“Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.”
Using the words “very small” when it comes to nuclear accidents is a relative term. If you live near by it is a big deal due to how long it takes for the nuclear contamination to go away. Basically any serious pollution on a property makes a property worthless until it is “cleaned up”.
It’s about time some sanity prevailed. The nuclear industry is the only segment of our national energy infrastructure where uninformed politicians and fear mongers have created a de facto limit of zero allowable injuries or fatalities. Meanwhile many more people die from other energy sources including those favored as “green”.
In the 50 or so year history of commercial nuclear power exactly zero people have died as a result of radiation from nuclear reactors in the United States. In fact, even at Fukushima there have been no deaths or serious injuries from radiation.
Sandia National Laboratory’s SOARCA program also investigated severe nuclear accidents where the plant operators took no safety actions and where all active safety components (pumps, valves, emergency diesels, etc.) failed to work. Even so, the radioactive releases were very small, about 40 to 60 times smaller than the 1982 Sandia studies, and were much delayed giving plenty of time for off site emergency responses.These power plants act like large, complex filter systems that trap radioactive material through natural chemical and physical processes, independent of human actions.
THE UNITED STATES FOLLOWS ARRIVAL OF THE
RADIOACTIVE PLUME FROM FUKUSHIMA:
IS THERE A CORRELATION?
Joseph J. Mangano and Janette D. Sherman
“The multiple nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima plants beginning on
March 11, 2011, are releasing large amounts of airborne radioactivity that has spread throughout Japan and to other nations; thus, studies of contamination and health hazards are merited.”
“The number of infant deaths after Fukushima rose 1.80 percent, compared with a previous 8.37 percent decrease. Projecting these figures for the entire United States yields 13,983 total deaths and 822 infant deaths in excess of the expected.”
This proposition by Mangano and Sherman is an example of advocacy junk science in the extreme. How an event in March of 2011 could translate to increased infant mortality in May of 2011 is beyond scientific comprehension. Both Mangano and Sherman are well known for this type of pseudo science.
“As the plume from the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan makes its way across the Pacific toward California, it brings back memories of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident 25 years ago.”
“Based on this relationship between numbers of young birds and winter rainfall, and on the amount of rainfall that occurred during the winter of 1985-86, which was slightly above the 10-year mean, we expected that numbers of young birds produced during the summer of 1986 would be about 10% above the 10-year mean. To our surprise, however, we found that the numbers of young landbirds produced at Palomarin during the summer of 1986 was 63.3% below the 10-year mean and represented a highly statistically significant outlier from the relationship established during the previous 10 years.”
“…the 1986 landbird reproductive failure at Palomarin was caused by radioactive iodine from the Chernobyl plume which passed over northern California and fell out coincident with rainfall on May 6.”
“…the reproductive failure at Palomarin did not begin at the onset of the breeding season nor did it extend throughout the entire breeding season, but coincided with the roughly 10 weeks between about May 6 and July 16 during which time young birds were in the nest and elevated levels of radioactive iodine were present in the
environment.”
All of these results were published in a peer-reviewed paper in the
prestigious North American ornithological journal, The Condor (DeSante, D. F., and G. R. Geupel. 1987. Landbird productivity in central coastal California: the relationship to annual rainfall and a reproductive failure in 1986. The Condor 89:636-653).
Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman present compelling data showing
that humans in the United States also suffered extraordinary mortality from the Chernobyl accident (Gould, J. M., and B. A. Goldman. 1990. Deadly Deceit: Low Level Radiation, High Level Cover-up. Four Walls Eight Windows, New York. 222 pp).
From the Desante article under Radiogenic Effects:
“Unfortunately, the adverse effects on productivity and survival in the United States caused by the radioactive plume from Chernobyl were apparently not limited to landbirds. Indeed, Their
major findings involve statistical estimates of excess deaths following Chernobyl (and other releases of radiation) and indicate that low-level radiation from fallout from nuclear reactor accidents (and from nuclear bomb testing) may have done far more damage to humans than previously thought.
In particular, they showed that the arrival of radiation
in the U.S. in early May 1986 from the Chernobyl disaster “was followed almost immediately by an extraordinary force of [human] mortality, amounting to perhaps 40,000 excess deaths in the summer months, especially in the month of May.” Indeed, they showed sharp increases in mortality in the United States in infants, in persons aged 65 and older, and in persons with pneumonia, AIDS, and other infectious diseases during the summer months of 1986 compared to the same period in 1985. Again, as with birds, these are the very young and the very old, but the excess deaths in humans also included persons with compromised immune systems.”
The Mangano / Sherman report has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked by a number of investigative reporters, academic institutions and independent scientists. It’s a shame such rubbish continues to to be brought to the surface from time to time by the uninformed, or worse by the well-informed hoping that by quoting this trash they can somehow lend credibility to it.
The Mangano/Sherman report has been thoroughly and repeatedly supported by a number of investigative reporters, academic institutions and independent scientists.
It’s a shame such propaganda of ad hominem attacks continues to be brought to the surface from time to time by the uninformed, or worse by the well-informed hoping that by using such smear tactics they can somehow undermine the outcome of the adverse effects of radioactivity.
In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended that the Mark 1 system be discontinued because it presented unacceptable safety risks. Among the concerns cited was the smaller containment design, which was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a
situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Later that same year, Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a successor agency to the atomic commission, said the idea of a ban on such systems was
attractive. But the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials, he said, that “reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power.”
In this investigation for People & Power, Joe Rubin and Serene Fang of the Center for Investigative Reporting examine whether important safety considerations are being taken into account as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers extending the licences of these plants.
The agency has recently come under fire for glossing over the potential dangers of ageing reactors, for becoming too cosy with the industry and for political infighting among the agency’s senior executives, which critics in the US Senate and elsewhere say seriously hampers its ability to ensure safety.
These three sites represent the dangers posed to nuclear power plant safety by earthquakes, terrorism, mechanical breakdown and flooding.
Privatize profits.
Socialize the losses.
When there is an accident, there is no plan, except: The Big Lie.
hhhmmmm Ratemaker, I think it is because it is too big of an exposure for most (any) private insurance company to willingly take on. No deaths (due to rediation)at Fukishima, may be currently true, yet there are billions in lost property value and loss of use, never mind the disruption to the lives of thousands or is it millions. Make no mistake about it, this is a major catastrophe, which can not be denied. I am not against nuclear power at all, but I want it to be safe. I stand point me intial point that “very small” is a relative term when you are affected.
This comment underscores the need to separate nuclear power’s health risks from the economic risks posed by nuclear power. What we know today is that the health risks from nuclear power, both short term and long term, are very, very small. They are not zero, but are far smaller that the health risks we accept in everyday life, while providing enormous social benefits of clean, domestic energy. There finally is true progress in that a growing circle of people are finally becoming aware of these very limited health risks based on real science and actual experience.
As to economic risks, we can divide them into two categories: onsite economic risks and offsite economic risks. In the USA, each nuclear power plant is insured by the plant operator against the economic losses of the plant due to a severe acident. As to offsite economic losses, the federal government long ago established, with bi-partisan support, legislation (The Price-Anderson Act)to provide rapid funds to public members in the event of a nuclear power plant accident causing offsite economic losses. The purpose of this Act is to get money to people who need it without long, drawn out court cases. If the funds from this Act proved to be insufficient, then the public could still seek ways to get additional reimbursement.
A few other things should be kept in mind.(1) The fundamental natural chemical and physical forces that make releases of radioactive material in very rare accidents quite limited, thereby limiting health risks, also limit the amount of radioactive cesium that might be released. Radioactive cesium is the main determining factor of offsite ecomnomic losses, such as land contamination. (2) Any natural phenomenon such as an extreme earthquake or a tsunami, would cause both offsite health and economic consequences that dwarfs those from any nuclear power plant which had a severe accident caused by such a huge natural phenomenon. Fukushima is a case in point. In fact, there have already been many cases of severe natural phenomena; hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes,floods that have struck nuclear power plants in the USA which safely shut down, while great health and economic damage to the public was suffered because of these same natural causes. Category 5 hurricane Andrew struck the Turkey Point plant in Florida, yet it was safely shut down; but just look at the damage this hurricane did to the public. Generally speaking, well below the level where a nuclear plant might be in trouble from a natural phenomenon, the public would be greatly affected. (3) Some people near the Indian Point plants, about 35 miles north of New York City, have also raised concerns about the economic losses, specifically land contamination in that highly populated area, from a nuclear accident. One should compare this low probability event to the economic losses that New York City will suffer as a result of the releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from fossil fueled plants, leading to rising sea levels. NYC is mostly at sea level. Relatively small increases in sea level would be sufficient, during far smaller and more frequent storms, to flood the subway system whose air ventilators are at street level. The Indian Point plants do not emit greenhouse gases, yet even the most modern natural gas plant does. How do you balance a very unlikely release of cesium from these power plants that might contaminate a somewhat small area for about 100 years against the area wide effects of global warming that would cause huge economic losses indefinitely?
I do not understand why the EXELON NUCLEAR POWER GENERATING STATION UNIT II BYRON, IL shut down 30Jan2012 because I have not seen any national news service investigate the Byron Unit II automatic shut down and the release of radioactive steam because the container which holds the nuclear rods overheated and had to ventilate radioactive steam before the back up diesel generators could pump enough water into the reactor core since hydrogen gas exploded like it did in the Japan nuclear accident 2011. I’m sure the planned NRC’s announcement that the first nuclear US power plant in 30 years was approved within 48 hours of the Byron plants shut down.
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press – Feb 2, 2012
“Monday’s outage started when an electrical insulator, a piece of protective equipment that helps regulate the flow of electricity in the plant’s switchyard, failed and fell off the metal structure to which it was attached. That interrupted power …”
“… radioactive tritium released in steam to cool a reactor during a shutdown at an Illinois nuclear plant was … estimated to be less than escaped in a 2010 steam release at the Braidwood nuclear plant about 50 miles southwest of Chicago.”
“As in any other industry, the nuclear industry is experiencing problems with the wear-and-tear of components and systems. Unlike other industries, however, the failure of safety related components at nuclear power plants can result in a catastrophic accident on a scale or larger than the radiological accident at Chernobyl. The industry is now plagued with age-related deterioration mechanisms unique to nuclear power operations. Chronic exposure to extreme radiation, heat, pressure, fatigue, and corrosive chemistry are combining to cause embrittlement of metal, cracking, and erosion of components integral to the protection of the public’s health and safety.”
Comments that the accident at Fukushima could have been worse than Chernobyl are unsupportable and just plain wrong. The physics of the Chernobyl design were such that when that plant lost cooling water the power level increased very rapidly, a hundred fold increase in power level in just 4 seconds. There was no significant comtainment building, just a low pressure confinement building. Then there was the extremely hot graphite in the reactor core which caught fire when exposed to air, further aggravating this accident. Reactors like Fukushima, and in fact all light water reactors in the United States (LWRs), have a different physics design. Upon loss of water the reactor power automatically and rapidly drops to about one percent of full power and continues to decrease after this initial large drop in power. This is accomplished without any operator safety actions or safety equipment… thanks to a proper physics design. Each nuclear plant of western design has a sturdy containment structure, not just a confinement building. There is no graphite in LWRS in the United States.
Even with multiple reactors in melt down conditions at Fukushima, the situation was less severe than what occurred at Chernobyl. Yet, based on regular reviews of the Chernobyl accident and its consequences, the World Health Organization has concluded that the long term health effects (latent cancer fatalities) due to the release of radioactive material from Chernobyl would be too small to detect statistically compared to cancer fatalities due to normal background non-nuclear causes.
The Fukushima accident was a very large and serious event, but it wasn’t Chernobyl, nor could it be, nor was it anything near the devastation, loss of life and property that the earthquake and tsunami caused directly.
Childhood Leukemia Spikes Near Nuclear Power Plants
rench researchers have confirmed that childhood leukemia rates are shockingly elevated among children living near nuclear power reactors.
The “International Journal of Cancer” has published in January a scientific study establishing a clear correlation between the frequency of acute childhood leukemia and proximity to nuclear power stations. The paper is titled, “Childhood leukemia around French nuclear power plants – the Geocap study, 2002-2007.”
A dangerous lack of urgency in drawing lessons from Japan’s nuclear disaster
Jan 7th 2012
“Negligence forms the backdrop for the first government-commissioned report into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, released in late December. Although only an interim assessment (the complete report is due in the summer), it is already 500 pages long and the product of hundreds of interviews. A casual reader might be put off by the technical detail and the dearth of personal narrative. Yet by Japanese standards it is gripping. It spares neither the government nor Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the operator of the nuclear plant. It reveals at times an almost cartoon-like level of incompetence.”
“Meanwhile, across Japan, 48 out of 54 nuclear reactors remain out of service, almost all because of safety fears. Until somebody in power seizes on the report as a call to action, its findings, especially those that reveal sheer ineptitude, suggest that the public has every reason to remain as scared as hell.”
Fairewinds shows that the nuclear industry’s plan to vent the containment at Fukushima Daiichi could not have prevented a containment failure and the ensuing explosions. Look at the graphics from the containment stress tests conducted more than 40 years ago at a US nuclear reactor identical to Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1.
Whether or not the nuclear reactor containment at Fukushima maintained it’s integrity is a critical question to the operating fleet of BWR reactors throughout the world.
Nuclear Spumoni raises an interesting question about venting in Mark I containments. I encourage him to look further. Mark 1 containment vents normally have two isolation valves in series in the vent line and they are normally closed. Typically, one of these valves is inside the containment and the other just outside the containment. They can be opened if electric power is available and opening them manually is likely to be quite difficultunder accident conditions.
The Earthquake
Nuclear Spumoni raises an interesting question about venting in Mark I containments and what happened at Fukushima in particular. I encourage him to look further. Mark 1 containment vents normally have two isolation valves in series in the vent line and they are normally closed. Typically, one of these valves is inside the containment and the other just outside the containment. They can be opened if electric power is available and opening them manually is likely to be quite difficult under accident conditions.
The earthquake that hit Japan probably the electric grid that supplied power to the Fukushima plant to fail. At that time emergency power was obtained from the emergency electric diesels that, in spite of the very strong earthquake, started to supply electric power until, about a half an hour later, the tsunami struck taking out the fuel tanks that supplied these emergency diesels. At that point the stations were in a blackout condition. With no electric power,the vent isolation valves might have remained closed.
There are a number of ways to overcome the loss of venting capability for USA Mark I plants during blackout conditions. Some utilities, years ago, added a dedicated supply of electricity to open these valves. More recently, as part of the post 9/11 response to the terrorist attack on this country, nuclear plants have significant additional portable electric power supplies. At this time I do not know if these additional sources of electricity have been tasked to open the vent valves in Mark I plants, perhaps Nuclear Spumoni can find out. Another possibility is to change the isolation valves’ normal position from “normally closed” to “normally open” with one or two rupture discs downstream of the outer valve. This rupture disc(s) would have a bursting set point below any pressure level at which containmant integrity might be challenged. One can even install a bypass line around these rupture discs with a normally closed valve(s) that could be opened when electric power is available or perhaps even manually. This arrangement turns the present vent system from an active safety system to a passive safety system.
Further, this improvement in safety can be quantified. Using established probalistic risk analyses, which all Mark I plants already have completed, compute the safety profile with the present “normally closed” isolation valve configuration and then repeat this analysis with the new “normally open” position. If the second analysis results in lower consequences than the first, it is a safer configuration. This second analyses would take into account the much greater ability of the suppression pool to capture radionuclides when the vent system is open.
One of the major safety aspects of the Mark I design is the suppression pool. This large pool of water has many safety benefits, including its ability to trap soluble compounds of radioactive iodine and cesium, providing these compounds are forced through the pool water. If there is a loss of containment integrity this pool radioactive material trapping ability would almost certainly be reduced or lost. Assuring an open containment vent system would have resulted in trapping most of the radioactive iodine and cesium in the suppression pool and would have also forced the hydrogen gases, which are non-condensibles and would not be trapped in the suppression pool, to travel up the hardened vent and be released above the plant structures where their impact, even if the hydrogen exploded, would be rather unimportant.
Propaganda and pure, unadulterated BULL CRAP!!
These nuclear plants are not controllable if something goes seriously wrong.
Another attempt to lull the already lethargic public into dreamland.
Dee, Why all the hate? Where is your evidence? Have you ever considered that you are wrong? ever tried to add some intelligenc to your remarks?
http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-damage-control-2012-2
” …the nuclear industry and its supporters have employed sophisticated press manipulation…”
Read more: http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/02/10/nuclear-damage-control/#ixzz1m0Ns7ezU
“Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.”
http://sanonofresafety.org/nrc-problems/
Using the words “very small” when it comes to nuclear accidents is a relative term. If you live near by it is a big deal due to how long it takes for the nuclear contamination to go away. Basically any serious pollution on a property makes a property worthless until it is “cleaned up”.
One more thing….isn’t there a nuclear hazard exclusion in most (all) insurance policies. Gee I wonder why?
In part because federal law imposes strict liability on the operators of a nuclear power plant of up to 12.5 billion dollars.
It’s about time some sanity prevailed. The nuclear industry is the only segment of our national energy infrastructure where uninformed politicians and fear mongers have created a de facto limit of zero allowable injuries or fatalities. Meanwhile many more people die from other energy sources including those favored as “green”.
In the 50 or so year history of commercial nuclear power exactly zero people have died as a result of radiation from nuclear reactors in the United States. In fact, even at Fukushima there have been no deaths or serious injuries from radiation.
Sandia National Laboratory’s SOARCA program also investigated severe nuclear accidents where the plant operators took no safety actions and where all active safety components (pumps, valves, emergency diesels, etc.) failed to work. Even so, the radioactive releases were very small, about 40 to 60 times smaller than the 1982 Sandia studies, and were much delayed giving plenty of time for off site emergency responses.These power plants act like large, complex filter systems that trap radioactive material through natural chemical and physical processes, independent of human actions.
http://janettesherman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/122011_IJHS_Article_42-1F.pdf
THE UNITED STATES FOLLOWS ARRIVAL OF THE
RADIOACTIVE PLUME FROM FUKUSHIMA:
IS THERE A CORRELATION?
Joseph J. Mangano and Janette D. Sherman
“The multiple nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima plants beginning on
March 11, 2011, are releasing large amounts of airborne radioactivity that has spread throughout Japan and to other nations; thus, studies of contamination and health hazards are merited.”
“The number of infant deaths after Fukushima rose 1.80 percent, compared with a previous 8.37 percent decrease. Projecting these figures for the entire United States yields 13,983 total deaths and 822 infant deaths in excess of the expected.”
This proposition by Mangano and Sherman is an example of advocacy junk science in the extreme. How an event in March of 2011 could translate to increased infant mortality in May of 2011 is beyond scientific comprehension. Both Mangano and Sherman are well known for this type of pseudo science.
“As the plume from the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan makes its way across the Pacific toward California, it brings back memories of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident 25 years ago.”
“Based on this relationship between numbers of young birds and winter rainfall, and on the amount of rainfall that occurred during the winter of 1985-86, which was slightly above the 10-year mean, we expected that numbers of young birds produced during the summer of 1986 would be about 10% above the 10-year mean. To our surprise, however, we found that the numbers of young landbirds produced at Palomarin during the summer of 1986 was 63.3% below the 10-year mean and represented a highly statistically significant outlier from the relationship established during the previous 10 years.”
“…the 1986 landbird reproductive failure at Palomarin was caused by radioactive iodine from the Chernobyl plume which passed over northern California and fell out coincident with rainfall on May 6.”
“…the reproductive failure at Palomarin did not begin at the onset of the breeding season nor did it extend throughout the entire breeding season, but coincided with the roughly 10 weeks between about May 6 and July 16 during which time young birds were in the nest and elevated levels of radioactive iodine were present in the
environment.”
All of these results were published in a peer-reviewed paper in the
prestigious North American ornithological journal, The Condor (DeSante, D. F., and G. R. Geupel. 1987. Landbird productivity in central coastal California: the relationship to annual rainfall and a reproductive failure in 1986. The Condor 89:636-653).
http://eon3emfblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Remembering_Chernobyl.pdf
Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman present compelling data showing
that humans in the United States also suffered extraordinary mortality from the Chernobyl accident (Gould, J. M., and B. A. Goldman. 1990. Deadly Deceit: Low Level Radiation, High Level Cover-up. Four Walls Eight Windows, New York. 222 pp).
From the Desante article under Radiogenic Effects:
“Unfortunately, the adverse effects on productivity and survival in the United States caused by the radioactive plume from Chernobyl were apparently not limited to landbirds. Indeed, Their
major findings involve statistical estimates of excess deaths following Chernobyl (and other releases of radiation) and indicate that low-level radiation from fallout from nuclear reactor accidents (and from nuclear bomb testing) may have done far more damage to humans than previously thought.
In particular, they showed that the arrival of radiation
in the U.S. in early May 1986 from the Chernobyl disaster “was followed almost immediately by an extraordinary force of [human] mortality, amounting to perhaps 40,000 excess deaths in the summer months, especially in the month of May.” Indeed, they showed sharp increases in mortality in the United States in infants, in persons aged 65 and older, and in persons with pneumonia, AIDS, and other infectious diseases during the summer months of 1986 compared to the same period in 1985. Again, as with birds, these are the very young and the very old, but the excess deaths in humans also included persons with compromised immune systems.”
The Mangano / Sherman report has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked by a number of investigative reporters, academic institutions and independent scientists. It’s a shame such rubbish continues to to be brought to the surface from time to time by the uninformed, or worse by the well-informed hoping that by quoting this trash they can somehow lend credibility to it.
The Mangano/Sherman report has been thoroughly and repeatedly supported by a number of investigative reporters, academic institutions and independent scientists.
It’s a shame such propaganda of ad hominem attacks continues to be brought to the surface from time to time by the uninformed, or worse by the well-informed hoping that by using such smear tactics they can somehow undermine the outcome of the adverse effects of radioactivity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html
In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended that the Mark 1 system be discontinued because it presented unacceptable safety risks. Among the concerns cited was the smaller containment design, which was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a
situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Later that same year, Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a successor agency to the atomic commission, said the idea of a ban on such systems was
attractive. But the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials, he said, that “reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power.”
In this investigation for People & Power, Joe Rubin and Serene Fang of the Center for Investigative Reporting examine whether important safety considerations are being taken into account as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers extending the licences of these plants.
The agency has recently come under fire for glossing over the potential dangers of ageing reactors, for becoming too cosy with the industry and for political infighting among the agency’s senior executives, which critics in the US Senate and elsewhere say seriously hampers its ability to ensure safety.
These three sites represent the dangers posed to nuclear power plant safety by earthquakes, terrorism, mechanical breakdown and flooding.
Privatize profits.
Socialize the losses.
When there is an accident, there is no plan, except: The Big Lie.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/02/2012222134934495461.html
hhhmmmm Ratemaker, I think it is because it is too big of an exposure for most (any) private insurance company to willingly take on. No deaths (due to rediation)at Fukishima, may be currently true, yet there are billions in lost property value and loss of use, never mind the disruption to the lives of thousands or is it millions. Make no mistake about it, this is a major catastrophe, which can not be denied. I am not against nuclear power at all, but I want it to be safe. I stand point me intial point that “very small” is a relative term when you are affected.
This comment underscores the need to separate nuclear power’s health risks from the economic risks posed by nuclear power. What we know today is that the health risks from nuclear power, both short term and long term, are very, very small. They are not zero, but are far smaller that the health risks we accept in everyday life, while providing enormous social benefits of clean, domestic energy. There finally is true progress in that a growing circle of people are finally becoming aware of these very limited health risks based on real science and actual experience.
As to economic risks, we can divide them into two categories: onsite economic risks and offsite economic risks. In the USA, each nuclear power plant is insured by the plant operator against the economic losses of the plant due to a severe acident. As to offsite economic losses, the federal government long ago established, with bi-partisan support, legislation (The Price-Anderson Act)to provide rapid funds to public members in the event of a nuclear power plant accident causing offsite economic losses. The purpose of this Act is to get money to people who need it without long, drawn out court cases. If the funds from this Act proved to be insufficient, then the public could still seek ways to get additional reimbursement.
A few other things should be kept in mind.(1) The fundamental natural chemical and physical forces that make releases of radioactive material in very rare accidents quite limited, thereby limiting health risks, also limit the amount of radioactive cesium that might be released. Radioactive cesium is the main determining factor of offsite ecomnomic losses, such as land contamination. (2) Any natural phenomenon such as an extreme earthquake or a tsunami, would cause both offsite health and economic consequences that dwarfs those from any nuclear power plant which had a severe accident caused by such a huge natural phenomenon. Fukushima is a case in point. In fact, there have already been many cases of severe natural phenomena; hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes,floods that have struck nuclear power plants in the USA which safely shut down, while great health and economic damage to the public was suffered because of these same natural causes. Category 5 hurricane Andrew struck the Turkey Point plant in Florida, yet it was safely shut down; but just look at the damage this hurricane did to the public. Generally speaking, well below the level where a nuclear plant might be in trouble from a natural phenomenon, the public would be greatly affected. (3) Some people near the Indian Point plants, about 35 miles north of New York City, have also raised concerns about the economic losses, specifically land contamination in that highly populated area, from a nuclear accident. One should compare this low probability event to the economic losses that New York City will suffer as a result of the releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from fossil fueled plants, leading to rising sea levels. NYC is mostly at sea level. Relatively small increases in sea level would be sufficient, during far smaller and more frequent storms, to flood the subway system whose air ventilators are at street level. The Indian Point plants do not emit greenhouse gases, yet even the most modern natural gas plant does. How do you balance a very unlikely release of cesium from these power plants that might contaminate a somewhat small area for about 100 years against the area wide effects of global warming that would cause huge economic losses indefinitely?
Herschel Specter mhspecter@verizon.net
I do not understand why the EXELON NUCLEAR POWER GENERATING STATION UNIT II BYRON, IL shut down 30Jan2012 because I have not seen any national news service investigate the Byron Unit II automatic shut down and the release of radioactive steam because the container which holds the nuclear rods overheated and had to ventilate radioactive steam before the back up diesel generators could pump enough water into the reactor core since hydrogen gas exploded like it did in the Japan nuclear accident 2011. I’m sure the planned NRC’s announcement that the first nuclear US power plant in 30 years was approved within 48 hours of the Byron plants shut down.
http://enenews.com/category/u-s-canada/us-nuclear-facilities/midwest
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press – Feb 2, 2012
“Monday’s outage started when an electrical insulator, a piece of protective equipment that helps regulate the flow of electricity in the plant’s switchyard, failed and fell off the metal structure to which it was attached. That interrupted power …”
“… radioactive tritium released in steam to cool a reactor during a shutdown at an Illinois nuclear plant was … estimated to be less than escaped in a 2010 steam release at the Braidwood nuclear plant about 50 miles southwest of Chicago.”
“As in any other industry, the nuclear industry is experiencing problems with the wear-and-tear of components and systems. Unlike other industries, however, the failure of safety related components at nuclear power plants can result in a catastrophic accident on a scale or larger than the radiological accident at Chernobyl. The industry is now plagued with age-related deterioration mechanisms unique to nuclear power operations. Chronic exposure to extreme radiation, heat, pressure, fatigue, and corrosive chemistry are combining to cause embrittlement of metal, cracking, and erosion of components integral to the protection of the public’s health and safety.”
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pwrfact.htm
Want a recent example…San Onofre:
http://enenews.com/nuclear-expert-pipe-ruptures-at-calif-nuke-plant-could-have-lead-to-meltdown-china-syndrome-catastrophic-radioactivity-release-video
Comments that the accident at Fukushima could have been worse than Chernobyl are unsupportable and just plain wrong. The physics of the Chernobyl design were such that when that plant lost cooling water the power level increased very rapidly, a hundred fold increase in power level in just 4 seconds. There was no significant comtainment building, just a low pressure confinement building. Then there was the extremely hot graphite in the reactor core which caught fire when exposed to air, further aggravating this accident. Reactors like Fukushima, and in fact all light water reactors in the United States (LWRs), have a different physics design. Upon loss of water the reactor power automatically and rapidly drops to about one percent of full power and continues to decrease after this initial large drop in power. This is accomplished without any operator safety actions or safety equipment… thanks to a proper physics design. Each nuclear plant of western design has a sturdy containment structure, not just a confinement building. There is no graphite in LWRS in the United States.
Even with multiple reactors in melt down conditions at Fukushima, the situation was less severe than what occurred at Chernobyl. Yet, based on regular reviews of the Chernobyl accident and its consequences, the World Health Organization has concluded that the long term health effects (latent cancer fatalities) due to the release of radioactive material from Chernobyl would be too small to detect statistically compared to cancer fatalities due to normal background non-nuclear causes.
The Fukushima accident was a very large and serious event, but it wasn’t Chernobyl, nor could it be, nor was it anything near the devastation, loss of life and property that the earthquake and tsunami caused directly.
Childhood Leukemia Spikes Near Nuclear Power Plants
rench researchers have confirmed that childhood leukemia rates are shockingly elevated among children living near nuclear power reactors.
The “International Journal of Cancer” has published in January a scientific study establishing a clear correlation between the frequency of acute childhood leukemia and proximity to nuclear power stations. The paper is titled, “Childhood leukemia around French nuclear power plants – the Geocap study, 2002-2007.”
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/344-208/9671-childhood-leukemia-spikes-near-nuclear-power-plants
The Fukushima black box
A dangerous lack of urgency in drawing lessons from Japan’s nuclear disaster
Jan 7th 2012
“Negligence forms the backdrop for the first government-commissioned report into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, released in late December. Although only an interim assessment (the complete report is due in the summer), it is already 500 pages long and the product of hundreds of interviews. A casual reader might be put off by the technical detail and the dearth of personal narrative. Yet by Japanese standards it is gripping. It spares neither the government nor Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the operator of the nuclear plant. It reveals at times an almost cartoon-like level of incompetence.”
“Meanwhile, across Japan, 48 out of 54 nuclear reactors remain out of service, almost all because of safety fears. Until somebody in power seizes on the report as a call to action, its findings, especially those that reveal sheer ineptitude, suggest that the public has every reason to remain as scared as hell.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21542437
New Containment Flaw Identified in the BWR Mark 1
Fairewinds shows that the nuclear industry’s plan to vent the containment at Fukushima Daiichi could not have prevented a containment failure and the ensuing explosions. Look at the graphics from the containment stress tests conducted more than 40 years ago at a US nuclear reactor identical to Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1.
Whether or not the nuclear reactor containment at Fukushima maintained it’s integrity is a critical question to the operating fleet of BWR reactors throughout the world.
http://www.fairewinds.com/content/new-containment-flaw-identified-bwr-mark-1
Nuclear Spumoni raises an interesting question about venting in Mark I containments. I encourage him to look further. Mark 1 containment vents normally have two isolation valves in series in the vent line and they are normally closed. Typically, one of these valves is inside the containment and the other just outside the containment. They can be opened if electric power is available and opening them manually is likely to be quite difficultunder accident conditions.
The Earthquake
Nuclear Spumoni raises an interesting question about venting in Mark I containments and what happened at Fukushima in particular. I encourage him to look further. Mark 1 containment vents normally have two isolation valves in series in the vent line and they are normally closed. Typically, one of these valves is inside the containment and the other just outside the containment. They can be opened if electric power is available and opening them manually is likely to be quite difficult under accident conditions.
The earthquake that hit Japan probably the electric grid that supplied power to the Fukushima plant to fail. At that time emergency power was obtained from the emergency electric diesels that, in spite of the very strong earthquake, started to supply electric power until, about a half an hour later, the tsunami struck taking out the fuel tanks that supplied these emergency diesels. At that point the stations were in a blackout condition. With no electric power,the vent isolation valves might have remained closed.
There are a number of ways to overcome the loss of venting capability for USA Mark I plants during blackout conditions. Some utilities, years ago, added a dedicated supply of electricity to open these valves. More recently, as part of the post 9/11 response to the terrorist attack on this country, nuclear plants have significant additional portable electric power supplies. At this time I do not know if these additional sources of electricity have been tasked to open the vent valves in Mark I plants, perhaps Nuclear Spumoni can find out. Another possibility is to change the isolation valves’ normal position from “normally closed” to “normally open” with one or two rupture discs downstream of the outer valve. This rupture disc(s) would have a bursting set point below any pressure level at which containmant integrity might be challenged. One can even install a bypass line around these rupture discs with a normally closed valve(s) that could be opened when electric power is available or perhaps even manually. This arrangement turns the present vent system from an active safety system to a passive safety system.
Further, this improvement in safety can be quantified. Using established probalistic risk analyses, which all Mark I plants already have completed, compute the safety profile with the present “normally closed” isolation valve configuration and then repeat this analysis with the new “normally open” position. If the second analysis results in lower consequences than the first, it is a safer configuration. This second analyses would take into account the much greater ability of the suppression pool to capture radionuclides when the vent system is open.
One of the major safety aspects of the Mark I design is the suppression pool. This large pool of water has many safety benefits, including its ability to trap soluble compounds of radioactive iodine and cesium, providing these compounds are forced through the pool water. If there is a loss of containment integrity this pool radioactive material trapping ability would almost certainly be reduced or lost. Assuring an open containment vent system would have resulted in trapping most of the radioactive iodine and cesium in the suppression pool and would have also forced the hydrogen gases, which are non-condensibles and would not be trapped in the suppression pool, to travel up the hardened vent and be released above the plant structures where their impact, even if the hydrogen exploded, would be rather unimportant.