UCS: "Why Is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Undervaluing American Lives?"

In a Huff Post Green blog post, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) senior writer Elliot Negin has asked why the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "Value of a Statistical Life" (VSL) is "two to three times lower than other agencies' calculations."

Negin quotes the economist credited with developing the VSL concept in the first place, in 1982, who confirmed that NRC's VSL -- of $3 million -- hasn't been indexed to inflation, or otherwise updated, in 33 years.

Negin reports:

"If the NRC increased that value to what other federal agencies use -- and made other long-overdue changes to the way it calculates the benefits of regulations -- it would have a major impact on nuclear plant license renewals and new reactor approvals," said Edwin Lyman, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Plant owners would have to add safety features that the NRC now considers to be too expensive because the agency lowballs the value of the lives that would be saved."

Update on July 14, 2015 by admin

Another thing that happened in 1982 was U.S. Representative (now Senator) Ed Markey (D-MA) outed a report commissioned by NRC, done by Sandia National Lab, that NRC tried to conceal, during congressional oversight hearings. Most commonly known as CRAC-2 (short for "Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences"), the report was more formally titled the 1982 Sandia Siting Study, or NUREG/CR-2239.

The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility has posted CRAC-2 figures online.

So too has NIRS.

As but one example, CRAC-2 revealed that a catastrophic radioactivity release from the Callaway atomic reactor in Missouri could cause 11,500 "Peak Early Fatalities," 32,000 "Peak Early Injuries," 9,600 "Peak Cancer Deaths," and $110 billion in property damage.

But as Associated Press investigative reporter Jeff Donn documented in June 2011, populations have soared around U.S. nuclear power plants since 1982, meaning CRAC-2's casualty figures are significantly underestimated now.

In 2010, Beyond Nuclear reformatted the CRAC-2 tables for hardcopy reproduction, as well as adjusted property damage figures for inflation, and delivered them to every office on Capitol Hill. Adjusted for inflation to 2008 dollar figures, Callaway's predicted property damage figure had grown to $242 billion, a figure that grew to $265 billion by 2014. 

Of course, if those property damage figures accounted for the value of human lives (which they likely did not), that too has been significantly undervalued by NRC for 33 years now, as reported by Negin above.

ASLBP issues split decision on vessel risks at Palisades, Beyond Nuclear vows appeal

A diagram describing pressurized thermal shock in a nuclear reactor. Credit: Japan Atomic Energy Agency. Japan's worst embrittled RPV, at Genkai 1, has been permanently closed in the aftermath of Fukushima.A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) issued a ruling on May 8th that recognized an environmental coalition's legal standing, but rejected its proferred contention, thus denying any further hearings on the matter.

Beyond Nuclear and coalition partners Don't Waste MI, MI Safe Energy Future--Shoreline Chapter, and Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, and expert witness Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc., filed an intervention on Dec. 1st against regulatory rollbacks on reactor pressure vessel (RPV) embrittlement/pressurized thermal shock (PTS) risks at Palisades, the most brittle RPV in the U.S. See the full docket of filings between the adversarial parties, here.

The coalition has issued a press release in response to the rejection of its contention. It has vowed to appeal the ruling within the next 25 days.

Lodge filed a second, related but separate intervention on behalf of the coalition on March 9. It challenges Entergy’s License Amendment Request to NRC for “equivalent margins analysis” regulatory relief from potentially disastrous “ductile tearing” (as opposed to brittle fracture) risks at Palisades, due to another form of age-related RPV metal degradation (loss of Charpy V-Notch Upper Shelf Energy below the 50 foot-pound screening criteria). The ASLBP has yet to rule on that intervention.

"Environmentalists Threaten Palisades, NRC With Lawsuit"

Photo taken in May 2013 during a protest organized by Beyond Nuclear at the front entrance of Palisades, which had just leaked 82.1 gallons of radioactive water into Lake Michigan. Marion Anderson of South Haven, a member of MSEF-Shoreline Chapter, created the placard.As reported by Rebecca Thiele at WMUK (NPR at Western Michigan University), an environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, is intervening against regulatory rollbacks at Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shore in southwest Michigan.

Thiele interviewed Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps (a native of Kalamazoo -- just 35 miles downwind of Palisades -- who serves on the board of directors of Don't Waste MI), as well as the coalition's attorney, Terry Lodge. At the top of the story, Bette Pierman of Benton Harbor, chairwoman of Michigan Safe Energy Future (MSEF)--Shoreline Chapter, is heard presenting during a panel discussion. The interviews took place at a fund- and awareness-raising event held at the Old Dog Tavern on April 19th in downtown Kalamazoo. Music performed by the "Duffield-Caron Project, with Friends" can be heard in the background of the interviews.

The intervention focuses on the risk of pressurized thermal shock (PTS). Palisades has the worst neutron radiation embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of any nuclear power plant in the U.S. Like a hot glass under cold water (and a ton of pressure per square inch!), PTS could fracture Palisades' RPV, causing a loss of coolant accident, core meltdown, and catastrophic radioactivity release.

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, and the expert witness for Beyond Nuclear and the coaltion at Palisades, has produced a humorous short video about this serious subject, entitled "Nuclear Crack Down?"