Currently viewing the tag: “nuclear”
Since Japan's earthquake and following nuclear crisis, the CBS Evening News has done two reports on the Obama administration blocking use of the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada to safely dispose of U.S. nuclear waste. Meanwhile, NBC and ABC have ignored the controversy.
The first CBS report on the issue came on March 22, when Evening News anchor Katie Couric declared: "The crisis in Japan has renewed the debate over nuclear power in this country. Today a federal appeals court heard arguments in a lawsuit over what to do with spent fuel rods." Correspondent Jim Axelrod explained: "An estimated 66,000 metric tons of spent fuel are stored at 77 sites around the country. That's more than 145 million pounds….Plans to make Yucca Mountain in Nevada a long-term storage site were scuttled by the Obama administration a year ago, after 20 years of planning costing $ 14 billion."
In a follow-up piece on Thursday's Evening News, correspondent Armen Keteyian went further in laying blame on the Obama administration: "There was one site designed to hold all of our nation's nuclear waste and it's right here in the high desert of Nevada, at a place called Yucca Mountain. Today, the federal government won't let our cameras anywhere near it. It's shut down, locked up, caught up in what critics charge is nothing more than pure politics."
Fill-in anchor Erica Hill teased Keteyian's report at the top of the broadcast: "Why did plans to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain get killed? Was it safety fears or politics?" Keteyian described how the, "Obama administration kept its campaign promise….And shut down Yucca Mountain. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if it wants to restart what is already a 25-year, $ 14 billion project, in the face of tough opposition, like that from Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada."
Keteyian also pointed out the political background of the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Obama: "A former staffer for Senator Reid, Greg Jaczko, now chairs the NRC. Jaczko recently came under fire after shutting down the agency's safety review of Yucca Mountain and after key safety recommendations were redacted, cut out, from a long-awaited NRC report."
In the March 22 report, Axelrod noted: "The head of the NRC may not see a pressing problem, but the states now suing did not want to take that risk before Japan's disaster and certainly don't want to now."
On Thursday, Keteyian challenged Jaczko: "Critics charge that you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Senator Harry Reid, a fierce opponent of this project."
Keteyian concluded his piece: "The NRC inspector general and Congress are now investigating the decision to shut down the safety review. Still, nuclear waste is scattered across 35 states, and Yucca Mountain sits silent and empty."
Here is a full transcript of Keteyian's March 31 report:
6:30PM ET TEASE:
ERICA HILL: Why did plans to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain get killed? Was it safety fears or politics?
6:38PM ET TEASE:
HILL: And when we come back, it was supposed to store all of America's nuclear waste, so why then is this desert facility now deserted?
6:40PM ET SEGMENT:
HILL: For more than 50 years a debate has raged over where to store radioactive nuclear waste in this country. And that debate has been reignited by the crisis in Japan. The solution was supposed to be here at a place called Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the multibillion-dollar storage project has been shelved and as chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian explains, a congressional committee wants to find out why.
ARMEN KETEYIAN: Nuclear waste – the radioactive guest on the doorstep of many of America's most populous cities. Nearly 70,000 tons from 104 reactors often piling up within 50 miles from cities like New York, Chicago, and San Diego.
There was one site designed to hold all of our nation's nuclear waste and it's right here in the high desert of Nevada, at a place called Yucca Mountain. Today, the federal government won't let our cameras anywhere near it. It's shut down, locked up, caught up in what critics charge is nothing more than pure politics.
Gary Holis and Darrell Lacey are key officials in Nye County, Nevada. They want the waste at Yucca Mountain for the jobs and money it would bring.
DARRELL LACY [NYE COUNTY NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY PROJECT OFFICE]: The people in this area are all fairly comfortable with Yucca Mountain. Many of them have worked at Yucca Mountain.
KETEYIAN: Four previous presidents funded safety reviews of the project but last year the Obama administration kept its campaign promise.
CAMPAIGN AD: Barack Obama opposes opening Yucca.
KETEYIAN: And shut down Yucca Mountain. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if it wants to restart what is already a 25-year, $ 14 billion project, in the face of tough opposition, like that from Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada.
JEFFREY LEWIS [PH.D., NUCLEAR SAFETY EXPERT]: If the U.S. government wanted to do Yucca Mountain, it would have had to shove it down Harry Reid's throat.
KETEYIAN: A former staffer for Senator Reid, Greg Jaczko, now chairs the NRC. Jaczko recently came under fire after shutting down the agency's safety review of Yucca Mountain and after key safety recommendations were redacted, cut out, from a long-awaited NRC report. Three NRC staffers formally protested the decision to derail the safety review, charging it caused 'confusion, chaos, and anguish'. Today, Jaczko told us the safety report was preliminary, a draft, and that he had nothing to do with the redactions.
Critics charge that you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Senator Harry Reid, a fierce opponent of this project.
GREGORY JACZKO [PH.D., CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION: It was a difficult decision and – because it is such a controversial program – but, again, it was one that was made in, I believe, in the best interest of the agency.
KETEYIAN: The NRC inspector general and Congress are now investigating the decision to shut down the safety review. Still, nuclear waste is scattered across 35 states, and Yucca Mountain sits silent and empty. Armen Keteyian, CBS News, Nye County, Nevada.
— Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Extreme weather disasters, especially floods, are on the rise (see Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding). Last year, we had Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’. And Coastal North Carolina’s suffered its second 500-year rainfall in 11 years.
Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in December, “The term ‘100-year event’ really lost its meaning this year” (see Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change”).
A couple weeks ago, I asked how many U.S. nuclear plants are vulnerable to a tsunami and/or a 500-year 100-year flood? Here a very initial treatment of the flood vulnerability issue.
The following article by Sean Pool, Elaine Sedenberg and Matt Woelfel is cross-posted at Science Progress.
As the situation at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility continues to worsen, policymakers in the United States are taking the opportunity to review the safety policies for our aging nuclear reactors.
Japan’s recent 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it caused together killed 9,737 people and left an additional 16,501 missing. The destruction left millions homeless and caused almost $ 200 billion in damage.
These natural disasters caused severe damaged to 4 of the 6 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, leaving them without functioning primary, secondary, or tertiary cooling systems. The resulting partial meltdown of the core at one reactor and of a waste fuel rod storage tank in another has resulted in the release of radioactive material into the atmosphere, soil, and water, forcing the evacuation of what was at first a 12-mile radius and now a 19-mile radius surrounding the facility.
Though reactors in the United States are built to strict safety standards, they are nevertheless vulnerable to any number of natural and manmade disasters, from earthquakes and tsunamis to flash floods, droughts, and hurricanes. U.S. reactor safety standards have been effective in preventing catastrophe, though a recent report highlights 14 “near misses” where improperly implemented safety protocols nearly caused major problems. More troublingly, many of these standards were based on an understanding of our climate system that is now 40 years out of date. Today we know that climate change is making floods, droughts, and hurricanes stronger and more frequent, which means we must ask whether our safety standards, even when followed perfectly, are enough to prevent disaster.
As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducts its review of U.S. nuclear safety in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown, they need to be sure they are doing a thorough review of all possible risks, and should not ignore recent science about how climate change could increase those risks.
Current state of US nuclear plant safety
The United States currently has 104 functioning power reactors at 65 sites around the country, roughly a quarter of which use the same “Mark 1” containment vessel design used in the failing Japanese reactors. They supply roughly 20 percent of the country’s total electricity needs. Nuclear plants demand large sources of water in order to cool and control the core temperatures of the reactors that power them. To meet this inevitable requirement, nuclear plants are situated in low-lying areas near rivers and lakes, and many others are built on the coasts. This proximity leaves these plants vulnerable to floods and other water-related disasters. (See our map below.)
(click for a high res version.)
Many regulations are already in place to ensure that nuclear energy remains safe from floods, surges, tsunamis, and droughts. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, oversees licensing applications, reactor specifications, and radioactive waste disposal. The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, or ACRS, also reviews the adequacy of proposed safety standards and creates individualized specifications to withstand the projected worst-case disasters for each plant location. Nuclear facilities are initially granted a 40-year license that must be renewed after 20 years. They then have the opportunity to extend their license for additional 20-year increments.
The problem is that our nuclear reactors are all old. Thirty years old on average in fact, since political will for new nuclear reactors has weakened since the 1979 Three Mile Island incident. Seven operating reactors have eclipsed their original 40 year lifespans and been permitted to operate for another 20 years. This makes them vulnerable to problems, like stronger floods caused by climate change, about which we had considerably less knowledge three to four decades ago when the plants were built.
Climate change will increase certain risks
Climate change will compound existing weather-related risks. In the years since most of our nuclear reactors were built, we’ve learned that climate change is increasing the risk profile of many kinds of extreme weather. Two scientific studies published this year in Nature have supported this. Large and destructive floods once thought likely to happen only once in 100 years on average are now expected to happen every 20 years: a five-fold increase. Similar trends hold for droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires. Droughts and heat waves can impact nuclear reactors because they use large amounts of water in the power generation process. If water levels drop too low, or the temperature of adjacent water bodies rises too high, the ability of the reactors to operate can be impaired. Sea-level rise is also of particular concern, since many of our nuclear facilities are located on the coast.
In response to this growing awareness of disasters that can result from climate change, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, released a safety guide in 2003 detailing flood-related hazards to nuclear power plants on coastal and river sites. The safety guide suggests that newly constructed plants should account for several consequences of climate change over the lifespan of the plant:
- Rise in mean sea level: 35-85 cm
- Rise in air temperature: 1.5-5 ⁰C
- Rise in sea or river temperature: 3 ⁰C
- Increase in wind strength: 5-10 percent
- Increase in precipitation: 5-10 percent
Higher sea levels, in combination with the warmer air, water, and sea temperatures will produce larger, stronger waves, increase the flow rate of rivers, and alter the dominant wind patterns, according to the report. The IAEA recommendations offer a good framework for assessing siting of new nuclear facilities, but current safety standards at the 104 operating nuclear reactors in the United States remain in question. Are they sufficient to deal with the increased risks caused by climate change?
This is a question we must answer, and soon. As we have written at Science Progress before, climate change creates considerable uncertainty for businesses and governments who must make difficult decisions that will affect the way we do business over the next 10, 20, or 40 years. In making long-term decisions about policy and business, decision makers need to have all the data they can get. The problem is that extremely rare events by definition provide us with little opportunity for study, even though their impacts can be catastrophic.
The seawalls at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex, for example, were designed to withstand an 18-foot wave, though the tsunami that caused the eventual nuclear meltdown was estimated to have been more than 40 feet high. Japanese engineers simply didn’t have enough data to accurately predict just how big a tsunami could be. Could this happen in the United States? For reference, the San Onofre reactor in California is built right on Pacific coast, with a sea wall of only 23 feet.
The bottom line is that sometimes, what we think to be a “worst case” scenario is not really the worst case. Just because there is uncertainty about how climate and weather will affect our nuclear reactors does not mean we should ignore the issue. Quite the opposite; it would be negligent to ignore this uncertainty as we continue to assess our nation’s nuclear safety standards.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken some steps to incorporate current climate science into its standards, but it has not gone far enough. In 2009, the NRC released an information notice that suggested plants re-evaluate flood protection measures, but they did not require action. To make matters worse, the guidelines in use were established in 1977, with the latest updates occurring in 1984. As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducts its review of U.S. nuclear safety in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown, they need to be sure they are doing a thorough assessment of all possible risks, and should not ignore recent science about how climate change could increase those risks.
Countries around the world have already begun to take increased risks from climate change into account in their nuclear safety protocols. It’s high time the United States follows suit. The United Kingdom has insisted that new nuclear plants demonstrate countermeasures taken to prevent damage from more extreme floods, France has begun reviewing all 58 of its reactors to check how much flooding they can handle, and Austria has even called for nuclear “stress tests” similar to those banks undergo. Germany has even ordered all reactors built prior to 1980 (all American reactors would qualify) to be shut down for three months.
The disaster in Japan has afforded the United States the opportunity to re-examine the safety of its own fleet of nuclear reactors. Given how often we underestimate the “worst-case” scenario, this is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
– Sean Pool is Assistant Editor for Science Progress, Elaine Sedenberg is an Intern with Science Progress, and Matt Woelfel is an Intern with CAP’s Energy Opportunity team. The authors would like to thank Kate Gordon, Richard Caperton, and Valeri Vasquez, and Evan Hansleigh for their invaluable contributions to the article.
Related Posts:
- Northern Territory Chief Minister on Carlos’s deluge: “So a really one in 500 year event; nobody’s experienced anything like this before”
- Russian Meteorological Center: “There was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat.”
- In other UK news: “Rain like this happens once every 1,000 years”
- The year of living dangerously. Masters: “The stunning extremes we witnessed gives me concern that our climate is showing the early signs of instability”
- Yes, “human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events” over much of the NH
- Conservatives oppose adaptation, too
- The Nukes of Hazard
- NY Times: “It Could Happen Here”
The U.S. is reportedly in talks with Mongolia about the country setting up an international repository for nuclear waste, reports National Journal:
U.S. Energy Department officials and their counterparts in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, are in the early stages of discussion and there has been no determination yet about whether to proceed with the idea, according to Richard Stratford, who directs the State Department’s Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security Office.
Speaking at the biennial Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, Stratford said a spent-fuel depot in the region could be of particular value to Taiwan and South Korea, which use nuclear power but have few options when it comes to disposing of atomic waste.
"If Mongolia were to do that, I think that would be a very positive step forward in terms of internationalizing spent-fuel storage," he said during a panel discussion on nuclear cooperation agreements. "My Taiwan and South Korean colleagues have a really difficult time with spent fuel. And if there really was an international storage depot, which I have always supported, then that would help to solve their problem."
Stratford is Washington’s lead envoy for nuclear trade pacts, which are sometimes called "123 agreements" after the section of the Atomic Energy Act that governs them.
The United States provides fresh uranium rods to selected trade partners in Asia, including South Korea and Taiwan. For Mongolia to accept and store U.S.-origin spent fuel from these or other nations would require Washington to first negotiate a nuclear trade agreement with Ulaanbaatar.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had advocated for Russia to take on a similar role a few years ago, but the plan never got off the ground. If Mongolia were to embrace YIMBYism, it would certainly be a welcome development for its Asian neighbors, and a nuclear trade agreement with the U.S. could help kick-start the country’s own power industry. Naturally, questions about proliferation risks are going to come up. And in light of the past month’s events, one can’t help but remember that the region is not exactly immune from earthquakes.
A big WTF to Obama’s speech?
In his energy speech yesterday, Barack Obama took the time to slam the “drill, baby, drill” political movement as nothing more than an empty slogan, and a gimmick that wouldn’t solve our problems … while standing in front of his “Winning the Future” backdrop. According to the latest survey from Quinnipiac, most Americans beg to […]
Written by I-fan Lin
Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after it is used in a reactor. It is dangerously radioactive and remains so for thousands of years. Four years after the first nuclear power plant was built in 1970, the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council decided to dump the nuclear waste at Orchid Island (Lanyu), where aboriginal Tao people (Yami) have lived for generations.
There are two nuclear waste storage sites [zh] on Orchid Island. Every week, boats from Taiwan bring the radioactive waste to Orchid Island dumping 45,000 barrels of waste on the beautiful island annually. These nuclear waste storage sites have changed the fate of Tao people forever. In a campaign page [zh] at the public T.V website, Tao people demanded that the government return a peaceful childhood to their children:
民國六十九年核廢料從台灣漂洋過海到蘭嶼，從此以後，伴隨著蘭嶼小朋友長大的，除了飛魚、迷你豬，還有核廢料桶。
Since the nuclear waste was sent to Orchid Island from Taiwan by boats in 1980, the children of Orchid Island grow up with flying fishes, mini pigs, and the barrels of nuclear waste.
According to an in-depth report [zh] Tao people were ignorant of the construction of nuclear waste site:
當年貯存場地施工的時候，鄉民根本不知道是在建核廢料貯存場。當時的鄉長江瓦斯甚至不懂中文！少數鄉民聽施工的人說是正在蓋「罐頭工廠」，今天運送廢料的專用碼頭被說成某種軍事用途的港口……。
While it was under construction [in 1979], none of us knew it is for nuclear waste storage. At that time our village chief could not even understand Chinese. Construction workers told some of the villagers that they were building a “Can Food Factory” while the pier for landing nuclear waste was said to be a military harbor…
When the Tao people finally learned the danger of nuclear waste in 1987, they began to protest against the nuclear waste and the battle has been going for more than 20 years. In 1995, they announced the “Declaration of expelling the nuclear waste demons” [zh]:
雅美族，全球只有三千人，一個吟詩的民族，一個和平的民族，我們不願意再以我們族人的血肉之軀去作為台電核能人體實驗的對象。
Tao people are an ethnic group with only 3000 population in the whole world. We are poets. We believe in peace. We can no longer accept the Taiwan Power Company treating our bodies like guinea pigs.
Below is an excerpt of a documentary The borderland. It shows the life and culture of Tao people on Orchid Island and this video clip from 1:20 to 2:58 shows some precious historical photos about Tao people's protest against the nuclear waste storage sites in 1987.
On December 31 2002, Tao people managed to terminate the contract with the Taiwan Power Company. However, the Taiwanese government has no plan to remove the nuclear waste from the Island. Since the first ‘Demon-expelling’ ceremony held in 1988, more than 20 years have passed. The next round of battle for Tao people since then has been to press the government to solve the waste problem. Below is special coverage of the nuclear waste problem in Orchid Island. The reporter interviewed the environmentalists, government and protesters, but not a single party could provide a viable solution to the problem:
In 2008, 26 years after the first barrel of nuclear waste was stored on Orchid Island, the government finally took action to conduct a thorough security inspection of these nuclear waste barrels. According to a local news report reposted in the Orchid Island e-news website [zh], the result was worrisome. The inspectors assigned by the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council found out that:
首座開蓋檢整的壕溝貯放的四千多桶核廢料全部鏽蝕，部分廢料桶甚至已開膛剖肚。
All 4000+ barrels in the first inspection were eroded by rust. Some of the barrels have been eroded to the extent that there are big cracks cutting across the iron shells.
核廢料桶禁不起蘭嶼高溫潮濕和高鹽分的惡劣環境，八十一年起陸續出現鏽蝕。
Since 1992, these nuclear waste barrels have been eroded by the high temperature, high humidity, and high salinity environment of Orchid Island.
Who should take care of the nuclear waste? Who should be responsible for the nuclear waste? Where should the nuclear waste go? Blogger Annpo pointed out [zh] that the problem of nuclear waste cannot be neglected in the review of energy policy in Taiwan, in addition to the safety of nuclear power plants:
當年，國家發展重工業，需要大量電力，今日國家依然要大力發展，生產更多需要被消化被解決的問題，發展之後留下的都是「債」。債，誰要還？誰來還？要不，根據用電統計，用電量最多的地區，作為核廢料掩埋場，好不？支持興建核電的，一人抱一桶回家，好不？
In the past, our country had high-energy demand for the development of heavy industry. Today our country still wants to continue this developmental path which will generate more problems that need to be solved some day in the future. There is always ‘debt’ left behind after development. Who will pay for the debt? Should we decide according to the energy consumption rate and ask that the area where people consume most electricity become the new nuclear waste storage site? And ask that those who support the nuclear power plants take home one barrel with them?
Written by I-fan Lin
Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after it is used in a reactor. It is dangerously radioactive and remains so for thousands of years. Four years after the first nuclear power plant was built in 1970, the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council decided to dump the nuclear waste at Orchid Island (Lanyu), where aboriginal Tao people (Yami) have lived for generations.
There are two nuclear waste storage sites [zh] on Orchid Island. Every week, boats from Taiwan bring the radioactive waste to Orchid Island dumping 45,000 barrels of waste on the beautiful island annually. These nuclear waste storage sites have changed the fate of Tao people forever. In a campaign page [zh] at the public T.V website, Tao people demanded that the government return a peaceful childhood to their children:
民國六十九年核廢料從台灣漂洋過海到蘭嶼，從此以後，伴隨著蘭嶼小朋友長大的，除了飛魚、迷你豬，還有核廢料桶。
Since the nuclear waste was sent to Orchid Island from Taiwan by boats in 1980, the children of Orchid Island grow up with flying fishes, mini pigs, and the barrels of nuclear waste.
According to an in-depth report [zh] Tao people were ignorant of the construction of nuclear waste site:
當年貯存場地施工的時候，鄉民根本不知道是在建核廢料貯存場。當時的鄉長江瓦斯甚至不懂中文！少數鄉民聽施工的人說是正在蓋「罐頭工廠」，今天運送廢料的專用碼頭被說成某種軍事用途的港口……。
While it was under construction [in 1979], none of us knew it is for nuclear waste storage. At that time our village chief could not even understand Chinese. Construction workers told some of the villagers that they were building a “Can Food Factory” while the pier for landing nuclear waste was said to be a military harbor…
When the Tao people finally learned the danger of nuclear waste in 1987, they began to protest against the nuclear waste and the battle has been going for more than 20 years. In 1995, they announced the “Declaration of expelling the nuclear waste demons” [zh]:
雅美族，全球只有三千人，一個吟詩的民族，一個和平的民族，我們不願意再以我們族人的血肉之軀去作為台電核能人體實驗的對象。
Tao people are an ethnic group with only 3000 population in the whole world. We are poets. We believe in peace. We can no longer accept the Taiwan Power Company treating our bodies like guinea pigs.
Below is an excerpt of a documentary The borderland. It shows the life and culture of Tao people on Orchid Island and this video clip from 1:20 to 2:58 shows some precious historical photos about Tao people's protest against the nuclear waste storage sites in 1987.
On December 31 2002, Tao people managed to terminate the contract with the Taiwan Power Company. However, the Taiwanese government has no plan to remove the nuclear waste from the Island. Since the first ‘Demon-expelling’ ceremony held in 1988, more than 20 years have passed. The next round of battle for Tao people since then has been to press the government to solve the waste problem. Below is special coverage of the nuclear waste problem in Orchid Island. The reporter interviewed the environmentalists, government and protesters, but not a single party could provide a viable solution to the problem:
In 2008, 26 years after the first barrel of nuclear waste was stored on Orchid Island, the government finally took action to conduct a thorough security inspection of these nuclear waste barrels. According to a local news report reposted in the Orchid Island e-news website [zh], the result was worrisome. The inspectors assigned by the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council found out that:
首座開蓋檢整的壕溝貯放的四千多桶核廢料全部鏽蝕，部分廢料桶甚至已開膛剖肚。
All 4000+ barrels in the first inspection were eroded by rust. Some of the barrels have been eroded to the extent that there are big cracks cutting across the iron shells.
核廢料桶禁不起蘭嶼高溫潮濕和高鹽分的惡劣環境，八十一年起陸續出現鏽蝕。
Since 1992, these nuclear waste barrels have been eroded by the high temperature, high humidity, and high salinity environment of Orchid Island.
Who should take care of the nuclear waste? Who should be responsible for the nuclear waste? Where should the nuclear waste go? Blogger Annpo pointed out [zh] that the problem of nuclear waste cannot be neglected in the review of energy policy in Taiwan, in addition to the safety of nuclear power plants:
當年，國家發展重工業，需要大量電力，今日國家依然要大力發展，生產更多需要被消化被解決的問題，發展之後留下的都是「債」。債，誰要還？誰來還？要不，根據用電統計，用電量最多的地區，作為核廢料掩埋場，好不？支持興建核電的，一人抱一桶回家，好不？
In the past, our country had high-energy demand for the development of heavy industry. Today our country still wants to continue this developmental path which will generate more problems that need to be solved some day in the future. There is always ‘debt’ left behind after development. Who will pay for the debt? Should we decide according to the energy consumption rate and ask that the area where people consume most electricity become the new nuclear waste storage site? And ask that those who support the nuclear power plants take home one barrel with them?
Daniel Holz makes the connection:
Frankenstein’s creation is not inherently evil. He is endowed with the spark of life, and becomes twisted into a dark and inhuman creature through mistreatment, abandonment, and neglect. The nuclear spark is similarly indifferent. Although it can have terrible consequences, it also offers the ability to power our civilization without warming our planet. The dangers attendant with nuclear power almost certainly pale in comparison with the dangers of global warming. The challenge is to learn to control our discovery, rather than become engulfed by it.
In an earlier post I expressed the misgivings,and,trepidations,about nuclear power that the disaster in Fukushima have raised in my mind. Now comes word that -at least one-and possibly more- reactor cores have melted through their steel containment vessels!
According to the U.K Guardian….
“The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.”
This is very serious news indeed,and,only serves to reinforce the doubts I have about the current technology being used in our water cooled heavy water reactors! True this -as of yet-is not on a par with Chernobyl-it is all the same-a very grave and dangerous situation that threatens to affect- God forbid- a large area around the Fukishima nuclear complex for years to come.
Consider this quote from the Guardian article…
“The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core,” Lahey added. “It’s not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it’s not going to be good news for the environment.”
Living within fifty miles of a nuclear reactor myself I can only imagine what could happen if some unforeseen disaster-say an f 5 tornado-were to cause a situation like this at that reactor. I might well be told to evacuate from the home and land I have lived on for forty years and never be able to return!
I’m trying to keep an open mind about nuclear power but is getting harder and harder to do.If this nation decides to pursue the expansion of this energy source I hope we will at least look toward newer-less threatening ideas such as thorium reactors or pebble bed reactors.
We must also have a sweeping review of all safety practices,procedures,as well as ,backup systems at all of our current and future reactors. We simply cannot afford to have this kind of catastrophe happen on American soil.
Cross posted at Today’s Politics by Freedomlover
The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The UK’s Guardian reports the grim news in its breaking story whose blunt headline I used above. Here’s more:
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe….
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel “lower head” of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
“The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” Lahey said. “I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.”
… “The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core,” Lahey added. “It’s not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it’s not going to be good news for the environment.”
Nor would it be good news for humans.
Once again, the lesson would seem to be that the worst-case scenario plays out more times than people expect or plan for.
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Stephen Colbert on nuclear power:
“It’s as safe as any other energy source. Last year we had the BP oil spill, the Massey coal mine collapse, and let’s say a windmill robbed a bank.”
Colbert explains that he strongly agrees with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell: “Right after a major environmental catastrophe is not the time to try to prevent a future environmental catastrophe.” Here’s the full segment:
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Iodine-134 spike?
The question here isn’t good news or bad news, but bad news and really bad news. Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor 2 has a sudden spike in radiation from underneath where water has pooled near the turbines, perhaps of a particular isotope that would indicate a fresh containment breach and ongoing fission reactions. CNN reports that TEPCO […]
A post appeared on TMV just minutes ago with an embedded video about news carried on many news, video and cable outlets that radiation at one reactor in Japan was 10 million times higher than normal. Some outlets have now pulled that news since officials have retracted that news. Since the post was up here less than a minute, we have pulled the post.
Morgan Meis marks the strange moment:
A cathedral is designed with the idea that it should stand, and function, for a very long time — perhaps beyond time. A nuclear power plant is designed with the knowledge that it must become a ruin, and rather quickly. It is born to die, and then to sit as a corpse, a testimony to the strange and unsettling function it once had. …
A "zone of alienation" — as the Soviets dubbed the area around Chernobyl — is being created in Japan around Fukushima as we speak. A portion of the planet is being cordoned off and removed from the space-time continuum the rest of us inhabit. In a few months it will be a ruin, too, as old as the oldest places we know, lonely and uncanny in its suspended state, preserved as a living relic to the present we are still making.
(Photo: Still from “Chernobyl”, a video installation by Los Angeles artist Diana Thater)
Washington (CNN) – Most Americans who live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant aren’t prepared for a nuclear emergency and don’t think the police, hospitals and other emergency services in their community are prepared either, according to a new national poll.
But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday indicates that only four in ten believe it is likely that an accident or natural disaster at the nuclear plant near them will put their family in immediate danger, and only one in seven think that is very likely to happen.
As a result, only 18 percent of people who live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant have a disaster supplies kit ready, and six in ten are not familiar with the evacuation route they would need to use if the worst happened.
“Staying put may also not be a good idea – nearly six in ten believe that the police, hospitals and first responders in their area are not prepared for a nuclear emergency,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
The survey’s release comes two weeks after a catastrophic earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami that severely damaged a nuclear power plant, resulting in a possible meltdown of some of the reactors.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey was conducted March 18-20, with 1,012 people questioned by telephone. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
TOPICS: Whether Americans who live 50 miles or less from a nuclear power plant are prepared for an emergency
