San Onofre to ship low-level nuclear waste

3

A new, 640-ton steam generator at the San Onofre nuclear plant last year, before it was installed in the dome housing reactor three. Parts of the old steam generators, considered low-level radioactive waste, will be shipped to Utah starting this month. Register photo by Jebb Harris.

Steam generator parts that are considered low-level radioactive waste will be shipped from the San Onofre nuclear plant to Utah beginning this month, Southern California Edison officials said Tuesday.

The lower sections of the steam generators, recently replaced in a massive operation, will be taken by highway to a low-level waste-disposal facility in four shipments.

The shipments should be completed before the end of the year, an Edison statement said.

Edison operates the nuclear plant.

The shipments from San Onofre, just south of San Clemente, will pass through San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties as well as Nevada, then arrive in Clive, Utah.

The generators’ radiation levels are below the U.S. Department of Transportation’s safety threshold, the statement said, although Edison officials said they could not provide details on the route or shipping schedule for security reasons.

No one living along the route will be exposed to radiation, Edison said; standing six feet from the from the vehicle carrying the generator parts for an hour would bring the same level of radioactive exposure as a dental X-ray.

Four 640-ton steam generators, two for each of the plant’s reactors, have been replaced over the past two years.

Are We on the Brink of Burying Nuke Power Forever?

By Harvey Wasserman (about the author) 

This may be the moment history has turned definitively against atomic energy.

 

To be sure:    we are still required to fight hard to bury reactor loan guarantees in the United States.    There are parallel struggles in China, Indian, England, France and South Korea.  

 

The great fear is that until every single reactor on this planet is shut, none of us is really safe from another radioactive horror show.  

 

Thus the moment is clearly marked at Fukushima by three reactors and a radioactive fuel pool still untamed after three months, with the horrific potential to do far more apocalyptic damage than we've seen even to date.

 

That image includes Japanese school children being issued Geiger counters to carry with them 24/7 (http://nukefree.org/japanese-government-give-kids-radiation-monitors-carry-them ).

 

And Fukushima's radiation raining down on the United States, with links to reports of a heightened infant death rate in Seattle http://nukefree.org/janette-sherman-joe-mangano-rise-infant-deaths-pacific-northwest-due-fukushima .  

 

And by countless other on-going disasters and near-misses at reactors everywhere on the planet.    Included is Cooper, in Nebraska, which got zero corporate media coverage as it was nearly flooded and did lose power to its radioactive fuel pool http://nukefree.org/electrical-fire-knocks-out-fuel-pool-nebraska-nuke .  

 

From well-reasoned fear, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel and other critical players have announced they will build no more reactors.    Some will start shutting the ones they have.  

 

Japan and Germany are the third and fourth largest economies on Earth.   Japan has long been at the core of the reactor industry.    Germany's economy is the largest in Europe.    Some European nations are rumbling about an alliance to shut the reactors among their nuclear neighbors.

 

All this could be happening merely in reaction to yet another Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.    The corporate media has attempted to induce a coma over Fukushima by simply refusing the cover the on-going disaster.  

 

But the worsening realities are as utterly relentless as they are terrifying.   In the age of the internet, there is simply no way to totally suppress the horror of what is happening to our Earth, especially at its lethal, festering wound at Fukushima.

 

But what truly sets this moment apart is not just the radioactive nightmare.   There have been others.    There will certainly be more.  

 

What's unique about now is the Solartopian flip side.    It is the irrepressible fact that we have finally reached the green-powered tipping point.  

 

For the first time in history, the financial, industrial and trade journals are filled with pithy, number-laden reports declaring the moment has come---and this can not be overemphasized---that solar power is definitively cheaper than nuclear.  

 

It is an epic moment that future economic and technological historians will note as a true turning point.

 

In real terms, Solartopian technology----wind, solar, geothermal, ocean thermal, bio-fuels, wave, current, tidal, efficiency, conservation---has always been cheaper than nukes.

 

The "Peaceful Atom" has always been a creature of subsidies, a happy face painted on the Bomb.    Its true health, safety and environmental costs can never be reliably calculated.  

 

What, after all, will be the true price tag on Fukushima?    How do we begin to calculate the costs in human agony and ecological destruction?

 

Already Japan is being torn apart by who will pay:    the utility (it doesn't have enough assets)http://nukefree.org/tepco-may-go-insolvent , the government (it could go bankrupt) or the victims (who else?).   The only thing certain is this once-powerful industrial nation will never recover.  

 

It's no accident the reactor industry cannot get private capital for new reactor construction, or private liability insurance of real consequence, and cannot solve its waste problems without the federal government taking responsibility---which, in truth, even it cannot do.  

 

The true installment cost of the US reactor fleet can't even be calculated, as much of the liability was dishonestly wiped off the books in the deregulation scam of 1999-2002.

 

What we're left with worldwide is 440 uninsured ticking time bombs, potential Chernobyls and Fukushimas, every one of them.    There are 104 in the US.   The only real question is when the next one will go off and how long it will take to actually hear about it.  

 

Atomic energy also feeds global warming.    Who will account for the enormous heat still rising from Fukushima?    How much did Chernobyl spew?    Carbon emissions come with the mining, milling, enrichment and ultimate disposal of radioactive fuel, not to mention the building and dismantling of the reactors themselves.

 

For yet another summer, nukes in France, Alabama and elsewhere must close because the infernal machines that "fight global warming" must shut shy of heating the rivers they use for cooling to 90 degrees Farenheit.    

 

What's peaked now, as Fukushima melts and burns and dumps its radioactive poisons into the air and the oceans and the people of this planet, is one financial reality:    even with all its subsidies, nuclear power can no longer stand in the market place.

 

The first option, of course, has become natural gas, whose price has plummeted.    But the gas boom is based in large part on fracking, an unsustainable environmental disaster.   Its momentum is huge, but so is its threat to the waters we need to survive.  

 

In the long term, the future is with renewables.    They are often subsidized as well.    But the scale is not comparable, and does not fully compensate for the hidden realities of atomic power's uninsurability and its inability to solve its basic waste, health and eco-impacts.  

 

Were the nuclear industry forced to fully insure itself, or were it charged the true cost of its invested capital, or what it does to the planet and the humans who live on it, not a single reactor owner could afford to keep a reactor running for a single day.  

 

Small wonder Wall Street has long been more anti-nuclear than Main Street.

 

The numbers are now easy to find.   WorldWatch has just issued the definitive END OF NUCLEAR by Mycle Schneider, laden with charts, graphs, tables and all the financial data anyone needs to confirm the case http://nukefree.org/worldwatch-institute-mycle-schneider-end-nuclear .    The Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org) has long had similar material on file and at the tip of Amory Lovins's tongue.

 

Now we see Forbes http://www.ncwarn.org/2007/07/nuclear-power-worst-managerial-disaster/ , the Wall Street Journal http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/05/25/hypersolar-renewable-energy/ and the core corporate press conceding the obvious.  

 

In short, the bottom line has now become the bottom line. Reactor costs have doubled and tripled in the past few years even before Fukushima.   Green energy costs continue to plummet.

 

The last barrier is that to understand how a Solartopian economy works, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

Base-load power is readily available from geo-thermal, bio-fuels and a broad mix.    One does need to balance the various intermittent sources---wind, solar, tidal---to keep the glass full.  

 

But Fukushima has shown that nukes are also intermittent in the worst imaginable way.

 

Any sane for-profit player with the bucks enough to build a new reactor will now put them into renewables.   Witness Google, now investing    $280 million in a fund for installing solar panels on home rooftops, and millions more for undersea links to offshore wind farms.  

 

The dream of a Solartopian future has become the capitalist present.   Germany and Japan would not be committing to a green-powered future if its large corporations---Siemans, Enercon, Mitsubishi, Sharp---whose CEOs have run the numbers and decided nukes are a loser.    And that the real profit center for the long-term energy biz is in green power.

 

What remains for us is to get the government out of the game.    The $36 billion in loan guarantees Obama wants in the 2012    budget must come out.   We need to call the White House and Congress CONSTANTLY until this happens.

 

Then we need to find a way to get the Chinese, Indians, Koreans, Brits and French to join Germany, Japan and the rest of us in a post-nuclear world.  

 

How soon this gets done is up to us.   Our fervent hope---and greatest incentive---is knowing this MUST be done before    the next Fukushima strikes.  

 

Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! GREEN POWER HOUR runs Wednesdays at 8pm EST onwww.talktainmentradio.com (877)932-9766, starting tonight.    He is senior editor of   www.FreePress.org and www.solartopia.org.  

Fukushima - The Elephant in the Room

By lila york





Recent map of iodine contamination, North America by Nowegian Institute

Remember Chandra Levy?   Her disappearance following an affair with her congressman was the national obsession in the summer of 2001 - until we awoke one Tuesday morning to see the World Trade Center towers on fire     In the summer of 2011 the nation, or at least the nation's media, seems similarly obsessed with the murder trial of Casey Anthony and the twitter account of a New York congressman.   Meanwhile, the crisis at the Fukushima Daichi plant rages on with no resolution in sight and a cold shutdown now projected to be years away.   

Until last week there was an apparent media blackout on the crisis, although some Americans, this writer included, have followed the status of the reactors daily at Energy News andFairewinds, the website of nuclear energy expert, Arnie Gundersen.   

The Fukushima reactors were built by General Electric, which also owns Comcast, NBC, CNBC and MSNBC, so the absence of timely information is not surprising.   

One article early on in the crisis suggested that the reinsurance on Fukushima was held in part by AIG and Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, a supposition I cannot substantiate, but that may be true.   There is no doubt that we live in a time when corporate profits trump human safety and well-being, and we are seeing that manifest in this current crisis.   

The best MSM sources for information over these last months have been Bloomberg, online and on television, and The Wall Street Journal, which have tracked the crisis primarily because it affects investment in Japanese companies.

Last week the Japanese government made startling announcements. Three of the five reactors experienced total meltdowns on March 11th, the day of the initial earthquake, and all three reactors have "melted through" leaky containment vessels, molten masses of melted fuel rods now fissioning  on the basement floors of those reactors.   

The statement further confessed that levels of radiation released from the explosions were actually twice as high as initially reported, blaming the miscalculation on bad math.   (Indeed in the days after the March explosions plutonium was discovered on the ground in northern California and tritium in Vermont.)   

In light of these revelations Arnie Gundersen did an interview on CNN last week, recommending that Americans wash produce thoroughly and stop drinking milk and eating dairy products.   He also suggested that any Americans wealthy enough to relocate to the southern hemisphere consider doing so, adding that Seattle residents were inhaling 5 "hot particles" or "fuel fleas" per day in the weeks following the explosions.   

Democracy Now, Amy Goodman's radio and television news program, which has not ignored the story over these months, did an extensive update on yesterday's broadcast. 

Should we all be constructing fallout shelters and stockpiling food and water?   Should we be shipping our children to South America until the crisis ends?   I have no idea, but neither does anybody else, including the nuclear experts.   

They know that the crisis is more serious than Chernobyl.   The world has never experienced a "china syndrome" event, and there is no way to calculate the potential outcome.   

One nuclear physicist who posts regularly at enenews.com suggests that another explosion is unlikely given the current status, but warns that reactor 4 is in danger of collapsing on itself from even a minor earthquake or aftershock.   A collapse would negatively alter the scenario and could cause another major release of radioactive particles into the jet stream.   

Chronic low-level radiation produces a myriad of diseases in animals and humans, and even the IAEA recently admitted that no level of radiation is safe, as radiation is the prime cause of cancers.   In any event, radiation exposure from a cross-country flight is in an entirely different category from a "hot particle" that would become an internal emitter once inhaled or ingested.   Of the isotopes released in nuclear accidents, the most dangerous are plutonium, strontium 90, which attacks bone tissue, iodine 131 which attacks the thyroid gland, and cesium 137 which attacks soft tissue, including the liver, kidneys and lungs.   

Of these plutonium is the most lethal -- 1/10,000th of a micron will kill a human.   Fukushima's reactor number 3 illegally used MOX fuel, which is a mixture of uranium, depleted uranium, and plutonium. (The MOX fuel was sold to Japan by the United States during the Reagan administration).

The Norwegian Institute (NILU), a Scandinavian organization that measures air quality, akin to our EPA, had, for the first six weeks following the explosions, issued forecast maps for the northern hemisphere which tracked fallout clouds containing radioactive iodine, cesium and xenon, a gas.   Those maps were disturbing to all who saw them, as they showed North America literally blanketed in radioactive fallout at levels that vastly exceeded normal background radiation. 

The EPA announced in early May that it would cease testing air, rainwater, tap water and milk, as iodine 131 levels, the isotope with the shortest half-life, had fallen to normal atmospheric levels (EPA test results here).   

It has been reported at several websites that both NILU and the EPA were pressured to discontinue testing -- or at least to discontinue publication of the test results.   The "pressure" has been variously attributed to the U.S. government, the Japanese government and the United Nations, although I have seen no hard evidence to substantiate any of those claims.   NILU began to publish more recent and updated historical maps in an alternate hidden file it code-named Zardoz, after the 1970's sci-fi film about a post-apocalyptic future.   

The previously hidden maps, showing emergency-level fallout contamination across North America, were subsequently re-published by two 20-something bloggers, here (scroll down the page) and here.   

The Nuclear Engineering Dept at U.C. Berkeley has continued to test rain water, tap water, raw and commercially made milk, topsoil and an assortment of vegetables.   While radiation contamination has dropped significantly since the explosions of March 11, recent tests show new highs in contamination levels of topsoil and milk for cesium 137 and cesium 134.   

Since only UCB is publishing test results, we cannot know for certain what levels persist in other areas of the country. In early April, the government of France advised that pregnant women and young children avoid milk, soft cheeses and leafy vegetables.   

No such missive came from the U.S. government - and Western Europe has been receiving only 5% of the fallout that has blanketed North America. Last week Food Processing.com, the website for the U.S. food and beverage industry, published a very informative article entitled "Fukushima in Our Food," a good overview of contamination that has been recorded in North America since March 11th . Greenpeace, which conducted tests on marine life outside of Japan's 12 mile limit last month, found levels of contamination in fish and seaweed to be above legal limits.

Yesterday Counterpunch published an article by two doctors on the spike in infant deaths in the U.S. since the explosions at Fukushima, a spike which mimics infant deaths in Europe following the Chernobyl disaster.   In North America the contamination comes largely in rainwater, which will, in turn, affect tap water, topsoil, vegetables, meat and dairy products over time.   

The most vulnerable populations are pregnant women and women planning to become pregnant, infants and young children, the elderly and any person suffering from an immune system-compromising illness, such as AIDS.   

The most logical preventative measures Americans can and should take are these: Avoid going out in the rain and always carry an umbrella, avoid fresh dairy products, wash all produce, increase intake of potent antioxidants, such as CoQ10 and alpha lipoic acid, and buy a reverse osmosis water filtration system for your home or at least for your kitchen faucet.   

If you want to be prepared for a possible emergency down the road, also look into N95 face masks, which are widely available, HEPA air filters, and stockpile at least a few weeks of canned and dried food and filtered or spring water sufficient for your household.   

(Well water and spring water are safe as they are filtered by the clay in the soil.)   

Consult the links below for methods of protection from and detoxification of radio isotopes.   

(These methods are also valuable to protect against radiation exposure from x-rays and CT scans).

Resources for news on Fukushima and results of testing :
Energy News.com   http://enenews.com/

Fairewinds, Arnie Gundersen http://www.fairewinds.com/home
EPA test results http://opendata.socrata.com/Government/RadNet-Laboratory-Analysis/cf4r-dfwe
UC Berkeley Dept of Nuclear Engineering test results air and water monitoring teamhttp://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling
American Nuclear Society twitter page   http://twitter.com/#!/ans_org
NILU historical maps   http://www.woweather.com/weather/news/fukushima?LANG=us&VAR=eurad2500
NILU Zardoz file http://zardoz.nilu.no/~flexpart/fpinteractive/plots/?C=M;O=D

3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms: CNN

By the CNN Wire Staff

June 7, 2011 5:56 a.m. EDT

 

An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Japan's nuclear emergency agency goes further in describing the extent of damage
• The Fukushima Daiichi plant was badly affected by an earthquake and tsunami in March
• Tokyo Electric Power Co. has avoided calling the event a meltdown

Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.

The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted last month that nuclear fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 probably melted during the first week of the nuclear crisis. 

It had already said fuel rods at the heart of reactor No. 1 melted almost completely in the first 16 hours after the disaster struck. The remnants of that core are now sitting in the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel at the heart of the unit and that vessel is now believed to be leaking.

We 'came close' to losing northern Japan

TEPCO admits to more possible meltdowns

Orphaned by the tsunami

RELATED TOPICS

• 2011 Japan Disaster

A "major part" of the fuel rods in reactor No. 2 may have melted and fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel 101 hours after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the plant, Tokyo Electric said May 24.

The same thing happened within the first 60 hours at reactor No. 3, the company said, in what it called its worst-case scenario analysis, saying the fuel would be sitting at the bottom of the pressure vessel in each reactor building.

But Tokyo Electric at the same time released a second possible scenario for reactors 2 and 3, one that estimated a full meltdown did not occur. In that scenario, the company estimated the fuel rods may have broken but may not have completely melted.

Temperature data showed the two reactors had cooled substantially in the more than two months since the incident, Tokyo Electric said in May.

The earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, causing the three operating reactors to overheat. That compounded a natural disaster by spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Tokyo Electric avoided using the term "meltdown," and says it was keeping the remnants of the core cool. But U.S. experts interviewed by CNN after the company's announcement in May said that while it may have been containing the situation, the damage had already been done.

"On the basis of what they showed, if there's not fuel left in the core, I don't know what it is other than a complete meltdown," said Gary Was, a University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor and CNN consultant. And given the damage reported at the other units, "It's hard to imagine the scenarios can differ that much for those reactors."

A massive hydrogen explosion -- a symptom of the reactor's overheating -- blew the roof off the No. 1 unit the day after the earthquake, and another hydrogen blast ripped apart the No. 3 reactor building two days later. A suspected hydrogen detonation within the No. 2 reactor is believed to have damaged that unit on March 15.

CNN's Yoko Wakatsuki and Kyung Lah contributed to this report.

French want to abandon nuclear

June 06, 2011

MORE than three quarters of French people believe the country should follow Germany and withdraw from nuclear energy, a new survey has found.

The Ifop poll of 1,005 adults commissioned by the Journal du Dimanche found 77% supported a gradual shut-down of France's nuclear power plants within 30 years. A fifth of those in favour said it should happen sooner.

Germany announced last month that it would shut down its nuclear plants by 2022 following safety concerns as a result of the Japanese earthquake and the Fukushima radiation leak.

Nuclear represents only 22% of German electricity production, whereas France has 58 reactors that produce 73% of the country's electricity supply, making it the world's second-biggest nuclear power behind the United States.

Green party Europe Ecologie-Les Verts is campaigning for a complete withdrawal and wants the Socialists to do the same before it considers a potential partnership in next year's elections.

Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande has instead suggested cutting France's dependence on nuclear by half, while the French government insists it will not change its direction. 

Japan: Land of the rising silence: Junko Yoshida

TOKYO – I landed in Tokyo last week – for the first time since the great earthquake and tsunami hit Japan 75 days ago.

While the reason for my visit was to see my aging mother, I arrived with much trepidation— largely driven by what I didn’t know. I had no real feel for the magnitude of impact the recent disaster must have had on the country and its people. Everything I learned about what happened on March 11th — and what I deduced about it — seemed almost theoretical.

Walking through the customs at Narita airport initially calmed me. People, places and things were as efficient, clean and as orderly as always. Nothing at Narita was broken; the whole scene screamed out the Japanese national motto: “Business as usual.”

The rude awakening, however, hit when I attempted to buy a train ticket at the airport.  Narita Express trains are running on an irregular schedule, “due to the Great Tohoku Kanto earthquake,” according to a woman at the Japan Railway ticket counter. The next available Narita Express train I could take wasn’t due for three hours. While surprised, I told myself, “Oh, well. So, I’ll take the bus to Yokohama.”

Arriving at Yokohama station after 90 minutes on the bus, I discovered that Japan Railway had stopped running every escalator to every platform at every station. I could either hike up a stairway that looked like it went to the stars, or I could line up at one lonesome elevator — which I did, not because I’m not fit, but because I was schlepping a suitcase. I looked wistfully at a nearby escalator, chained and motionless, bearing a notice that read:  “Please cooperate with us in conserving energy.”

In the public rest room at the station, the toilets — thank God — were flushing. Everything seemed normal until I went to dry my hands. Every dryer had a notice, saying: “Please cooperate with us in conserving energy.”

I walked out waving my hands, and resigned to the message of post-tsunami Japan. Forget the little conveniences we’ve all come to take for granted.  It’s post-war all over again — and saving energy was everybody’s job, just like it had been in 1946.

Finally installed on a local train, I opened a newspaper. While the Asahi Shimbun had a number of stories related to the quake’s aftermath, the most eye-catching was a large map of Tohoku and Kanto.

It mapped out each village and town affected by the disaster, complete with death tolls, the missing and those evacuated to temporary facilities in each municipality. The newspaper also devotes a sizable space for a list of full names of “Those who passed away.” This has become a regular feature of each newspaper, day in and day out. Clearly, Japanese authorities are still discovering bodies. When those bodies are identified and publicly acknowledged, the newspaper adds a measure of finality.

But the thing that really freaked me out was the daily nuclear report (it looks a lot like a weather forecast map) – listing radiation levels in the air in various cities in Tohoku and Kanto. Again, this is now a regular feature -- both on NHK (Japan’s public broadcast) news, and in the paper.

I learned that Chigasaki, where my mother lives, registered 0.052 microsieverts per hour the day before my plane landed. Although this was a marked difference from the 6.6 microsieverts found in Namie-cho, a town 31 kilometers northwest of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of either number.

I was supposed to feel reassured about the low-level of radiation in the city I was heading for. But then, I also know that there’s no scientific data, at this point, on the impact on human bodies of a low-level dosage of radiation over a long period of time. It’s the unknown that fuels everyone’s fear.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) six-reactor complex on Japan’s northeastern coast continues emitting radiation into the air and water. Tepco itself has said it will not be able to bring the three heavily damaged reactors under control until late this year or early next year. That’s the hard reality.

 

No solutions in sight for containment
While the plant continues to spew radioactivity, Japan’s largest electric power company will be pumping water into the damaged reactors and venting radioactive steam for a year or more. Tepco has built a low-level waste storage facility on the site. But it has no plans to move the waste elsewhere.

More bad news came from Tepco last Thursday [May 27th].  A new leak in a storage container had dumped an additional 60 tons of radioactive water into the environment.

It’s clear that no credible solutions are in sight to contain the deteriorating reactors. No concrete plans are laid out for how to deal with the growing nuclear waste, either.

Look no further than a recent controversy over the radiation exposure limit for schoolchildren in Japan.  The government set off an uproar in April when it set a radiation exposure limit of 20 millisieverts per year, the same dosage the International Commission on Radiation Protection recommends for nuclear plant workers.

Under pressure, the Japanese government announced last week that it will pay schools near the Fukushima nuclear plant to remove radioactive topsoil; it re-set the target radiation exposure for schoolchildren at one-twentieth the previous limit.

NHK had reported that before this new policy was announced, one school in Fukushima had jumped the gun and scraped the surface of the radioactive soil on its playground. The school’s quick action and independent thinking seemed laudable. But there was a hitch. They had no place to put the contaminated soil. No farmers could use it and no neighbors wanted it in their backyard. The school was told to keep the heap of radioactive soil in the middle of the schoolyard — for now.

The Japanese may be better prepared for earthquakes than any other country. But this is scant consolation in today’s post-earthquake and tsunami problem — the absence of a plan by the combined leadership of government and industry for the future, especially when it comes to dealing with nuclear energy.

It’s only been a week, but I’m starved for information. This is the big worry.

Or, more accurately put, I worry about the tendency for “self-restraint” among Japanese bureaucrats, government officials, politicians, industry leaders and even some in the academia here to keep disclosure of information at a minimum. Early in the crisis, for instance, the Japanese government had detailed information on radiation levels in towns near the Fukushima nuclear plant. Government officials only released the data via the Internet. The names of town were masked – reportedly to prevent mass flights of panicked people, causing “unnecessary” chaos or confusion in the society.

Similarly, in my humble opinion, Japanese consumers are as guilty as their so-called leaders.

Harmful rumors

“Fuhyo higai” is Japanese term I had never heard until I got here this time. Roughly translated as “harmful rumors,” it discourages anyone from discussing the safety of produce or products originating in affected areas. People who live in the “Fuhyo Higai” belt will be compensated by Tepco and the Japanese government. But it’s almost as though the government would prefer that people don’t know they’re victims until they get their compensation. I understand the need to keep “harmful rumors” from running rampant. But the Japanese consumers and the Japanese press are turning common sense into a moratorium on tough questions. It’s almost eerie.

I can live with fewer pachinko parlors and vending machines on the streets in Japan – both of which were labeled power hogs by the governor of Tokyo. I am OK with fewer neon signs in the Ginza; I am certainly for Japanese companies closing their offices at 4:30 p.m. so that they can turn off lights, sending employees home early and allowing them to work from home. Flex-time might even catch on in Japan.

The Japanese auto and auto-parts manufacturers decided to close on Thursdays and Fridays, operating instead on Saturdays and Sundays from July to September to limit power use during the midweek peak.

Because of the damage to power plants in the eastern part of the country, the government has set a target to cut electricity use by manufacturers by 15% this summer, when demand normally picks up with air-conditioner usage. Certain industries deemed critical to the Japanese economy – such as Japan’s semiconductor sector – are exempt from the regulation. But the nation is united behind the 15 percent conservation target. Most experts I talked to remain confident that Japan can stay in business without any serious power interruptions through the summer.

The Japanese are great at setting, communicating and achieving goals like that 15-percent cut. In contrast, we tend not to discuss, or make plans, or even face up to issues — like the nuclear mess in Fukushima — that require solutions more complicated than the March of Dimes. So, as we worry mutely about Fuhyo-Higai, deplore speculation, and tut-tut worst-case scenarios, little is said in public.

The silence is deafening.

It extends to the big uncertainty about the next big quake. What’s the worst that could happen?

Everyone knows the answer: Tokyo. Masaya Ishida, publisher of EE Times Japan, along with 13 million other people, lives here. He said, “The problem is that we don’t know when the next big one will hit us. It can be three years from now, or 300 years.”

Quiet, Ishida-san! If we don’t talk about it, maybe it will go away. 

 

 

Byeyond Nuclear's list of videos to watch

Videos to Watch

The following are a sampling of recommended videos. Please also go to the Beyond Nuclear YouTube Channel.

• Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Climate Change

  • ActNow!
    Beyond Nuclear production, Summer 2010
  • Atomic Mom
    A documentary by M.T. Silvia about two very different mothers and their involvment with the Atomib Bomb.
  • Auf Augenhöhe
    An 11-minute German-made film on indigenous peoples and urnaium mining
  • Big Bang Big Boom
    Created by artist, Blu, a look at the path from Big Bang to nuclear war
  • The Case Against Vermont Yankee
    Featuring Paul Gunter, Kevin Kamps and Maggie Gundersen
  • Climate of Hope, Part I
    30 minute documentary on nuclear power and climate change
  • Climate of Hope, Part II
    30 minue documentary about nuclear power and climate change
  • The Convenient Solution
    A Greenpeace film about climate change and energy
  • Danny Chivers at the Climate Swoop
    A riff on the absurdity of "clean coal"
  • Desertification Threatens Niger's Nomads
    Al Jazeera series on impacts of uranium mining in Niger
  • Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive
    Kevin Kamps on Enviro Close-Up, hosted by Karl Grossman.
  • Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive
    15-minuted version of Kamps interview
  • Down the Yellowcake Road
    The contamination,water consumption and waste generated by uranium mining and processing
  • Everything Nuclear
    A film from The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
  • "Family" and "Risk"
    New ads from Friends of the Earth
  • Iranian Uranium
    From Tenner Films
  • Kraftwerk - Radioactive
    A remix by William Orbit
  • Legacy
    Effects of radioactive contamination at Dounreay reactor. Tenner Films
  • Lester Brown - an interview by Beppe Grillo
    Lester Brown talks about threats to the world and what to do about them, May 2010
  • Lisa Putkey makes the case against nuke weapons in 3 minutes
    A new short piece from the youth of Disarm TV, April 2010
  • Minister
    Tony Benn's conversion to anti-nuclearist. Tenner Films
  • A Modest Proposal
    Slam poet Danny Chivers on futility of nuclear power. Tenner Films
  • Muckaty Voices (Australia)
    The fight to stop a nuclear dump on Aboriginal lands
  • Niger's Natural Wealth Exploited
    The suffering of Niger Touareg due to uranium mining. Al Jazeera
  • The Nuclear Relapse
    Karl Grossman hosts Kevin Kamps on EnviroCloseup
  • Pigeon Impossible
    A satirical look at a secret agent, a pigeon and a nuclear suitcase. By Lucas Martell
  • Poison Wind
    7 minute excerpt. A film by Jenny Pond on impacts of uranium mining on Native Americans
  • Reactor For Sale
    A spoof marketing plan for Vermont Yankee
  • Return to Chernobyl
    Duncan Stewart, volunteer with Chernobyl Children's Project International, tells the story of his humanitarian work in Belarus.
  • Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives
    The environmental footprint of war. A film by Alice and Lincoln Day.
  • 7th Southwest Uranium Forum
    A short documentary produced during the 2009 Forum
  • Twinkle, Twinkle
    PSA for Beyond Nuclear with Ed Asner
  • Uranium, Is It A Country?
    Tracking the origins of nuclear power
  • U.S. Nuclear Plant Construction
    Kevin Kamps on C-SPAN Washington Journal, February 17, 2010
  • Vintage "Daisy" ad
    Famous "daisy" nuclear bomb ad created during Johnson-Goldwater presidential race
  • Vintage Johnson ice cream ad
    An ad created during the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater presidential race
  • We're Not Done Yet
    A message from global youth after Copenhagen
  • The Yellow Monster
    Impacts of uranium mining on Navajo
     

Italians say "no" to nuclear during soccer championship

Greenpeace unfurled a banner during the championship soccer game last Sunday, reading: "From Milan to Palermo, let's shut down nuclear." The tag line at the end reads, "the crazy ones are you if you don't vote to close nuclear in the referendum. The national referendum will be held June 12 and 13. In the last one in 1987, Italians voted to shut down their nuclear power program which has never since reopened.

May 31, 2011

Oil spill into ocean from Fukushima Daiichi Units 5 and 6

Oil spill into ocean from Fukushima Daiichi Units 5 and 6

The Associated Press has reported an oil spill into the ocean from atomic reactor units 5 and 6 at the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeast Japan. The oil spill has occurred despite Units 5 and 6 being in a supposedly stable state of "cold shutdown," according to plant owner and operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).

Units 5 and 6 reactor cores just happened to be shut down for inspection and maintenance when the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11th, facilitating their cooling since. Although Unit 4 was likewise shut down, and its reactor core emptied of nuclear fuel, its secondary containment building was destroyed by a hydrogen explosion, perhaps due to a high-level radioactive waste storage pool fire, or ingress of explosive hydrogen gas from the Unit 3 reactor via a venting system shared by the two units.

In addition to the oil spill at Units 5 and 6, a "small" explosion has been reported at Unit 4. The biggest problems, however, remain the Units 1, 2, and 3 reactor cores, in states of meltdown at risk of burning through primary containment structures, as well as multiple high-level radioactive waste storage pools across the site, at risk of boiling dry, catching fire, and releasing catastrophic amounts of radioactivity directly into the environment, as they are not located within primary containment structures, and secondary containment buildings have been damaged or destroyed by massive hydrogen gas blasts.  

Japan Today reports that the oil leak was detected after bad weather hit the site. The Japan Times has reported that Tepco is speculating that two oil tanks, or connected pipes, which were being filled by a tanker at the time of the March 11 natural disasters, may have been damaged, and may even have been leaking oil ever since. The two tanks were moved 30 feet by the earthquake and/or tsunami; each tank could have contained as much as 1 million liters of heavy oil.

May 31, 2011

 

NRC ACRS transcript on Fukushima review publicly available

On May 26th, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear attended the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Fukushima subcommittee meeting, held at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The ACRS allowed representatives from the Nuclear Energy Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy -- both nuclear power proponents -- to speak for an hour and a half each.

Nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, a skeptic of the industry, former whistleblower, and expert witness in environmental campaigns against dangerous old and proposed new reactors, was only granted five minutes (and was continually interrupted by extraneous noise on the ACRS phone system).

However, the transcript is now available.

The DOE presentation, from page 78 to 145, contains many revelations about the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe that have not yet been publicly reported. The DOE spokesman's 40 powerpoint slides are also included towards the end of the transcript, as is Arnold Gundersen's written testimony.

During a very brief, previously unannounced opportunity for public comments at the end of the ACRS meeting, Kevin announced Beyond Nuclear's emergency enforcement petition to NRC -- supported by a growing number of anti-nuclear watchdog groups who live in the shadows of the 24 U.S. General Electric Boiling Water Reactor Mark 1s and their high-level radioactive waste storage pools, which are identical or very similar in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4.

An NRC Petition Review Board will hear Beyond Nuclear's testimony, as well as that of its growing coalition of grassroots environmental allies, calling for the immediate suspension of GE BWR Mark 1 operating licenses, as well as for emergency back up power to be required on high-level radioactive waste storage pools, on June 8th.

June 1, 2011

ANS well to test methane hydrate technologies

May 18, 2011

Nick Snow
OGJ Washington Editor
 

WASHINGTON, DC, May 18 -- A fully instrumented well that will test innovative technologies to produce methane gas from hydrate deposits has been safely installed on Alaska’s North Slope and will be available for field experiments as early as next winter, the US Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy Office announced on May 17.

FEO said the well—the result of a partnership of ConocoPhillips and FEO’s National Energy Technology Laboratory—will test a technology that involves injecting carbon dioxide into sandstone reservoirs containing methane hydrate. Laboratory studies indicate that the CO₂ molecules will replace the methane molecules in the solid hydrate lattice, resulting in the simultaneous sequestration of CO₂ in a solid hydrate structure and production of methane gas, FEO said.

Recently completed operations include the acquisition of a research-level suite of measurements through the subpermafrost hydrate-bearing sediments, it indicated. The data confirm the occurrence of 160 ft of gas-hydrate-bearing sand reservoirs in four separate zones, as predicted, and provide insight into their physical and mechanical properties.

An array of downhole pressure-temperature gauges were installed in the well, as well as a continuous fiber-optic temperature sensor outside the well casing, which will monitor the well as it returns to natural conditions following the drilling program, FEO added.

It said in coming months, field trial participants will review the data to determine the optimal parameters for future field testing. Current plans are to reenter the well in a future winter drilling season, and conduct a 1-2 month program of CO₂ injection and well production to assess the efficiency of the exchange process.
Following those tests, the remaining time available before the spring thaw (as much as 40 days) may be used to test reservoir response to pressure reduction in the wellbore. This alternative methane-production method, "depressurization," recently proved effective during short-term testing conducted by the governments of Japan and Canada at a site in northwestern Canada, according to FEO.

The Nuclear Power Play – Part 3: What's the Solution?

Special Series: The Nuclear Power Play – Part 3: What's the Solution?

Published Saturday, May 21, 2011 2:30 am

by John Rehill

Special Series: The Nuclear Power Play – Part 3: What's the Solution?

John O’Leary, a deputy secretary of the US department of Energy, testified before the House panel in 1977 that “A solar power breakthrough will solve the energy crises once and for all... a viable plan to use the inexhaustible solar power source is reachable within 5 years.”

“The economics of nuclear power are bad and getting worst” says energy consultant Charles Komanoff. “In my judgment, no utility executive with an accurate perception of the cost of nuclear power and a sincere desire to minimize cost would propose ordering a new nuclear plant.” Atomic Industrial Form Committee on fuel cycle policy (1977)

The volumes of studies comparing the future of solar and other renewable energies are clearly favorable when considering investment, jobs, pollution and safety. But they have been losing their rightful place to the deep pockets of Big-Oil and the atomic based sciences hatched from the “Manhattan Project.”

Affiliated corporations to that project, have been forever rewarded with funding, paraded with Two of of these corpoclout, and embarrassed with open doors. rations are General Electric and Westinghouse – both of whom stand as the leaders in building today’s nuclear global power industry. The subsidies they and oil have received amount to over a trillion dollars over the past five decades.

When Ronald Reagan took down the solar panels from the White House, it was more than symbolic. Behind that action came billions of dollars in “oil subsidies.” Nonrenewable sources of energy would be the “fuel de jour” and individuals would not find freedom from them. Many renewable projects involving wind and solar bio-fuels were emerging through the 70s, displaying great promise, but none would find refuge from big oil nor real assistance from the government.

Melvin Calvin was one such casualty of that era. In 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on “photosynthesis,” while being recognized as an authority in theoretical organic chemistry, as well as being awarded the “Priestly Medal”. 

The “Calvin Cycle” was named after his method of developing the path of carbon in Photosynthesis. This was the birth of understanding “solar energy.” In 1974, Calvin began working on a project that could have brought more of an impact to the security of this country than did the atomic bomb itself, as his focus turned to global warming and the greenhouse effect. 

Calvin had worked on the Manhattan Project and was aware of the direction the trillion dollar Pentagon budget was taking us. Years before, he had traced carbon dioxide’s relationship with sunlight to carbohydrate in plants. He then understood every enzymatic requirement needed to convert carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons.

By 1978, on his ranch in California, he had successfully produced oil from a plant. “Euphorbia lathyris,”  a relative of the poinsettia. It’s grown in a hot and dry atmosphere and produces a latex milk that consists of hydrogen and water. This mixture is processed to exclude oxygen atoms, thus producing hydrocarbons-oil – 12 percent of the plant to be exact and at $20 a barrel. Now oil is almost $120 per barrel. 

Calvin felt cloning and genetic engineering would highly improve the yield and bring the cost down. One of the advantages of fuel derived from Euphoriba is that it does not add to the carbon dioxide blanket eating the ozone. But this did not fit what modeled the “Business Roundtable’s” lock on “fossil fuels”. 

Thus, this Quantum leap in energy resourcefulness and environmental preservation died a quiet and ominous death. The last time I talked to Mr. Calvin, it was 1992, to let him know that I'd included his studies in a piece I wrote for “Creative Loafing,” that I had gathered in an interview with him a year before. He was only coming into his lab half a day a week and soon to retire. 

Calvin told me that he did have misgivings about his years of work being swept under the carpet. How many more like him were, and are still, being dismissed. Imagine California to Texas cooling the desert with green bio-fuel. Euphorbia can still be grown, but we can’t get back the precious kids, who have been sent off to fight over Middle East oil, not to mention the trillions of dollars spent protecting the profits of the oil companies, or the untold damage done to the environment.

In such, President Obama may have completely missed his chance to really be a visonary leader. Right after the BP incident, the President could have partnered with some businesses, commandeered some of those abandoned warehouses along the gulf coast and setup assembly lines building solar collectors, windmills and reversible meters. 

President Obama might have suggested that the most powerful and significant change we can make would be our choices. To be aware of low hydro-carbon products, support them and innovative pioneers like Calvin. To reduce our waste and vote with our feet to tell corporate America how we need to reduce our dependency on fossil and nuclear fuels. That this would progressively usher alternative energy sources into our future.

Making choices has a domino effect. Smart buying reduces trash - reducing trash pic-ups - reducing over burden landfills, which reduces the amount of carbon consuming topography we lose creating them and fossil fuels burnt transporting their fill. To buy smart is like eating smart, it saves you money at the doctor, so when curtailing waste, we and the planet become the benefactors of these practices.

Surely, building more NP plants will not change our habits, nor move us away from this throw-away society they represent. They are the epitome of "trash left behind" with no responsibility to the future. We can, however, insist manufacturers produce products durable, recyclable and biodegradable goods, with little to no fossil fuel. These habits can turn us to a better future in less time than we could bring the first new NP plant online, if we started breaking ground today.

Such broad scale policies would have put tens of thousands of people to work and started a trend that could have reduced dependency on oil – perhaps our greatest threat to national security. President Obama could have put thousands of people to work planting Euphoriba across the Southwest, reducing our dependency even more and helping to heal the woes from CO2. 

All of these industries would employ many, many times the amount of labor then do NP plants. In fact, after an NP plant is built it only requires 100 to 150 people to run it unless a disaster hits. There are not many catastrophes involved in solar and no mining and poisoning waters either, with little chance of a $300 billion cleanups needed to boot. 

Plus, the $36 billion in the pipe for NP as loans, will all be repaid by those who consume the electricity (you and me) and added will be a fountain of profits for the corporations facilitating that process. The longer that takes, the longer those profits flow. It really just becomes a “phantom tax” that redistributes taxpayer wealth to already wealthy, publicly-subsidized corporations. Nuclear Power is by far the most costly and victimizing direction to go down the road to our future. If one wanted to believed it offered a future at all. 

Yes, if President Obama really wanted "clean energy that would strengthen our security, protect our planet and create endless new jobs," he wouldn’t be kissing the rings of those who have taken all of that from us. He'd be standing up to give the American people something more deserving of our nation's role in humanity and we would be taking the lead in guiding the world toward a sustainable future for generations to come.

Special Series: The Nuclear Power Play – Part 2: The True Economic Cost

Published Saturday, May 14, 2011 3:00 am

by John Rehill

Special Series: The Nuclear Power Play – Part 2: The True Economic Cost

Though one might think that the recent nuclear disaster in Japan would have tamed our appetite for nuclear power, advocates for the industry are instead attempting to mount a powerful reassurance campaign in order to quell public concern. In part one of this series, we looked at the true environmental cost of a nuclear power plant. In this piece, we'll explore the real economical impact.

In part one of this series, where we looked at the true economic cost of NP, we asked, Where's the green? Though we failed to find it in real environmental value, there appears to be plenty in terms of the dollars that the industry ultimately requires.

To start with, the expenses prior to cranking-up an NP plant are startling. Building the infrastructure of new power-lines, buying the enormous amount of land, poles and right-of-way is pricey. There’s fuel enrichment, storage, oversight committees, regulators, inspectors and costly emergency back-up everything. There has to be a guarantee of a clean and endless water supply plus emergency sources.

Currently NP plants are providing less than 20 percent of all electricity produced in the US, and only 8 percent of all end uses. Expectations are, that over the next 14 years, production would increase 10 percent with the construction of 20 new plants. China has 25 plants currently under construction and experts predict 25 more new countries will commission their first NP plant by 2030. Most experts say uranium reserves are dwindling and within a decade we’ll be forced to import. I wonder what a peak uranium analysis would reveal? Perhaps lots of “yellow cake” and a world of “dirty bombs.”

On average, 30 tons of high level radioactive waste is created and disposed of from each plant annually. Efforts to open up new disposal facilities and reopen old ones to accommodate the increasing amount are becoming more difficult. Transporting this waste increases the possibility of accidents and contributes to an increasing probability these highly radioactive gases will find their way to the public. More often than not, plants are increasing the amount of waste they store on plant properties. Any method chosen still leaves the chance of disaster.

With a half-life (the time until it reaches half its original radioactivity level) of thousands of years, the problem of storing the “spent fuel rods” does not go away either. They will remain a threat for hundreds of generations to come. This expense, what ever it may be, is not factored into the proposed cost of the plant.

The health hazards associated with working around or living near a NP plant have forever been disputed. What are accepted levels of radiation, the radiation’s origin and whether the person was predisposed to a related disease, has also been disputed by the industry, forcing the burden of proof on to the effected person. Trouble is, the effects of radiation, like smoking cigarettes, can take years to manifest. Many don’t make it through the years of litigation once they have discovered their illness.

The proposed “assisted financing” amounting to $36 billion of interest free loans President Obama has repeatedly announced, is more of a money trap than an incentive. NP plants always require subsidies. The amount includes profits for the partners, while tying those profits to the amount lent. The more the assisted finance, the higher the level of profits are allowed. This public/private romance guarantees a second dance to the bank and a third, until everything is “too big to quit.” This is the anatomy of NP’s money-side.

What happens under various circumstances concerning safety, legal matters, finance and communications are in Washington’s hands, should anything warrant interference. This is clearly laid out in the Federal Response Plan for Peacetime Nuclear Emergencies for Interim Guidance (1977) and amended by Ronald Reagan in a 1981 “Presidential Signing Statement.” This October 8th White House document removes many of the burdening regulations once in NP’s path.

The truth is, NP’s future has been in the hands of those who have been turning our dials for over a half century: the Oil companies. They have had a large stake in NP since the 70’s own the mineral rights to many of the uranium mines. Their government/private partnerships were cast in cement, a power which the BP disaster demonstrated.

The division of Mining and Minerals was forced to divide into two separate entities (revenues and regulations) after the BP disaster, for fear of exposing their codependent relationship, ripe with conflicts of interest.  On Wall Street, they certainly enjoy the “capital gains” generated by these partnerships, but stay away from feeding off this “sacred cow.” Standard and Poor’s predicts the cost of building NP plants will continue to grow at a current pace of 15 to 20 percent annually, and most of Wall Street agrees. This creates an unquenchable thirst for public funds among approved plants, and both Wall Street and S&P agree there is less than a 50 percent chance that any government financing will ever return to the treasury.

In capitalism, a basic tenet is that the producer bears all costs of bringing the product to market before profiting, but we can see that in many industries, especially energy, such is seldom the case. Therefore, any conversation about nuclear power's role in our future energy plan must begin with an honest assessment of cost. The fact that any such assessment presents a big problem for the advocation of a major role for NP, seems like the very reason such facts aren't being discussed by those at the top. Can America, especially our future generations, really afford to move forward in such a financially reckless manner?