I have blogged in the past about my dislike of nuclear energy and the reasons why I think that it is a bad idea that should be retired as quickly as possible.  There are many complex aspects to the use of nuclear power to generate electricity. Even if I believed in nuclear power as a good way to generate electricity and combat global climate change, I would still be concerned about its viability above and beyond all the technical issues. Human beings don’t always rely on science to decide technological issues. Often there are other factors such as politics, economics, psychology, etc. that play a role in the adoption of new technology. Completely apart from the technical arguments over nuclear power generation, there looms the powerful force of public opinion. Every accident or problem with nuclear power that generates headlines corrodes the public trust of nuclear power.

           It has just been announced that Southern California Edison is going to close the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant.  Replacement steam generators failed in two years due to unreported design changes. The cost of waiting for permission to restart the plant has convinced SCE to permanently close the plant. The debate over exactly who pays for the repercussions of the shutdown order has already begun accompanied by lawsuits, of course.

           Duke Energy is shutting down the Crystal River reactor in Florida because of mounting repair cost estimates and lost income from having the plant offline. Duke is looking to collect billions of dollars from Florida customers to pay for the closure.

           The Kewaunee reactor in Iowa in Wisconsin is being permanently retired because the company that owns it cannot make a profit on the electricity it generates in the current soft market for power and they have been unable to find a buyer.

           These three stories contain elements that will be repeated as the current generation of reactors continue to operate past their original lifespan licenses. Failing equipment, expensive repairs, lost revenue, lack of ability to compete with other power sources, and other factors that shut these reactors will also cumulatively sour the public and investors on continuing to support nuclear power.

           The giant utility companies that make huge profits off of building and operating nuclear reactors will not leave the field without putting up a fight. There is a publicity push by nuclear industry representatives to convince the public and the investors that there is a bright new age of nuclear power coming. Contracts to build two new reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia are given as an example of new life in the industry along with applications for twenty more new U.S. reactors. However, there have been delays and cancellation for other new reactors recently. Duke Energy announcing this year that it was cancelling plans to build two new reactors at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in North Carolina. Apparently the nuclear industry outlook is not as rosy as it is being portrayed.

           It would be better for the world if nuclear power were seen as the bad choice that it is and all nuclear reactors were shutdown tomorrow. This will not happen. Years will pass, there will be more reactors built, more accidents, more equipment failures, more corporate dishonesty, more government incompetence and huge amounts of public spent. There will be more loss of life and environmental degradation before we can put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. But there will be an inevitable rejection of nuclear power by the public driven by many factors.

Fukushima evacuees could lose the right to seek damages from TEPCO because the statute of limitations for such suits of   three years is running out. ajw.asahi.com

Fishermen in Fukushima Prefecture have voiced opposition to Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s plan to release groundwater from its crippled nuclear power plant into the Pacific. japantimes.co.jp

NRC says that the Harris nuclear plant in North Carolina is safe to restart after a year-old reactor problem was found. washingtonpost.com

Analysis from Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has revealed the most contaminated areas in the Fukushima evacuation zone have reduced in size by three quarters over the last two years. world-nuclear-news.org

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on June 8, 2013

Ambient office = .088 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .068 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .064 microsieverts per hour

Bell pepper from Costco =  .095 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .096 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .075 microsieverts per hour

             I have posted a number of articles and news links about the troubled San Onofre reactors on the coast of Southern California. When two steam generators were recently replaced, the replacements failed in two years. There are charges now that Southern California Edison (SCE), the owners of the San Onofre power plant, made unreported design changes that contributed to the failure. With severe public backlash and investigations by the NRC, SCE has been demanding permission to restart the reactors in the near future. The NRC refused that permission and SCE threatened to shut down the reactors permanently unless they were allowed to restart soon.

           Now SCE has announced that it will permanently close the San Onofre plant. SCE has been spending thirty million dollars a month preparing for the restart. Delaying the startup for up to another year (which is a distinct possibility given the current regulatory process and ongoing investigations) would cost more than SCE is willing to spend. The availability of cheap natural gas has driven down the price of electricity and made repairing old nuclear power plants less attractive to their owners.

          I have written before about the cost of decommissioning nuclear reactors and I have warned that while this cost is supposed to be born by the owners of the plants, I fear that some or all of the cost for some reactors to be decommissioned will be passed along to the customers. SCE is already working on determining how much of the decommission cost it will try to pass along. At this time, the decommissioning fund which is supposed to be kept current is at least three hundred million dollars short. SCE is asking to be allowed to charge an extra sixteen million dollars per year to help with the decommissioning. SCE also is looking for one hundred thirty million dollars from the makers of the generators, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, LTD as well as two hundred and thirty million dollars from insurers. Some of the over five hundred million that customers had to pay for replacement power and some of the eight hundred million that customers were charged for operations when no power was being generated will have to be refunded.

          The California Public Utilities Commission has the authority to determine how much power customers will have to pay for the shutdown of the reactors. Sempra Energy which owns twenty percent of San Onofre is expecting that the Commission will allow it to recover over five hundred million dollars from rate payers.

          I have to ask whether or not these types of costs to power customers were ever factored in when the cost of nuclear generated electricity was estimated before the reactors were put into operation. The San Onofre plant’s license was going to expire around 2020. Many old reactors were relicensed for additional operation after the year 2000. With cheaper electricity and rising repair costs, how many more reactors will be shut down at great public expense in the near future?

Another radioactive leak has been found at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.  rt.com

U.S. regulators are directing 31 nuclear reactors similar in design to the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan to take additional steps to help contain radiation and other damage from any accident that is not quickly halted.  cnn.com

Radioactive contamination found under a bird’s nest stops work on the Hanford vitrification plant buildings. nuclearstreet.com

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission say that nuclear power plants can apply to avoid New York gun laws. syracuse.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on June 7, 2013

Ambient office = .093 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .087 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .085 microsieverts per hour

Bulk peanuts from Costco =  .096 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .1059 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .081 microsieverts per hour

          I have mentioned the recent interest in a new generation of small modular reactors in previous posts. Various groups have been working on developing these new devices and bring them to market. Some utilities have been considering purchasing production models of these new designs.

          Small modular reactors (SMR) are classified as generating under three hundred megawatts. They are constructed in a factory and delivered fully assembled to the site. This reduces construction time and cost as well as increasing nuclear security. They have natural cooling systems that work when external energy is lost and they locate the core and the spent fuel pool underground. Containment is improved and proliferation is more difficult. SMR design has been moving forward with the help of a grant program of four hundred fifty two dollars to assist in the development and licensing the new technology.

          The Idaho National Environment & Engineering Laboratory (INEEL) and Oregon State University (OSU) began a project on SMRs with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2000. After the project ended in 2003, OSU continued working on the design of SMRs. In 2007, OSU granted NuScale Power exclusive rights to their designs through a technology transfer program. NuScale Power has been applying to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for licenses for their new technology.  One of the companies on the advisory board of NuScale is MidAmerican Energy.

           MidAmerican Energy is Iowa’s largest energy company. The company provides electricity to a ten thousand square mile area including parts of Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota and Nebraska. About forty five percent is supplied by coal, about thirty percent is wind powered, nineteen percent is from natural gas and only six percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and other sources.

           MidAmerican Energy recently raised fourteen million dollars from their rate payers to study the feasibility of purchasing two SMRs for installation at two of their power stations. They had gone to the trouble of getting purchase options for sites. Upon completion of their three year study, they concluded that they were going to abandon their plans to purchase and install two SMRs. Their decision was based primarily on the fact that there is currently not a licensed design for a SMR. They intend to refund eight million eight hundred thousand dollars to the rate payers.

          Here we have a supporter of SMR development that has decided that it is just too early to implement the technology. There may be a bit of the old chicken and egg thing going on here. There is not a proven design so there isn’t a market. If there was a market, then someone would finalize a proven design. Although a lot of time and money has been put into SMRs, I am afraid that it is a technology whose time has not come yet.

Comparison of NuScale reactor size with conventional reactor:

Two leading proponents of atomic energy, who clashed over the extent of the Fukushima exclusion zone two years ago, now stand united in their opposition to nuclear power. rense.com

Workers miscalculated pressure levels inside a reactor during the early stages of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, leading to a reduction in cooling water and a possible increase in the volume of radioactive materials released. ajw.asahi.com

A Japanese diplomat says that we are facing global catastrophe over next 40-100 years because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.  fairewinds.org

Carbon-14 from nuclear bomb tests reveals that human adults grow new brain cells. news.yahoo.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on June 6, 2013

Ambient office = .083 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .089 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .103 microsieverts per hour

Bulk peanuts from Costco =  .126 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .105 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .084 microsieverts per hour

              . The United States and Russia have thousands of warheads either deployed or stored for possible use.  The U.S. and Russia have decided to spend billions in developing new long range nuclear bombers to replace their aging fleets. In addition, both countries are working to maintain their existing stockpiles of warheads. While the U.S. and Russia are negotiating lower levels of operational warheads, other nuclear powers are busy building up their stockpiles

                China is the next highest military spender after the U.S. which spends more on “defense” than the next 13 countries combined. China wants to be a regional super power in Asia and feels that it needs to expand its military capabilities to deal with neighbors and the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. China has added ten nuclear warheads to their inventory, bringing it to two hundred and fifty. They are also committed to the development of new long range warhead delivery systems. On the bright side, we buy one quarter of their exports and they buy eight percent of our debt so any outbreak of hostilities would be very bad for the economies of both countries.

               India and Pakistan have been feuding off and on since the two countries were created when the British granted their former colony independence in 1947. When India became a nuclear power with its first successful test device in 1974, Pakistan felt that it also had to become a nuclear power to balance its rival. In 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test and Pakistan conducted a whole series of underground nuclear tests. In the past year, Pakistan added another ten warheads bringing its inventory to about one hundred and twenty warheads and India added another ten warheads bringing its inventory to about one hundred and ten. Both countries are working on more advanced delivery systems, Even a limited nuclear exchange between these neighboring countries would be disastrous for both. Analysis of the prevailing winds and different times of the year indicate that explosions in either country would result in radioactive fallout in the other country.

              France has not changed its inventory of three hundred warheads. England continues to maintain two hundred twenty five warheads. It is estimated that Israel has about eighty nuclear warheads. North Korea is estimated to only have a few nuclear warheads. However, its instability and belligerent attitude are destabilizing East Asia. Japan’s constitution forbids it from having nuclear weapons but there are political factions in Japan who want to change that in view of its nuclear armed neighbors. Japan has a sophisticated nuclear industry and facilities that can turn out weapons grade plutonium. It would not take long for Japan to also become a nuclear power.

             Unfortunately, the explosion of dozens of nuclear bombs could kill millions and plunge the world into chaos. The explosion of a few hundred nuclear bombs could destroy human civilization. While the other nuclear powers have small stockpiles compared to the U.S. and Russia, even they pose a major threat to the world.