TEPCO says that plutonium in Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel can be leaking out from holes and cracks in the fuel rods. enenews.com

Nuclear engineer says that every expert he talked to this week is very concerned about a criticality event during fuel removal at Fukushima Unit 4. enenews.com

ABC NEWS says that the U.S. West Coast may have to be evacuated when Fukishima radiation moving across the Pacific Ocean arrives. youtube.com

The total economic impact of the nuclear industry in North and South Carolina has been estimated to exceed at least $20 billion per year in a detailed study carried out by a team at Clemson University. world-nuclear-news.org

           I have blogged in the past about the Nuclear Waste Fund. A law was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1980 to have operators of nuclear reactors make annual payments into a fund that would be used to create a permanent geological repository for nuclear wastes in the U.S. by 1999. In 1987, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was designated as the potential site for the national repository. A great deal of research and development was put into creating such a repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. In 2002, three years after the repository was supposed to be open for waste disposal, Congress official stated that Yucca Mountain would be the site. The project continued under heavy criticism for not addressing some potential environmental problems. Harry Reid, a Democratic Senator from Nevada and the current Senate Majority leader has strongly opposed the Yucca Mountain Repository. Presidential Candidate Obama campaigned against the repository in the 2008 presidential election. In 2011, the Obama administration ended funding for the Yucca Mountain repository.

            There is around thirty billion dollars in the repository fund now. Nuclear plant operators have been suing the Federal government in an attempt to recover some of the money in the fund and/or to have the mandatory fund collection halted because of the missed 1999 deadline and the fact that there will be no permanent repository until 2040 at the earliest. There is also a push to have the repository funds made available for dry cask storage at nuclear plants. The nuclear waste situation in the U.S. is getting desperate. It is estimated that all the spent fuel pools at all the nuclear plants will be full by 2017. Spent nuclear fuel assemblies can be stored in dry casks on or off site. Unfortunately, as the law for the repository fund is written, none of the fund can be spent on building dry storage casks.

           A few days ago, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the mandatory fund collection of about seven hundred and fifty million dollar a year had to stop. The court said that since the Yucca Mountain repository project had been cancelled and there was currently no viable alternative project for permanent storage of nuclear waste in the U.S., there was no justification for the continued payments. The nuclear power industry said that this was a “win” for the consumers because they would no longer have to support the repository fund with higher prices for nuclear power.

           I think that this is very bad decision. The U.S. is going to have to find a solution to permanent nuclear waste storage. One thing I can guarantee is that the cost for any future repository will continue to climb until it is completed. The thirty billion currently in the fund will not cover the eventual cost. As far as the U.S. public not having to pay now for permanent disposal only means that they will have to pay more when a final solution is found for the disposal of nuclear waste.

Proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository design.

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Fukushima radiation release estimates have been compiled. fukuleaks.org

A documentary film that exposes the effect of Japan nuclear technology on a small village in Vietnam will be shown at this year’s Fukuoka Asian Film Festival. nuclearexportcontrols.blogspot.co.uk

Next month the California Public Utility Commission will consider the first of what will likely be multiple customer refunds related to the closure of the San Onofre nuclear plant. nuclearstreet.com

Thousands of people protested in Tokyo on Thursday against a proposed secrets act that critics say would stifle information on issues such as the Fukushima nuclear crisis. ca.news.yahoo.com

Today I am going to catch up on several news stories about the Iran nuclear program. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have imposed harsh trade sanctions to try to get Iran to stop enriching uranium. They fear that Iran is working on developing nuclear weapons. While the U.S. and other major powers are trying to cut a temporary deal with Iran, Israel is lobbying for even more severe sanctions and threatening to take unilateral military action to stop Iran. Saudi Arabia may obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan if the Iranians do develop a nuclear bomb.

Recently a dissident group named the National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed that Iran has added another nuclear site to its program. They demand that U.N. inspectors be granted immediate access to the new undeclared site. The new site is supposed to be in an eighteen hundred foot tunnel complex at a military site beneath a mountain near the town of Mobarekeh. The dissidents say that Iran is creating a secret parallel nuclear program in addition to its publicly identified nuclear research sites. The U.N. fears that such a complex may contain thousands of centrifuges dedicated to the enrichment of uranium to the point where it could be used in a bomb. The U.N. Security Council is demanding access to any additional undeclared nuclear research sites.

Israel is frustrated by the failure of the U.S. and other nations to take a harder line against Iran over its nuclear program. The Israeli Prime Minister says that the “temporary” deal being discussed with Iran would not stop their nuclear program and would just give them more time to develop nuclear weapons as they stall during negotiation for a final deal to shut down their nuclear program. The Prime Minister is going to go to Moscow to try to get more support from the Kremlin for stricter trade sanctions against Iran. He says that the interim deal being discussed will not deprive Iran of its centrifuges for enriching uranium and that any temporary halt to enrichment activities can be reversed in weeks. The Prime Minister hopes that he can persuade Russia to support removal of Iran’s centrifuges. Russia has a strong relationship with Iran and has provided technical assistance for Iran’s nuclear program.

France, one of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, is upset with recent remarks about Israel attributed to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. In a speech before a paramilitary group, Khamenei said that he supports the negotiations but that Iran will not give up its “nuclear rights” which critics of the regime say are a reference to the right of Iran to enrich uranium. Iran is a signatory of international treaties that allow members to enrich uranium for peaceful nuclear power programs. The Supreme Leader referred to Israel as the “rabid dog” of the Middle East which is trying to “torpedo” the negotiations. He also said that Israel’s leaders were “not worthy to be called human.” France said that the comments were not helpful and that they would make negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program more difficult.

The international community’s attempt to restrain Iran’s potential development of nuclear weapons is causing a lot of acrimony between old allies and cooperation between old enemies. The situation is very complicated and potentially very dangerous. As I have said before, if Israel decides to strike Iran, it could lead to a wider war.

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Tokyo Electric Power Co. has finally moved into the decommissioning process at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, despite doubt over its ability to manage a highly dangerous effort that will take decades. japantimes.co.jp

Fukushima reactor designer say that he doubts that the Fukushima plant can be decommissioned and that maybe it should be enclosed in cement. enenews.com

Attitudes of the workers and military command in US nuclear force differ. washingtonpost.com

Taiwan should update the assessment of all natural hazards that could affect its nuclear power plants, notably for earthquakes and tsunamis, the European Commission (EC) has recommended. world-nuclear-news.org

Ambient office = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Bartlett pear from Top Foods =  117 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

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           I have blogged about the role of nuclear energy in curbing carbon dioxide emissions. I have blogged about the concern about water both as a resource for and a threat to nuclear energy plants. And I have had a lot to say about the costs of nuclear power. I bring them together in yesterday’s and today’s blogs. Yesterday’s blog discussed climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, and the economics of nuclear power. Today, I will talk about the issues with water and wrap up the subject.

           Nuclear power plants require vast amounts of water for cooling. This can be a problem when the flow of water in major rivers drops because of human use or drought. And, there have been a number of recent cases where the temperature of the water in lakes and in the ocean has gotten too hot to be used for cooling and nuclear plants had to be shut down temporarily. Now it is interesting to note that due to climate change, there will be more droughts and warmer bodies of water which will interfere with nuclear power generation.

          Patterns of rainfall are changing due to climate change and have caused extensive, severe and surprising floods. One fourth of the power reactors in the U.S. are located downstream from dams that could threaten the reactors if they broke or overflowed. Other reactors are in danger of flooding from nearby rivers. Costal reactors are vulnerable to hurricanes which are going to be even stronger in the future because of climate change. So water needed for cooling may be in short supply and water from storms threatens to flood reactors.

           And, finally, nuclear power currently provides about twenty percent of the electricity in the U.S. Generation of electricity accounts for about thirty percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions for the U.S. So, in other words , if we built four hundred new nuclear reactors in the next few decades, we might reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. by about twenty percent at an enormous cost in environmental degradation from mining and accidents, threats to public health, hundreds of billions of dollars and the generation of huge amounts of nuclear waste while we are unable to deal with the nuclear waste we have already generated. If we choose to use breeder reactors to generate fuel and burn waste, we will have to spend precious years in research and development. And, there is a danger of theft of weapons grade nuclear materials from breeder reactor facilities. When you look at carbon dioxide reduction, cost and water concerns together in the context of needing to slow climate change caused by rising carbon dioxide levels, nuclear power just does not provide a good solution for climate change.

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