (see Dave Lochbaum of Union of Concerned Scientists "Bathtub Curve of Nuclear Accidents," above left; the title refers to the shape of the curve, which shows that as atomic reactors age, the risk of disasters increases).

Karl, a Beyond Nuclear board member, quotes Bob Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies: “The idea of keeping these reactors going for 80 years is crazy! To double the design life of these plants—which operate under high-pressure, high heat conditions and are subject to radiation fatigue—is an example of out-of-control hubris, of believing your own lies.”

As the 23 U.S. GE Mark I BWRs are among the oldest operating reactors in the country, they would be the first to reach their extended 60-year operating license expirations. The oldest operating reactor in the U.S. is Oyster Creek, NJ, a Mark I operating since 1969.

NRC's long list of 73 rubberstamped 20-year license extensions shows that most Mark Is and IIs across the U.S. have already won approval for 60 years of operations. The only ones yet to receive 60-year permits are: the two Limerick Mark IIs in PA; the Fermi 2 Mark I in MI; and the two LaSalle Mark IIs in IL.

Kay Drey: How "Routine Emissions" from Nuclear Power Plants Slowly Poison Neighboring Communities

Kay Drey (photo by Jo Mannies, St. Louis Beacon)On May 25th, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Beyond Nuclear's Founding President, interviewed Kay Drey, a Beyond Nuclear board member, on her weekly radio program If You Love This Planet. Kay is also a board member of the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. For nearly 40 years, Kay has researched the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear waste, and advocated for the closure of nuclear plants and other uranium facilities. She was quite active in civil rights work before focusing on nuclear power. Kay and Dr. Caldicott discuss the widespread public health implications of so-called routine radioactive releases from nuclear power stations, in which many hazardous gases and fission byproducts are emitted during daily operations. Kay refers to a Beyond Nuclear pamphlet, Dirty, Dangerous, and Expensive: The Verdict Is In About Nuclear Power. Another Beyond Nuclear pamphlet, Routine Radioactive Releases from Nuclear Power Plants in the United States: What Are the Dangers?, provides more information on the main subject of Helen and Kay's conversation, as well as a listing of surface waters into which radioactively contaminated liquid wastes are being discharged. For more information, read Dr. Caldicott’s book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, which includes information from Kay’s studies.

As reactors age, unplanned, unmonitored, unpermitted leaks increase due to degradation of systems, structures, and components. Many of the 23 still-operating U.S. GE BWR Mark Is, identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1-4, are among the oldest reactors in the country. Thus, their leakage rates are also a concern, in addition to their ongoing, permitted, planned, monitored "routine" releases.