*** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and links

Duke Energy announces closing of Crystal River nuclear power plant

CRYSTAL RIVER — Duke Energy announced early Tuesday it will permanently close the Crystal River nuclear plant that has been shut down since late 2009.

The company said it is reviewing alternatives, including building a new natural gas plant, to replace the power produced by the nuclear facility.

Duke's four coal-fired plants will remain in service at the same Citrus County complex where the nuclear plant, known as CR3, is located.
[link to www.tampabay.com]
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Westinghouse and Burns & McDonnell Enter Into Agreement to Further the Westinghouse SMR Reactor Project Development

Construction of a single Westinghouse SMR estimated to create nearly $3 billion in economic impact and thousands of U.S. jobs in more than 15 states

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 4, 2013 – Westinghouse Electric Company today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, Inc. to further the development and licensing of the Westinghouse Small Modular Reactor (SMR), a passively safe design that has the potential to provide economical, secure sources of emissions-free electricity generation to the world’s rapidly changing and diverse markets.
[link to us.vocuspr.com]
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Just a small one...

Tsunami advisory issued for Japan's pacific coast

The Meteorological Agency has issued a tsunami advisory for the Pacific coast of the Japanese archipelago and the island groups of Okinawa and Amami in southwestern Japan.

The advisory was issued at 2:41 PM local time on Wednesday following a magnitude 8.0 earthquake that struck the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific earlier in the day.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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NRA to set toughest nuclear plant safety rules

The chairman of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority says it will set the world's toughest safety standards for nuclear power plants.

Shun-ichi Tanaka made the remark at a committee hearing of the Upper House of the Diet on Wednesday.

Tanaka said he's been reflecting on the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and working to protect people and the environment as his mission. He added that he's been making decisions from scientific and technological viewpoints by ensuring transparency.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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TEPCO to buy US shale gas

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it plans to buy shale gas from the United States to help cut down on fuel costs.

The utility says it has reached a broad agreement with 2 major Japanese trading houses to purchase 800-thousand tons of shale gas every year. The trading houses will buy from the US.

The 20-year-contract would begin in 2017.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Power goes out for 1 minute at Oi nuclear plant

Power went out Wednesday for one minute at the No. 3 reactor of Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, but the outage did not affect the reactor's operation or cause negative impact outside the facility, the plant operator said.

The utility said it believes part of the internal power supply at the reactor building was cut at around 2:30 p.m. as a trainee touched the circuit breaker by mistake. The Nos. 3 and 4 units at the Oi plant are the only reactors currently in operation in Japan in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis in 2011.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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TEPCO to procure 800,000 tons of LNG per year from U.S. from 2017

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the accident-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, said Wednesday it plans to procure 800,000 tons of liquefied natural gas annually from the United States from 2017 as part of efforts to cut heavy fuel costs for non-nuclear thermal power generation.

The LNG, including liquefied shale gas, will come from a project planned in Louisiana by a U.S. firm. TEPCO said it has reached a contract of about 20 years with one of the sellers, Mitsui & Co., and is close to reaching a similar accord with the other, Mitsubishi Corp.

With TEPCO planning to secure an additional 1.2 million tons per year of the relatively cheap LNG from multiple supply sources, the company expects to cut fuel costs by about 50 billion yen annually in total.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Very interesting...

Duke Reactor Shutdown Plan Shows Shale’s Sway Over Power

Duke Energy’s decision to dismantle a Florida nuclear power plant rather than undertake the costliest- ever U.S. atomic repair shows how rapidly cheap natural gas is remaking the U.S. power industry, hastening a shift from traditional fuels such as coal and uranium.

“The fuel du jour is natural gas,” Florida Public Counsel J.R. Kelly, the state’s official advocate for utility customers, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I personally believe in fuel diversity. I’m just afraid the costs of new nuclear are going to be prohibitive.”
[link to www.bloomberg.com]
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Is that all it takes...? Touching a circuit breaker..?
I've touched a lot of them.. None tripped unless I flipped the switch.

Maybe they should have installed redundant breakers..

As if the costs of old nuclear are not... damn.

Isn't it fascinating?... top notch security... NOT...
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Which friggin' egghead determined this policy...?
Construction before design completion..?
Make it up as you go along..?
Great for a child's treehouse.. not so great in the nuclear industry.



Study Slams Nuclear Waste Practices at Hanford
[link to green.blogs.nytimes.com]

[snip]

In 1989, the Department of Energy assumed responsibility for safely disposing of this waste, which threatens to leak into the bordering Columbia River and affect downstream industry, habitat and human health.

After attempting and abandoning three cleanup plans, the Energy Department in 2000 awarded a management contract to Bechtel National. The core of the project is a waste treatment and immobilization plant consisting of three buildings: a single pretreatment facility to sort high-radioactivity waste from the low-radioactivity kind and separate vitrification plants for each stream in which the waste will be combined with molten glass and then cooled for stable storage.

Plant operations under Bechtel were initially scheduled to begin by 2011 with total projected costs of $4.3 billion. The budget has since swollen to an estimated $13.4 billion, and the plant’s opening has been delayed until 2019. Many see this revised timeline as hopelessly, even recklessly, optimistic.

Of particular concern has been the use of a “design-build” protocol, in which construction is carried out as the design unfolds. Whereas standard nuclear guidelines call for designs to be at least 90 percent complete before breaking ground, Hanford’s construction is 55 percent complete with only 80 percent of the facility designed.

This approach has “led to significant cost increases and schedule delays” while also threatening the plant’s ability to operate safely once completed, the report said.

In his resignation letter last week, the Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu, described Hanford as “the most complex and largest nuclear project in history.”

One problem identified in the latest audit is that over 40 years of plutonium production involving many different processes, little priority was given to keeping a detailed waste inventory. As a result, engineers now face a severe dearth of information about the waste contained in each of the 177 underground tanks – knowledge essential to separation of the waste streams.

Nor is sampling the waste a straightforward operation. Most tanks contains many waste products that tend to separate as oil and water do, meaning that a sample from one part of a tank indicates little about its overall contents.

What is more, the pretreatment plant requires “black cell” technologies, so called because once the plant is put into operation the high levels of radioactivity will preclude maintenance from taking place. These must operate continuously and flawlessly for up to 40 years.

Amazing..

Yangjiang steam generators arrive on site

A delivery this month completed the journey of three steam generators from the Lingang manufacturing plant near Shanghai to the Yangjiang nuclear power plant site.

The steam generators will be installed at Yangjiang 2, one of four reactors being built at the site by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC). The first unit will begin generating power in the latter part of this year with the remainder following to 2017.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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China unlikely to be shining light for nuclear

Nuclear power can only survive if it’s competitive with alternatives. Even with China in the market, that’s unlikely.

Two years after Fukushima, a clearer picture of how the disaster has impacted nuclear power’s prospects is emerging. For some European countries including Germany, Italy and Lithuania, Fukushima was the last straw. Other developed countries, such as the UK and the US, are trying to carry on as if Fukushima has no relevance to them because their designs are different, their operators more competent and tsunamis not a risk. Developing countries seem the least affected and nuclear ambitions in countries such as Turkey, Vietnam and Bangladesh are apparently as they were.

Safety regulators have started to specify required upgrades to existing reactors, and it is no surprise that the newly reformed Japanese watchdog is asking for significant modifications.
[link to www.chinadialogue.net]
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Good enough for a top .gov job...?
Ridiculous.




Who's to blame for costly debacle?
[link to www.power-eng.com]

[snip]

Bill Johnson.

He was the CEO of Progress Energy, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., when Progress Energy Florida decided to pursue a "we-can-do-it-cheaper" repair of its sole nuclear power plant in the Sunshine State.

Johnson is the boss who accepted a staff recommendation that cutting a hole in Crystal River's containment vessel - to replace steam generators - would be less complicated and less expensive than using an existing hatch.

Wrong. As CEO, the buck stopped with Johnson.

Johnson's one-day tenure could bring him up to a $44.7 million post-exit payday. It includes $10.3 million in severance, bonus and benefits, states an SEC filing, as long as he keeps quiet and agrees not to criticize his former employer.

In November, Johnson was named CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest government utility. He will receive as much as $4 million a year in pay and bonus.

Big paychecks for doing a lousy job hardly sends the right message to the public.

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Sounds like he'll do well in DC.

Quake fears rise at Japan’s reactors
[link to www.nature.com]

Study: Radioactive silver found inside all 47 cows tested from Fukushima evacuation zone
[link to enenews.com]

Asahi: Secret US report called Japan’s Fukushima response “FUBAR, or F−−−−− Up Beyond All Recognition” — Top official had tears in his eyes
[link to enenews.com]

SOS from Fukushima Mothers: “Desperate, hopeless situation… Please help” (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

NHK: “Massive fallout spread over large areas and still coats the ground” — Resident: “The rise was unexpectedly fast… I’m shocked, I didn’t think it could get this high” (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

Former Fukushima Worker: I’m doing penance for the rest of my life by trying to clean up nuclear contamination — I feel responsibility as an engineer (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

Gundersen: I’d be very concerned if I lived around California nuke plant — “Just an experiment waiting to go wrong” (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

Of course.. because they got caught colluding....






Regulators To Change Rules To Improve Organization's Transparency
[link to e.nikkei.com]

indeed bug... very interesting that we're starting to tear down the proverbial wall of silence now....

Took awhile.. dinnit..?

another i found and translated 'buggy-son' (love that... oh the memories.....
[link to fukushimaemergencywhatcanwedo.blogspot.com.au]

____edit --- wrong year! sorry!

Tepco is currently releasing 11,500 tons of contaminated water up to 500 times regulated limit.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) began the release of some 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean Monday from a waste treatment facility at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and said it would begin draining more radioactive water from reactor Nos 5 and 6 within hours.

[link to www.bellona.org]

____edit --- wrong year! sorry!

umm, sorrry rally.. 10 milllion Bqs/phr into atmosphere.. your statement is water release... and therfore moot, in argument...................

10^5000 into the sea... by own admission....

Last Edited by CitizenPerth™ on 02/07/2013 07:39 AM

TEPCO suspected of false account to Diet panel

The operator of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been accused of trying to block a Diet panel probe into the March 2011 nuclear accident at the facility.

Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a former Diet panel member, submitted a document to the leaders of both chambers of the Diet on Thursday, asking for an investigation into the matter.

Tanaka claims in the document that Tokyo Electric Power Company told the panel last February that the inside of the building housing the plant's No.1 reactor was pitch-dark as it was covered by a sheet, rendering it too dangerous for an onsite inspection to be carried out.

This explanation, he says, led the panel to give up the idea of conducting the on-site inspection.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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