Nuclear is Our Future Pro-nuclear activist group

Bellona has issued a report stating that there are 21,000 spent fuel assemblies in a storage system that will explode if water leaks in, and that water is leaking in.

It’s kinda flawed.

1. All uncontrolled reactions are not explosions. A reaction can be uncontrolled merely because a person or mechanism is not in charge of it–there were 16 natural nuclear reactors in an African uranium deposit, and they formed in a very similar configuration to this postulated accident. How did they stop? The energy released heated the water and eventually boiled it–and without the water, there’s no reaction. After it shut down, it cooled off, letting the water back in; this process was repeated for millions of years until it simply ran out of fuel. No explosions were involved–it didn’t even disrupt the ore.
2. There will never be a homogeneous mixture. Ceramic does not dissolve in water, there’s no way to get enough water into the fuel assemblies even if it did, and expecting every single one of those 21,000 tubes to open up, let the water in, and not let any of it out afterward is ridiculous.
3. This isn’t gasoline. A critical configuration in one area does not create a critical configuration in another nearby area.

Sounds a bit like the Brookhaven Report, which was written in 1957 with no access to computers, and said that if the core of a nuclear reactor were pulverized and deposited equally into the lungs of 10,000 people, they would die. Well, yes–but what’s your point? The amount of water in a filled bathtub could drown 40,000 people. Blaming nuclear power for things it didn’t, doesn’t, and can’t do doesn’t save lives. It cynically manipulates tragedy for political purposes.

Filed under International, Nuclear Exceptionalism, Physics, Safety

Posted on June 3, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 2 Comments »

“Right from the beginning of the nuclear power industry, we have been assured that the technology is safe.”

-mng.org.uk

And it was, and still is. It’s safer than fossil fuels, and (rather importantly) works.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Energy, Safety

Posted on June 3, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Rep. Nita Lowey, that eminent friend of nuclear power (joined by woo-woo John Hall as well as Eliot Engel, Maurice Hinchey, and Christopher Shays), is sponsoring a bill intended to make it even more unnecessarily difficult to build a nuclear power plant–or relicense one.

-Require that the NRC determine that plants are safe. In other words, add another piece of paper onto a process that already works.
-Require that the NRC certify that each nuclear power plant doesn’t have security vulnerabilities during the licensing process. In other words, the effects of a terrorist attack are the victims’ fault.
-Add another level of bureaucracy to the evacuation plans requirement, and expand the EPZ to 50 miles. More stakeholders can veto the plan under this proposal than possible today–any state within 50 miles or any federal agency involved in emergency management–increasing the likelihood of Shoreham-type politics.
-Require that the NRC do the same reviews for a renewal that they do for a licensing, most of which are completely pointless, since the design doesn’t change. In reality, all a renewal application should have to prove safety-wise is that a plant’s designed-in safety effects won’t be affected by aging.
-Require the NRC to determine in any relicensing that the population density around the plant hasn’t changed to the point where it is defined as “urban siting,” which is bad for some reason. In other words, shut down Indian Point.

Fortunately, the bill doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting past President Bush even if it did pass. But we’re going to have to watch out for this in a couple years, when either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be eager to prove that they’re tough on these “problems.” Indian Point is going to have a constant fight on its hands come 2009.

Oh, and four Democrats and one Republican do not a bipartisan coalition make. Maybe they put the “coal” in “coalition” (or the “mental” in “environmentalist”), but not much more.

Filed under Emergency Response, Perception, Physics, Politics and Regulation, Safety, Security and Terrorism, Their Actions

Posted on June 1, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

This Press of Atlantic City article starts with the predictable “A month after receiving a clean bill of health from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” neglecting the fact that they, well, did, and that determination still applies.

The plant can shut down without there being a safety problem. If there is a technical problem that prevents them from being able to efficiently generate electricity, the utility will shut the plant down, replace the part in question, and bring it back up. There is nothing about such a problem that would cause a nuclear accident–I refer you to the overblown reaction to an even less-relevant electrical problem at the Indian Point plant in New York.

Chill out.

Filed under Industry Performance, Safety

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“The worst result thus far of these cost cutting practices occurred at BE’s Hunterston B nuclear station in Scotland. A loss of power accident there threatened to turn into a Chernobyl-scale disaster, due in great part to understaffing.”

-Michael Steinberg

A power outage is not going to turn into Chernobyl, not because of staffing, but because of physics. Hunterston B is not Chernobyl, doesn’t work like Chernobyl, and can’t experience a Chernobyl-scale accident.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, Economics, Nuclear Exceptionalism, Safety

Posted on May 27, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

The AP-1000, EPR, ESBWR, and ACR-1000 have been submitted. The ACR has the advantage of being able to consume waste from the others, as well as some from the British nuclear weapons program; I hope they can come up with a way to coordinate these two fuel cycles. US and Canadian governments take note.

They also seem to be using a design-basis site, which is something we really need to start using in the US.

Link.

Filed under Fuel Cycle, Industry Performance, International, Politics and Regulation, Safety, Waste

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Unit 1 shut down during testing at 3% power due to a hydraulic system leak. The part in question will obviously be replaced and the reactor restarted.

Unit 3 is a bit more interesting. The House Committee on Homeland Security wants the NRC to investigate an incident from last August in which an overloaded computer chip in the control system caused the reactor to shut down; they think it was a denial of service attack from the internet. Ignoring the fact that the controller in question was not connected to the internet, there was no way for this to actually cause a safety problem, meaning damage to the environment or injury to the public as opposed to broken parts. Broken parts need not result in safety problems if the overall system is configured to restore itself to a safer state in case of a broken part. That’s how nuclear power plants work, with the notable exception of the design used at Chernobyl and at US and Russian nuclear bomb factories.
Unfortunately, airplanes and cars don’t work like that, and people tend to think that all large machines are dangerous if badly maintained and/or operated, with nuclear machines being exceptionally dangerous. They see the management incompetence of the nuclear industry as indicative of safety problems.

Young people, on the other hand, are more familiar with technology and the engineering design process from seeing them up close in the form of computers. They’re more likely to be uncomfortable with nuclear exceptionalism, and while it is a very tough case that would take a book-length rebuttal to make, I think it can be done.

Filed under Industry Performance, Safety

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

Essentially, it means that they will share experience, lessons learned, and problems that come up with the AP-1000 in both countries.

Sounds good; let’s see how they screw it up.

Link.

Filed under International, New Build, Politics and Regulation, Safety

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

“The suit was filed over the inadequate cleanup of the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory, site of one of the only reactor meltdowns in the world. Judge Samuel Conti declared that the DOE has violated and continues to violate the National Environmental Policy Act and permanently enjoined DOE from transferring ownership or possession, or otherwise relinquishing control over any portion of the nuclear area at SSFL until an Environmental Impact Statement has been completed.

This is a huge victory for the environment.”

-Committee to Blow the Bridge

Amazing how it didn’t kill anybody, and how they don’t exactly mention that the meltdown wasn’t the cause of the contamination.

And having a land sale overturned on a technicality is a huge victory for the environment. Sure.

Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Environment, Health, Lawsuits, Safety

Posted on May 23, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »

FirstEnergy commissioned a report saying that the corrosion ocurred in four months instead of four years; the NRC isn’t buying it. I ask why it is necessary to promote Davis-Besse in a way that makes it difficult for a member of the public to draw any other conclusion than “we were two months from a meltdown that would have destroyed Ohio and given all our children cancer.” The industry and NRC–who obviously dominate the discussion–have no sense of audience. They’re so afraid of being viewed as spinmeisters that they think it’s a violation of professional ethics to talk to people.

Davis-Besse is a prime example of the need for proper and full disclosure. Excessive RPV head corrosion is to be avoided because it’s expensive to fix; it’s not going to result in a threat to public health and safety even if the head fails. Presenting it to the public in raw engineering jargon without explaining it or even how a nuclear power plant works is not honest; it is misleading. Presenting it as a criminal case is even worse; this is one of the few times I agree with the Underground Cabal of Stoners.
I see no trend among either industry or regulators away from this approach.

I guess if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

Link.

Filed under Activism, Industry Performance, Safety

Posted on May 20, 2007 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »