Severe Nuclear Reactor Accidents Likely Every 10 to 20 Years, European Study Suggests

Western Europe has the worldwide highest risk of radioactive contamination caused by major reactor accidents.

Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) -- some 200 times more often than estimated in the past. The researchers also determined that, in the event of such a major accident, half of the radioactive caesium-137 would be spread over an area of more than 1,000 kilometres away from the nuclear reactor. Their results show that Western Europe is likely to be contaminated about once in 50 years by more than 40 kilobecquerel of caesium-137 per square meter. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an area is defined as being contaminated with radiation from this amount onwards. In view of their findings, the researchers call for an in-depth analysis and reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear power plants.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120522134942.htm

Jan Haverkamp - Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Socializing Risks, Privatizing Profits

Last week, the inevitable finally happened. The company responsible for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has been nationalized. Japan’s trade and industry minister Yukio Edano announced a de facto state take-over of the company with a further injection of $12.5bn, bringing the total of state capital in TEPCO to $33.2bn. Edano has said that: “Without the state funds, (TEPCO) cannot provide a stable supply of electricity and pay for compensation and decommissioning costs”.

The Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe has cost TEPCO over $100bn in estimated costs, which includes compensation and clean-up costs. However, the actual costs are much bigger. Many Japanese are bearing the brunt of the damages in their daily lives with most of their claims and losses going uncompensated and most of their suffering unrecognized.

The nationalization of TEPCO, together with a legal practice called “channeling of liability” in which all liability related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster has to be channeled to TEPCO, means Japanese taxpayers and ratepayers will foot most of the bill.

Read More:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/fukushima-who-profits-who-pays/blog/40463/

New Report Reveals Scale of Edison Steam Generator Failures at San Onofre Nuclear Plant

Southern California Edison avoided federal regulatory guidelines when replacing defective steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear power plant -- a costly mistake that can’t be fixed by plugging the tubes that carry radioactive steam or by operating the plant at reduced power, according to a new report released today by Friends of the Earth.

The content of the report by nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen details the significant design changes that should have triggered a license review which would have uncovered problems that subsequently led to serious damage and the release of radiation from the defective equipment at San Onofre in January.

Gundersen also criticizes Edison's plans to rapidly restart the damaged reactors at lower power after having done minimal plugging of damaged tubes carrying radioactive water. He warns that these are “non-solutions” that could lead to even more significant equipment failure and releases of radiation.  Edison is expected to propose running the reactors at between 50 and 80 percent power. The report challenges the safety and effectiveness of such an approach, concluding:

Read More:

http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2012-05-new-report-reveals-scale-of-edison-steam-generator

Harvey Wasserman - Will You Pay as New Reactors Jump $900 Million in Just Three Months?

Listen to Harvey's show "Green Power and Wellness Hour" weekly at 2pm (Eastern Time) on Tuesday's

The projected price for Georgia's Vogtle Double Reactor Project has jumped at least $900 millionin just three months -- and that's just for starters.

Will you pay for it? The future of new atomic power in the U.S. hangs in the balance.

A national grassroots campaign is now working to stop tax/ratepayer handouts and kill the project.

Construction there is defined by faulty concrete and non-spec rebar steel that threaten public safety and could delay completion dates beyond those projected even before construction began.

South Carolina's V.C. Summer, the only other new U.S. reactor project now under construction, is meeting fierce ratepayer resistance in two states. From Iowa to Brazil, Japan to France, the global reactor industry is collapsing in tandem. But what other nations will it bankrupt and irradiate before it's finished?

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/new-reactor-prices_b_1516820.html

Harvey Wasserman - The Nuclear Industry Has Melted in Japan and France

Listen to Harvey show, "Green Power and The Wellness Hour" weekly at 2pm on Tuesday's.

There are zero commercial reactors operating in Japan today.  On March 10, 2011, there were 54 licensed to operate, well over 10% percent of the global fleet.

But for the first time in 42 years, a country at the core of global reactor electricity is producing none of its own.

Worldwide, there are fewer than 400 operating reactors for the first time since Chernobyl, a quarter-century ago.

And France has replaced a vehemently pro-nuclear premier with the Socialist Francois Hollande, who will almost certainly build no new reactors.  For decades France has been the “poster child” of atomic power.  But Hollande is likely to follow the major shift in French national opinion away from nuclear power and toward the kind of green-powered transition now redefining German energy supply.

In the United States, a national grassroots movement to stop federal loan guarantees could end new nuclear construction altogether.

( http://nukefree.org/please-do-sign-petition-stop-new-nuke-loan-guarantees ) New official cost estimates of $9.5 to $12 billion per reactor put the technology off-scale for any meaningful competition with renewables and efficiency.

Read More:

http://nukefree.org/editorsblog/nuclear-power-industry-has-melted-japan-and-france

Bob Burnett - Two Meltdowns: Fukushima and the US Economy

More than a year after a tsunami swamped the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plants, the radiation peril continues -- reactor 4 is teetering on the edge of collapse, which would force the evacuation of one-third of Japan's population. The meltdown at Fukushima parallels the meltdown of the US economy.

On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced a 9.0 earthquake. The six nuclear plants [1] at Fukushima -- about 136 miles north of Tokyo -- survived the quake but were swamped by a 45-foot wave that overwhelmed the 19-foot seawalls. Fukushima units 5 and 6 were in cold shutdown for maintenance and Unit 4 had been deactivated. Units 1, 2 and 3 lost power and were unable to cool down properly; they experienced full meltdown. This was a catastrophe but there was a robust containment system that minimized the spread of contamination.

As part of the maintenance process, the 1,535 fuel rods in Fukushima reactor 4 had been removed and placed in a pool of water outside the containment system. The aftermath of the tsunami severely damaged the building. This April, Senator Ron Wyden [2] toured Fukushima and warned that another big earthquake could further damage unit 4, producing "an even greater release of radiation than the initial accident." (Since March 11, more than 1000 significant earthquakes [3] have struck Japan.) In January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan warned [4] of the possibility of a nuclear disaster and said that a meltdown at unit 4 would force the evacuation of Tokyo and close half of Japan. (On April 15th, the European Union Times [5] reported that the Japanese government had engaged with in discussions with China and Russia about the migration of 40 million Japanese because of the "extreme danger of life threatening radiation poisoning.")

Read More:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bob-burnett/42871/two-meltdowns-fukushima-and-the-us-economy

Robert Alvarez - Why Fukushima Is a Greater Disaster than Chernobyl and a Warning Sign for the U.S.

In the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear power disaster, the news media is just beginning to grasp that the dangers to Japan and the rest of the world posed by the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site are far from over.   After repeated warnings by former senior Japanese officials, nuclear experts, and now a U.S. Senator, it is sinking in that the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins may have far greater potential offsite consequences  than the molten cores

After visiting the site recently, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote to Japan's ambassador to the U.S. stating that, "loss of containment in any of these pools could result in an even greater release than the initial accident."

This is why:

• Each pool contains irradiated fuel from several years of operation, making for an extremely large radioactive inventory without a strong containment structure that encloses the  reactor cores;
• Several  pools are now completely open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were  demolished by explosions; they are about 100 feet above ground and could possibly topple or collapse from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake; 
• The loss of water exposing the spent fuel will result in overheating can cause melting and ignite its zirconium metal cladding – resulting in a fire that could deposit large amounts of radioactive materials over hundreds of miles.

Read More:

http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/radioactive_risks_in_japan_from_spent_nuclear_fuel_storage

Harvey Wasserman - Obama's Atomic Solyndra?

Listen to Harvey show (Green Power and Wellness Hour) on Tuesday's at 2pm (Eastern Time) on PRN.fm

The future of nuclear power now hangs on a single decision by President Obama -- and us.

His Office of Management and Budget could cave to the unsustainable demands of reactor builders who cannot handle the standard terms of a loan agreement.  

Or he could defend basic financial procedures and stand up for the future of the American economy.

You can help make this decision, which will come soon.

It's about a proposed $8.33 billion nuke power loan guarantee package for two reactors being built at Georgia's Vogtle. Obama anointed it last year for the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power. Two other reactors sporadically operate there. Southern just ravaged the new construction side of the site, stripping virtually all vegetation.

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/obamas-atomic-solyndra_b_1433308.html?ref=green

Lambert Strether - Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4: An earthquake before spent fuel rods are moved to safe storage would be “the end”

This clip from TV Asahi is a lucid explanation of the biggest ongoing news story in the world today: The catastrophic consequences if an earthquake strikes the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4 power plant before its spent fuel rods are moved to safe storage place, a process that will not even begin until December 2013, and could take years. It aired March 8, 2012 on “Morning Bird,” a mainstream Japanese news and information TV program.I made a transcript from the video subtitles (created by tokyobrowntabby), since this interview received no (zero, zip, zilch, nada) coverage in our famously free press, and I’d also like people to be able to quote from it, and search engines to find it. If you just read the transcript, and play the whole video through, at least play the presenters’ reaction shot at [5:04 - 5:07]; “the end” is impactful. The reporter is Mr. Toru TAMAKAWA. The expert is Dr. Hiroaki KOIDE, Research Associate at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University. I’ve marked material from other presenters PRESENTER.

TAMAKAWA [0:00] You may think it’s “already one year [since the accident] but it’s actually “still only one year.” [0:05] True cause of the Fukushima Daiichi accident still hasn’t been identified. [0:10] Results from the investigation by Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) designated by Japan’s Diet have not been published yet. [0:18] Still, they are talking about resuming the operation of nuclear plants. [0:21] I wonder what lessons they have learned from the Fukushima accident. [0:26] I want to ask you if TEPCO’s Fukushima Daichii is safe now. [0:35] They talk as if the accident was over. Is it really over? Please look at this.

Read More:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/fukushima-dai-ichi-no-4-an-earthquake-before-spent-fuel-rods-are-moved-to-safe-storage-would-be-the-end.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Bernie Sanders & Ryan Alexander - Stop the nuclear industry welfare programme

The US is facing a $15 trillion national debt, and there is no shortage of opinions about how to move toward deficit reduction in the federal budget. One topic you will not hear discussed very often on Capitol Hill is the idea of ending one of the oldest American welfare programmes – the extraordinary amount of corporate welfare going to the nuclear energy industry.

Many in Congress talk of getting "big government off the back of private industry". Here's an industry we'd like to get off the backs of the taxpayers.

As, respectively, a senator who is the longest-serving independent in Congress and the president of an independent and non-partisan budget watchdog organisation, we do not necessarily agree on everything when it comes to energy and budget policy in the US. But one thing we strongly agree on is the need to end wasteful subsidies that prop up the nuclear industry. After 60 years, this industry should not require continued and massive corporate welfare. It is time for the nuclear power industry to stand on its own two feet.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/13/nuclear-industry-us-welfare