Sep 29, 2024: The case against restarting Three Mile Island’s Unit-1

From National Public Radio:

Federal regulators knew when they renewed the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's license last month that electrical cables serving key plant safety systems had been submerged in water for extended periods of time, Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents show.

A nuclear watchdog group says the issue has new urgency following the nuclear disaster in Japan, in which tsunami flooding knocked cooling systems out of service, causing reactors to overheat at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear station.

An NRC report in December said 23 reactors around the country had electrical cable failures between 1988 and 2004, with nine more instances since 2007 of cables improperly being submerged in water.

"Because these cables are not designed or qualified for submerged or moist environments, the possibility that more than one cable could fail has increased," the report said. "This failure could disable safety-related accident mitigation systems."

The agency's documents show it has been concerned about submerged electrical cables at U.S. nuclear plants for years. The cables, usually housed in concrete boxes or small tunnels underground, get wet from rain, melting snow or groundwater, the NRC said.

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WASHINGTON – As a result of the incident with the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, several EPA air monitors have detected very low levels of radioactive material in the United States consistent with estimated releases from the damaged nuclear reactors. EPA has stepped up monitoring of precipitation, milk, and drinking water in response to the Fukushima events. The detections in air, precipitation, and milk were expected, and the levels detected have been far below levels of public-health concern.

Today, EPA released its latest RadNet results, which include the first results for drinking water. Drinking water samples from two locations, Boise, Idaho and Richland, Washington, showed trace amounts of Iodine-131 – about 0.2 picocuries per liter in each case. An infant would have to drink almost 7,000 liters of this water to receive a radiation dose equivalent to a day’s worth of the natural background radiation exposure we experience continuously from natural sources of radioactivity in our environment.

Earlier precipitation samples collected by EPA have shown trace amounts of radioactivity, so EPA has expected to find results such as these in some drinking water samples. Similar findings are to be expected in the coming weeks.

To see results from these samples, please visit:
 http://www.epa.gov\japan2011\docs\rert\RadNet-Drinking-Water-Data-Public-Release-4-2-2011.pdf

In addition, results of EPA’s precipitation sampling and air filter analyses continue to detect very low levels of radioactive material consistent with estimated releases from the damaged nuclear reactors. These detections were expected and the levels detected are far below levels of public-health concern. For the latest sample results please visit:

For the latest air monitoring filter data: http://epa.gov/japan2011/docs/rert/radnet-cart-filter-final.pdf

For the latest milk sampling data: http://epa.gov/japan2011/docs/rert/radnet-milk-final.pdf

For the latest precipitation sampling data: http://epa.gov/japan2011/docs/rert/radnet-precipitation-final.pdf

A nuclear meltdown survival guide

Japan's Tepco utility executives and government officials are alternately accused of covering-up, withholding information, or downplaying the severity of their nuclear accident.

Truth is, as many of us nuclear meltdown veterans know, those utility executives and officials are as much in the dark as the rest of us.

From the Miami Herald:

Dead-center in hurricane alley, South Florida has probably performed more large-scale evacuations than any place in the country.

But a wind-borne cloud of radioactive isotopes represents a different monster, unseen but every bit as scary as a powerful cane. For emergency managers thrust into a crisis like the one in Japan, the concern would not be the few ignoring orders to leave Turkey Point’s 10-mile evacuation zone.

“The big issue is how many people will leave outside the evacuation zone,’’ said Jay Baker, a Florida State University geography professor and authority on evacuation behavior who conducted hazard response surveys for a state study last year. “No one knows, to be honest with you.’’

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Cryptome has published hi-res photos of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

From the New York Times:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed reactors to phase out some equipment that eliminates explosive hydrogen, the gas that blew up the outer containments of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. The commission says it judged that at the American plants, the containments were strong enough that the equipment was not needed or other methods would do.

After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, many reactors were required to install “hydrogen recombiners,” which attach potentially explosive hydrogen atoms to oxygen to make water instead. At Three Mile Island, engineers learned that hot fuel could interact with steam to give off hydrogen. That caused the plant’s reactor to suffer a hydrogen explosion, although it did not seriously damage its containment. By contrast, the secondary containments at Fukushima Daiichi blew apart when hydrogen detonated inside them.

The change in commission policy was pointed out this week by a nuclear safety critic, Paul M. Blanch, who said that he had been involved in installing such equipment at Millstone 3, a nuclear reactor in Waterford, Conn.

“Post-Three Mile Island, they were considered very important to safety,’’ Mr. Blanch said. He accused the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of having “gutted the rule’’ because the industry wanted to save money.

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Newly released TEPCO data provides evidence of periodic chain reaction at Fukushima Unit 1 from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNIT NOS. 2 AND 3­ EXEMPTION FROM TITLE 10 OF THE CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATlONS PART 50, APPENDIX R, SECTION III.G FOR THE USE OF OPERATOR MANUAL ACTIONS (TAC NOS. ME8055 AND ME8056)

Download ML102430566
 

Update on Fukushima: Discussion of High Level Radiation Releases and the Previous "Worse Case Senario" Planned for by The Indust from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Dave Lochbaum, Director of UCS’s Nuclear Safety Project, is testifying this morning to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. His testimony on the Japanese nuclear crisis and lessons for the U.S. is available here.

If the past three decades have demonstrated anything, it’s that the NRC will likely come up with a solid action plan to address problems revealed at Fukushima, but will be glacially slow in implementing those identified safety upgrades. A comprehensive action plan does little to protect Americans until its goals are achieved. We urge the US Congress to force the NRC to not merely chart a course to a safer place, but actually reach that destination as soon as possible.