Gundersen: Doubts on Geotechnical Data Undermine Safety at Proposed Fermi 3 Atomic Reactor

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, Inc.Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc. (photo, left), testified before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) on behalf of an environmental coalition opposed to the construction and operation of Detroit Edison's proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor in Monroe, MI, on the Great Lakes shoreline. He focused on license applicant Detroit Edison's (DTE) blatant violations of safety significant quality assurance regulations.

The coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Coalition of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste MI, and Sierra Club MI Chapter, issued a press release.

Gundersen voiced his concerns about the trustworthiness of geotechnical data gathered by DTE and its subcontractors as part of the Fermi 3 Development Project. Detroit Edison has argued that it was not required to have quality assurance in place, as it was not yet an “applicant” for a new reactor construction and operating license at the time.

“Given Detroit Edison’s violations of quality assurance requirements, the geological borings and soil samples are suspect. Fermi 3’s building structures would be very heavy, so the geotechnical data has to be verifiable, so that the atomic reactor’s foundations are rock solid, and seismically qualified."

Gundersen pointed out that Detroit Edison’s playing fast and loose with the definition of the word “applicant” presents dangers not only at Fermi 3, but would set a very bad precedent across the nuclear power industry.

Gundersen continued: “If Detroit Edison was not an applicant, then it was not subject to NRC rules guarding against deliberate misconduct, the bearing of materially false witness, and requirements of completeness and accuracy of information, employee whistleblower protections, oaths of affirmation, and reporting of defects and noncompliance. Without quality assurance in place from the get-go, the very fabric of nuclear safety regulation has been torn asunder at Fermi 3. Whistleblowers watch out: NRC confirms that whistleblower protection did not apply at Fermi 3. As a former nuclear whistleblower, this is truly terrifying."

Arnie appeared in two recent podcasts put out by Fairewinds Energy Education having to do with this Fermi 3 proceeding. The first one, on October 30th, is entitled "Let the Games Begin." The second one, dated November 7th, is entitled "NRC Strips Whistleblower Protections."

Gundersen filed an expert declaration on QA, or lack thereof, on Dec. 8, 2009. He included his CV.

On January 15, 2010, the coalition had to fend off legal attacks by both DTE and NRC Staff.

He submitted additional expert testimony on June 8, 2010. A week later, the ASLB admitted the environmental coalition's QA contention to the evidentiary hearing stage.

He also filed non-proprietary QA testimony on April 30, 2013, which accompanied Intervenors' Initial Statement of Position on Contention 15 [QA].

DTE sicked three experts on Gundersen on April 30, just as they did at the oral evidentiary hearings on October 30-31.

NRC's expert, George A. Lipscomb, who also filed written testimony on April 30, was subjected to withering cross examination by the ASLB during the October 31 evidentiary hearing. Lipscomb stuck to his position, that DTE was not responsible for QA before it filed its Fermi 3 license application in September 2008. One of the three ASLB administrative law judge’s took issue with the agency staff person’s testimony.

“I really find your position to be very troubling,” ASLB Administrative Law Judge Anthony J. Baratta stated on the record. Baratta described NRC’s logic as “circular,” “confusing,” “appalling,” and even “somewhat misleading.”

In addition, ASLB Chief Administrative Law Judge Ronald M. Spritzer stated that NRC’s position was “completely irrational” and a “totally incoherent version of this regulation.”

Also responding to NRC’s testimony, Michael Keegan of Don’t Waste Michigan said: “That was the best Double Speak I’ve heard in a long time. George Orwell is spinning so fast in his grave, he should be hooked up to the electric grid.”

Gundersen also filed non-proprietary rebuttal testimony on May 29, 2013. It accompanied the environmental coalition's rebuttal to DTE and NRC Staff legal attacks.

The fight for Mother Earth against Father Greed

Help support a new film - Crying Earth Rise Up! - that tells the story of the struggle of two Lakota Indian women to uncover the human cost of mining uranium on their sacred lands. The women ask questions about the children's health and safety as they play in, and drink, water that is radiologically contaminated by Cameco's uranium mine. Cameco is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company. But as one of the women says, it's a choice between Mother Earth or Father Greed.

 Go to Kickstarter to support the project.

And watch an excerpt here:

No Nukes! at PowerShift 2013 in Pittsburgh

Kevin, Leona, and Yuko prepare for their workshop in between visitors to the Beyond Nuclear info. table at PowerShift 2013. The Japanese banner behind them reads "Stop Plutonium Thermal," or "Nix MOX." It was given to Kevin by anti-nuclear activists in Saga City, Japan in August 2010. Photo by Dave Kraft, NEIS.Beyond Nuclear was joined by Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) of Illinois, Friends of the Earth (FOE), Georgia Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Campaign, Public Citizen, Energy Justice Network, Indigenous Environmental Network, and other anti-nuke groups at Energy Action Coalition's PowerShift youth activist gathering in Pittsburgh last weekend.

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, joined by Leona Morgan of the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, Western Mining Action Network, and Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping (MASE/WMAN/CARD), and Yuko Tonohira of Todos Somos Japon (photo, left), co-led a workshop entitled "Nuclear Power's Human Rights Violations." Kevin framed the discussion on the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Health, Anand Grover's, newly published final report on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Leona discussed the impacts of uranium mining on Navajo and Pueblo indigenous peoples in the Four Corners. And Yuko reported on the impacts of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe on evacuated residents, as well as workers at Tokyo Electric Power Company's devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. More.

UK government fleeces public for China/French nuke plan

Reports Reuters: "Britain signed a deal with France's EDF to build a 16-billion pound ($26-billion) nuclear plant, becoming the first European country to provide state guarantees to help fund a nuclear project.

The Hinkley Point C project in southwest England, the first new European nuclear plant since the Fukushima crisis, is expected to start producing power from 2023 and will receive a guaranteed electricity "strike" price of 92.50 pounds ($150) per megawatt-hour for 35 years, more than twice the current market rate, EDF and the British government said on Monday."

Writes Oliver Tickell in The Ecologist: "Nuclear power brings many casualties. The first of these is the truth. According to the Government, the "deal" announced with EDF and Chinese nuclear companies to build a pair of 1.6GW reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset is an excellent one that will provide the country with safe, low cost and secure electricity. This is a masterpiece of mendacity, and of chutzpah. The deal is a disastrous one for the UK, its taxpayers and energy users. We will be locked into a punitively high electricity price, index-linked, from 2025 until 2060, and the cumulative cost of this one nuclear power station will be well in excess of £100 billion, or around £1 billion per year in today's money.

"The deal is also built on a lie - that nuclear power is not receiving any public subsidy. The "strike price" offered to EDF is a subsidy in all but name. And it's only the beginning of the UK's largesse, which also cover Treasury financing guarantees covering 65% of the construction cost (£10 billion), underwriting of decommissioning costs and waste management liabilities stretching millennia into the future, and limitless insurance against nuclear catastrophes of the kind that struck Fukushima. EDF will only be liable for the first €1.2 billion of costs arising from accident. Fukushima is conservatively estimated to have cost Japan over £300 billion. With free market insurance costs estimated at between €0.14 and €2.36 per kWh produced, the UK Government's insurance represents an additional subsidy worth €3 billion to €60 billion per year." Read the rest of the article.

Global nuclear retreat continues while renewables soar

Nuclear power continues its decline worldwide while investements in, and development of, renewables soar. The findings of the newly released 2013 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, prepared by Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al., show that only three reactors started up worldwide in 2012 while six were shut down. Meanwhile, China, India, Germany and Japan now generate more power from renewables than nuclear. Read the report.