Many people in the United States know that the Nazis performed horrible and often lethal experiments on prisoners. Lesser known are equally horrific experiments carried out by the Japanese during World War II. While we are reluctant to accept that the United States Government would ever experiment on U.S. citizens without their permission or even knowledge, there are known incidents of such experiments. The CIA carried out experiments where they dosed unsuspecting people with psychedelic drugs to see how they would respond in the early 1960s. Generally these experiments were not physically harmful, but one man committed suicide after being dosed with LSD. Unfortunately there were other experiments that were much more dangerous.

            Twenty years ago, a group of documents were declassified by the United States Government which covered over two thousand experiments on over twenty thousand people over a period of sixty years. Subjects included ordinary civilians, prisoners, federal workers, hospital patients, pregnant women, infants, disabled workers and military personnel. Many of the test subjects were poor, sick, elderly or terminally ill.  These experiments were detailed in a book by Eileen Welsome titled The Plutonium Files. Most of the experiments consisted of feeding the subjects a radioactive material to discover the short and long term effects of radiation on the human body. Most of the time the subjects were not told about experiment or asked for their consent.

             Documents about the experiments were classified by the United States Government. I wish I could say that the motivation for the classification was for national security but unfortunately there is a memo from a Colonel in the Army Corp of Engineers in 1947 that says otherwise. ““It is desired that no document be released which refers to experiments with humans and might have adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits.” So it was not a matter of protecting the country from enemies but protecting the government from its own citizens with legitimate complaints.

            In several studies, pregnant women and children were poisoned with radioactive iron. In another study, prison inmates had their testicles x-rayed to see what does would make them sterile. There were a series of studies where psychiatric inmates and children were injected with radioactive iodine which would threaten their thyroid glands were iodine is accumulated. Mentally disabled children were fed radioactive calcium in oatmeal to track digestions of radioactive materials. Burn victims at the Medical College of Virginia were injected with phosphorus-32 which definitely increased death rates.

            As late as 1985, the United States Department of Energy and the United States Air Force conducted experiments where they deliberately caused nuclear reactors to meltdown in Idaho and Utah in order to see how the released radiation would spread in the atmosphere. Estimates of the amount of radiation released indicated that it was many times the amount of radiation released in the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Planes even dumped radioactive dust around Oak Ridge, Tenn., Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Dugway, Utah between 1944 and 1961.

             Many U.S. military personnel were ordered to stand close enough to nuclear tests in the United States to be exposed to serious radiation while not being given complete information about the risk. This could be rationalized as necessary in view of the fact that the U.S. may have become involved in a nuclear war and the military needed to know the effects and range of the radiation from a nuclear explosion. However, the National Cancer Institute found in 1997 that everyone in the country at the time of the nuclear bomb tests in the Southwest was exposed to radioactive fallout. Cancer rates have been rising in the past few decades and it is possible that some of these cases are a result of these radioactive exposures.

            We rightly fear the possibility of a nuclear attack from another country or a nuclear terrorism incident perpetrated by foreign or American terrorists. However, it is just not right that we have to fear the repercussions of the deliberate exposure of U.S. citizens to radioactive materials by our own government.

Japan’s population fell by a record 0.22 percent to 127.515 million as of last Oct. 1. japantimes.co.jp

North Korea is incapable of carrying out most of its threats of recent weeks, a prominent US expert who has visited the country’s nuclear facilities several times said Thursday. huffingtonpost.com

Iran has tripled installations of high-tech machines at nuclear plants. foxnews.com

Exelon Generation’s La Salle County Generating Station declared an Unusual Event at 3:11 p.m. today, after both units automatically shut down when power from the switchyard into the site was interrupted during a severe thunderstorm. enenews.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on April 18, 2013

Ambient office = .070 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .108 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .103 microsieverts per hour

Iceberg lettuce from local grocery store = .129 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .060 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .053 microsieverts per hour

              Following the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan, all their operating nuclear reactors were shut down. There has been a fierce debate and many mass protests as the Japanese government and people try to decide what role nuclear energy should have in supplying electricity to their country. Japan has little in the way of natural fossil fuel resources for energy generation which makes their choice of energy sources much more difficult. Nuclear reactors had supplied about thirty percent of the electricity for Japan prior to Fukushima. Nuclear energy had been made a national priority and there were plans to expand to nuclear power generation to forty percent before the disaster. There had been predictions of serious blackouts without the reactors online but they have not materialized yet.

             Over eighty percent of the Japanese people no longer trust the Japanese government and private nuclear power plant operators to keep the people safe in the event of nuclear accidents and to report accurately the danger and any release of radiation. There is enormous pressure on the government and nuclear plant operators to reassure the public that nuclear energy can be safe and efficient. New rules have been drafted by the Nuclear Regulation Authority for restarting the Japanese fleet of nuclear reactors. The new rules are now available for thirty days for public comment.

            A proposed major equipment upgrade involves filtered vents to insure that if there is a release of steam from a reactor containment building at a boiling water reactor, radioactive particles will be filtered out. This will require a retrofit at all the Japanese boiling water reactor which will take years. This upgrade has been discussed in the United States but the nuclear industry has managed to prevent any such regulation so far, complaining that it would be too expensive. Considering the billions of dollars involved in the nuclear industry, I find that complaint hard to take seriously.

            Japan is located at the intersection of four major tectonic plates. It is extremely earthquake prone. The quake that destroyed the Fukushima reactors was about a 7 on the Richter Scale for rating earthquakes. Additional protection from earthquakes and tsunami has been mandated in the new NRA rules. They are not going to start reactors if they are over an active fault line. Currently there are five reactors known to be over such fault lines and they are finding new fault lines under some of their other reactors. Some levees will have to be build around existing plants to protect them from floods.

             The Richter Scale is logarithmic so each digit represents a quake that is ten time stronger than the one before. It used to be thought that Japan probably would not have earthquakes in the Richter 9 level until recent research indicates that such huge quakes can occur there. That would be one hundred times the impact of the Fukushima quake. I don’t believe that any of the Japanese nuclear reactors are rated for this intensity of quake.

            Fourteen Japanese nuclear plants do not have fire-resistant wiring. Rewiring them may be too expensive to justify and they may have to be shut down.

            In the end, Japan may restart some of their reactors based on location, design, age, etc. but some will never be restarted. If they do restart some of their reactors, it may be years until all the new NRA requirements have been met and permission is given. Fortunately, they are not predicting a electricity shortfall for this summer.

Nuclear power plants in Massachusetts and New Hampshire have increased security after two bombs exploded in Boston on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring dozens.  huffingtonpost.ca

Emergency declared after a fire broke out at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant. enenews.com

Japanese Court rejects request to shut down the Oi nuclear reactors. ajw.asahi.com

U.S. lawmakers want to know more about the emergency response plans in place if a nuclear accident were to occur as well as what the game plan is to find radioactive nuclear fuel a permanent home. forbes.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on April 17, 2013

Ambient office = .071 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .126 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .093 microsieverts per hour

Sliced Crimini mushroom from local grocery store = .083 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .088 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .060 microsieverts per hour

             When this country was founded, a system of checks and balances was created where the three branches kept watch on each other. Sometimes actions proposed or taken by one branch result in a challenge from another branch. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is part of the Executive Branch under the U.S. President. The General Accounting Office (GAO) is a Congressional division that audits and evaluates government program. Recently, the DOE and the GAO came into conflict over proposals on the handling of radioactive waste.

              The United States has been in limbo with respect to the long term storage of radioactive waste since the Yucca Mountain Repository was cancelled. I have dealt with the cancellation in previous posts. The U.S. Government promised nuclear plant operators a permanent facility by 1999. Needless to say, we are a bit behind schedule. The spent fuel pools at U.S. nuclear reactors will all be full of rods within five year. Unless there are storage alternatives by then, reactors will have to be shut down.

            In January, the DOE announced a new policy for radioactive waste storage. They are planning on the construction of two interim storage facilities that are to be completed in six years. There is also a plan for a permanent storage facility to be sited and constructed by 2048. This deadline has already slipped from an earlier proposal to have a new permanent storage facility by 2035.

            With respect to temporary storage, the new policy refers to provisions in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Unfortunately, the GAO points out that those provisions for a centralized interim repository have either expired or they make reference to milestones that were not met. As far as the permanent storage facility is concerned, it may also be illegal. The amendments to the 1982 Act call for all activities for siting and constructing permanent storage facilities other than Yucca Mountain to be terminated.

              Critics say that the DOE has no intention of actually carrying out the new policy but merely wants to take some action to fend off financial liability lawsuits. The U.S. Government has been collecting fees from nuclear operators for decades for the promised permanent storage. There is an accumulated fund of over twenty five billion dollars for permanent storage. Nuclear power plant owners are trying to claw back some of that money in court. Lawsuits for over two and one half billion dollars are working their way through the courts. Ultimately, there could be as much as nineteen billion in liabilities. If the DOE can get the new policy accepted, that would block the lawsuits.  

            Another problem working against the new DOE proposal is public opposition. Since Fukushima, the public fear of nuclear waste releases has increased. There is already a lot of resistance to the siting of waste facilities. The Western Governors Association representing nineteen states has passed a resolution to the effect that no nuclear waste facility may be opened in any of the nineteen states without the permission of the governor of the state.

           A third issue with the new policy has to do with resistance to the transportation of nuclear waste. Even cities and states that would not be hosting a repository have been resisting the idea of fleets of trucks and trains moving nuclear waste through their territory. And, if the plan for temporary and permanent facilities is carried out, the waste would have to be moved twice, doubling the risk of accidents and deliberate sabotage of the transports. In addition, it is estimated that seventy percent of the waste in dry cask storage at nuclear plants in the U.S. is too radioactive to transport. Normally, spent fuel is given time to cool off in the spent fuel pools before being put into dry casks onsite but, as mentioned above, the spent fuel pools are filling up too rapidly to allow that at some reactors.

          And, finally, nuclear plant owners only have to pay into the waste fund as long as they are generating electricity. Two reactors of the one hundred and four operating U.S. reactors are being shut down. Although new licenses have been issued for the aging U.S. reactor fleet, the reactors themselves are reaching the end of their functional lifespans. As more reactors are retired, unless they are replaced with new reactors paying into the fund, the fund may be spent faster than it is replenished as new repositories are being developed.

TEPCO has admitted that Pu-238/239/240 and Sr-90 in sea soil are from Fukushima accident. fukushima-diary.com

TEPCO did not conduct any endurance test of the Fukushima contaminated water reservoirs in advance. fukushima-diary.com

Iran will enrich uranium to 50 pct if necessary according to their nuclear chief. xinhuanet.com

Major earthquake in Iran shows recklessness of their nuclear program. bloomberg.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on April 16, 2013

Ambient office = .155 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .106 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .080 microsieverts per hour

Vine ripened tomato from local grocery store = .066 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .070 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .045 microsieverts per hour

             A few days ago, I posted a blog entry about a Chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission named Gregory Jaczko who just resigned. There was a controversy about his resignation with claims that he was essentially driven out of his position by supporters of the nuclear industry because of his criticism of the NRC regulatory process being too lenient with the industry. Jaczko and nuclear proponents are currently engaged in a very public argument about the safety of U.S. commercial nuclear reactors.

             Recently, at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, Jaczko said that the problem of dissipating the heat from radioactive decay in the case of an extreme accident such as Fukushima was simply unsolvable for existing U.S. nuclear reactor designs. He suggested that the current reactor be phased out and replace. One option would be a new generation of small modular reactors with passive safety systems which could prevent potential core meltdowns following accidents without having to be supplied with any external power.

            The U.S. nuclear industry trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, quickly responded to Jaczko’s charges and claimed that NRC was successful in keeping the U.S. nuclear fleet safe. The NEI talked about the new FLEX response strategy which consists of adding more portable backup equipment to each existing reactor. This equipment would include portable electrical generators, diesel-driven pumps and satellite phones which could provide power, cooling water and communications at plants experiencing extreme events. This sounds great but there are some serious problems with the industry assurances. 

                 There are many documented instances of power plants failing to purchase and install equipment mandated by NRC regulations and industry standards. In addition, there are documented instances of power plants purchasing substandard or non-functional equipment. Often, equipment is installed improperly. Even if the proper equipment is purchased and correctly installed by each plant, there are many recorded instances of plants failing to maintain the equipment that they have and many cases of falsification of tests.

             The NRC has a poor record of conscientious inspections. When inspections are made and problems found, the NRC often just warns the plant operators over and over without taking any other action. When the NRC demands that repairs and corrections be made, there are many case of incompetence during the repairs that lead to problems later on. There are also promises for repairs and improvements made by plant operators that are never kept.

             When two parties are arguing opposite sides of an important question, there is always the problem of who to believe. In this debate, you have a dedicated public servant who has already had his career derailed by speaking out against the current fleet of nuclear reactors. On the other side of the debate, you have an industry trade group that is supported by companies making billions of dollars off the construction and operating of the current type of nuclear reactors. Even if I had no knowledge about the safety of current U.S. reactors, I would have to wonder if the opinions of the trade group might not be biased in the direction of saying things that would allow their members to continuing profiting from nuclear energy generation whether or not what they were saying was really true.