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

Reactor parts secretly scrapped
Had originally been intended for North Korea nuke facility

PORTSMOUTH — Behind a gated work area in the Pease International Tradeport, a project to dismantle key components of a nuclear reactor belonging to North Korea has been kept quiet over the past month.

Shrouded in secrecy, project officials were mum on what really was taking place at an abandoned warehouse on New Hampshire Avenue.

Until now.

[link to www.seacoastonline.com]

- hmmm.

Security computer at San Onofre mysteriously shuts down

A security computer at the San Onofre nuclear generating plant near San Clemente mysteriously shut down early Saturday morning, prompting the plant manager to issue an "unusual event" report.

[link to latimesblogs.latimes.com]

NPPD, U.S. Department of Energy reach agreement

Under the agreement, which came after a decade of litigation, NPPD received $60.5 million from the DOE to cover costs associated with building a spent-fuel storage facility at Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville. The payment covers expenses through 2009, and additional money is expected to go the district’s way through 2013, NPPD said.

NPPD has paid $167 million to the National Waste Policy Act fund since it was established in 1982 as a way for DOE to dispose of high-level radioactive waste and used nuclear fuel.

However, the department never accepted any waste and a permanent storage facility — originally planned at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain — wasn’t built, despite being mandated in 1998.

The Obama Administration has strongly opposed the Yucca Mountain project and Nevada state officials, including Sen. Harry Reid, protested the proposed dump site. The DOE filed a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year to withdraw the license application for a high-level nuclear waste repository there.

Read more: [link to columbustelegram.com]

- but there's no money for SS pensioners?

India to begin the construction of its 25th nuclear power plant

[link to www.ndtv.com]

Congress pursues a dangerous path in trying to revive Yucca Mountain

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives pushed through a bill Friday that would provide $45 million to move ahead with the plan to turn Nevada into a dump for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste.

As we have pointed out, the plan for Yucca Mountain is dangerous and incredibly expensive, with an estimated cost of $100 billion. It would require years of transporting high-level waste across the country, past most of the nation’s population. Federal officials would then shove it in Yucca Mountain — a porous, volcanic ridge that lies in an area prone to earthquakes.

The clear answer is that the waste should be kept where it is now — at nuclear reactor sites. It can be kept safely, and more cheaply, for decades in concrete-and-steel containers called dry casks. In the meantime, scientists can find safe ways to dispose of it.

Nevadans have said time and again they don’t want nuclear waste and they don’t want the federal government tying to shove it down their throats.

[link to www.lasvegassun.com]

-well?

While Fukushima was a terrible accident, it's not going to have a huge effect on the nuclear industry," Goldsworthy says.

"It looks like it will result in only Italy and Germany turning away from nuclear power in the short term, which accounts for 18 plants."

Globally, 250 plants are planned and 62 are under construction.

"You will see the nuclear industry still doubling, which requires a corresponding increase in fuel supply," Goldsworthy says.

[link to www.theaustralian.com.au]

Anyone who tries to argue that highly radioactive garbage should be stored anywhere on the earth's surface does not have the public's best interest at heart.

It needs to go into space, and until we can do that reliably, it needs carefully protected deep underground storage facilities. Not on a fault line.

If there really is no place like that we can put it in the next year, due to the urgency of the current global climate issues, into the Yucca it must go. Temporarily only. Hopefully that will buy us some time, however. Leave it at Cooper and the Northern Hemisphere goes bye bye before Christmas.

I kinda agree but listen; even if all the nuke plants and other industries that produce nuclear waste(and there are a lot of them) stopped generating additional substances, the problem of getting rid of it would be almost insurmountable. There is so much already built up it will be around forever.

Someday, if the world survives, people will wonder with amazement how we could have been so stupid as to allow it to happen, knowing we had no solution to the waste problem...

It will still be in the environment thousands of years from now.

Tokyo VAAC has posted an advisory on an explosion at Sakurajima reported by JMA today: [link to ds.data.jma.go.jp] The volcano is one of 5 currently warned volcanoes in the path of Typhoon Ma-On (see portal at [link to www.tropmet.com] and today’s Wunderground post by Jeff Masters [scroll down] at [link to www.wunderground.com] for information on this major tropical cyclone). I don’t think this is a Typhoon Yunya-vs-Pinatubo situation, though, but if there is an ash cloud present (it’s not certain yet), things could get very messy on the ground very quickly when the rain starts, and Ma-On is so large that it’s already showing up on some Japanese radars, even though it’s rather far away still.

This could get very messy because of the current state of saturation at Fuku. The basements are full of contaminated water already. The rain from the typhoon may cause overflowing. In that case the ocean will receive more contamination.

Just lovely.

411 More Cows In Fukushima Found To Have Been Fed Cesium-Tainted Straw

[link to e.nikkei.com]

In the wake of the Kobe quake, Japanese engineers took extensive measures to reinforce buildings and infrastructure. They installed rubber blocks under bridges. They spaced buildings farther apart to prevent domino-style tumbling. They introduced extra bracing, base isolation pads, hydraulic shock absorbers. A minute before the March earthquake, automatic seismic monitoring systems sent warnings to Japanese cell phones. Elevators glided obediently to the nearest floor and opened. Surgeries were halted. Videos from Tokyo show skyscrapers swaying gracefully, like cornstalks in the wind. Not one collapsed.

Likewise, the aftershock that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, this past February was deadly, but the astonishing part of that story isn’t that several of the city’s buildings collapsed; it’s that most of them did not. The peak ground acceleration—a measurement of how much the ground shakes—was immense, one of the highest ever recorded. Something like that would have flattened most cities. New Zealand’s strict and well-enforced building codes saved Christchurch from annihilation.

[link to www.city-journal.org]

- why there wasn't more EQ damage. for the non-believers.

Last Edited by Waterbug on 07/18/2011 09:34 AM

Crippled Japanese Power Plant Prepares For Typhoon
[link to www.kitv.com]

Don't fall ill in a nuke crisis

The residents of Minami Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, are still being denied full medical services even though more than four months have passed since radiation leaks started from the nearby Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The primary reason for this denial is "buck passing" by the central and prefectural governments.

[link to search.japantimes.co.jp]

- a loving and caring gov't.

At least 37 of the 54 nuclear reactors in this country would be able to withstand tsunami as powerful as the one that hit the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 11, an organization of industrial facility maintenance experts claims to have proved through its research.

The research covered 37 reactors--specifically, all the reactors in the nation that are not operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

[link to www.yomiuri.co.jp]

'Colossal blunder' on radioactive cattle feed / Govt officials admit responsibility for foul-up that let tainted beef enter nation's food supply

This is nothing less than a colossal blunder by our ministry. It was beyond our expectations that straw would become a source of radioactive contamination," a ministry official said.

Livestock farmers and others in the meat industry have attacked the government for its failure to prevent the problem.

The checks involved electronically measuring the amount of radioactive material on the surface of the animals' bodies. Shipment is allowed if the detected radioactive emissions are below 100,000 counts per minute. The same amount of radioactive material on a human would require that person to undergo full-body decontamination.

[link to www.yomiuri.co.jp]

Crooks take advantage of Japan earthquake to steal millions from ATMs

Criminals have stolen millions of pounds from cash machines left unguarded in the wake of Japan's 11 March earthquake and tsunami, according to local press reports.

[link to www.finextra.com]

- where are the samurai when you need them?

When citizens groups and environmental advocacy organizations go up against TVA, the analogy of David vs. Goliath springs to mind.
If TVA's CEO, Tom Kilgore, seeks approval of a plan to restart the Bellefonte plant at the agency's August board meeting, the league also wants the board to defer that request.

The league has documented the NRC's prior dismissal of such considerations as Bellefonte's location on this region's vulnerable karst limsetone terrain, which is generally riddled with fractures, caves, unpredictable hydrology and induced sinkholes; and its location at a site that is virtually on top of one of the largest earthquake faults east of the Rocky Mountains, the Sequatchie fault.

League members also point out that after TVA finally mothballed the Bellefonte plant, which was begun in 1974, it also abandoned NRC oversight and monitoring protocols, and then subsequently allowed tubing, boilers and other equipment at the plant to be dismantled and used in other plants, or sold.

[link to www.utilityproducts.com]

- it's just a really bad idea.

Let’s fervently hope that TVA’s nuclear power plant concerns come to be resolved
On top of operator failure, there were at least six equipment failures: “a valve failed, a diesel-driven fire pump failed, the diesel-driven generator for the security station failed, the warning sirens were lost, power to the chemical lab was lost, and an emergency diesel generator keeping cool water flowing to one of three reactors shut down because of voltage fluctuations caused by a fluid leak after a brass fitting broke.”

After the new information emerged, the reaction of a TVA spokesman was that the agency did not use such terms as “flawless” or “perfect,” but instead said “the equipment worked as designed” and “the plant was safely shut down and cooled down.”

Wait a second. If a so many things failed, how could the equipment be working as designed? And why were Unit 1 operators “distracted”? The truth is the failures of both equipment and humans are very troubling.

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal - Don McKee Let’s fervently hope that TVA’s nuclear power plant concerns come to be resolved

- TVA seems to be operating under the assumption that they are infallible. Wrong.

Kansai Electric, which supplies power to Osaka and surrounding areas, closed the No. 1 reactor at its Ohi nuclear plant on July 16 because of a malfunction. The reactor has been running without final approval from regulators since March after being shutdown for regular maintenance.

[link to www.bloomberg.com]

- we don't need no stinking approval.

Nuclear Plant Safety Proposals Put on Fast Track

Up to now, a cost-protection rule has essentially barred the NRC from requiring major plant improvements without first having to prove that the human-health benefits justify the cost.

The recommendations from an NRC task force—formed after Japan's Fukushima Daiichi disaster in March—represent the most significant changes to nuclear-industry safety since the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania.

[link to online.wsj.com]

- in other words, we feel money is a more important consideration than safety...until now.

PG&E plans ocean seismic fault survey

The fault-mapping work is a precondition for extending the operating licenses of Diablo Canyon’s two nuclear reactors to 2044 and 2045. Many local elected officials insisted that the work be done in light of the recent discovery of the Shoreline fault near Diablo Canyon and in the aftermath of the March 11 nuclear disaster in Japan.

Read more: [link to www.sanluisobispo.com]

- some forethought. refreshing. extending life of reactors...not so much.

CRMT- connectingdots1 finds Dangerous Radioactive rain in Lake Louise,BC

Very informative thread. Thanks, Waterbug

YW. For both of us. I learn more every day.

Fukushima-type disaster inevitable in U.S.?

CBS News has obtained a copy of a National Regulatory Commission (NRC) "Post Fukushima" Watts Bar report, dated May 2011. CBS News had two nuclear engineers look at the report. One gave Watts Bar a "D-" and called it "appalling." The other cited what he called more than 40 "disturbing findings" during a 40-hour inspection, including:

-A lack of emergency responder training


-Faulty control panels


-Malfunctioning communications equipment


-Issues with portable backup diesel generators

We asked David Lochbaum, a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists why the NRC isn't pounding on the door of Watts Bar, saying, "Look we need these problems fixed?"



[link to www.cbsnews.com]

- scary.

TEPCO PR piece claiming progress with photos

[link to www.tepco.co.jp] ... 0719e8.pdf

Critics question TVA nuke safety results

For the NRC to put out such a wimpy report is just a way for them to attempt to settle the American public down over these plants,” she said.

[link to www.tennessean.com]

- sad that they get away with this crap.

Evacuation plans could scuttle Indian Point license renewal


Read more: [link to www.stamfordadvocate.com]

-woo hoo!

New rules for nuclear waste in Europe

A new EU directive says that radioactive waste and spent fuel rods from Europe's 143 nuclear reactors must in future be buried in secure underground bunkers. The new rules don't impose an export ban on nuclear waste.
[link to www.dw-world.de]

- if EU can do it why can't we?