Tag Archives: Fukushima

Nuclear Power and Russian Roulette

Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet After Chernobyl, Hans Bethe, pictured at left, said “the Chernobyl disaster tells us about the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than about problems with nuclear power” (PBS).  Dr. Bethe is right.  Managing nuclear power and our energy infrastructure is not limited to physics and engineering. It also involves economics, human ecology, national security and systems dynamics. It is logical to conclude that because the Chernobyl disaster was a hydrogen explosion in a badly designed nuclear power plant brought about by Soviet style mis-management, nuclear technology can be implemented safely. However, the data from Three Mile Island and Fukushima suggest that nuclear power, when implemented safely, is too expensive to compete with alternatives (hence the industry needs loan guarantees here in the USA). We need to think about energy in the context of Systems Dynamics, as discussed in “Thinking in Systems,” by Dr. Donella Meadows, also pictured at left, of MIT, Dartmouth, and the Sustainability Institute.

Similar arguments have been advanced after Fukushima. “As long as we don’t build them near earthquake faults, especially earthquake faults near oceans …” While the probability of an accident is low (altho business as usual does raise some concerns) the probability of an accident that occurs being catastrophic is very high!

Looking at Indian Point, which is on an earthquake fault, and thinking about systems, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima …

The area within a 50 mile radius of Indian Point includes New York City, Westchester, Rockland, and Nassau counties of New York, western Connecticut, and northern New Jersey. About 20 million people live there. Entergy says it’s “Safe, Secure, and Vital.” Others – who live near the plant – say it’s not safe, not secure, not vital, and Should Be Closed!

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Keynes, Reluctance to hire, & 21ST Century Energy

John Maynard Keynes, in black and white, because some ideas are.

in black and white, because some ideas are.

Tweet Follow LJF97 on Twitter   During the Great Depression the Classical Economists said “Unemployment is voluntary. Business owners will not voluntarily keep the means of production idle.”  While he had been a student of classical economics, John Maynard Keynes observed that the data didn’t fit the theory. And, he reasoned, if the observable data don’t fit the theory, the theory must be flawed.   “Business owners are risk averse,” he saw. “A employee needs to be productive, needs to make widgets. But if no one is buying widgets, then contrary to classical theory, factory owners will fire workers and keep capital idle rather than hire workers to create excess inventory. That’s just common sense.”

We see this today.

When unemployment was low, for example in the United States during the tech boom of the 1990’s, people acted on the premise that “There is so much work that we could hire and good people and train them.”  Today hiring managers seem to be acting on the premise that “There are so many people looking for work that they can wait for the perfect candidate.” Perfection being unattainable, jobs go unfilled. This is ok, in this context, because

  • “Budgets are tight.”
  • “The future is uncertain.”
  • “Money not spent on a new hire can be saved or used to pay down debt.”

Keynes also observed that the government is an employer that does not need to worry about going out of business. Building infrastructure is government employment that is investment for the future. These observations are as valid today as they were 80 years ago.

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Nuclear Power: What Future?

Smoke from Fukushima Dai-ichi

Smoke from nuclear plant. (C) Reuters

The men and women who design, build, and work at nuclear power plants are bright, dedicated people who work hard so that when we flip a switch the power flows, so we can use our computers, watch our tvs, refrigerate our food, microwave our dinners and our popcorn, heat, cool, and vacuum our homes, and jam on our electric pianos and electric guitars when we want to. The drive, dedication and service of the engineers at Fukushima is heroic.

Under normal conditions, nuclear power emits less pollutants than coal, and the waste from nuclear power is regulated. The wastes from coal are not.

Yet, radioactive materials are an intrinsic property of nuclear power; consequently meltdown and disaster are inherent dangers. The disasters at Fukushima Dai-ichi, Fukushima Diaini, and Onagawa, while not predictable, were not unexpected. We’ve seen Chernobyl in ’86, Three Mile Island in ’79. We’ve had fires at Brown’s Ferry. We have had, and continue to have leaks of radioactive material at Oyster Creek, Indian Point, Vermont Yankee, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and every other nuclear facility in the United States, Japan, France, and I am sure, the rest of the world.

And we learned what? To ‘harden’ the plants? To spare no expense in a fanatical devotion to safety and maintenance?

No. To cut corners and to defer maintenance. To extend to 60 years the life of plants designed to last 40 years.

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Peter Grier/CSM: Japan nuclear crisis: Why are the spent-fuel pools so hard to control? – CSMonitor.com

By  Peter Grier, CSMonitor.com, dated  March 22, 2011. Japan nuclear crisis: Why are the spent-fuel pools so hard to control? – CSMonitor.com:

As workers struggle to bring the Fukushima I nuclear plant back under full control, spent-fuel pools appear to be a source of continuing problems. On Tuesday morning, one pool was so hot that its remaining water was either boiling or close to it, according to the Associated Press.

Emergency crews dumped 15 tons of seawater into the pool to cool it to about 105 degrees F., Japanese authorities said later in the day.

If heat in the pool continues to build and water boils down and fuel rods stored in the pool are exposed, more radiation might escape into the atmosphere.

Yet firetrucks and other water-pumping equipment have been shooting streams of water at these pools for days during the Japan nuclear crisis. Why are they so proving so difficult to manage?

The pools at the Fukushima complex are just that – open basins resembling swimming pools. Six are perched on a sort of mezzanine above and adjacent to reactor containment vessels. They’re about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide by 36 feet deep, though they vary in size.

In total they can hold about 1,300 to 1,400 metric tons of water, serving as both a shield to keep radiation from escaping and a coolant to lower the residual heat that spent fuel rods generate.

The pools contain anywhere from 400 to 700 fuel-rod assemblies, according to data compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists. These assemblies sit on racks just above the pool floor. During normal operation, the water level in the pools is kept about 30 feet above the top of the assemblies.

But these are not normal times. Though electric lines have now been hooked up to all six reactor units, the pumps that circulate cooling water inside reactor buildings are not yet working. Some have been damaged and will need to be replaced.

Temporary pumps and firetrucks are doing what they can to keep water in the pools. A powerful cement-pumping truck that will be used to shoot water, greatly increasing pumping capacity, arrived at Fukushima on Tuesday, according to Japanese authorities.

But Fukushima workers “don’t have the array of pumps they might otherwise have,” said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a Tuesday phone briefing for reporters.

It’s possible that the workers are thus practicing triage, disconnecting pumps from fuel pools in order to rush water through reactor cores, or an adjacent pool that is in greater danger, said Mr. Lochbaum.

Boiling water by itself is not a danger, he pointed out. The problems would begin if water boiled away, exposing fuel rods. If a pool is fully filled, that would take some time.

“That might be a strategy that they are employing, based on the limited array of equipment they have at the moment,” he said.

It is also possible that one or more of the pools is leaking. t is also possible that one or more of the pools is leaking. The sides of the pools have doors, which open to allow cranes to move fuel-rod assemblies from the reactor to the pool. These doors have inflatable seals that guard against leakage.

a Japan nuclear crisis: Why are the spent-fuel pools so hard to control? – CSMonitor.com.

Is Fukushima Dai-ichi Worse than Chernobyl?

Nicole Polozzi, as "Snooki"

Are there differences between Fukushima Dai-ichi and Chernobyl?

And is Fukushima worse than Chernobyl?

A teenager might say “Du-uh!”

My friends from Brooklyn might ask “Is the Pope Catholic?”

Even “Snooki” and “The Situation” might ask “Are you stoopid or what?”

But the people at CNN, ProPublica and the NY Times are asking nuclear power industry experts. That’s like asking Charlie Sheen if cocaine is bad, or asking Lindsay Lohan if she really stole that necklace. They should be asking people like Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute, Roger Saillant at Case Western’s Fowler Center for Sustainable Value, Jeremy Grantham at GMO, Cary Krosinsky at Columbia University CERC, anyone connected with academic programs in Sustainability, such as at Marlboro College, the Presidio, Bainbridge, ecological economics, systems dynamics, etc.

So for the record – here are six real differences (as opposed to the nonsense at Pro Publica here and here) and two major points of congruence.

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Fukushima: GE Mark 1: Unsustainable by Design

In Sustainability by Design, John Ehrenfeld defines sustainable design as “That which allows for and even stimulates flourishing forever. ” Nuclear plants are, according to Ehrenfeld’s definition, Unsustainable by design!”

Washington, 1972: “If the cooling systems fails at a ‘Mark 1’ nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor will probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheat. Dangerous radiation will spew into the environment.” – Stephen Hanauer, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Safety.

via Design of G.E.’s Mark 1 Nuclear Reactors Shows Weaknesses – NYTimes.com.

Map showing mark 1 reactors in US

The core in “Pressurized Water Reactors is sealed inside a thick steel-and-cement sarcophagus, similar to what is now being built around Chernobyl. This suggests what we must eventually do to remediate the area on which now stand the Japanese reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi, Diani, and Onagawa – entomb the entire plants in artificial mountains of cement and steel.

However, the containment vessel and pressure suppression system used in  Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi facility is physically less robust. It has been understood to be more susceptible to failure in an emergency than other, more expensive designs. Safety costs money.

In the United States, 23 reactors at 16 locations use the Mark 1 design, including Oyster Creek, Vermont Yankee, Browns Ferry, Alabama, Fermi, Illinois.

Fourth in a series on the economics, ecological economics, finance, logistics, and sytems dynamics of nucleaer power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.

Index to the series

  1. Earthquake, Tsunami and Energy Policy, March 11-13, 2011. Here.
  2. After Fukushima, Wall Street Bearish on Nuclear Power. March 14, 2011. Here.
  3. Fukushima: Worse than Chernobyl? Here.
  4. Fukushima: GE Mark 1: Unstable by Design. Here

Fukushima: Worse than Chernobyl?

This seems to be worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl was a meltdown at one reactor. There are reports of “partial melt-downs” at three reactors at Fukushima Dai-Ichi and “States of Emergency” at 9 out of 17 reactors at three sites northeast of Tokyo: 3 at Fukushima Dai-ichi, 3 at Fukushima Daini and 3 at Onagawa. I expect the others at Dai-ichi to be shut down.

“The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a far bleaker appraisal on Wednesday of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government had offered. He said American officials believed that the damage to at least one crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo had acknowledged, and he advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter established by Japanese authorities.

“The announcement opened a new and ominous chapter in the five-day-long effort by Japanese engineers to bring the six side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and a tsunami last Friday.”

– David Sanger, Matthew Wald, and Hiroko Tabuchi, NY Times, “U.S. Calls Radiation ‘Extremely High,’ Sees Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsening

Also in the NY Times, William Broad reports “Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume” … “A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday [March 18, 2011].”

It is important to remember that this is not just radiation, but particles carried on the wind that are emitting radiation.

Buy iodine. It may be bad for your blood pressure, but then again so are meltdowns, even those half-a-world away.

The damage to north-east Japan is not incalculable. A small number of people were killed.  A large number of cancers will develop. A significant percentage of  Japan’s electric capacity – 9 out of 17 nuclear power plants – is down. An area of 2,826 to 7,850 square miles – a radius of 30 to 50 miles – around Fukushima Daiichi must be closed.  Radioactive material is flushed from the damaged reactors into the Pacific. The heavy metals will sink to the ocean floor and eventually get buried in sediments. This will be bad for fish, dolphins, etc., however, there will be no humans there to fish …

Three questions:  Indian Point, Oyster Creek, and Vermont Yankee are of the same design as Fukushima Daiichi.  Why did the NRC just relicense Vermont Yankee? Why does the NRC not pull the licenses from Oyster Creek and Indian Point? Should we not decommission all nuclear reactors with all deliberate speed and replace them with a clean, renewable, sustainable energy topology?

Summary:

  • Fukushima Dai-ichi 1, 2, 3: Partial meltdowns.
  • Diani 1, 2, & 4: Equipment failure, including cooling system failure.
  • Onagawa 1, 2 and 3: High levels of radiation.

Details: (AP courtesy of the Boston Globe)

Dai-ichi Unit 1: Some uranium fuel pellets in the core have melted. Workers are trying to prevent total meltdown, have released steam in attempt to lower pressure in reactor vessel. A hydrogen explosion blew away much of the containment building. The reactor core is said to be intact. The cooling system has failed; large amounts of seawater is being pumped into reactor vessel to try cooling the severely overheated uranium core. Offsite radiation has been reported.

Dai-ichi Unit 2: Cooling system failure. Officials say fuel rods have been fully exposed, at least twice. An attempt to channel seawater into the reactor failed due to stuck rod, so officials were trying to spray cool water on the top of the reactor vessel. Explosion occurred early Tuesday [11/15] at this reactor. Partial meltdown believed to have occurred.

Dai-ichi Unit 3: Hydrogen explosion on Monday [11/14]. Radiation believed released. Cooling system failure so jury-rig of seawater pump to cool the unit. Partial meltdown said to have occurred.

Daini units 1, 2 & 4: Cooling system breakdown or failure. Retained offsite power, but operators were experiencing equipment failures and increased pressure inside the containment vessels. There have been problems with residual heat removal systems.

Onagawa units 1, 2 & 3: Higher-than-permitted radiation levels detected. When the levels fell, they said the radiation could have been from a release at the Dai-ichi units.

Third in a series on the economics, ecological economics, finance, logistics, and systems dynamics of nuclear power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.

Index to the series

  1. Earthquake, Tsunami and Energy Policy, March 11-13, 2011. Here.
  2. After Fukushima, Wall Street Bearish on Nuclear Power. March 14, 2011. Here.
  3. Fukushima: Worse than Chernobyl? Here.
  4. Fukushima: GE Mark 1: Unsustainable by Design. Here.
  5. Is Fukushima Dai-icha Worse Than Chernobyl? Here.

After Fukushima, Wall Street Bearish on Nuclear Power

Fukushima 1 - before the catastrophe

before the catastrophe

(Second in a series on the ecological economics, financial ramifications, logistics, and systems dynamics of nuclear power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.)

Cary Krosinsky, VP at Trucost, is once again teaching a course on Sustainable Investing at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, CERC, at Columbia University. At the March 10 seminar a student spoke about her recent 400% “home run” in a uranium mining operation.  She bought in because the earnings were high, debt was low, yet the price was low. It was a classic “value” play of a well-run company undervalued by the market.

But would a “Sustainable Investor” buy a uranium stock? My goal, as a “Sustainable Investor” is “To outperform the S&P 500 index by investing in the top companies, from the perspective of environmental impact, sustainability, management and governance, in the sectors I hope will thrive over the next 25 to 50 years.”

After Tsunami, STR/AFP/Getty Images

Cary didn’t exactly write the book on sustainable investing. He edited it. In Sustainable Investing, the Art of Long Term Performance, copyright, (C) Cary Krosinsky and Nick Robins, 2008 (Earth Scan) he defines “Sustainable Investing” as “an approach to investing driven by the long-term economic, environmental, and social risks and opportunities facing the global economy.”

Jane and Michael Hoffman, in Green, Your Place in the New Energy Revolution,  wrote that  the nuclear industry was killed not by the protesters at Seabrook, and the environmentalists at Environmental Defense (EDF), Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), or local groups like NY Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) who hired lawyers and scientists to force the utilities to build plants more safely.  But it was bankers on Wall Street who, in the aftermath of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, realized that their Million-dollar investments could turn into Billion-Dollar liabilities in seconds, and stopped investing in new nuclear power plants. Even though their liability was limited by the Price Anderson Act in the US and by corresponding legislation in other governments, they might never see a return on their investment. Despite promises by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama of loan guarantees – government subsidies – to build plants, Wall Street is reacting to Fukushima with a mix of caution and skepticism. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The Street” is now, once again, bearish on nuclear power but it is looking again at solar and wind.  (click here).

“The nuclear industry is on edge after last week’s quake caused serious damage to several reactors. Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its stock-investment rating of Entergy ($69.76, -$3.93, -5.33%) and Scana Corp. (SCG, $38.54, -$1.51, -3.77%) to underperform from neutral, citing risks including delays and higher approval costs for relicencing of existing plants. Dahlman Rose says as many as 10 reactors could be affected, which consume the equivalent of 340,000 pounds of uranium each month. The firm cut its price targets for Cameco Corp. (CCJ, $30.90, -$6.48, -17.34%) and Uranerz Energy Corp. (URZ, $3.08, -$0.87, -22.03%).

“Renewable-energy stocks rose in the U.S. in the wake of the nuclear-plant concerns in Japan putting a fresh pall over that industry and some investors believing non-nuclear energy sources away from fossil fuels will get a boost. Solar companies are leading the way, including First Solar Inc.

“CreditSights and other analysts form a chorus that the “nuclear renaissance” of new plants in emerging markets and developed nations will slow, while the potential for new design and safety measures could challenge sector economics .

“Japan’s nuclear crisis is hammering shares in the U.S. nuclear sector, but investors should keep an eye on engineering-and-construction stocks that work in the sector as well, JP Morgan says, citing Shaw Group Inc. Babcock & Wilcox Co. , URS Corp.  and EnergySolutions Inc.  “We believe the safety features of newer generation reactors will be considerably more advanced” than the older Fukushima units causing havoc over the weekend, the firm writes, but still sees likelihood that renewed nuclear worries are a headwind for these stocks.”

Here are the data:

Company Symbol Quote Change Percent
Entergy ETR $69.76 ($3.93) -5.33%
Uranium Energy UEC $4.03 ($0.82) -16.91%
Shaw SHAW $30.92 ($7.49) -19.50%
Babcox BWC $31.58 ($2.79) -8.12%
URS URS $43.88 ($1.58) -3.48%
First Solar FSLR $145.13 $5.39 3.86%
(data from March 14, 2011.)

My analysis –

Peter Crowell, professor of Finance and Logistics in the Marlboro College MBA in Managing for Sustainability asked “What happens if you – we – take away all the subsidies?”

If we take away the subsidies from nuclear power, the industry would collapse. The same holds for the fossil fuel industry – if you factor in the hidden “externalized” costs of environmental cleanup.  It makes no sense to build nuclear plants, or coal plants, drill for oil or use fracking for natural gas. These are more expensive to build, run, and maintain than solar and wind. Rather than keeping nuclear and fossil fuels on life support while fuel gets harder and more expensive to extract we need to put our best engineering minds to work on clean, sustainable power.

And I expect the vultures on Wall Street to buy Japanese stocks as soon as they sense the market has hit bottom, but only if they see investment in infrastructure.

Index to the series

  1. Earthquake, Tsunami and Energy Policy, March 11-13, 2011. Here.
  2. After Fukushima, Wall Street Bearish on Nuclear Power. March 14, 2011. Here.
  3. Fukushima: Worse than Chernobyl? Here.

Earthquake, Tsunami, and Energy Policy

Tokyo Electric Power Co.

First in a series on the systems dynamics of nuclear power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.

Radioactive waste and melt downs are intrinsic properties of nuclear power. Before / After Gallery.

Current Assessment: 3/27/11 3:00 PM. 10,668 dead, 16,574 missing. Radiation levels spike, drop. (Gather). Silver lining in the cloud – radioactive substances will wind up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and trigger mutations in bacteria and plankton, creating “Plasticovores” – critters that chow down on plastic.

Eighth Assessment: 3/24/11 11:30 PM. 10,035 dead. 17,443 missing. Market Watch. Earlier in the day AP, Courtesy of the Star, Bloomberg. reported slightly lower numbers.  We have seen a natural disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and aftershocks. While the the damage is tremendous, it could have been much worse. There are 10,035 tragedies, and 17,443 people are missing. It seems likely that many of them will never be found.  Yet The nuclear plants have not yet undergone a full meltdown. This speaks volumes about American and Japanese engineering. The nuclear plants were built pretty well. Yet it also suggests that it is not prudent to build nuclear power plants in earthquake zones. Radioactive waste and meltdown are not intrinsic properties of solar, wind, geothermal, and conservation.

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