Author: Burt Webb
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Geiger Readings for August 16, 2013
Ambient office = .141 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .090 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .087 microsieverts per hour
Locally grow zuccinni from local grocery = .143 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .073 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .058 microsieverts per hour
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Nuclear Reactors 40 – Problems in Russian Nuclear Industry
I have had a lot to say about problems in the Japanese nuclear industry in previous blog posts. Major players in the industry have been shown to be corrupt as have government agencies that should be regulating the industry. TEPCO knew about the problems that caused the Fukushima disaster and could have done something about them before the tsunami. Other problems have been reported with reactor designs and manufacture of reactor components.
Recently, I posted a blog about problems in the South Korea nuclear industry which a government study termed an “entrenched chain of corruption.” Substandard parts were being fraudulently certified as meeting standards and had been installed in fourteen out of twenty three reactors operating in South Korea. Both Japan and South Korea have been investing heavily in the export of nuclear technology to help stimulate their economies.
Another country that is aggressively pushing the export of nuclear technology to other countries is Russia. Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation is a state corporation that controls the nuclear weapons industry, nuclear research facilities, radiation safety agencies and the use of nuclear energy for commercial purposes such as the generation of electricity. As in many other countries, Rosatom faces the same conflict of interest in both regulating the nuclear industry and promoting the nuclear industry. There is no significant oversight of Rosatom activities.
There are watchdog groups in Russia that are demanding official investigations into widespread reports of violations and abuses in the nuclear industry. One big concern is the purchase and installation of counterfeit and uncertified reactor components both inside Russia and in reactors that Russia is constructing in other countries. Another major concern is that reactor construction is compromised by theft in the form of substitution of cheaper and sub-quality materials with the construction company pocketing the difference in cost. Rosatom has its own standards for negotiating contracts which are not as strict as the usual Russian federal contracting standards. It is now legal for reactor designers to purchase components from any company that they choose without going through the tender process of requesting bids from competing companies.
The National Ecological Centre of Ukraine posted the following statement on their website: “The numerous violations of construction norms and standards, and working conditions, which lead to serious incidents at nuclear power plant construction sites in Russia, cast doubt on the capability of the State Corporation Rosatom and its subcontractor companies of carrying out quality and reliable construction projects as per Rosatom’s export contracts.”
The Belarusian Anti-Nuclear Campaign fighting the construction of a Russian reactor in the town of Ostrovets said this: “The known incidents and deficiencies in the operation and construction of Russian-built NPPs in Russia, Iran, and China, as well as the recent collapse of reinforcing steelwork at the construction site of the containment building at [Leningrad] NPP-2, are evidence that Rosatom and its structures have serious problems of a systemic nature and cannot guarantee the quality of their sites. This propagation of dangerous nuclear technologies places a special responsibility on the Russian government.” China has filed thousands of complaints about the quality of equipment being installed in a Russian reactor being built there.
Countries without their own nuclear industries are being courted by Russia, Japan and South Korea as possible customers for nuclear reactor technology. If I were a decision maker in any of country considering the purchase of a nuclear power plant, I would think twice before buying a reactor from Russia, Japan or South Korea.
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Radiation News Roundup for August 15, 2013
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Geiger Readings for August 15, 2013
Ambient office = .102 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .121 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .100 microsieverts per hour
Banana from local grocery = .098 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .066 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .056 microsieverts per hour
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Radioactive Waste 55 – The Return of Yucca Mountain
We have all seen movies where they thought that they had killed the monster when suddenly it pops up again. It was generally believed that the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository in Nevada had been permanently cancelled and, to abuse the metaphor, it was dead. Now it seems that reports of its death may have been premature. Recently a federal appeals court has decided to resurrect the beast.
The Yucca Mountain site was chosen by Congress in the early 80s as the location for a permanent deep geological repository to house the spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors. The State of Nevada and its elected representatives were strongly opposed to the decision. Harry Reid, the Nevada Senator who became the Senate Majority Leader fought against the project and managed to prevent the appropriation of some of the required funding. When Obama was running for the presidency, he promised to cancel the project which he did soon after he was elected. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission halted work on a review of the site after Obama cancelled the project. Eleven million dollars allocated for the study was never spent. Work began to find another site for a deep geological repository but it was estimated that no such site would be operating before 2048.
On August 13, 2013 the Federal Appeals court for the District of Columbia ruled 2 to 1 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority when it stopped work on the review of the Yucca Mountain site in response to the orders of the Obama administration. The case was brought by the States of Washington and South Carolina which have military nuclear waste that they intended to send to Yucca Mountain. The majority opinion was based on the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution. Judge Kavenaugh said that allowing the executive branch and agencies such as the NRC to disregard federal law would be a violation of that separation. He ordered the NRC to proceed to spend the remaining eleven million dollars on continuing the halted site review. The dissenting judge said that the site review would be a waste of money because eleven million dollars would not be sufficient to reach a conclusion of whether or not the site would be a safe place to store spent nuclear fuel. Harry Reid said that the court’s decision was meaningless.
The NRC had gone to a great deal of effort to carry out the review including the construction of a special courtroom in Nevada and a special computer link back to NRC Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to facilitate access to thousands of documents regarding the project. The courtroom has been dismantled and the computer link has been taken down. The NRC completed most of the work on the first stage of the project focusing on a Safety Evaluation Report. One volume of the projected five volumes of the Safety Report has been completed and published. The other four volumes were issued as technical reports with no official conclusions. It might be possible for the NRC to use the remaining eleven million dollars to complete and publish the full Safety Evaluation Report but the Safety Evaluation is only one part of the review process.
The current head of the NRC is a geologist who had strong reservations about the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site before the project was cancelled. Congress is currently debating legislation to facilitate the search for another repository site. The Department of Energy withdrew its application for a license to construct the repository soon after Obama cancelled the project. Although Yucca Mountain has temporarily been given a new lease on life, I am afraid that it will soon be dead once and for all.
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Geiger Readings for August 14, 2013
Ambient office = .067 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .138 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .101 microsieverts per hour
Locally baked ciabatta bread from local grocery = .123 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .129 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .124 microsieverts per hour
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Nuclear Reactors 39 – Scandal in South Korea
I have mentioned the problems the nuclear industry in South Korea (S.K.) are having with fraudulent parts replacement in previous posts. Today I am going to drill down into the South Korean scandal in more detail. For years, S.K. has depended on nuclear power for about one third of their electricity. Unfortunately, an unholy trinity of nuclear power companies, nuclear equipment suppliers and nuclear equipment testing companies has been recently been revealed that threatens the S.K. use of nuclear power.
Last April, an official investigation was started after authorizes received a tip from an anonymous source revealing information about illegal practices. Some officials at a testing company have been indicted by prosecutors for faking safety tests on parts intended for installation in nuclear power plants. There is a state-owned company that designs nuclear power plants. Some of the officials at that company were indicted for taking bribes from testing companies in return for accepting substandard parts. Recently more nuclear parts suppliers had their offices raided. And even more companies may be pulled into the search. Investigators are working their way through over one hundred thousand test certifications from the past decade to find out which are fraudulent.
To date, investigators have found that testing companies skipped some sections of mandatory tests, forged test data to meet requirements and even issued certification of safety for parts that had actually failed the tests. Investigations have revealed that the suspect components are installed in fourteen out of the twenty three nuclear power plants in S.K. This amounts to concerns with two thirds of their nuclear plants. At first, the government said that the thousands of parts that had not met requirements were not important because they were installed in peripheral and non-critical systems. Then three plants had to be closed because questionable parts had indeed been installed in critical places. More plants may have to be closed as the investigation proceeds. A nuclear engineer in S.K. has said that so far only the tip of iceberg has been revealed.
The S.K. government has consistently told their citizens that nuclear power was safe and they were in no danger. The public is becoming increasingly concerned about the truth of that position as more and more problems have been revealed. The closing of the three reactors has prompted the government to ask the citizens of S.K. to conserve energy during a particularly warm summer which has further corroded the public confidence. In addition, the S.K. government has been promoting the export of nuclear technology to other countries as one of the solutions to a cooling of S.K. economy. These problems with part certification could be a public relations disaster for S.K. companies trying to sell S.K. nuclear technology abroad.
The investigators blame the problems they uncovered on the highly centralized and poorly regulated S.K. nuclear industry. There is one state owned company that runs all the nuclear power plants. Another state-owned company designs and builds all the nuclear power plants. People retiring from these state-owned companies often move on to the suppliers and testing companies or, in some cases, investin suppliers and testing companies. In the S.K. culture, personal ties are very important and can sometimes overrule adherence to laws and regulations. In addition, there is the ever present problem of corruption and the lure of bribes. The investigators refer to the situation in the S.K. nuclear industry as an “entrenched chain of corruption.” The targeted companies have promised to institute new practices to root out corruption and improve testing and certification. However, such promises have proved empty in the past and I have little confidence that they will be honored in the future.
