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Steve's favorite news links
* The Newseum's daily compendium of front pages from around the world
* Nevada state government's nuclear-oriented "What's New" page, updated daily with links to fresh articles from around the world.
* Google News, updated continuously throughout the day.
* America's Party News - God-fearing, liberty-loving, sovereignty-conserving folks have a great plan to save our nation
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December 22, 2011
Congratulations to AP1000 design team
NRC Commissioners' vote results: yes on AP1000 design certification
11:15 am ET: More info in hot-off-the-press press release from Westinghouse.
December 14, 2011
10:15 am update - click here for live video
All five NRC Commissioners scheduled to testify at House oversight committee hearing today. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 am ET. After the Commissioners, two senior NRC staff members will testify. Click here for more info, including link to the livestream video feed.
November 9, 2011
NRC Audit Report of North Anna's post-Quake fuel inspections
Photo is from video inspection of fuel assembly. Some indications were identified, but all were of the
kind that have been observed from normal conditions. NRC inspectors closed out the report with what they
called a policy issue
to be resolved -- should the earthquake be considered inside or outside the bounds of previous analysis.
Nuclear.com sees this as an engineering issue, not a policy issue.
November 8, 2011
July 29, 2011
Full draft report of the Blue Ribbon Commission released today
The Commission was formed to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and recommend a new plan. Public comments on the draft are solicited through October 31.
July 14, 2011
NRC's post-Fukushima Task Force issues final report
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission instructed its staff to report findings and recommendations during a 90-day review of the accidents at Fukushima. The report was released Tuesday - pdf is available here. The Nuclear Energy Institute held a telephone press conference about the report yesterday. An mp3 recording is available here.
Press coverage can be found at The Hill, Wall Street Journal, and hundreds of other outlets.
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Today's list of documents is also available at http://www.nuclear.com/ADAMS-newest.html
nuclear.com appreciates the emphasis that StartPage search engine places on preserving user privacy, and is delighted to recommend it as an alternative to googling and whatnot
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July 12, 2011
Episode Information
nuclear.com daily talk radio show
Title: nuclear news - July 12, 2011 - nuclear.com daily
Time: 07/12/2011 12:05 PM EDT
Episode Notes:
- - - Top story
Japan Times:
* Fukushima plant site originally was a hill safe from tsunami
- - - Front pages today:
* Tri-City Herald lead story: DOE taking Safety Board scathing to heart at Hanford
* Japan Times top story: 'Stress tests' to be done in two stages
* also on JT front page: Cesium found in Fukushima cattle feed
* online update contradicts print edition: Radioactive beef already sold, eaten
* Cincinnati Enquirer: decommissioned nuc sub USS Cincinnati will be riverfront museum
- - - From Savannah River - SRS Community Reuse Organization July newsletter:
* Major Reorganization at DOE - Chu memo
* Yucca Mountain - appeals court sez "We will not permit an agency to insulate itself from judicial review by refusing to act"
* Nice graphic showing 97% reusable material in used fuel
- - - From NEI:
* NRC's post-Fukushima blueprint? 2-3 years away
* Fort Calhoun's new 8-ft water-filled flood barrier
* NRC's Jaczko: 'The buck stops with me'
* Japan announces new n-plant safety tests
* Fukushima situation clearer, but problems remain
* Dekalb Times-Jrl editorial: TVA's Nuclear Program Key to NE Alabama
* Japan PM says must reduce dependence on nuclear power
- - - New book from IAEA:
* Mitigation of Hydrogen Hazards in Severe Accidents in NPPs
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July 11, 2011
Episode Information
nuclear.com daily talk radio show
Title: nuclear news - July 11, 2011 - nuclear.com daily
Time: 07/11/2011 12:05 PM EDT
Episode Notes:
- - - nuclearcom tweets since last show
* N.J. state govt Nuclear Review Task Force post-Fukushima review - interim rept
* Reps. Upton & Shimkus press NRC Chairman Jaczko for answers on Yucca Mountain safety report
* Japan - concerns about radiation from Fukushima prompt "Maternal Activism the new norm in Japan"
- - - Front pages today:
* E-warfare - LA Times lead story mentions that attack on Syria's nuclear plant used E-warfare
* Canada to boycott UN Conference on Disarmament over North Korea's chairmanship
* Kuwait transfers nuclear program from special committee to agency
* US holds back $800-million in military aid from Pakistan
* 83,000 customers switch away from Com Ed; Dominion entering Illinois market too
* San Onofre tritium - Dick Warnock's dose calcs
* Charles River Associates' draft rept on effects of closing Indian Point
* Sanctions on Iran hit shipping
* UAE paper sez western Islamophobia based on Pakistan's nuclear accomplishments
- - - From NEI and WNA:
* MidAmerican eyes new n-plant in Iowa
* HB Robinson - NRC satisfied with corrective actions for 2010 fires
* Fukushima Daiichi workers evacuated due to 7.1 quake
* Decommissioning Fukushima will take decades
* Germany - upper house of parliament approves shutdown schedule
* France - nuclear exit is on the table
* Japan - stress tests will be in two stages, one before plant restarts
* Russia - Kalinin 4 (VVER-1000) a step closer to startup
- - - From Benny Peiser:
* UK power bills to double, plus taxpayer burden for green subsidies
* Rest in Peace, former ACRS member Dr. Hall Lewis; stood up against CO2-climate alarmism
* Deep ecology worldview goes hand-in-hand with Naziism
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July 5, 2011
Episode Information
nuclear.com daily talk radio show
Title: nuclear news - July 5, 2011 - nuclear.com daily
Time: 07/05/2011 12:05 PM EDT
Episode Notes:
* Aircraft Impact Amendment - Final Safety Evaluation for ABWR design (NUREG-1948);
* NRC staff to propose revised policy statement on low-level waste volume reduction;
* materials analysis of vehicles involved in 2007 Newhall Pass Tunnel Fire (NUREG/CR-7101);
* NRC staff recommends revising Reg Guide 1.91 on evaluations of explosions which might occur near nuclear plants;
* presentation on Surveliiance Frequency Control Program;
* FOIA request about UFOs;
* and much much more
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June 23, 2011
Episode Information
nuclear.com daily talk radio show
Title: Fukushima news - June 23, 2011 - nuclear.com daily
Time: 06/23/2011 12:05 PM EDT
Episode Notes:
* The pillars added to support unit 4 spent fuel pool may have been just in time, as a 6.7 magnitude quake occurred offshore.
* The official beginning of rainy season adds to the risk of contaminated water overflowing.
* News from IAEA conference in Vienna, where more than a thousand experts and/or regulators are gathered.
* And much more, like the dozens of post-accident contract workers at Fukushima who can't be found, 30 of whom TEPCO doesn't even know their names.
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June 22, 2011
Episode Information
nuclear.com daily
Title: front page nuclear stories - June 22, 2011 - nuclear.com daily
Time: 06/22/2011 12:05 PM EDT
Episode Notes:
* Poll of California voters finds 58% oppose building new nuclear plants.
* Russia's top nuclear design personnel were among the victims of a plane crash late Monday.
* Iran rubs the world's face in their lies, but Saudi Arabia may hit Iran in the pocketbook, by driving down oil prices.
* Yesterday's AP story on tritium leaks at nuclear plants continues to prompt coverage, including local story about Surry, and a GAO report released by Rep. Markey.
* Fukushima news includes completion of the pillars to support unit 4 spent fuel pool, and another problem in trial run of new water treatment system.
* Good news for breast cancer treatment: 7-yr proton beam study out of California.
* Plus, from new NRC ADAMS release: What are the 30 current high priority materials degradation issues for PWRs? Biennial update from EPRI.
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June 14, 2011
Nuclear.com internet radio show every weekday at noon eastern time
Today's show was review of the new documents released by NRC yesterday. One plant found it has been in violation of its license for decades. A utility prosposing new unit finds that the original plant is considered worthy of protection as historic, and thus may be denied building a new plant, due to adverse effect on historic place. Sheesh. Much, much more from around the country. The TalkShoe.com box in sidebar here on main nuclear.com page will take you to the show page. You can listen live, and even paricipate via telephone or internet. You can click a button to have each new show automatically downloaded into your iTunes, or get RSS feed.
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May 15, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com
* TEPCO has concluded that units 1, 2 and 3 all have holes in their reactor pressure vessel. A robot sent into unit 1 Friday measured dose rates of over 200 rem/hr on the ground floor of the reactor building, and the company also reports that the basement of unit 1 reactor building is flooded with over 4 meters of standing water. The water level in the reactor is reported to be extremely low, and the company has decided to increase the amount of water being injected into the reactor -- from 8 tons/hr to 10 tons/hr. The company plans to monitor the effects of the higher rate to see if a plan for the cooling the unit 1 fuel is workable. Decision expected by Tuesday. The new plan involves directing water from the basement into the reactor, using filter and heat exchanger in between. Even though the water level is very low, it is thought that it's high enough to cover the fuel, which is thought to have melted and collected at the bottom of the reactor vessel.
* The earlier conclusions drawn by many -- that the plant safety systems survived the earthquake but not the tsunami -- apparently were not so well grounded in fact. High dose rates in the reactor building early in the accident prompt the utility to conclude that there was a loss-of-coolant before the battery power was exhausted.
* A floating "fishing park" formerly used at Shizuoka city has been modified at Yokohama shipyard to be suitable for use as an enclosure to store radioactive water at Fukushima. The modifications were necessary to make it water tight and rust-resistant. The improvised storage tank can hold 10,000 tons. The four-plus meters of water in unit 1 reactor building basement represents approximately 3,000 tons by itself.
* Unit 3 appears to be the source of continuing leakage of radioactively-contaminated water into the ocean, most likely via a cable pit located near the plant water intake.
* Japanese government has expanded the evacuation zone beyond the 20 kilometer radius. Any area where annual dose is expected to be 20 milliSieverts (that's 2 rem/yr) will become part of evacuation zone. Two towns, with some 7,700 residents, are the first outside the 20-km range to have dose rates that high. Two rem/yr is occupational level. In fact, the latest data I've seen shows that only one nuclear plant site in the US had any workers with 2 rem for the year. That was for 2008. The occupational limit in the US is 5 rem/yr.
May 7, 2011
Japan - govt panel sees 87% chance of magnitude 8 quake in Tokai region in next 30 years
Japan's Prime Minister this morning asked the owner of the only nuclear plant in the southern coastal region of Tokai to shut the plant down and not restart until it is prepared to handle a magnitude 8 quake and resultant tsunami. The plant is Hamaoka, and the owner is Chubu Electric Power Company. The site is home to three operating boiling water reactor units. Two older BWRs at the site were permanently shut down a few years ago because the company decided it would be too expensive to meet new seismic standards adopted after July 2007 quake.
Shortly after the Prime Minister's press conference, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) issued similar request that the plant shut down pending upgrades. The shutdown would probably be for approximately two years, according to Japan Times, citing NISA estimate. The utility acknowledged the government request and promised to consider it. The company has announced a Saturday press conference. AP reports that the company is almost certainly going to comply with the government's request. Kyodo is reporting that the company held a board meeting Saturday morning without coming to a decision on whether to shut the plants down.
Refs:
* World Nuclear News, "Hamaoka asked to shut down", May 6, 2011;
* Associated Press, "Japan wants 3 reactors closed while seawall built", May 7, 2011 12:07 a.m. CDT;
* Yonhap, "Chubu Electric Puts Off Decision On Nuke Plant Suspension", NIKKEI.com, May 7, 2011 15:52 p.m.;
* Japan Times, "Kan requests full closure of Hamaoka power plant", The Japan Times Online, May 7, 2011
May 9 update: Chubu agrees to shut the plants down pending upgrades, despite their conclusion that the site is already adequately protected. more
Front page nuclear stories - April 29, 2011
Exelon CEO: At today's gas prices you can't build a new nuclear plant in a competitive marketplace
Exelon, the owner of more commercial US nuclear plants than any other company, has reached an agreement to buy Constellation, which itself is one of the largest nuclear utilities. In a conference call yesterday, Exelon CEO John Rowe put the kibosh on speculation that the deal might lead to building Calvert Cliffs-3.
See Baltimore Sun writer's blog story
Front page nuclear stories - April 22, 2011
China: New nuclear plants 'set to be approved'
That's the headline atop today's US edition of China Daily. The lead paragraph cites a senior nuclear expert as saying that China's nuclear safety plan will probably be issued in August.
Some quotes from the article:
* "I think China will use the most advanced third-generation technology in all future nuclear plants... Only the most advanced technology can restore people's confidence in nuclear power" - Lin Chengge, a senior expert at the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp Ltd (SNPTC) and former deputy director of the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA)
* "The second-generation nuclear technology that China has been using has no safety problems... Though third-generation technology os better, there is a process that takes some time from starting operations to perfecting the technology" - Pan Ziqiang, director of the Science and Technology Commission at the China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC), the largest nuclear plant operator in China
* China "will not waver in its determination to develop nuclear power, Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang said during a recent visit to the China Institute of Atomic Energy, affiliated to the CNCC, on April 14, according to CNNC's website. China's nuclear development will slow down during the next two to three years but in the medium and long term its nuclear strategy cannot be shaken, the Financial Times reported, quoting Feng Yi, deputy secretary-general of the China Nuclear Energy Association."
The full story is available here:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-04/22/content_12373663.htm
The website solicited reader comments. Here's my comment, which they did publish:
"Here in the US, we've found that 'safety culture' among the workers at each nuclear plant is a very important factor in nuclear power industry. Part of this is the willingness of every worker to speak up about problems. This is hard enough in a society with a history of free speech. I'm very skeptical about China's ability to develop a nuclear industry which includes this vital aspect."
Front page nuclear stories - April 14, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
shortly after midnight
The April issue of ANS' Nuclear News came in the mail this afternoon. It reports that Fukushima Daiichi was originally designed to withstand a 3-meter tsunami (based on a tsunami observed in Chile in 1960), but around 2000 the plant was modified to withstand a design basis tsunami with a height of 5.7 meters. I saw a story earlier this week which says Japanese officials have determined that the March 11 tsunami was 15-meters at Fukushima.
The news that Japanese officials have upped the severity rating to INES level 7 sure caused a stir around the world. All the newspaper stories I read emphasized that the change in rating had nothing to do with any change in current conditions. I'm sure many are relieved about this, but mainly folks are suspicious about why it's taken so long for the change in ranking that apparently was waranted ever since the explosions. Lots of papers emphasized that the Fukushima accidents are comparable to Chernobyl. The Japan Times front page quoted NISA spokesman as saying that the severity is nowhere close to Chernobyl, with perhaps a tenth of the amount of radioactive material released. Chernobyl estimate: approximately 5.2 million teraBecquerels released. Japan's Nuclear and Safety Agency estimate (as of Tuesday) for Fukushima: 370,000 teraBecquerals released. Nuclear Safety Committee of Japan's estimate for Fukushima: 630,000 teraBecquerals. The Japanese estimates include only airborne releases.
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Front page nuclear stories - April 10, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
11 pm
* Japanese government plans to extend the evacuation zone, but not to a uniform distance. Asahi reports 30 km radius will be used for some areas, depending on wind direction. Japan Times reports that the 20 km zone will be forcibly closed. People will not be allowed to return to, for example, pick through rubble for their belongings.
8 pm
* Wisconsin state legislator, Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee) tells Wisconsin State Journal that he intends to introduce a bill to lift the moratorium on building new nuclear plants in the state. The front page story, along with a companion piece on fusion research at UW-Madison, won't be added to the paper's website until Tuesday. The fusion article reports that the Wisconsin research on how to control the superhot plasma is crucial to success of ITER project.
6 pm
* Tokyo Shimbun reports that approximately 100 residents never evacuated from their homes within 20 kilometers of the plant. There's at least 57 such folks in the city of Minamisoma alone. Kuwait-based Arab Times newspaper ran a story about this on its front page today.
* Boston Globe front page highlights a p. A7 story as follows: "The vast majority of workers at Japan's 18 commercial nuclear power plants are untrained temporary contract workers willing to risk radiation exposure for higher pay." Would The Globe say the same thing about plants here in US? It's not unusual for four times or more the normal number of workers to be on the job during maintenance outage. Some are nuclear specialists who work for contractors, but many are carpenters, pipefitters, electricians, laborers and other crafts who may never before have worked in a nuclear plant. Everyone on the site receives some training. Those who aren't going into radiologically controlled areas get trained not to go into those areas. I've worked in about half of the US nuclear plants, and they are very safe places to work.
*UPDATE: The New York Times ran the story on its front page: "Braving Heat And Radiation For Temp Job" is the headline.
4 pm
* Germany gets almost a quarter of its electricity from nuclear. The nation's 1,800 or so utilities have a trade group -- the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). The Fukushima accidents have turned BDEW away from being an advocate of nuclear power. The group's Board of Directors met on Friday, and issued a statement calling for "swift and complete exit from using nuclear power". Nuclear plant owners E.ON AG and RWE AG are members of the association, but they do not agree with the new position, which calls for total phase out by 2020, or at the latest by 2023. (AP story about this is on front page of today's Japan Times)
2 pm
* The plugging of a cracked pit on Wednesday is thought to be the main reason that I-131 levels in nearby seawater have been decreasing. Instead of 7.5-million times the legal limit on April 2, it was down to 63,000 times the limit on Thursday. Yesterday, construction started on an offshore fence, designed to minimize the contamination going into the ocean. Steel sheets will enclose the intake pipe, and three 120-meter-wide 'silt fences' will be built.
* To purge unit 1 of any hydrogen, the utility is pumping nitrogen into the reactor
* Yesterday was the first time since the quake that a member of Japan's Cabinet visited the plant -- Trade minister Banri Kaieda
* Thursday's 7.1 aftershock caused units at another Japanese nuclear plant to shut down. Unfortunately, all three emergency diesel generators at the site failed. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has adopted one corrective action: instead of having just one diesel generator on standby, plants will be required to have at least two.
* On March 15, Japan's government raised the permissible occupational dose from 100 milliSievert to 250 millSievert. As of April 1, TEPCO reports that 21 workers have exceeded the prior limit. Japan Times front page lead story today is an article by Kyoto news agency. It reports that "in recent days it was disclosed that not all of [TEPCO's] workers were using radiation monitors due to a shortage of units equipped with alarms." Not much surprises nuclear.com anymore, but if there's still a dosimeter shortage at the site, that would indeed be shocking. The main thrust of the article is that some companies helping out at the site are not allowing their workers to receive more than the prior limit.
11 am
* April and May are rice-planting months in Japan. The government announced a ban on planting or cultivating rice in any soil found to contain 5,000 Becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium (a Becquerel of radioactivity is 1 disintegration per second). Rice grown in uncontaminated soil will be screened. Farmers who can't grow rice will be compensated. Bloomington Pantograph front page has AP story about this.
* Toshiba proposes 10-year roadmap for containing radioactivity at Fukushima site, starting after reactors are stabilized and cooled (AP story, on front page of Hot Springs Sentinel-Record and San Luis Obispo Tribune. And the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, too, which ran it as lead story)
* A software engineer from Ririe, Idaho was working at Fukushima nuclear plant when the March 11 quake happened. Here's part of what he told Idaho State Journal: "When I saw my Japanese co-workers diving under their desks, I knew we were in for it. [The earthquake] was so violent, it was all I could do to hold on to the wall and stand upright. Then I yelled 'I'm getting out of here' and ran to the doorway." His co-workers followed his lead only to discover they were trapped by a set of heavy-duty steel doors. It took the combined strength of every person in the room to pry open the doors. Once they got outside, they were greeted by a tsunami warning blaring over a loudspeaker. (from front page of Magic Valley Times-News)
* Today's Palm Beach Post has a front page story about spent fuel pools at St. Lucie and Turkey Point:
Front page nuclear stories - April 1, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
9 am
Some comments on recent YouTube videos:
* Short clip showing close-up of steam coming through the rubble near top of one of the reactor buildings
* Former manager at Three Mile Island (Arne Gundersen, March 29) discusses plutonium reports (likely source: spent fuel pool), the implications of high radioactivity in ocean, and the prospect of much worse yet to come from the massive core damage and loss of containment.
By the way, Mr. Gundersen's notion that the name Plutonium had its genesis in its hellish properties seems way off base to me. Here's how Dr. Glenn Seaborg, co-discoverer of the element, described the naming: "Also in the report that we finally sent to Washington in March of 1942, on the chemical properties, under the authorship of my graduate student, Arthur Wall and I, we proposed the name for plutonium. See, the uranium had been named after the planet Uranus, and neptunium after the plant Neptune. So we thought we would name plutonium after the planet Pluto." That quote is from interview transcript here.
8:25 am
Possibility: Mass of melted fuel (called the corium) is creating occasional chain reactions "periodic criticality". WMAL Radio here in DC just reported that this is considered to be happening in unit 1. nuclear.com inferred that isotopic analysis of some samples has shown quantities of short-lived fission products that would have decayed long ago if much fission wasn't happening. The radio report mentioned blue flashes, but didn't actually say anyone had seen them. Now I see that the periodic criticality in unit 1 is in the spent fuel pool. So perhaps it was seeing the blue flashes which prompted the conclusion. This is not good news.
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Front page nuclear stories - March 31, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
Japan's government has been advised by its own nuclear regulatory agency and IAEA to widen the evacuation area beyond the current 12-mile zone. IAEA points to Iitate village, 25 miles from the plant, where radioactivity measurements have exceeded the levels set for evacuation. The Japanese regulators pointed to radioactive iodine at 4,385 times more than the legal limit, the highest seen so far during the crisis, in seawater near drains running from the plant -- and said consistently high levels found in the sea near the complex could mean leaks are seeping out continuously.
Front page nuclear stories - March 28, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
Front page nuclear stories - March 26, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
8 am
SPENT FUEL POOL COOLING REQUIREMENTS - NRC PETITIONED FOR RULEMAKING
Over the years, NRC has received at least five 10CFR2.802 "Petitions for Rulemaking" related to the risk of spent fuel pools. The latest was submitted on March 15, 2011 by a New Hampshire man named Thomas Popik, on behalf of "Foundation for Resilient Societies". The petition reviews longstanding matters, and stresses that a new Oak Ridge assessment (re: the probability of solar event shutting down offsite power for extended period) merits changing the requirements for how spent fuel pools are kept cool.
This petition is very well written, and with the importance of external events being highlighted by the ongoing accidents at Fukushima, it warrants a wide readership.
Nuclear.com isn't familiar with any previous work by Mr. Popik or his group. The website http://resiliantsocieties.org has a copy of the petition and a press release about it, and nothing else. I saw the petition in reviewing new items made available on ADAMS this week. The NRC copy is available here.
Front page nuclear stories - March 25, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
noon
Japan government expanded the evacuation radius out to 19 miles today.
Prime Minister Kan addressed the nation on TV: "We are not in a position where we can be optimistic."
Front page nuclear stories - March 24, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
10 am
Something like steam was seen rising from the reactor building of Units 1 through 4 (as of 7:00 local time, Mar. 24). High-dose rate was measured in Unit 2 turbine building.
Integrity check of electric equipment is going on in each unit, which must be done before energizing them. Lighting has been recovered at Unit 1 and 3 Main Control Room
Three more prefectures have tap water which exceeds limits for iodine-131: Ibaraki, Chiba, and Saitama
Main Gate rad level: 209.4 microSv/hr at 12:00 local time, Mar. 24
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Front page nuclear stories - March 23, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
2 pm
Elevated levels of radioactive iodine are being reported in drinking water, including Tokyo's public water system. The 210 Becquerels/liter reported there is above the safe level for infants to drink. This doesn't mean that drinking this water once, twice, or even for several months is harmful. The limits on isotopes in water are based on dose calculations involving drinking the water for a year. I'm not trying to trivialize the danger, but thought this info would help folks put today's developments in better perspective. One of the nice things about radioactive materials is that they become less hazardous over time. How much time? Well, that depends on the isotope. Iodine-131, which is probably the isotope measured in the water, has a half-life of approximately 8.1 days.
The New York Times story about this quotes an anonymous nuclear industry CEO as saying that the reported contamination levels indicate that spent fuel pool fires have occurred. I think the New York Times article is taking his comments out of context by including them in story about iodine. The iodine-131 that was present in every spent fuel bundle has already decayed through more than enough half-lives to truly be trivial. I too think it's likely that spent fuel has been severely damaged and some of it released outside the building, but the iodine-131 levels have nothing to do with it.
8 am
A turn for the worse - black smoke coming from unit 3 reactor building, started at approximately 4:20 pm local time in Japan. Workers evacuated.
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Front page nuclear stories - March 21, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
5:30 am
More on the gray smoke from unit 3 - it is coming out of the top of the plant, on the southeastern side. The amount of smoke appears less now than when it began. Radiation monitoring data from a station set up 500 meters northwest of the unit has not shown any significant increase since the smoke first appeared.
5 am
More on the gray smoke from unit 3 - it's coming from south side, and was first observed at 3:55 pm local time there in Japan. The source of the smoke isn't known, but the spent fuel pool is located on southeast side of the plant.
4 am
A turn for the worse - NHK TV is running a breaking news banner: gray smoke coming from unit 3 reactor building
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Front page nuclear stories - March 19, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
3 am
The best news yet - the first pump has been restored. It powered up fine. It's being used for unit 5 spent fuel pool. Temperatures there already falling. TEPCO says power should also be restored in units 1,, 2, and 6 today, and 3 and 4 tomorrow.
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Front page nuclear stories - March 18, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
end of the day
Cancer in Japan
I read today that one out every two people in Japan get cancer -- and that it is the biggest cause of death there.
For years, I've been looking at the relatively small numbers of excess cancers amongst the
a-bomb survivor population. I've read many a paper and several book-length reports on the
subject. I've been actively involved in this field long enough to safely say that I've
forgotten more than I remember, but I'm sure I'd remember this had it been emphasized.
It is much more difficult to detect small variation when background is high to begin
with. So one of the new things on my to-do list is to better understand the
implications of this high cancer rate amongst general population when it comes to
understanding the health effects of radiation exposure on the a-bomb survivors.
Read more.
Hormesis: very important evidence you should know about low-level radiation
There's been many thousands of articles a day about the nuclear plant accident in Japan. A news.google.com search shows only three that mention the word hormesis. That's a shame, because public understanding of hormesis would go a long way towards putting current events in better perspective. ...
Read more
3 pm
How safe is safe enough?
Former NRC chairman Dale Klein is quoted in today's Dallas Morning News:
We design our nuclear plants to withstand conditions that we think will never occur.
The article gives an example: As part of Comanche Peak application to build new units,
the utility analyzed the probability of a tornado that would knock out all the safety systems.
The plant is designed to withstand the largest tornado ever measured - with winds of 300 mph.
But the analysis estimates that, in any given year, there's a 250-million-to-one chance
that a stronger tornado could occur.
The Dallas paper restricts full access to subscribers. The story link is here
Why did the tsunami apparently cause more problems at the Fukushimi Daiichi plants
than at the nearby Fukushima Daini plants? A world-nuclear-news.org story today provides
some helpful info. The Daini plants' design basis included protection against a 6.51-meter
tsunami. The tsunami that hit last Friday is thought to have been about 7-meters. The ground elevation
at Daini is slightly higher than at Daiichi, so all else being equal, there would have been
a bit more flooding at the lower-sitting plant. The flooding did cause problems at
both sites, but the emergency diesel generators continued to operate at Daini.
Read more
5:30 am
The work to restore power may allow the operators to discover, Saturday, if some of the emergency core cooling systems are still operable.
Engineers are analyzing alternatives to water for containing the radioactivity in the spent fuel pools. Boron and sand? This type of solid covering could be unacceptable due to heat buildup.
Japanese government has notified IAEA that the Fukushima accident(s) are now considered to be at INES level 5, which is one level worse than the prior assessment. The Three Mile Island accident is considered to have been a 5. Chernobyl is considered to have been a 7.
3 am
One of the many questions I've been trying to answer is why the operators would let water level drop in unit 4 spent fuel pool. The LA Times is
reporting that the USNRC team in Japan has come to a tentative conclusion: the pool wall or floor has likely been damaged, with large crack or split. If this is true,
and the crack is below the top of the fuel, it means that helicopter dousing or water cannon isn't a solution to the problem of how to keep the
incredibly large inventory of radioactive material in the fuel rods from being dispersed, starting perhaps any time now. The Times reports that
NRC based its conclusion in part on information from US contractors who were in the plant after the earthquake. Such a breach in a spent fuel pool
has never been faced before. The article quotes Dr. Edwin Lyman of Union of Concerned Scientists, as saying "There may not be any way to deal with it."
I don't often agree with a complete sentence by Dr. Lyman, but this is the third time this week that I do agree. This is most definately not good news.
Read more
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Front page nuclear stories - March 17, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
4 pm
The close up video of the Fukushima plants from helicopter are stunningly awful. See it, and my comments, at http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=19837
I'll be on America's Summit tonight. You can join in with questions or comments, or just to listen, via telephone or web browser. Dial-in and connection details are available at http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=7216
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Front page nuclear stories - March 16, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
8 pm
I've been listening to recording of today's Senate committee hearing on CSpan radio, where NRC Chairman is getting grilled.
The New York Times has added a nifty plant-by-plant status page. As with all sources, beware of the precision of the information presented. For example, it indicates that, for Fukushima I unit 2, "... The containment vessel has been breached..." In actuality, we don't know what was breached. It may be that the torus has been breached. That's serious, but very different than if the reactor pressure vessel has been breached.
noon
Union of Concerned Scientists plans to host daily 11 am telephone conference call press conferences
UCS is posting mp3 files of the introductory comments on their website. I listened to the recording from yesterday's call, and look forward to the updates. David Lochbaum's comments were excellent. I didn't know he was back with UCS. He had taken a job with USNRC a year or so ago. Dr. Edwin Lyman's comments ranged from excellent to false to absolutely bizarre. Excelent was his discussion of the ability of radioactive contamination to travel long distances in the wind. False was his comment that the 40 Rem/hr measurement has since gone down (in actuality, there have been no more dose rate readings reported for that location). And the bizarre was his discussion of regulatory approach to terrorist attacks via airplanes.
Questions to media@ucsusa.org
3 am
The photo of damage to Fukushima I unit 4 is a stark contrast to the pristine file photo that NHK TV has been showing. See the photo here.
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Front page nuclear stories - March 15, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com - times are US eastern time zone
10:45 pm
NHK TV has a helicopter taking video from just outside the 30-kilometer airspace exclusion zone. What the TV is describing as white smoke billowing from the site is described by government spokesman in press conference as steam from unit 3.
6:30 pm
There's another fire on the top floor of unit 4. If it was a spent fuel fire, we'd quickly know due to the highly radioactive airborne contamination that would escape through the hole in the roof. Japanese TV station reports that TEPCO has called the local fire department, and that TEPCO has said the fire is in a northern corner of the building, away from the fuel.
3 pm
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told a news conference today that it's difficult to predict whether the situation at the site would worsen or improve, he said. "There are mixed indications."
For unit 2, he cited possible damage to the bottom of what Reuters reporter called the primary containment vessel.
"Is it a crack? Is it a hole? Is it nothing? That we don't know yet," Amano said. But he said the pressure in the primary containment vessel had not fallen. "If there is a huge damage the pressure should go down."
Source: Reuters
noon
Not all the news is so bad. IAEA reports that the radiation level at main gate was measured at 11.9 millisieverts (mSv) per hour at 00:00 UTC today, and that six hours later the measurement there was down to 0.6 mSv/hr -- from 11:25 UTC update at IAEA.org
10 am
* How bad is it? The severity of nuclear accidents is rated by INES scale. Up until last night's turn of events, the Fukushima accidents were being discussed as an INES Level 4 severity. The worst is level 7. I saw a Reuters report this morning citing French nuclear safety officials as ranking it at level 6. Actually, the Reuters story cited Kyodo News, and I haven't been able to find where Kyodo published it.
* What caused the fire in Fukushima I-4? The officials have stated that it occurred on 4th floor of reactor building, and that the building roof was damaged by the fire. It sems reasonable to conclude that the 4th floor was the top floor, and that would be where the spent fuel pool would be located. NEI's latest update reports that it has heard the fire was due to lube oil leak from a pump. Kyodo News reports that officials in Japan have said it's possible that the fire was a result of hydrogen ignition -- hydrogen from reaction of uncovered fuel rod surfaces in the pool. Kyodo cites day-old pool temperature data (pool water temperature at 84 degrees C, compared to normal of 40-50 degrees C). The Kyodo story, with alrming headline about pool boiling, is here. The NEI explanation is here, in today's 9:15 am EDT update
9 am
The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum has started putting out a handy chart which shows the status of the various units at Fukushima. Look for the latest Reactor Status Update
shortly after midnight
Things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Very high dose rates have been measured outside -- 40 Rem/hr near one of the units, and 10 Rem/hr near another. The official spokesman who announced the readings wasn't sure what the cause of the higher dose rates are, but he said the most likely candidate was a fire in Fukushima I-4. It's possible that the cause isn't a real catastrophe, but this is very bad news with no reason to suspect that anything other than much worse is on the way.
Occupational dose limits mean that a worker would not be allowed, normally, to spend even 10 minutes in a 40 Rem/hr field. "Planned Emergency Exposures" can be allowed, once-in-a-lifetime, of up to 25 Rem.
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Front page nuclear stories - March 14, 2011
The world watches Fukushima
by Steve Schulin, nuclear.com
Each nuclear plant has a "design basis" that defines its safety envelope. For example, a maximum credible earthquake is determined, and the plant is built to withstand it. Lots of "conservatisms" get added in, but if the actual quake is way stronger than was used in design, you are outside your safety envelope. This quake is said to have been an 8.9 or 9.0. The Fukushima plants' design basis assumed maximum of 8.2 in that fault. That means the plants may have been subjected to seismic forces 5-10 times greater than the design protected against.
The plants automatically shut down just fine when the quake occurred, and the emergency diesel generators turned on just fine when offsite power was lost, and provided power like they were supposed to. That's a testament to how well the plants were built. But then, when the tsunami wave, also much larger than design basis, arrived, the diesel generators stopped working. I haven't heard particulars, but I suspect their rooms flooded, perhaps through the ventilation system openings.
But the plants were designed to have a battery system as backup, sufficient to run the various Emergency Core Cooling Systems for 8 hours. The battery system worked fine. If the tsunami had been within the design envelope, those 8 hours should have been enough to repair one of the diesels or fly in and connect replacement generators. I've seen a couple of explanations as to why the replacements couldn't get connected -- the most plausible one to me is that the switching room where the connection is located was flooded by the tsunami. (And the less plausible one was from an MIT professor -- he said the replacement generators had the wrong style plug!)
In addition to the inability to keep power to the ECCS, the lack of power meant that no fans could circulate or exhaust air from the reactor building. So when the controlled venting was done to reduce the pressure building up in the reactor pressure vessel itself, and the "drywell" that surrounds it too, enough hydrogen was released into the reactor building to eventually explode.
I've been reading and hearing a lot of folks describe the use of sea water as a move of desperation, a "Hail Mary pass" kind of thing. If you hear somebody say that, I think it's safe to discount their understanding of what's going on. Normally, the plants have several huge tanks full of "demineralized" water that the ECCS systems can draw from. Sea water works just as well for cooling, and I suspect that the reason sea water was used was because the tanks were destroyed.
My prognosis: If there's no failure of the reactor pressure vessel in any of the plants, this will be at worst a Three Mile Island kind of event, with folks arguing for decades about how many cancers, if any, were caused by the release of radioactivity. I'm very worried that the reactor pressure vessels may fail, however, given that they've already been stressed beyond their design basis. We're in what the engineers call "unanalyzed" territory.
I've set up a separate Twitter account for #Fukushima tweets. The folks I follow with that account are those who are tweeting especially useful info about the accident. Please follow me at http://twitter.com/Fukushima_nuc.
Nuclear.com's first "Best of the Nuclear Web" Award for 2011 goes to @arclight on Twitter
This fellow has been a real credit to the nuclear industry. I suspect he helped tens of thousands of folks on Twitter to avoid being taken in by alarmist speculation during Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and into the wee hours Monday. I regret that his employer asked him to stop. And I really regret that I can't afford to offer him a new job here at nuclear.com!
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