Archive for the ‘Nukes’ Category

22 April 2011

Mike Head
Aliran Monthly

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan’s nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades epitomise the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety.

Tepco is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan’s electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, persecution of whistle-blowers, suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism.

Among the company’s record of more than 200 proven falsifications of safety inspection reports are several relating to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi facility itself. In 2002, Tepco admitted to falsifying reports about cracks that had been detected in core shrouds at reactors number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as far back as 1993.

The current crisis at Fukushima, caused by last Friday’s magnitude 9 earthquake, is not the company’s first quake-related breakdown. In 2007, a much smaller 6.8-magnitude tremor caused a fire and radiation leaks that shut down Tepco’s seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, the world’s biggest. The company later admitted that the plant had not been built to withstand such shocks.

Tepco’s record is a case study in the complicity of successive Japanese governments and regulatory agencies over the past 40 years in the safety failures of nuclear power companies. With the backing of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which ruled Japan virtually continuously from 1955, when it was formed, to 2009, the business elite aggressively pursued the construction of more than 50 nuclear plants over the objections of residents and environmentalists, in order to secure the energy needs of Japanese capitalism, despite the patent dangers of doing so in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone zones.

The known nuclear cover-ups—undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg—began to emerge in 1995. In that year, an official falsification of the extent of a sodium leak and fire at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s Monju fast-breeder reactor caused public outrage. It was revealed that Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), the agency then in charge of Monju, had altered reports, edited a videotape taken immediately after the accident, and issued a gag order to employees. After a long series of court battles, the government allowed the reactor to restart last year.

In 1999, one of Japan’s worst nuclear accidents occurred at the Tokaimura uranium processing plant, 120 kilometres north of Tokyo. An uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction at the plant, operated by JCO, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining, killed two employees and leaked radioactivity over the countryside. Fifty-five workers were exposed to radiation and 300,000 people ordered to stay indoors, after the circumvention of safety standards caused a leak. Government officials later said safety equipment at the plant had been missing.

Three years later, Tepco was exposed as falsifying safety data, including at the ageing Fukushima Daiichi facility. Initially, the company admitted 29 cases of falsification. Eventually, however, it admitted to 200 occasions, over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities. According to the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), Tepco had attempted to hide cracks in reactor vessel shrouds in 13 units, including Fukushima Daiichi (6 reactors), Fukushima Daini (4 reactors), and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (7 reactors).

Tepco’s wrongdoings were only revealed as a result of whistle-blowing by a former engineer at General Electric (GE), a company with close connections to Tepco. GE built the plants and has been contracted by TEPCO to carry out inspection and operational matters for decades. Two years earlier, the engineer had reported the safety frauds to the relevant ministry, MITI, the forerunner of the current Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), only to have the government supply his name to Tepco and conspire with the company to bury the information.

Hitachi, which conducted the air tightness checks for Tepco, was also implicated in the manipulation of test results. On two occasions, the pressure readings in Fukushima’s No 1 reactor were unstable, so workers were instructed to inject air into the container to make it appear that pressure was being maintained.

Nevertheless, relying on Tepco’s own calculations, NISA maintained that there should be no problem regarding the safety of the plants. The agency inspects nuclear plants only every 13 months, and leaves the inspection of the shrouds and pumps around the reactor cores to each company.

The LDP government feigned concern at these blatant safety breaches, with Seiji Murat, Vice Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, declaring the company had "betrayed the public’s trust over nuclear energy". Tepco’s senior executives duly resigned, and their successors formally pledged to take all necessary measures to prevent any further fraud. By the end of 2005, generation had been restarted at all suspended plants, with government approval.

A little over a year later, in March 2007, the company announced that an internal investigation had revealed a large number of unreported incidents. These included an unexpected unit criticality in 1978 and additional systematic false reporting, which had not been uncovered in 2002. Once more, the firm was publicly remorseful. "We apologise from the bottom of our heart for causing anxiety to the public and local residents," Tepco vice-president Katsutoshi Chikudate said. The company was permitted to keep operating.

Several months later, in July 2007, the 6.8 quake that shut down Tepco’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant demonstrated the real nature of the company’s assurances. The earthquake, 10 kilometres offshore from the Honshu west coast plant, caused subsidence of the main structure, ruptured water pipes, started a fire that took five hours to extinguish, and triggered radioactive discharges into the atmosphere and sea. The company initially said there was no release of radiation, but admitted later that the quake had released radiation and had spilled radioactive water into the Sea of Japan. Seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi warned that had the epicentre been 10 kilometres to the southwest and at magnitude 7, Kashiwazaki City would have experienced a major emergency.

Amid a public outcry, the government again put on a display of anger. According to media reports, a senior Japanese government official hauled Tepco’s president into his office "for a rare and humiliating verbal caning". The official was "furious" because Tepco management had "initially misled his officials—and not for the first time, either—about the extent of breakdowns at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa".

The 2007 closure of Tepco’s largest nuclear plant contributed to the company posting its first ever losses over the past two years. It is now the world’s most indebted utility, with current net borrowings of $88 billion. This financial crisis has driven management to slash costs and boost output from its other plants, no doubt also at the expense of safety. Tepco’s "2020 Vision" document pledges to "accelerate cost reduction efforts" and raise the non-fossil fuel (mainly nuclear) proportion of its generation from 33 to 50 percent.

The current meltdown and radiation emergency at Fukushima is the inevitable product of the protracted record of Tepco-government collaboration, which is being continued by the present Democratic Party of Japan administration. Prime Minister Naoto Kan, like his LDP predecessors, has publicly professed outrage at Tepco’s repeated cover-ups in this latest—and by far the most serious—disaster. Reuters reported: "Japan’s prime minister was furious with executives at a power company at the centre of the nuclear crisis for taking so long to inform his office about a blast at its stricken reactor complex, demanding ‘what the hell is going on?’.

Kan’s "fury" is purely for public consumption. In recent months, the Kan government has stepped up a campaign to help Japanese power companies, led by Tepco, to win contracts to build nuclear reactors overseas. As part of that push, METI, the parent ministry of the nuclear safety agency NISA, has boasted that Japan maintains a "healthy regulatory environment". Last August, Tepco chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, together with other Japanese power company executives, was part of a delegation, headed by then METI minister, Masayuki Naoshima, which signed deals to build two nuclear reactors in Vietnam.

With the government’s backing, Tepco also remains closely interlocked with other giant Japanese companies. Just weeks ago, on February 23, Tepco and Mitsubishi Corporation formed a partnership to take over the management of Electricity Generating Public Company Limited (EGCO), one of the largest power companies in Thailand.

The company’s recent expansion extends to the US. In May 2010, Tepco announced an agreement for the planned enlargement of the South Texas Project nuclear plant, in partnership with Nuclear Innovation North America LLC (NINA), a nuclear development company jointly owned by NRG Energy, Inc. and Toshiba.

Within Japan, Tepco is planning to open six new nuclear reactors, including units 7 and 8 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant (in 2014 and 2015), and units 1 and 2 of the Higashidori plant, facing the Pacific Ocean in northern Japan (in 2015 and 2018). Last month, residents protested as the company commenced construction, in the dark of night, on two nuclear plants at Iwai Island, in the Inland Sea south of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and close to Kyushu island, where a volcano burst this week.

Scenes of the Iwai Island protest were broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7.30 television program on 15 March. The footage was recorded by documentary film-maker Hitomi Kamanaka, who resigned from the state broadcaster NHK after it refused to run her material criticising the country’s nuclear power companies.

Tepco has been shielded by governments and the media for decades because, as the World Socialist Web Site has pointed out ("The implications of the Japanese catastrophe"), the Japanese ruling elite turned to the breakneck development of nuclear power in the late 1960s and early 1970s to shield itself from dependence on imported oil. Now more than 40 years-old, Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi plant was the very first to begin operational generation, on March 26, 1970.

Tepco’s litany of deliberate violations of the most elementary safety standards, enabled by the collusion of one government after another, is a graphic demonstration of the intolerable danger posed to the world’s population by the capitalist economic order itself, based as it is on the extraction of private profit at all costs.

May. 4 2011

Jeff McMahon
Forbes Magazine

The Environmental Protection Agency has halted accelerated testing of precipitation, drinking water, and milk for radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the agency announced yesterday.

"After a thorough data review showing declining radiation levels related to the Japanese nuclear incident, EPA has returned to the routine RadNet sampling and analysis process for precipitation, drinking water and milk," according to yesterday’s Daily Data Summary.

Milk and drinking water will return to a regular quarterly schedule and will next be tested in three months. Preciptation will be tested monthly.

The agency will continue to monitor air samples—where radiation is likely to appear first—in near real time and post the results, but "EPA is evaluating the need to continue operating the additional air monitors deployed in response to the Japan nuclear incident," the summary states.

Mobile air monitors were deployed on Pacific Islands, in Alaska and along the West Coast to act as an early warning system for coming fallout.

Other U.S. radiation monitors have also recorded a decline in Fukushima radiation. Levels have dropped almost consistently in graphs posted by the Berkeley Radiological Air and Water Monitoring Team. The Community Environmental Monitoring Program based in Las Vegas last posted air filter results on April 18 after noting the radiation levels had peaked March 25.

But the situation at Fukushima remains unstable, with plumes of white smoke continuing to escape from two reactors.

"I would describe the situation as being not quite stable, but certainly not as highly dynamic as it was on march 21 when we last met on this subject," said Marty Virgilio, an NRC deputy executive director, in testimony before the commission Thursday.

Radioactive emissions continue at the plant, Virgilio said, and they are difficult to monitor accurately:

There’s still feed and bleed operations in progress. That is a somewhat dynamic situation, as well as unfiltered and unmonitored release paths that remain to be a concern at the Fukushima site.

"One of the things that make it difficult for the Japanese in responding to this event—and for us to understand the exact situation—is that there’s suspect accuracy and failed instrumentation at the site, affecting all the units, that really impair our ability to get a clear and consistent picture of the situation."

Japanese authorities have also been reporting declining levels of radiation in air and drinking water. The International Atomic Energy Agency issued this statement on gamma radiation at the plant:

A general decreasing trend has been observed in all locations since around 20 March."

And this statement on coastal seawater:

The analysis for almost all sampling positions has shown a general decreasing trend in concentrations of the relevant radionuclides over time."

But that "almost" is a big one: levels of Iodine-131 remained steady in coastal seawater from April 26 to April 30, the IAEA reported, a finding that belies Iodine-131’s short half-life and the dilution power of the ocean. I-131 was detected consistently at about 2.7 million picoCuries per liter. (For comparison, the EPA’s maximum contaminant level for I-131 in drinking water is 3 picoCuries per liter).

The Japanese dumped about 11,500 tons of water intentionally that contained the following concentrations of contaminants, according to the IAEA. (Amounts are given in megaBecquerels, one of which equals 27 million picoCuries):

• 5400 MBq/L of Iodine-131

• 1800 MBq/L of Cesium-134 and

• 1800 MBq/L of Cesium-137.

An unknown amount of contaminated water leaked into the ocean from a damaged reservoir.

Nothing Fishy

The ocean dumping has raised fears of seafood contamination, particularly in species that are imported or that migrate from Japanese waters. Three U.S. government agencies sought to quell those fears with a joint statement yesterday.

The threat of radioactive contamination reaching American waters is so low that the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not plan to test American seafood for it, those agencies said in the joint statement with EPA:

FDA and NOAA do not anticipate contamination of living marine resources in U.S. waters at this time. For this reason, sampling of U.S. harvested seafood is not currently planned.

via U.S. Seafood Safe… (pdf)

The joint statement follows an April 29 meeting between Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto. The two agreed to fight "rumors and reputation damage" that might harm Japan’s place in the supply chain, Matsumoto said.

FDA measures gamma radiation in 40 percent of seafood imported from Japan, according to the joint statement, and so far has detected nothing above background levels.

Japanese regulators have only found radiation in the sand lance, a fish that does not leave Japanese waters, the FDA said. None has been found in albacore tuna, a species known to migrate from Japanese waters to the U.S. West Coast:

The migration of tuna and other species of fish from the coast of Japan to U.S. waters would take days or months under the best of circumstances, and vessels fishing beyond U.S. waters must also travel several days to return to port. During that time needed for a fish contaminated by radiation in Japan to migrate, be caught and reach the market, the level of short-lived radionuclides such as I-131 would drop significantly through natural radioactive decay. To date, no significantly elevated radiation levels have been detected in migratory species, including North Pacific albacore.

The agencies said they would respond quickly if radioactive materials were deposited into the Kuroshiro Current, which flows from Japan to the U.S. West Coast, but it was not clear how they would determine that had happened.

"To screen for longer term impacts, NOAA’s National Ocean Service and the Environmental Protection Agency are exploring approaches to monitor seawater and sediment in areas along the western U.S. coast, with sampling stations co-located with sites in NOAA’s Mussel Watch program."

The nuclear engineers at Berkeley have already begun testing seaweed on the Northern California Coast, they announced this weekend. Most foods passed their most recent food tests, but they reported a tiny amount of radioactive cesium in strawberries:

There are no isotopes from Japan detected in the new spinach, kale, arugula, and seaweed samples. The new strawberry samples from 4/20 show no I-131, but Cs-134 and Cs-137 are present. The highest levels of radioisotopes detected would require the consumption of more than 3 tons of strawberries in order to receive the same equivalent dose as a cross-country airplane flight.

via UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Air Monitoring Station.

Rain on Both Coasts

EPA also released a new batch of test results yesterday, reporting non-detects in samples from 16 of 18 U.S. cities, with these two exceptions:

• 7.2 picoCuries per liter of iodine-131 in rainwater collected April 20 in Boston.

• 5.2 pCi/L of cesium-134 and 5.5 pCi/L of cesium-137 in rainwater collected April 22 in Richmond, CA.

The EPA’s maximum contaminant level for both of these radionuclides—3 pCi/L for drinking water—anticipates continuous ingestion over a 70-year lifetime.

"It is important to note that all of the radiation levels detected by RadNet monitors and sampling have been very low, are well below any level of public health concern, and continue to decrease over time," EPA said.

America’s Nuclear Nightmare

The U.S. has 31 reactors just like Japan’s — but regulators are
ignoring the risks and boosting industry profits

APRIL 27, 2011

By JEFF GOODELL
Rolling Stone Magazine

Five days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, America’s leading nuclear regulator came before Congress bearing good news: Don’t worry, it can’t happen here. In the aftermath of the Japanese catastrophe, officials in Germany moved swiftly to shut down old plants for inspection, and China put licensing of new plants on hold. But Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reassured lawmakers that nothing at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors warranted any immediate changes at U.S. nuclear plants. Indeed, 10 days after the earthquake in Japan, the NRC extended the license of the 40-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor — a virtual twin of Fukushima — for another two decades. The license renewal was granted even though the reactor’s cooling tower had literally fallen down, and the plant had repeatedly leaked radioactive fluid.

Perhaps Jaczko was simply trying to prevent a full-scale panic about the dangers of U.S. nuclear plants. After all, there are now 104 reactors scattered across the country, generating 20 percent of America’s power. All of them were designed in the 1960s and ’70s, and are nearing the end of their planned life expectancy. But there was one problem with Jaczko’s testimony, according to Dave Lochbaum, a senior adviser at the Union of Concerned Scientists: Key elements of what the NRC chief told Congress were "a baldfaced lie."

Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, says that Jaczko knows full well that what the NRC calls "defense in depth" at U.S. reactors has been seriously compromised over the years. In some places, highly radioactive spent fuel is stockpiled in what amounts to swimming pools located beside reactors. In other places, changes in the cooling systems at reactors have made them more vulnerable to a core meltdown if something goes wrong. A few weeks before Fukushima, Lochbaum authored a widely circulated report that underscored the NRC’s haphazard performance, describing 14 serious "near-miss" events at nuclear plants last year alone. At the Indian Point reactor just north of New York City, federal inspectors discovered a water-containment system that had been leaking for 16 years.

As head of the NRC, Jaczko is the top cop on the nuclear beat, the guy charged with keeping the nation’s fleet of aging nukes running safely. A balding, 40-year-old Democrat with big ears and the air of a brilliant high school physics teacher, Jaczko oversees a 4,000-person agency with a budget of $1 billion. But the NRC has long served as little more than a lap dog to the nuclear industry, unwilling to crack down on unsafe reactors. "The agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry," says Victor Gilinsky, who served on the commission during the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become captive of the industries that it regulates."

In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of the agency’s inaction could be dire. "The NRC has consistently put industry profits above public safety," says Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear executive turned whistle-blower. "Consequently, we have a dozen Fukushimas waiting to happen in America."

The meltdown in Japan couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the industry. In recent years, nuclear power has been hyped as the only energy source that could replace coal quickly enough to slow the pace of global warming. Some 60 new nukes are currently in the works worldwide, prompting the industry to boast of a "nuclear renaissance." In his 2012 budget, President Obama included $54 billion in federal loan guarantees for new reactors — far more than the $18 billion available for renewable energy.

Without such taxpayer support, no new reactors would ever be built. Since the Manhattan Project was created to develop the atomic bomb back in the 1940s, the dream of a nuclear future has been fueled almost entirely by Big Government. America’s current fleet of reactors exists only because Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957, limiting the liability of nuclear plant operators in case of disaster. And even with taxpayers assuming most of the risk, Wall Street still won’t finance nuclear reactors without direct federal assistance, in part because construction costs are so high (up to $20 billion per plant) and in part because nukes are the only energy investment that can be rendered worthless in a matter of hours. "In a free market, where real risks and costs are accounted for, nuclear power doesn’t exist," says Amory Lovins, a leading energy expert at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Nuclear plants "are a creation of government policy and intervention."

They are also a creation of lobbying and campaign contributions. Over the past decade, the nuclear industry has contributed more than $4.6 million to members of Congress — and last year alone, it spent $1.7 million on federal lobbying. Given the generous flow of nuclear money, the NRC is essentially rigged to operate in the industry’s favor. The agency has plenty of skilled engineers and scientists at the staff level, but the five commissioners who oversee it often have close ties to the industry they are supposed to regulate. "They are vetted by the industry," says Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser at the Energy Department. "It’s the typical revolving-door story — many are coming in or out of jobs with the nuclear power industry. You don’t get a lot of skeptics appointed to this job."

Jeffrey Merrifield, a former NRC commissioner who left the agency in 2007, is a case in point. When Merrifield was ready to exit public service, he simply called up the CEO of Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear operator, and asked him for a job recommendation. Given his friends in high places, he wound up taking a top job at the Shaw Group, a construction firm that builds nuclear reactors — and he’s done his best to return the favor. During the Fukushima disaster, Merrifield appeared on Fox News, as well as in videos for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s lobbying group. In one video — titled "Former NRC Commissioner Confident That Building of New U.S. Nuclear Plants Should Continue" — Merrifield reassures viewers that the meltdown in Japan is no big deal. "We should continue to move forward with building those new plants," he says, "because it’s the right thing for our nation and it’s the right thing for our future."

Such cozy relationships between regulators and the industry are nothing new. The NRC and the utilities it oversees have engaged in an unholy alliance since 1974, when the agency rose from the ashes of the old Atomic Energy Commission, whose mandate was to promote nuclear power. "For political reasons, the U.S. wanted to show something good could come out of splitting the atom," says Robert Duffy, a political scientist at Colorado State University who has written widely about the history of nuclear power. "There was great pressure on the industry to get nuclear plants built quickly." With no effective oversight by the government, the industry repeatedly cut corners on the design and construction of reactors. At the Diablo Canyon plant in California, engineers actually installed vital cooling pipes backward, only to have to tear them out and reinstall them.

But even the lax oversight provided by the NRC was more than the industry could bear. In 1996, in one of the most aggressive enforcement moves in the agency’s history, the NRC launched an investigation into design flaws at a host of reactors and handed out significant fines. When the industry complained to Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a powerful nuclear ally, he confronted the head of the NRC in his office and threatened to cut its funding by a third unless the agency backed off. "So the NRC folded their tent and went away," says Lochbaum. "And they’ve been away pretty much ever since."

The Japanese disaster should have been a wake-up call for boosters of nuclear power. America has 31 aging reactors just like Fukushima, and it wouldn’t take an earthquake or tsunami to push many of them to the brink of meltdown. A natural disaster may have triggered the crisis in Japan, but the real problem was that the plant lost power and was unable to keep its cooling systems running — a condition known as "station blackout." At U.S. reactors, power failures have been caused by culprits as mundane as squirrels playing on power lines. In the event of a blackout, operators have only a few hours to restore power before a meltdown begins. All nukes are equipped with backup diesel generators, as well as batteries. But at Fukushima, the diesel generators were swamped by floodwaters, and the batteries lasted a mere eight hours — not nearly long enough to get power restored and avert catastrophe. NRC standards do virtually nothing to prevent such a crisis here at home. Only 11 of America’s nuclear reactors have batteries designed to supply power for up to eight hours, while the other 93 have batteries that last half that long.

And that’s just the beginning of the danger. Aging reactors are a gold mine for the power companies that own them. Nuclear plants are expensive to build but cheap to operate, meaning the longer they run, the more profitable they become. The NRC has done its part to boost profitability by allowing companies to "uprate" old nukes — modifying them to run harder — without requiring additional safety improvements. Vermont Yankee, for example, was permitted to boost its output by 20 percent, eroding the reactor’s ability to cool itself in the event of an emergency. The NRC’s own advisory committee on reactor safety was vehemently opposed to allowing such modifications, but the agency ultimately allowed the industry to trade safety for profit. "The NRC put millions of Americans at elevated risk," says Lochbaum.

Indeed, the NRC’s "safety-last" attitude recalls the industry-friendly approach to regulation that resulted in the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Nuclear reactors were built to last only 40 years, but the NRC has repeatedly greenlighted industry requests to keep the aging nukes running for another two decades: Of the 63 applications the NRC has received for license extensions, it has approved all 63. In some cases, according to the agency’s own Office of the Inspector General, NRC inspectors failed to verify the authenticity of safety information submitted by the industry, opting to simply cut and paste sections of the applications into their own safety reviews. That’s particularly frightening given that some of America’s most troubled reactors — including Davis-Besse in Ohio, where a football-size hole overlooked by NRC inspectors nearly caused a catastrophe in 2002 — are now pushing for extensions. "If history is any judge, the NRC is likely to grant them," says Gundersen, the former nuclear executive.

Even after a reactor is found to be at higher risk because of new information about earthquake zones — as is the case at Indian Point, located only 38 miles from New York City — the NRC has done little to bolster safety requirements. The agency’s current risk estimate of potential core damage at the Pilgrim reactor in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is eight times higher than its earlier 1989 estimate — yet it has done little to require the plant to prepare for an earthquake, beyond adding a few more fire hoses and other emergency gear. The Diablo Canyon plant in California, which sits near one of the most active seismic zones in the world, is supposedly engineered to withstand a 7.5 earthquake. There’s only one problem: Two nearby faults are capable of producing quakes of 7.7 or higher. Should it be shut down? "That’s the kind of big question the NRC should be capable of answering," says Gilinsky, the former NRC commissioner. "Unfortunately, they are not."

The biggest safety issue the NRC faces with old nukes is what to do about the nuclear waste. At Fukushima, the largest release of radioactivity apparently came from the concrete pools where spent fuel rods, clad with a special alloy, are placed to cool down after they are used in the reactor. These spent rods are extremely hot — up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — and need a constant circulation of water to keep them from burning up. But in America, most plants have no way of keeping the water circulating in the event of a power failure. Nor are the pools themselves typically housed in secure bunkers, because the NRC long considered it virtually impossible for the special alloy to catch fire. Fukushima proved them wrong. The earthquake damaged the systems that cooled the spent rods, allowing the water to drain out. The rods then heated up and the cladding caught fire, releasing cesium-137 and other radioactive particles. The rods were eventually cooled with seawater fired from water cannons and pumped in by firetrucks, but not before a significant amount of radiation had been released.

In theory, pools in the U.S. were only supposed to hold spent fuel rods for a short time, until they could be moved to a permanent disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But the site has remained unfeasible despite two decades and $7 billion in research, prompting President Obama to finally pull the plug on it last year. That means tens of thousands of tons of irradiated fuel continue to sit in spent fuel pools at reactors across the country — America’s largest repository of radioactive material. A release of just one-tenth of the radioactive material at the Vermont Yankee reactor could kill thousands and render much of New England uninhabitable for centuries. "Yet the NRC has ignored the risk for decades," says Alvarez, the former Energy Department adviser.

According to a 2003 study, it would cost as much as $7 billion to move the spent fuel out of the pools and into more secure containers known as dry-cask storage. So why hasn’t the NRC required such a precaution? "Power companies don’t want to pay for it," says Alvarez. "They would rather let the public take the risk." Gilinsky offers another explanation. "After insisting for years that spent fuel pools were not a problem," he says, "the NRC doesn’t want to admit what everyone knows after Fukushima: They were wrong."

As chairman of the NRC, Gregory Jaczko was supposed to reform the agency. He formerly served as science adviser to Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, and won his seat on the commission in 2005 over protests from the industry. Under his leadership, however, the NRC has displayed an alarming lack of urgency in the wake of Fukushima. The agency says it is currently taking a quick look for immediate problems at U.S. reactors, and promises to follow up with a more in-depth review later. But it’s an indication of how little respect the agency commands that no one expects much to change. Indeed, ever since the terrorist attacks in 2001, the NRC has become increasingly secretive. "The agency has used national security as an excuse to withhold information," says Diane Curran, an attorney who specializes in nuclear safety.

Some critics argue that it’s time for an outside agency, such as the National Academy of Sciences, to take an independent look at the safety and security of America’s aging nukes. A better idea might be to simply repeal the Price-Anderson Act and force the nuclear industry to take responsibility for the risks of running these old plants, rather than laying it all off on taxpayers. The meltdown in Japan could cost Tokyo Electric some $130 billion — roughly three times what the Deepwater Horizon spill cost BP. If nuke owners had to put their own money where their atoms are, the crumbling old reactors would get cleaned up or shut down in a heartbeat.

Instead, by allowing the industry to cut safety margins in exchange for profits, the NRC is actually putting the "nuclear renaissance" itself at risk. "It has not been protesters who have brought down the nuclear industry," said Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. "It has been Wall Street." Wind and natural gas are already cheaper than nukes, and the price of solar is falling fast. And with each new Fukushima, the cost of nukes — as well as the risks — will continue to rise.

"The question is not whether we will get an earthquake or a tsunami," says Lochbaum. "The question is whether we are fully prepared for unexpected events, and whether we are doing everything we can to protect the public. I don’t think we are. If and when there is a nuclear disaster, I would hate to be the one who has to stand up in front of the American people and say, ‘We knew about these problems, but did nothing about them.’"

Protesters Want NRG Energy to Halt Nuclear Reactor Licensing

Download this press release in pdf format for printing

No More Chernobyls, No More Fukushimas, No More Nuclear Reactors

Media Release
April 26, 2011 – For Immediate Release

Contacts:
Susana Almanza, PODER 512-590-2111
Marion Mlotok, Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, 512-470-8878

Austin, TX Last week NRG Energy announced that they will halt further investment in two proposed South Texas Project nuclear reactors, a strong step in the right direction. However, protesters demanding crucial further steps took to the streets today, urging NRG to halt reactor licensing.

"NRG was right to protect the financial health of the utility by pulling out of investment in the $18.2 billion reactors," said Marion Mlotok, spokesperson for the SEED Coalition. "But it is crucial that NRG fully halt the licensing of the proposed reactors and withdraw their federal loan guarantee application, since approval would allow billions of taxpayer dollars to go toward building more nuclear reactors. Another company could come in and buy out the reactor project, which should instead be halted entirely. These reactors should not be built by NRG or any other company."

Reactor opponents have a strong legal case addressing the risks of co-locating multiple reactors at the same site and contend that NRG’s plan to deal with fires and explosions is inadequate. The groups recently wrote to the NRG Board, urging that the reactor license application and federal loan guarantee application be withdrawn and that the company stop pursuit of adding 20 years of operating life for existing aging reactors. STP Nuclear Operating Company estimates an $18.2 billion pricetag for two reactors. If the financially shaky project somehow moves forward, a loan default would fall on the shoulders of already burdened taxpayers.

"Nuclear power comes with significant health risks, since radioactive exposure is linked to cancer and birth defects. Radionuclides routinely released in nuclear reactor operations have been linked to developmental problems, birth defects, reproductive problems, cardiovascular disease, leukemia and other cancers," said Trish O’Day, a nurse and board member of Austin Physicians for Social Responsibility. "Epidemiological studies of children living near nuclear reactors show a positive association between leukemia and proximity to nuclear reactors. Pollutants from nuclear power such as tritium, which acts like water in the body, can enter fetuses through the placenta. Tritium is linked to cancer and genetic abnormalities."

"Due to health and safety concerns and the increasing risks that come as reactors age, NRG should halt re-licensing of the two existing South Texas Project reactors," said Susana Almanza, Director of PODER. "Re-licensing would allow another 20 more years of operation for the reactors, which are now set to retire in 2027 and 2028. The nuclear disaster in Japan is teaching the world lessons the hard way about the increased risks of aging reactors. Japan’s Fukushima’s Reactor No. 1, the oldest reactor at Daiichi site, had just been given a 10-year extension despite safety warnings a month before the March nuclear disaster." Reactor No. 1 exploded and has the most seriously damaged fuel rods, which may not be fully covered with water until July despite the pumping of six tons of water every hour.

"In 1993-1994 both South Texas Project 1 & 2 had year-long outages in order to bring them back to even basic safety levels, at a cost of roughly a billion dollars each," said Susan Dancer, Director of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, who lives only eight miles from the site. "There have been recent problems at the reactors as well, which are getting nothing but worse. Unit One is currently having an unplanned extended outage. The only safe path is to transition away from aging nuclear reactors." Dancer spoke in Houston at a protest being held in conjunction with the Austin event.

A Union of Concerned Scientists report notes that in 27 years following the Three Mile Island meltdown, "38 U.S. nuclear power reactors had to be shut down for at least one year while safety margins were restored to minimally acceptable levels…Safety restoration outages result from cumulative, systemic degradation of reactor components. A year-plus outage of this kind is not needed to fix damage caused by an accident or to replace or repair a major component, but to fix dozens or even hundreds of equipment problems that have accumulated over time." The protest was held on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, a level 7 nuclear disaster, which some researchers now say cost 985,000 lives, mostly cancer related deaths. The ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is now also rated level 7. A 1982 NRC study (CRAC-2) found that 18,000 early deaths could result from an accident at the South Texas Project site.

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No More Chernobyls, No More Fukushimas, No More Nuclear Reactors

Download this press release in pdf format for printing

Media Release
April 26, 2011 – For Immediate Release

Contacts:
Zac Trahan, 713-337-4192 Texas Campaign for the Environment
Karen Hadden, 512-797-8481 Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition
Susan Dancer, 979-479-0627, South Texas Association for Responsible Energy

Houston, TX Last week NRG Energy announced that they will halt further investment in two proposed South Texas Project nuclear reactors, a strong step in the right direction. However, protesters demanding crucial further steps took to the streets today prior to an NRG shareholder meeting.

"NRG was right to protect the financial health of the utility by pulling out of investment in the $18.2 billion reactors," said Karen Hadden, Director of the SEED Coalition. "But it is crucial that NRG fully halt the licensing of the proposed reactors and withdraw their federal loan guarantee application, since approval would allow billions of taxpayer dollars to go toward building more nuclear reactors. Another company could come in and buy out the reactor project, which should instead be halted entirely. These reactors should not be built by NRG or any other company."

Reactor opponents have a strong legal case addressing the risks of co-locating multiple reactors at the same site and contend that NRG’s plan to deal with fires and explosions is inadequate. The groups recently wrote to the NRG Board, urging that the reactor license application and federal loan guarantee application be withdrawn and that the company stop pursuit of adding 20 years of operating life for existing aging reactors. STP Nuclear Operating Company estimates an $18.2 billion pricetag for two reactors. If the financially shaky project somehow moves forward, a loan default would fall on the shoulders of already burdened taxpayers.

"Due to safety concerns and increasing risks that come as reactors age, NRG should halt relicensing of the two existing South Texas Project reactors," said Zac Trahan, Program Director for Texas Campaign for the Environment. Re-licensing would allow another 20 more years of operation for the reactors, which are now set to retire in 2027 and 2028. The nuclear disaster in Japan is teaching the world lessons the hard way about the increased risks of aging reactors. Japan’s Fukushima’s Reactor No. 1, the oldest reactor at Daiichi site, had just been given a 10-year extension despite safety warnings a month before the March nuclear disaster." Reactor No. 1 exploded and has the most seriously damaged fuel rods, which may not be fully covered with water until July despite the pumping of six tons of water every hour.

"In 1993-1994 both South Texas Project 1 & 2 had year-long outages in order to bring them back to even basic safety levels, at a cost of roughly a billion dollars each," said Susan Dancer, Director of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, who lives only eight miles from the site. "There have been recent problems at the reactors as well, which are getting nothing but worse. Unit One is currently having an unplanned extended outage. The only safe path is to transition away from aging nuclear reactors."

A Union of Concerned Scientists report notes that in 27 years following the Three Mile Island meltdown, "38 U.S. nuclear power reactors had to be shut down for at least one year while safety margins were restored to minimally acceptable levels…Safety restoration outages result from cumulative, systemic degradation of reactor components. A year-plus outage of this kind is not needed to fix damage caused by an accident or to replace or repair a major component, but to fix dozens or even hundreds of equipment problems that have accumulated over time."

The protest was held on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, a level 7 nuclear disaster, which some researchers now say cost 985,000 lives, mostly cancer related deaths. The ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is now also rated level 7. A 1982 NRC study (CRAC-2) found that 18,000 early deaths could result from an accident at the South Texas Project site.

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• Protest of NRG’s Nuclear Reactors – April 26, 2011