The UK government has launched a public consultation on how it will organize the process that will lead to selection of a site for a geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste. World-nuclear-news.org
Japan is upset about a French magazine’s cartoons about the Tokyo Olympics telegraph.co.uk
Farmers from the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan want to continue selling wild edible mushrooms and other wild edible plants. ex-skf.blogspot.jp
Ambient office = .121 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .112 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .128 microsieverts per hour
Carrot from Costco = .126 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .117 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .102 microsieverts per hour
I have been talking about China lately. Their National Development and Reform Commission wants to raise the percentage of power generated by nuclear plant from the two percent that it provides today up to six percent by 2020 due to concerns over fossil fuel supplies, devastating air pollution and climate change. Given that they are talking about more than a hundred new reactors, it does seem a rather modest penetration of nuclear power into the Chinese domestic market. They have laid out an ambitious timeline along with the assumption of that new reactor designs will be part of the mix.
There are currently seventeen operating nuclear reactors at six sites and another thirty two are under construction. Fifty more reactors are scheduled for construction and a hundred more are being planned for construction by 2040. Of course, the disaster at Fukushima did throw off their time table. Some construction was shut down, new permits were suspended and Chinese reactors were checked for safety. Some critics of nuclear power in China urged a refocusing of efforts and resources on renewable energy as an alternative. However building and permitting are moving forward again and the Chinese authorities have restated their commitment to nuclear power. The Chinese are developing their own designs for pressurized water reactors with help from the international nuclear industry. Newer types of reactors such as the pebble bed design are scheduled for later implementation. By 2050, the Chinese expect to be building fast neutron reactors. They even have projected the amount of electricity that will be generated by fast neutron reactors by the year 2100.
Most of China’s reactors are located on the Pacific Coast near large cities and use seawater for cooling. Twenty eight million people live within forty six miles of two nuclear reactors in the Hong Kong area. A major accident in this area would threaten the health and lives of millions of people. Devastating hurricanes have caused widespread property damage and loss of life in Hong Kong. The area is also prone to earthquakes. Climate change will cause a rise in sea level on the Chinese Pacific Coast. Some scientists say that our estimations of the amount the sea will rise are far too low. In addition, the temperature of the Pacific Ocean is rising. If the ocean becomes too hot, seawater cannot be used for cooling reactors. All these factors could contribute to the need to abandon some of the coastal nuclear reactors.
Questions have also been raised about the availability of building materials, investment capital and trained personnel needed to build all the reactors that the Chinese have announced. While I do applaud long term planning with respect to national infrastructure, I am afraid that all indications are that this new century we are in will be very turbulent both in terms of the natural environment and human society. I suspect that unforeseen circumstances will prevent the construction of all the reactors that the Chinese have planned.
Day Bay Nuclear Power Station near Hong Kong:
Ambient office = .121 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .112 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .128 microsieverts per hour
Sliced mushroom from Costco = .126 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .117 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .102 microsieverts per hour
I have complained in prior blog posts about a lack of honesty on the part of national governments when it comes to accidents at nuclear reactors. At one time or another, all the countries which have nuclear power plants have had accidents and been accused of not informing the citizens who are at risk of exactly what has happened. The latest example which continues to this day is the aftermath of the disaster at Fukushima. It is still unclear exactly what is going on with the melted reactor cores and the cooling water that is leaking into the Pacific. I have been talking about China in the past few posts so I thought I would use this blog to explore how they have done in the honesty department when it comes to problems with their nuclear reactors.
There have been no major nuclear accidents in the small Chinese fleet of operational reactors so far but there have been releases of radiation from their power plants. In May of 2010 at the Daya Bay power plant in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, there was a radiation leak. The managers of the Daya Bay plant did not inform the public about the leak until three weeks after it had occurred. The national government in Beijing denied that any radiation had been released but a Hong Kong company that ownes shares in the Daya Bay plant confirmed that radiation had in fact been released. Here we have an excellent example of both the plant operators and the national government of China behaving in a dishonest way with respect to nuclear issues.
In October of 2011, the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency reported that the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) at the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) had gone offline because of an accident at the reactor. The Japanese and the Koreans were understandably paranoid about nuclear accidents because of the Fukushima disaster earlier in the year. The fact the Chinese authorities would not admit that there had been an accident or give any details on the situation did nothing to calm the international concern. There have been reports that the safety standards at the CIAE were very poor and that there were no monitors to measure leaking radiation. The director of the CIAE said that the CEFR had not operated since June of 2011, that safety standards for the CEFR were high and that there were teams and equipment to monitor any release of radiation from the reactor. Given the lack of honesty with the Daya Bay incident, one has to be skeptical that the director is being completely transparent about the CEFR.
As I have detailed in previous posts, the Chinese have extremely ambitious intentions with respect to the development of nuclear power in China. They state that they will build over one hundred new nuclear reactors in the next fifteen years. It is inevitable that there will be nuclear accidents at their reactors. Even if there are no problems with construction, operation or regulation, there are always hurricanes, floods or earthquakes that could lead to releases of radiation from Chinese nuclear power plants. Will the Chinese authorities be honest with their citizens and the international community when problems arise at their nuclear power plants?
Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor:
Spent fuel likely to break when pulled from Fukushima Unit 4 pool. Enenews.com
Planned “ice wall” for Fukushima is unlikely to work. Fukuleaks.org
Japanese Prime Minister Abe is lying when he says that contaminated water from Fukushima is completely blocked. Fukushima-diary.com
Arnie Gunderson says that Japanese doctors are not allowed to tell patients why they are sick. Nuclearhotseat.com
Ambient office = .121 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .112 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .128 microsieverts per hour
Celery from Costco = .126 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .117 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .102 microsieverts per hour
I have heard some people say that China’s government does not have to deal with all the delays and inertia of our governmental system. They say that if the Chinese want to do something, they just do it. There may have been times in Chinese history when this was true and I did make reference to such things in a recent blog post. But, as recent events have illustrated, things are not quite that easy in China. They have said that they were going to put two hundred and forty million peasants in brand new cities by 2025. However, they have empty cities build during the current real estate bubble and they cannot fill them. Either the people do not want to live in them or they cannot afford them. These two constraints show that the opinions of the people and economic factors limit what the Chinese government can command.
Recently, in the city of Heshan in the southern province of Guangdong, the Chinese government announced that it was going to build a uranium fuel processing facility to help fuel all the new reactors they say that they are going to build in near future. There was such a backlash from the citizens living in that city against the construction of the facility that the local Chinese government backed down and agreed to cancel the project. This is only one example of local governments in China cancelling controversial projects after public outcry. This sort of protest action and official capitulation is going to make it difficult for China’s to carry out their bold ambitions for a new reactor fleet.
Two new French reactors are being built just sixty miles east of Hong Kong in the coastal city of Taishan located in China’s Guangdong province. In the U.S., the NRC mandates a accident risk zone around a nuclear power plant for food, water and air contamination with a fifty mile radius so Hong Kong is definitely at risk if there are accidents at the new reactors. In addition, the Hong Kong residents have freedom of speech and are able to easily and openly express their concern unlike the rest of the residence of the Pearl River Delta near the reactor site. The protestors are demanding more information about the new reactors and are considering further protests and resistance to the reactor construction.
The new reactors are a recent French design. There are several of these reactors being built in Europe by the French but they are behind schedule and over budget. At this point, this particular French design has not been put into operation anywhere in the world. The French company Areva has experiences a drop off in their reactor business since Fukushima and they are hoping that if the new Chinese reactors go into operation and function smoothly, it will help boost the French nuclear industry back into profitability. The residents of Hong Kong are unhappy about being involuntarily drafted into being test subjects for the new reactors design.
I remember an old saying about how hard it is to switch from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right side of the road incrementally. It seems to me that China is in a similar position of trying to switch from a communist command system to a capitalist market driven system incrementally. The Chinese pay a lot of lip service to the “voice of the people” and now it looks like the voice of the people is having a significant impact on government projects.
Taishan reactor construction from China.org.cn:
There are growing calls for a boycott of the 2020 Olympics that are scheduled to be held in Tokyo. Rense.com
Prime Minister Abe has been lying consistently about the damage and danger of Fukushima. Enenews.com
Work has begun to remove the chimney of the first pile at Windscale which is a landmark in Britain’s nuclear history and the site of its worst accident. nuclearstreet.com
Operators shut down unit 2 at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant Thursday after a control rod dropped into the core during a test and could not be retrieved. nuclearstreet.com
