Recent report says that Fukushima “far worse” than authorities admit. enenews.com

Japan newspapers are saying that it appears ‘high-level radioactive contaminated water’ is flowing into ocean at Fukushima. enenews.com

Jamie Edwards, who describes himself as an “amateur nuclear scientist,” claims to have achieved fusion earlier this week after researching and building a fusor.  world-nuclear-news.org

A random fitness for duty test last week suggested a senior reactor operator at the Salem nuclear plant had been using cocaine. nuclearstreet.com

          I have been intending to talk about the failed Washington Public Power Supply System(WPPSS) reactor construction program but kept putting it off. Given that there is a new push for nuclear power in Washington State, perhaps this is the right time to talk about WPPSS.

          WPPSS was set up as a municipal corporation in 1957 by the Washington State Legislature, giving it the same legal status as a city. The purpose of WPPSS was to provide a framework for public utility companies to combine their resources to build the power generation facilities necessary to insure a steady and adequate supply of electricity for the citizens of the state. Seattle City Light was the largest of the sixteen utilities that bought into WPPSS. The board for WPPSS consisted of directors from the member utilities. The first WPPSS project was a dam at Packwood Lake which was completed in 1964.

          Early WPPSS projections suggested that the electricity consumption of Washington State would double every ten years. This would eventually exceed the capacity of hydroelectric generation in the state. There had been a national push for nuclear power generation in the fifties. As I have commented before, this was partially connected to the development and construction of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. WPPSS concluded that nuclear power would be a good choice to provide clean and plentiful energy for future Washington State needs.

          WPPSS began developing plans for a power reactor at Hanford. In 1971, public utilities in the state signed up to share the costs and benefits of the reactor. The following year, a second Hanford reactor and a reactor at Satsop in Gray Harbor County were proposed. Then a third Hanford reactor and a second Satsop reactor were added to the project.

           The project was plagued by cost overruns and scheduling delays. The contractors often ran ahead of the designers resulting in designers often redrawing their plans to match what had been built. The regulatory demands of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission added to the costs. The biggest problem was the incompetent management of the WPPSS board of directors. In their defense, it can be said that they had no previous experience with the complex world of nuclear engineering. They had trouble selecting competent contractors and quality control inspectors often complained that work was not being done correctly or corrected after inspections. Even the board was not informed of all the problems and work delays as the project fell further behind schedule. Seattle City Light signed up to take power from the first three of the new WPPSS reactors. This obligated the ratepayers to pay for the construction of the reactors. In 1973, Seattle City Light was offered the chance to also participate in the construction of the planned fourth and fifth WPPSS reactors.

           On the pro side of the debate over Seattle’s participation in the WPPSS project was the energy shortage of 1973 and low snow packs for hydropower around the same time. On the con side of the debate, the Washington Environmental Council filed suit against Seattle City Light to force an environmental impact statement to be produced with respect to the Hanford reactors which Seattle City Light had contracted with for future power. The law suit was dropped when the Superintendant of Seattle City Light agreed to open up the discussion to public input by creating a twenty seven member Citizen’s Oversight Committee. The Energy 1990 study was one result of this expansion of the process. Seattle City Light proposed a 10% share of two of the new reactors which was reduced to a 5% share later. The Committee rejected nuclear power generation and suggested that conservation was the best choice. The Seattle City Council agree with the Committee and rejected any investment in the last two of the new reactors. Conservation programs did help Seattle City Light meet its goals.

 Satsop, Washington WPPSS construction site :          

Satsop WPPSS construction site.jpg

Radioactive cesium has massively contaminated Japan.  vimeo.com

Fukushima Unit 4 has had a total of 418 fuel assemblies removed from the spent fuel pool to the common pool as of earlier this week. fukuleaks.org

The first batch of 56 mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies has been shipped to Beloyarsk 4 as Russia’s first-of-a-kind BN-800 fast reactor prepares to start up. world-nuclear-news.org

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited a medical assistant at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station for “deliberately failing to conduct required tests for licensed plant operators.” plymouth.wickedlocal.com

          The Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River in south central Washington State is owned by the Grant County Public Utility District. The reservoir created by the dam is called Lake Wanapum. The dam was licensed in 1955 for a fifty year span. Construction started in 1959 and the dam went operational in 1963, generating about a gigawatt of electricity. The cost of construction was about a ninety million dollars.

           After the original license expired in 2005, the dam was operated on a year to year license until an extension of forty four years was granted in 2008. The extension was conditional on the achievement of the following goals.

• modernize the power generation capability of the dam
• monitor water quality
• improve wildlife habitat
• protect nearly 700 Wanapum Tribe archaeological sites in the vicinity
• enhance recreation with new campsites, picnic areas and trails

           A few days ago on the 1st of March, a two inch crack was discovered that extended sixty five feet in one of the tall sections of concrete in the spillway of the dam. The Grant County PUD immediately began lowering the level of water behind the dam by twenty five feet in order to reduce pressure on the dam while a inspection was conducted. After the water level went down, the crack closed by an inch as the stress was reduced. A spokesperson for the Grant County PUD issued the following statement: “Now we are moving into the next phase, which is to investigate it further, identify a cause, and begin looking into some of those short term and long term potential fixes.”

          The Columbia River and Lake Wanapum are recreational boating areas where tourism is important to the economy. The area has been closed to boating because of the lowered water level. It will likely be kept at the lower level all summer, impacting the local economy.

           The Grant County PUD has come under intense criticism for not having any contingency plan in place to deal with such cracks even though it was probable that some cracks would form over time. The Grant County PUD spokesperson said that even if the spillway with the crack failed, the rest of the dam would keep the flow of water manageable. We can only hope that this is true.

           The reason that I have been talking about the problems at the Wanapum Dam is that it is about forty miles north of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Nuclear reactors require a great deal of water for cooling. One in five of the operating nuclear power reactors is under threat of flood and the U.S. Nuclear Regulation Commission is pressuring the owners of the endangered reactors to upgrade their preparations for dealing with floods.

          The Priest Rapids Dam is downstream from the Wanapum Dam and only ten miles from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The Columbia River follows the north and east borders of Hanford. If there was a break in the Wanapum Dam that impacted the Priest Rapids Dam, flood waters could enter Hanford. There is still a lot of radioactive contamination in the soil at Hanford. Flooding could very well leach these radioactive materials out of the soil and carry them down the Columbia River. The intake for the municipal water supply for Richland is just downstream from the Hanford Reservation.

          While the chances of severe flooding at Hanford are slim, potential flooding is just another reason that Hanford should be cleaned up. The discussion of locating a new reactor at Hanford must take into account the possibility of flooding among many other issues.

Wanapum Dam:

Wanapum dam 1.png

There have already been reports of genetic defects and radiation-induced illness after Fukushima. enenews.com

The overflowed contaminated water at Fukushima is being removed by hand-boring of the human workers. fukushima-diary.com

Greenpeace activists have intruded onto the sites of some of Europe’s oldest nuclear power plants.  world-nuclear-news.org

Exelon Warns Ill. Legislators of possible nuclear plant closures at Byron, Quad Cities and Clinton if market conditions don’t improve. nuclearstreet.com

          I have been writing this blog for almost two years now. I have learned many new things about radioactivity and nuclear issues. Since this will be my five hundredth post, I thought that I would reflect on some of the important things that I have learned.

          Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are tightly connected. It is doubtful that nuclear power would have enjoyed the early support and financing that it did without the fact that a strong nuclear industry was necessary but expensive for the major world powers who wanted nuclear weapons. Part of the hugely expensive cost of nuclear weapons development and manufacture was born by the creation of civilian nuclear power generation.

          Nuclear power is enormously damaging to the environment. The mining and extraction of uranium is horribly polluting. If there are accidents, large areas can be contaminated and there is no way to really clean up the contamination. Nuclear waste is difficult to dispose of. There are no facilities available to permanently dispose of all the nuclear waste in the world. There is a thriving trade in the questionable and downright illegal attempts to get rid of nuclear waste which threaten the environment.

          There is no safe level for exposure to radiation. Any radiation, whether natural or man-made has heath impacts. Raise the radiation level anywhere and you raise the health damage. One of the big problems with the recognition of this fact is that it can take decades for cancers to develop so it is hard to be certain exactly what caused a particular cancer. This makes it difficult to convince policy makers and the public about the danger of any nuclear power generation.

          There is a huge amount of money involved in the nuclear power industry. It is unlikely that we would still be building nuclear reactors for power if not for the fact that individuals and companies can become very wealthy in the nuclear industry.
They are able to lobby policy makers for protection against bearing the whole cost of damage caused by nuclear accidents as well as loan guarantees and outright subsidies paid for by the taxpayers.

          The nuclear industry is important in international affairs. Countries such as Japan, Russia and France have state supported nuclear industries that are part of their plans for economic expansion and international trade. With declining uranium production, Russia is betting that plutonium will be the nuclear fuel of the future and they are investing heavily in breeder reactors. The world has suffered from dependence on a few countries to provide the bulk of fossil fuels and will suffer in the future if Russia has a plutonium production monopoly.

          The disaster at Fukushima was a wake-up call for the world on the dangers of nuclear power reactors. About one in five nuclear power reactors in the U.S. are built on the same flawed design as the Fukushima reactors. About one in five nuclear power reactors in the U.S. are under threat from flooding that will accompany the increasingly extreme weather driven by global climate change. A few more major nuclear accidents (which many experts believe are inevitable) will so damage the reputation of nuclear power generation that public support and private financing of nuclear power will disappear.

         Nuclear power is not necessary. The cost of renewable energy is dropping and the cost of nuclear power is rising. This is a long term historical trend. With renewables and nuclear power reaching parity in costs now, in the future it will be much cheaper to provide electricity from renewable sources. If a fraction of the money that has been and is being spent on nuclear power were spent on renewables research, the transition from fossil fuels would happen much sooner.

No Nukes.PNG

Arnie Gundersen predicts millions of cancers in Japan due to Fukushima. enenews.com

Conflicting comments from leaders in the Czech Republic suggest that the political consequences from Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula could reach into the market for new reactors. nuclearstreet.com

High humidity inside the containment of unit 1 is believed to have set off a fire alarm at Pennsylvania’s Beaver Valley nuclear plant over the weekend, causing operators to declare an unusual event until workers could confirm that there was not actually smoke in the building. nuclearstreet.com

The UK government has launched a public consultation on how it will deal with a small amount of overseas origin used fuel that will remain in the country when reprocessing activities end in 2018. world-nuclear-news.org