News

Join us on Wednesday, May 4
Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg, Valentine Hall 206
 
7:00   Gettysburg Area DFA Annual Meeting and Election of Officers
7:15  Gettysburg Conversation - Bring your questions and comments!
 
What is the Future of Nuclear Power After Fukushima?
Special Guests:
Eric Epstein, Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert
Pat Naugle, nuclear engineer, advisor to Susquehanna River Basin Commission
Moderated by Elaine Jones, Gettysburg DFA Chair  

 

Sample questions:

  • We have 104 nuclear power reactors in the US today. What impact should Fukushima have on our nuclear power industry?      
  • What are the environmental consequences of NOT using nuclear power? How does nuclear power compare to coal and other sources of electricity?    
  • Where is the radioactive waste stored now? Have we really solved this problem?

 
We are honored to have two very knowledgeable guests who will begin our conversation.
Eric Epstein, Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., (tmia.com), a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was founded in 1977. TMIA monitors Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations.  
 
Eric is the coordinator of  the EFMR Monitoring, Inc., a nonpartisan community based organization established in 1992.  EFMR monitors radiation levels at Peach Bottom and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations, invests in community development, and sponsors remote robotics research.  The group has also intervened at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to protect the economic interests of Pennsylvania rate payers.
 
Eric is a board member of the Sustainable Energy Fund of Central Eastern Pennsylvania  which  supports and finances renewable energy development, green building, energy efficiency, and alternative fuels.
 
Pat Naugle graduated from Lafayette College in 1970 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and received an MBA from Widener University in 1982.  Pat worked for Philadelphia Electric Company (now Exelon) for 28 years before retiring in 1998.  Since his retirement he has taught economics and finance at Eastern University, and is presently working on contract to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission reviewing water withdrawal requests for Bell Bend Nuclear Power Plant.
 
During most of his career, he worked in construction of substations and power plants.  From 1974 to 1989 he worked on Limerick Generating Station, Units 1 and 2.  The Limerick units are GE designed boiling water reactors (BWR) similar to the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan.  Early in his career, he worked on Peach Bottom units 2 and 3, which are BWRs and are the same basic design as the Fukushima plants.
 
Pat is a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but spends most of his time as a volunteer.  He is now the President of the Land Conservancy of Adams County, was the past president of the Watershed Alliance of Adams County, and is on the Boards of Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve and the Adams County Conservation District.

Type: 

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3­ WITHDRAWAL OF AN AMENDMENT REQUEST (TAC NOS. ME3598 AND ME3599)

Download: ML111170512

Type: 

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit Nos. 2 and 3 – Eratta for Exemption From Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 50, Appendix R, Section III.G for the Use of Operator Manual Actions (TAC Nos. ME8055 and ME8056)
 
Download: ADAMS Accession No.: ML111110677

Type: 

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION:  NRC COMPONENT DESIGN BASES INSPECTION REPORT 05000277/2011007 AND 05000278/2011007

Download: ADAMS Accession No. ML111150200

Type: 

From Kyodo News:

Japan's multi-billion-yen system for predicting the dispersal of radioactive materials has proven to be of not much help in the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, drawing sharp criticism of the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Read more

Type: 

From All Things Nuclear:

In November 1992, Don Prevatte and I submitted a report to the NRC regarding our concerns with spent fuel pools at boiling water reactors (BWRs), of which 35 are operating in the US. We had been consultants working on a team to evaluate the proposed increase in the maximum power level of the two BWRs at the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. My assignments included the spent fuel pool cooling and cleanup system while Don’s assignments included the reactor building ventilation system. While reviewing each other’s work, we uncovered a problem.

The spent fuel pool for nearly all US BWRs is located inside the reactor building, which also fully encloses the reactor containment building. The reactor building ventilation system was designed to cool rooms and areas in event of an accident to protect emergency equipment from damage caused by high air temperatures.

The design calculation for the reactor building ventilation system considered heat emitted by operating motors, heat emanating from piping filled with hot water, and heat given off by incandescent light bulbs. Collectively, these heat sources amounted to 5.2 million BTUs per hour (a British Thermal Unit, or BTU, is defined as the amount of heat needed to increase the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit).

Read more

Type: 

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

Download ML111110677 (PDF)

Type: 

The U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will-meet with the public to discuss the NRC's assessment of safety performance at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station 'for 2010, as described in the annual assessment letter dated March 4,2011. The NRC will respond to questions on specific performance issues at the plant and our role in ensuring safe plant operations.

Download ML111120313 (PDF)

Type: 

Watchdog group alleges General Electric Boiling Water Reactor Mark 1 design’s weak containment, inadequate experimental venting back fit, and radioactive waste storage pool are accidents waiting to happen
 

TAKOMA PARK, MD - April 19 - Today the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) docketed an emergency enforcement petition filed by the environmental watchdog group Beyond Nuclear. Beyond Nuclear’s petition calls for the suspension of operating licenses at 21 General Electric Boiling Water Reactors of the Mark 1 design (GE BWR Mark 1s). Beyond Nuclear has filed the petition in the wake of catastrophic failure of just such containment systems at identical atomic reactors in Fukushima, Japan at the Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. In addition, Beyond Nuclear has highlighted the extreme risk posed by GE BWR Mark 1 high-level radioactive waste storage pools, at a total of 24 such reactors in the U.S., which lack emergency backup power supplies for circulating cooling water in the event of a loss of electricity from the primary grid. Lack of cooling water circulation in high-level radioactive waste storage pools can result in boil off, subsequent irradiated nuclear fuel fire, and large-scale releases of hazardous radioactivity directly into the environment, as has occurred at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4.

Beyond Nuclear’s Reactor Oversight Project Director, Paul Gunter, has identified 21 GE Mark 1 BWRs in the United States that utilize the Fukushima Dai-Ichi style, free-standing primary containment structure composed of a carbon steel drywell, connected by large diameter piping to the carbon steel suppression chamber referred to as the wet well or torus, which altogether comprises the safety-credited pressure suppression containment system. The 21 GE BWR Mark 1 atomic reactors at risk of catastrophic containment failure in the U.S. are, in alphabetical order: Browns Ferry Units 1, 2, and 3 in Alabama; Cooper Unit 1 in Nebraska; Dresden Units 2 and 3 in Illinois; Duane Arnold Unit 1 in Iowa; Fermi Unit 2 in Michigan; Fitzpatrick Unit 1 in New York; Hatch Units 1 and 2 in Georgia; Hope Creek Unit 1 in New Jersey; Monticello Unit 1 in Minnesota; Nine Mile Point Unit 1 in New York; Oyster Creek Unit 1 in New Jersey; Peach Bottom Units 2 and 3 in Pennsylvania; Pilgrim Unit 1 in Massachusetts; Quad Cities Units 1 and 2 in Illinois; and Vermont Yankee Unit 1 in Vermont.
 
“The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe in Japan has dramatically illuminated the grave risks and unforgiving consequences of a severe accident combined with the fundamental failures of the GE BWR Mark 1 containment concept, design, construction, and subsequent experimental retrofit which unsuccessfully attempted to mitigate these significant flaws,” said Gunter. “Any loss of cooling to the reactor core could lead to pressure build up that could breach these old, small, weak, badly designed and built containment structures,” he added.
 
Gunter recounted that high-level U.S. nuclear power regulators have long identified the undue risks associated with GE BWR Mark 1 type containments. In 1972, Dr. Stephen Hanauer of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) warned about the buildup of explosive hydrogen gas during a reactor core accident in such relatively small containment structures, and urged that “the AEC adopt a policy of discouraging further use of pressure suppression containments…”.

At Fukushima Dai-Ichi Units 1, 3, and 4, such hydrogen explosions severely damaged or entirely destroyed the secondary containment buildings. This happened despite attempts, in the earliest days of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe, to vent radioactive steam into the environment in an effort to prevent catastrophic rupture of the containment structures.
 
Also, at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 2, failure of the containment venting system led to a large hydrogen explosion within the primary containment structure which has very likely severely damaged the wet well/torus, creating a direct pathway to the environment for hazardous radioactivity releases. This is made all the worse by the likelihood that the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 2 nuclear fuel core has melted through the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel.
 
“It is unreasonable to back fit an identified severe design flaw with a venting system to deliberately defeat the purpose of a leak tight containment in order to save it from catastrophic failure based on the unlikelihood that the task will be required,” Gunter surmised.
 
In addition, safety concerns over the substandard Mark I pressure suppression containment system were again affirmed in 1986 by Dr. Harold Denton, Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at NRC. Denton told a nuclear industry conference that this flawed reactor containment type has as high as a 90% chance of failure if challenged by severe accident conditions.

 Beyond Nuclear’s emergency enforcement petition, brought under Title 10, Part 2.206 of the Code of Federal Regulations, also calls for emergency diesel generators and backup batteries to be connected to 24  GE BWR Mark 1 reactor units’ storage pools for high-level radioactive waste. Currently, these elevated storage pools for irradiated nuclear fuel are located outside of credited primary containment structures and lack “Class E1” safety-related backup power supply systems in the event of a loss of electricity from the primary grid for running cooling water circulation pumps. These 24 pools include those at the permanently closed Millstone Unit 1 atomic reactor in Connecticut, as well as the Brunswick Units 1 and 2 atomic reactors in North Carolina.
 
“It is incredible that pools for storing high-level radioactive wastes in the U.S. are not connected to emergency backup power supplies,” said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear. “Any loss of the electrical grid – whether due to tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, or even wildlife or tree branches touching power lines – could begin pool boiling within hours, leading to complete boil off within a  day or two, followed by a radioactive waste inferno within hours of the irradiated nuclear fuel losing its cooling water cover,” Kamps added.

 “Whereas Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4’s pool contained around 130 tons of high-level radioactive waste, pools in the U.S. are crammed with significantly more,” Kamps added. “For example, Fermi Unit 2 in Michigan – the largest GE BWR Mark 1 in the world – has well over 500 tons of high-level radioactive waste crammed into its pool. This means that without the primary electrical grid, the pool could begin boiling in just over four hours, could boil dry and catch fire all that much more quickly, and the consequences downwind would be multiple times worse than the still-unfolding catastrophe at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4’s pool,” Kamps concluded.
 
A 1997 study commissioned by the NRC estimated the median consequences of a high-level radioactive waste storage pool fire, which included: 54,000 to 143,000 latent cancer deaths downwind; 770 to 2,700 square miles of agricultural land condemned; and economic costs due to evacuation of $117 to 566 billion ($158 to 765 billion when adjusted for inflation to current dollar values).
 
Beyond Nuclear’s 2.206 emergency enforcement petition, and NRC’s docketing announcement, are posted at the top of Beyond Nuclear’s homepage,www.beyondnuclear.org, and can be provided upon request.

Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.

Type: 

From the Press and Journal

If an earthquake shook Middletown, would Three Mile Island shut down safely?

Would the reactor lose power during a natural disaster, lose its cooling systems?

Would we have a crisis resembling the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor in Japan?

The owner of TMI says no, no and no. To assure residents who live near the reactor, it has sent 24,000 letters to neighbors within a 5-mile radius, asserting that the catastrophe in Japan couldn’t happen here.

TMI would survive a severe earthquake and maintain electricity during a natural disaster, a problem that has plagued Japan’s damaged reactor, said the letter, signed by Bill Noll, TMI site vice president for Exelon Nuclear, the owner.

“Our generating station is able to withstand and safely shut down in very strong earthquakes, and the uranium fuel would remain protected,’’ Noll said in the letter, which went to residents in Dauphin, Lancaster and York counties.

Read more

Type: 

Pages