Category Archives: Nuclear Energy

Entergy official "relieved of duties" for false statement about Vermont Yankee nuclear plant

Vermont Yankee, on the banks of the Connecticut River

Vermont Yankee, Courtesy of US NRC

There’s no question that nuclear power will be part of our energy supply mix for the foreseeable future.  The United States has 104 nuclear power plants in operation at present, according to Matthew Wald on the Green Inc. blog of The New York Times, relying on NRC data. Incidents like this – in which a corporate official makes a false statement with serious health and safety implications – give us pause.

Which is worse – that the official was mistaken, and not aware that Vermont Yankee had water pipes which could leak – or that he knew and lied?

Incompetence or dishonesty, it would seem.  Nuclear power can’t be a safe part of our energy future on those terms. Entergy is responsible for knowing everything there is to know about the plants it operates. A material and incorrect statement – under oath, no less – seems explainable only by three hypotheses: (1) the official lied; (2) the official failed to make himself aware of the plant, in which case the question shouldn’t have been answered; (3) the official was misinformed by subordinates.

If the first explanation is correct, perjury charges are, of course, in order. If the second or the third – Entergy hasn’t met its obligations to mind the store.

From the Associated Press via NPR: Top Vermont Yankee Official ‘Relieved Of Duties’:

A top official at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant was permanently relieved of his duties and placed on leave, the plant owner’s CEO said Tuesday, less than a week after Gov. Jim Douglas demanded management changes over misstatements made to state officials.

Entergy Nuclear chief executive J. Wayne Leonard did not identify the official by name. But he described the executive relieved of his duties in a way that could only apply to Vice President Jay Thayer.

Douglas’ urging for management shake-up followed revelations that plant officials misled state regulators and lawmakers by saying last year the plant did not have the sort of underground pipes that could carry radioactive tritium.

“In May 2009, an Entergy executive testified in a hearing on the state’s report that he didn’t think we had any such pipes, but he would get back to them,” Leonard said. “He did not get back to them. He has issued a public apology and made clear that he failed to provide full and complete information, either on the witness stand or by failing to get back to them.

Continue reading →

Nuclear Fusion: Cleaner Energy – Tomorrow

The Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) reactor is housed inside a 16-foot-diameter steel structure in a building on the MIT campus that also houses MIT’s other fusion reactor, a tokamak called Alcator C-mod.

The Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) reactor, Photo courtesy of the LDX team

A team of scientists led by Jay Kesner at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Michael Mauel at the Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science announced the “first significant results” from the Levitated Dipole Experiment, LDX. (Click here for the MIT news release). Continue reading →

Republican Alternative Energy: Coal, Oil, & Nuclear Power

“The Republican Road to Recovery”  according to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Thaddeus McCotter, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, John R. Carter, Pete Sessions, Kevin McCarthy, David Dreier, Roy Blunt, who signed it, “Keeps Energy and Fuel Costs Low.” It mentions wind and solar, but focuses on coal, oil, oil shale, offshore drilling, and nuclear power.

The document says “Republicans want energy independence with increased development of all natural resources, including renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.” It doesn’t mention “global warming.” It mentions the term “greenhouse gases” once, stating, incorrectly, that nuclear power doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. Mining, processing, and transporting nuclear fuel, and managing radioactive wastes, produces tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases.

It points out that “Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry … have long fought a renewable wind project in waters off of Massachusetts…. Cape Wind, would provide 75 percent of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket island. “

The document focuses on coal, oil, and nuclear power. These are not clean, renewable, sustainable energy sources.  Ultimately, therefore, it attempts to “greenwash” coal, oil, and nuclear power.

the Administration has already taken steps to hinder the leasing of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) which is estimated to hold at least 19 billion barrels of oil, and Democrats have long championed the prohibition on drilling in the Arctic Coastal Plain – which is estimated to hold 10.4 billion barrels of oil. Furthormore, Democrats continue to block the procurement of advanced alternative fuels from sources such as oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid technology. U.S. Oil shale alone could provide about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.

Republicans also support opening the Arctic Coastal Plain to energy exploration and development.

And despite expert agreement that nuclear power is reliable, clean, and affordable without producing air pollution or greenhouse gases, Democrats continue to block its development.

Republicans realize that there are better solutions to restore freedom and security in our energy market.  Republicans recognize the importance of exploring for American oil and gas in an envionronmentally-sound manner and support immediately leasing oil and gas resources in the OCS through an an expedited and streamlined procedure.

Republicans support removing government barriers to new nuclear reactors as long as they meet strict security and safety criteria.

Americans realize that the future of energy is in alternative and renewable sources. In order to promote the development of renewable and alternative energy, Republicans support promoting the leasing of federal lands which contain alternative energy such as oil shale. … spurring a market by using fuels derived from oil shale, tar sands, and coal.

Coal – Going the Way of Nuclear Power

What killed nuclear power was not Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, or the demonstrations of public opposition such as at Seabrook, NH in the late 1970’s or the Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts in New York, Sept. 19-23, 1979, (both of which I attended).

What killed nuclear power was the realization by the bankers on Wall St. that after an event like Three Mile Island their multi-billion investment very quickly became a multi-billion pile of junk with virtually zero salvage value and a tremendously negative return on investment.

And coal today?

According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory “Historically, actual capacity has been seen to be significantly less than proposed capacity. For example, the 2002 report /of the National Energy Technology Lab, NETL, of the Department of Energy, DOE/ listed 36,161 MW of proposed /coal/ capacity by the year 2007 when actually only 4,478 MW (12%) were constructed.” Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, NETL, Office of Systems Analyses and Planning, by Erik Shuster, Feb. 18, 2008, pg, 4, 5.

Housley Carr, writing in McGraw Hill’s Engineering News-Record, reported on the impending demise of  “King Coal” Uncertainty Over Carbon has Coal Plants Stymied

with public, regulatory and lender concern growing, many proposed plants are being cancelled. Permits issued for others require offsets for their carbon emissions, while the ones that remain in permitting are being intensely challenged. The U. S. Envrionmental Protection Agency must regulate carbon-dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court ruled last year, but Congress has failed to give EPA guidelines for a national policy. Three investment banks last month announced guidelines they would use to assess the risks of investment in coal-fired generation in the absense of a national policy. Further, the largest electric utility in Kansas, citing “seismic shifts in the assumptions shaping our industry,” issued a strategic plan that knocks the crown from King Coal’s head.”

Coal – Nuclear Power – Energy Dodos?

Is coal going the way of nuclear power, the way of the dodo?

What killed nuclear power was not Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, or the demonstrations of public opposition such as at Seabrook, NH in the late 1970’s or the Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts in New York, Sept. 19-23, 1979.

What killed nuclear power was the realization by the bankers on Wall St. that after an event like Three Mile Island their multi-billion investment very quickly became a multi-billion pile of junk with virtually zero salvage value and a tremendously negative return on investment.

And coal today?

According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory

“Historically, actual capacity has been seen to be significantly less than proposed capacity. For example, the 2002 report /of the National Energy Technology Lab, NETL, of the Department of Energy, DOE/ listed 36,161 MW of proposed /coal/ capacity by the year 2007 when actually only 4,478 MW (12%) were constructed.” Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, NETL, Office of Systems Analyses and Planning, by Erik Shuster, Feb. 18, 2008, pg, 4, 5. Continue reading →

Chairman of NRC Panel indifferent to whether Indian Point hearings audible to audience

Preliminary evidence supports these propositions:

  1. The NRC is interested in limiting the scope of the public hearings;
  2. the NRC doesn’t mind if no one can hear what’s being said

Attempts by persons or groups to conceal their actions may be interpreted as circumstantial evidence of consciousness of guilt (Wigmore On Evidence, 2nd edition, 1915, ยง 178). We could probably find more citations, but the point is – what’s the NRC got to be afraid of?

From Matthew Wald’s piece in The New York Times [emphasis supplied]:

Opponents of the Indian Point nuclear power plants, including New York State, got their day in court on Monday – sort of – to explain why they thought the two reactors should not be allowed to operate 20 more years. It signified the first time that a state had stepped forward to flatly oppose license renewals.

But like much about the tangled history of the plants in Westchester County, the hearing before a three-judge panel appointed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not that simple.

The proceedings got off to a prickly start when a member of the audience seated in a courtroom at the Westchester County Courthouse here complained to the panel chairman, Lawrence G. McDade, that he could not hear what was being said. “The acoustics here are what the acoustics here are,” said Mr. McDade, a former military judge, who was himself using a microphone.

The difficulty was that about 20 lawyers seated at five tables and flanked by cartons of documents, as well as another 20 or so who spilled over into the jury box, did not have microphones.

When Michael B. Kaplowitz, vice chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators, rose and said he could not hear the lawyers representing him – and that he was not a member of the audience but a participant – Mr. McDade told Mr. Kaplowitz that he could read the transcript later.

After a lunch break, Mr. McDade relented and had more microphones brought in.

Acoustics were not the only setback for those opposed to relicensing the two plants in Buchanan, on the east bank of the Hudson River 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.

It was immediately clear that for the opponents – the state, Westchester County and several environmental groups – to win the day, they would have to persuade the panel and the regulatory agency itself to reconsider what arguments are admissible.

The commission has ruled that for an argument to be considered in license extension hearings, it must deal with problems that may arise because the license is extended. The state contends, however, that the region’s extraordinary population density, when considered together with the threat of terrorism or earthquake, makes the plants unsafe.

“The presence of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in our midst is untenable,” the state argued in a legal brief.

Joan Leary Matthews, a lawyer for the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said in an opening statement that “whatever the chances of a failure at Indian Point, the consequences could be catastrophic in ways that are almost too horrific to contemplate.”

Sherwin Turk, a lawyer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that questioning whether the site was a good idea in the first place was not within the scope of the proceeding.

Foes of Indian Point Begin Legal Battle, The New York Times, March 11, 2008.

 

Al Gore on Nuclear Power and Global Warming, 1992.

Al Gore

Al Gore, photographed for Time, earlier this year.

In Earth In The Balance, 1992, Plume Publishing, New York, Gore wrote:

“Almost every discussion of substitutes for fossil fuels includes an argument over the role of nuclear power in our energy future. In fact, some opponents of positive action to save the environment try to cut short discussions of global warming with a dismissive reference to the political difficulties involved in building new nuclear reactors and expressions of exaggerated frustration with envrionmentalists, who, they imply are the principal obstacles to adopting nuclear power as the obvious subsitute for coal and oil.

“Of course, uncertainties about future projections of energy demand and economic problems like cost overruns were the major causes of the cancellation of reactors by utilities, well before accidents like those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl heightened public apprehension. Growing concern about our capacity to accept responsibility for the safety of storing nuclear waste products with extremely long lifetimes also adds to the resistance many feel to a dramatic increase in the use of nuclear power.

“In my own view, the present generation of nuclear technology, light water-pressureized reactors, seems now rather obviously at a technological dead end. The research and development of alternative approaches should focus on discovering, first, how to build a passively safe design (whose safety does not depend on the constant attention of bleary-eyed technicians) that eliminates the many risks of current reactors, and second, whether there is a scientifically and politically acceptable means for disposing of – in fact, isolating – nuclear waste.

“In any event, the proportion of world energy use that could practically be derived from nuclear is fairly small and is likely to remain so.”

Chernobyl, 20 Years Later – Part Beta

We found out about Chernobyl because nuclear power plant operators in Sweden noticed their geiger counters indicating radiation – outside the reactor … From Der Speigel

Murderous Atoms

The Geiger counters continued to tick away for days as much as 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) away from the disaster zone, as air masses contaminated with radiation pushed across Europe. Many fears are justified. The major disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant proved the prophets wrong who underestimated the “residual risk” of nuclear energy. A look back from the archives of DER SPIEGEL.

The following article appeared in the May 5, 1986 issue of DER SPIEGEL:

The staff at Sweden’s Forsmark nuclear power plant, located on the Baltic coast north of Stockholm, was just changing shifts. It was 7:00 a.m. last Monday when workers passing through a routine check in the security sluice at the entrance to the plant’s reactor building set off warning signals.

Continue reading →

Chernobyl, 20 Years Later – Part Gamma

Some people are saying ‘We need nuclear because we can’t burn coal or oil.’

That’s like smoking cigars or a pipe or chewing tobacco because you don’t want to smoke cigarettes, because cigarettes cause cancer. We all know cigarettes that cause cancer, and smokers “should” quit or cut down. But pipes, cigars, and chewing tobacco are still tobacco. “Quitting cigarettes and smoking cigars is like going from crack cocaine to powdered cocaine or heroin. Which is a better way to die? Lung cancer from smoking cigarettes or lung cancer from smoking cigars?

Der Speigel Cover - On Chernobyl

Der Speigel, May, 1986.

Der Speigel published Looking Back at Chernobyl, beginning April 19, 2006.


One fact jumps out – the accident at Three Mile Island (Wikipedia) which the NRC

describes as “serious,” is said to have released 15 curies of radioactive material. The explosion at Chernobyl disbursed “roughly 80 million curies of iodine 131 and 6 million curies of caesium 137, a “large part” of which was released into the atmosphere.”

Three Mile Island

Joni Mitchell once sang “Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please.”

Joni MitchellHits

You can see her recorded live on You Tube

Solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, oceanic hydro – these are available, and much more cost effective. They are the technologies of the future, available today.

Energy: Where do we go from here? Solar? Wind? Nuclear? Coal? Oil? Negawatts?

What do we do next? Solar? Wind? Nuclear? Coal? Oil? Negawatts?

Burning coal and oil create greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Nuclear power produces radioactive waste and a prodigious amount of heat pollution. Nuclear and fossil fuels require mines, mills or wells, and they are really bad for the environment, causing everything from pollution to global warming.

Negawatts makes sense. Hybrid cars get great gas mileage and offer a smooth, quiet, comfort. Every barrel of oil we don’t burn is better for our economy. Every barrel of oil we don’t buy from Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela is $80 or $90 or $100 that doesn’t go into the hands of people like Achmadinejad, Bandar, or Chavez. That’s good for us and bad for the terrorists.

Solar and Wind are not perfect. People complain that they don’t look pretty. But they create jobs not pollution. They help our national security infrastructure. And they look fine to me. I’d rather see solar panels on my roof and wind turbines on my horizon then global warming and my money going to thugs like Achmadinejad.

Slate photo essay – Children of Chernobyl

A photo essay on the children of Chernobyl at Slate.

We’ll not reproduce them here; those who need reminding that nuclear power – and other complex systems – are accompanied by increased risk where increases in complexity are not accompanied by off-sets in safety – especially

where the basic materials are inherently dangerous – should, of course, make a point of taking a look.

We suspect, however, that at firms which operate nuclear power plants – the link to this photo essay – if anyone is aware of it – is not being circulated to all employees with an admonition that they redouble their efforts to keep things safe.

Via Monkeyfilter.

Reactor shutdown follows siren trouble in testy week for Indian Point

For those not familiar with the New York City area, “Indian Point” is not

a rhetorical conclusion of Native Americans, but the name of a nuclear power plant.

Another week, another set of challenges for Indian Point – first, problems with a siren test Monday and then an unplanned reactor shutdown yesterday.

The nuclear plants ran into what Indian Point officials hope was a glitch when 123 of the new 150 emergency sirens failed to successfully complete an operational test.

The sirens are required to be ready to go by a week from Sunday, and county emergency officials said they hadn’t expected to see a step backward so close to the deadline.

“This test was clearly disappointing,” Anthony Sutton, Westchester County commissioner of emergency services, said of the Monday morning test. “We expected it to go in a positive direction, and it went in a negative direction.”

Then about 4:15 a.m. yesterday, Indian Point 3 workers shut down that nuclear reactor as it was going back to full power from a 24-day refueling outage.

There were low water levels in the plant’s steam generators, where steam is used to help produce electricity.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission and local emergency officials commended nuclear workers for their quick action, noting that unplanned shutdowns occur more frequently when plants go back online than during routine operation.

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which has owned and operated Indian Point since 2001, said the shutdown went smoothly and the appropriate notifications were made to the NRC and county officials, but that there were no safety concerns.

– snip –

“We don’t think this is a matter of the sirens not activating,” said Steets. “We think that it was largely about polling.”

The sirens must communicate with a central point to let county officials know they’ve sounded. Without that polling from the 150 locations, police and fire officials can’t be sure if the sirens alerted residents about an emergency at the nuclear plant.

“If it comes up red on the computer screen, that means it didn’t sound as far as we’re concerned,” said Sutton, the commissioner. “That was the biggest trouble we had with the old system. We don’t want to be in that same place with the new system.”

The nuclear plant operator seems to be arguing that – it’s not that the siren’s didn’t work – it’s that in polls, people didn’t admit to hearing them. It’s a polling problem. If that’s true -is the implication that there’s no accurate way to tell whether or not the sirens work?

From Lower Hudson Online. Â