Japan’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday that one reactor was sitting directly above an active tectonic fault, effectively ruling out a restart forever. phys.org

On 5/21/2013, a research group reported about “Surface pathway and subduction of Fukushima radioactivity in the North Pacific Ocean in March 2011 – June 2012″ in the Japan 2013Geoscience Union Meeting. fukushima-diary.com

Intermountain Healthcare, a Salt Lake City-based nonprofit group of 22 hospitals and 185 clinics, is launching the first major system of its kind to measure and report patients’ cumulative medical radiation exposure from tests that deliver the highest amount of radiation. online.wsj.com

Three years ago, in full Federation uniforms, several executives and line employees at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,  or SONGS,  in Pendleton, Calif., made a spoof “Star Trek” video called “SONGS TREK” right inside the nuclear station’s training facility. abcnews.go.com

Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 23, 2013

Ambient office = .091 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .099 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .105 microsieverts per hour

Bing cherries from local grocery store = .116 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .083 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .070 microsieverts per hour

           The Nuclear Energy Institute is the trade organization that represents and lobbies for the nuclear industry in the United State.  In their promotion of nuclear reactors they tend to emphasize the positive aspects and overlook or excuse many of the negative aspects. Recently, Marvin Fertel the NEI President and CEO gave the keynote address at the annual meeting of the NEI.

            One of the main points of the address was that the rebounding U.S. economy will lead to an increase in electricity demand which will be filled by expanding the nuclear reactor fleet. There are ten applications for construction and operating licenses for new reactors currently being considered by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will take years for these applications to work their way through the process and constructions won’t start for years if they are approved.

            More near term, the NEI President highlighted current reactor construction projects in the U.S. Concrete is being poured at Plant Vogtle in Georgia for two new reactors that are already forty percent complete. It is the biggest construction project in Georgia and is responsible for thousands of jobs. Unfortunately for nuclear power boosters, this project has been plagued by delays, unexpected construction costs, law suits, safety concerns and demands by the owners for a hike in electrical rates to pay for the problems.

           The NEI President also mentioned the new reactor being constructed at Plant Summer in South Carolina. He mentioned the size of the project and the new jobs but did not say much of anything about the almost ten percent increase in costs over the original estimates and the delays on the project.

            Reactor projects in Florida have been delayed because of the cheaper electricity being generated by the cheaper natural gas power generation stations. A plant in Illinois has been slated for permanent closure because of the cheaper energy available.

             The NEI President was trying to make an argument based on economics but that is a very shaky argument. As the above examples indicate, the cost of nuclear power is rising. And with the boom in fracking, the cost of electricity from natural gas is dropping. In addition, the cost of solar and wind power are also dropping. It is pretty obvious that these strictly economic facts argue against a bright future for nuclear power generation.

             On top of that, the disaster at Fukushima aroused a lot of hostility around the world against nuclear power. Another earthquake has just created additional leaks at Fukushima. The spent nuclear fuel pool of Unit Four is teetering four stories in the air in a severely damaged building. Another quake could take it down at any time and spread more radiation around the world. The cores of reactors Two and Three at Fukushima that melted down are still hot and must be constantly cooled by water. TEPCO wants to dump some of that contaminated water into the ocean which will continue to increase the radioactivity of plankton and fish in the Pacific Ocean for decades at the least.

             One more major disaster at Fukushima or anywhere in the world will increase the pressure to end the use of nuclear power worldwide. It will also reduce the availability of capital for investment in nuclear reactors. I am afraid that the future of nuclear energy is not as bright as the NEI President suggests.

Construction at Vogtle, image by Charles C Watson, Jr.:

 

An oil pump fire interrupted the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant startup. nuclearstreet.com

Radioactive debris from Fukushima nuclear plant will exceed the capacity of available the storage by 2015. fukushima-diary.com

A magnitude 6 quake has caused a new leak at Fukushima nuclear power plant. enenews.com

Strateco announces $87 million impairment charge from the Quebec Minister decision not to issue certificate of authorization the Matoush project. yournuclearnews.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 22, 2013

Ambient office = .146 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .189 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .145 microsieverts per hour

Zante Currants from local grocery store = .086 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .126 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .110 microsieverts per hour

          On the first of May, a ship called the Atlantic Carrier was carrying radioactive materials for a uranium enrichment facility in Lingen, Germany into the harbor of Hamburg, Germany. The ship caught fire but firefighters managed remove the containers with the radioactive cargo and put out the fire before there was a major release of radioactivity.

          The cargo of the container ship included nine tons of uranium hexafluoride. This chemical is highly radioactive and toxic. It is used to enrich uranium during the manufacture of nuclear fuel for reactors. There were also four tons of explosives aboard the ship. Regardless of how one feels about the transportation of nuclear fuels, it seems foolhardy in the extreme to be carrying explosives on a ship with so much nuclear material.

           The public only became aware of the ship’s dangerous cargo when the Green Party of Germany sent a written demand for information to the city government. In addition to admitting that the Atlantic Carrier had radioactive cargo, the city government said that over the past three months, there had been such shipments arriving in Hamburg at the rate of about seven per month or almost two a week.

            The authorities said that they would not be making the names of the ships or shipment schedules public in the future in the interest of security. This is an understandable precaution but the fact that such shipments were entering the harbor should have been known by the citizens of the city of Hamburg who were being put at risk by the shipments.

             This event shines a light on the problem of shipping nuclear materials by sea. Often the containers used for such purposes have not been designed to be able to withstand collisions, fires and immersions that are the risk of ocean shipments. Of special concern are long distance shipments of nuclear fuel and nuclear waste between Western Europe and Japan. There are continuing efforts by nuclear activists to strengthen international law with respect to nuclear materials shipments. The two main international institutions that have responsibility for use of the oceans and nuclear materials are the International Maritime Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

            A leading expert in maritime law was commissioned to study the legal aspects of nuclear shipping. He concluded that countries along the route of a nuclear shipment are “within their rights under international law to use force to keep nuclear shipments out of their maritime zones if the shipping states refuse to notify and to consult with them in advance on routing, emergency procedures and liability arrangements.” This is would be sufficient reason for concern if the countries in question are all friends on good terms but what would happen if that were not the case? Use of force by one country against nuclear shipments by an enemy could actually precipitate a horrible nuclear accident. On a positive note, the recently announced opening of a Japanese reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel will reduce the need for long sea shipments of nuclear fuel and nuclear waste to and from Europe. Of course, if the Japanese dump nuclear power entirely, there wouldn’t be a need for any shipments at all.

Hamburg Harbour Fire:

Algerian Energy Minister Anticipates New Nuclear Plant By 2025. Nuclearstreet.com

Nuclear watchdog seeks to change rules on transporting radioactive material.  Thehill.com

Siemens is going to provide wind power for the US nuclear weapons plant. designbuildsource.com.au

OSHA orders Wolf Creek Nuclear Plant contract worker reinstated after being fired for complaining about safety violations. nuclearstreet.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 21, 2013

Ambient office = .050 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .056 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .067 microsieverts per hour

Bell pepper from local Costco = .094 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .105 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .085 microsieverts per hour

              The Japanese are still debating the wisdom of restarting their fleet of over fifty reactors in light of the disaster at Fukushima. However, they are on the verge of starting a new nuclear facility that marks a major expansion of their nuclear industry. It was recently announced that a nuclear reprocessing plant that took twenty years to build and cost thirty billion dollars is slated to be brought online this coming October. The purpose of the plant is to reprocess some of the seventeen thousand tons of spent nuclear fuel currently sitting in cooling pools across Japan. The plant will convert enough spent nuclear fuel each year to make eight tons of plutonium..

             The new plant is located near Rokkasho in the Aomori Prefecture at the north tip of Honshu, the largest of the islands that make up the nation of Japan. A small fishing village has become a city with the influx of workers who built the new nuclear facility. A great deal of the nuclear waste in Japan has been shipped to and is being stored in this area, a development which concerns some of the original inhabitants. On the other side of the debate are villagers who appreciate the hundreds of millions of dollars from taxes and subsides flowing into the village treasury.

             As I discussed in a previous post about the Monju fast breeder reactor program, Japan is very poor in traditional energy resources such as coal, oil and natural gas. They have no uranium but projects such as Monju and the new reprocessing plant at Rokkasho  would allow them to reuse nuclear materials in spent fuel rods and increase the amount of energy they could derive from each pound of imported uranium.

            A big international concern about this new Japanese reprocessing plant is that it could be used to create weapons grade plutonium. Even though Japan is the only country ever attacked with nuclear bombs, there are people in Japan calling for it to develop its own nuclear weapons. The recent flare up of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula as North Korea threatens to use nuclear weapons on South Korea have brought new energy to those advocating that Japan have nuclear weapons. Some in South Korea are calling for the development of nuclear weapons. It looks like there could be a nuclear arms race in East Asia which upsets the current nuclear powers who are trying to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles.

           The Japanese assure everyone that they will mix the plutonium with uranium so that it cannot be used for making weapons. And that they well have U.N. inspectors on site to insure that they abide by international rules. However, if an arms race did start in their part of the world, I wonder how long it would be before some of the new plutonium found its way into warheads on Japanese missiles.

         Another big concern that I have is that the major share holder in the reprocessing facility is TEPCO, the company that owns the nuclear reactors that melted down at Fukushima. This company has already been caught falsifying reports, hold back critical information, lying to the public and the government, employing workers supplied by the Japanese Yakuza and engaging in other unethical and illegal behavior.   It seems to me that TEPCO is a very bad choice to manage such a critical and potentially dangerous nuclear facility as the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. Of course, if Japan drops nuclear power and switches to alternative energy, they will not need these nuclear recycling facilities.

Japan has recommended that the international standard for safe levels of environmental radioactivity be raised because of the Fukushima disaster. nuclear-news.net

Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant. japantimes.co.jp

U.S. nuclear output rises to a 10-week high as reactors start. bloomberg.com

Earthquakes in northeast Canada rattled buildings in several cities Friday but had no effect on nearby nuclear facilities. nuclearstreet.com