The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant is located between Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee.  There is one operating one thousand one hundred megawatt Westinghouse pressurized water reactor at the plant. Two reactors were originally commissioned and construction began in 1973. The Unit One reactor was completed in 1996 after twenty three years and eight billion dollars. Work on the one thousand one hundred megawatt Unit Two was halted in 1988 when eighty percent of the work had been done. The official reason given for halting the work was that the demand for electricity in the region had gone down. Work resumed in 2007 and it was estimated that the reactor should be able to start operating in 2015 with a total cost of two billion five hundred million dollars. In 2012, the project was behind schedule and the estimate had risen to over four billion dollars. The plant is own and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

           The population in the NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about twenty eighteen thousand five hundred people. The NRC ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about four hundred and sixty five thousand people. The NRC estimates that there is a moderate risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant.

           In 2011, the NRC identified problems with the process that the TVA had implemented to catalog, inspect and test components to insure that they complied with the NRC safety standards. A new NRC report just issued expressed increased concern about TVA lapses in guaranteeing the safety of over six thousand parts that were processed by the TVA from 1995 to 2011. Some of these questionable components were used to construct the new Unit Two reactor. Other components have been shipped to other reactors owned and operated by the TVA. The TVA claims that the components in question will not threaten the safety of the new Unit Two reactor and other TVA reactors. They say that the issue is just one of documentation and that the components are safe.

              In the past, companies constructing nuclear reactors ordered parts from manufacturers who had been certified by the NRC with respect to their inspection and testing of components. As the orders for new nuclear reactors fell off over the past few decades, more and more of these certified manufacturers allowed their certifications to lapse. Currently, the construction of new reactors requires the builders to rely on commercial grade components which are not subject to the same standards that were required by the NRC for the certified manufacturers. The TVA failed to report problems with insuring the reliability of commercial grade parts and did not respond adequately when initially notified of the concerns of the NRC.

           Although there has not been a major accident yet at Watts Bar, the issue of substandard components that may have been used in construction of the new Unit Two reactor makes it more probable that there will be breakdowns when it goes into operation. The problem of use of commercial grade components in new U.S. reactors is a very troubling issue that goes far beyond the TVA and Watts Bar. Also, the doubling of the estimated cost for the Unit Two reactor in just a few years suggests that the cost of nuclear reactors will continue to increase sharply making them much less attractive for power generation.

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on March 30, 2013

Ambient office = .085 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .108 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .102 microsieverts per hour

Redleaf lettuce .089 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .063 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .045 microsieverts per hour

Long-standing plans for the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture have been dropped by utility Tohoku Electric Power Company. world-nuclear-news.org

Regulators uphold new Levy County, Florida, nuclear plant environmental study. nuclearstreet.com

Unit 1 at the Prairie Island nuclear plant in Minnesota faces tougher regulatory scrutiny after inspectors found it had left a radiation detector inoperable for 10 months. nuclearstreet.com

Following an unplanned shutdown and repairs three days earlier, unit 2 at Exelon’s Byron nuclear plant returned to service Saturday.  nuclearstreet.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on March 30, 2013

Ambient office = .110 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .087 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .072 microsieverts per hour

Vine ripened tomato from grocery store  = .079 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .054 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .033 microsieverts per hour

Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ goes nuclear with power-industry ads. bloomberg.com

In “The Girls of Atomic City” author Denise Kiernan tells the story of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and the atomic bomb. Part 1 thedailyshow.com

In “The Girls of Atomic City” author Denise Kiernan tells the story of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and the atomic bomb. Part 2 thedailyshow.com thedailyshow.com

Douglas J. Feith says that Obama’s ‘nuclear zero’ rhetoric is dangerous. washingtonpost.com

The warnings about fallout from nuclear tests six decades ago often noted that cancers from the radiation would probably not begin appearing in large numbers for many years. globalresearch.ca

Fukushima cesium releases were likely 20-30 times higher than revealed. enenews.com

Three Mile Island meltdown happened 34 years ago today. enenews.com

The United States sends nuclear-capable B-2 bombers to South Korea. abcnews.go.com

              There are conflicting forces at work in the global nuclear industry. On the one hand, the disaster at Fukushima has caused some countries to end their use nuclear energy for power generation. On the other hand, other countries have announced bold new initiatives to expand the use of nuclear power generation. Citizens protest against nuclear power while nuclear companies promote its use.  There have been many improvements in conventional power reactor designs with the current reactors being built designated as Generation IV. In addition to these conventional reactors, there are groups working on the creation of small, modular, inexpensive and safe reactors generally known as “small modular reactors”. The major question with respect to this new type of power reactor concerns the ability of such reactors to compete in the open energy market. And, even if they may be able to compete in the cost of electricity, will they be enough of a stimulus to reenergize the faltering U.S. nuclear industry?

             Last year, the United States Department of Energy announced that they would provide up to four hundred and fifty million dollars of funding for designing the new type of small modular reactors if the companies who received the grants would match the DOE funding dollar for dollar. Last November, Babcock & Wilcox became the first recipient in the new grant program. B&W designs small reactors for nuclear ships and submarines and is working on a one hundred eighty megawatt SMR. The grant program should have enough funds to support certification of several designs for the new reactors.  B&W as well as Holtec, Westinghouse Electric and NuScale have already invested hundreds of dollars in design work and testing facilities to perfect the new style reactors.

            New tougher regulations on carbon dioxide emissions are causing some utilities that rely heavily on coal for electrical generation to seek another source of power that does not have the carbon footprint of coal. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are intermittent and would require additional fossil fuel backup systems which would still emit carbon dioxide. The new modular designs are attractive because in addition to sharply reducing carbon dioxide emissions, they should be cheaper to build, easier to license, require less construction time and be less expensive to operate than the old style reactors which are complex and expensive to build. The old style reactors can cost up to ten billion dollars to build a reactor that will generate one thousand megawatts.  In contrast, one of the new style reactors should cost around two billion to generate two hundred megawatts.  Power demand is growing slowly in the United States and utilities would rather add a few hundred megawatts at a time than one thousand megawatts.

           Existing nuclear reactors have a mandated emergency zone ten miles in diameter. The new type of reactors might be able to get by with as little as a half a mile diameter emergency zone. This would make it possible to site them at locations now occupied by fossil fuel plants. The old style plants are able to keep fuel rods cool for three days without power while the new designs would be able to keep fuel rods cool without external power for weeks, making them much safer.

           On the other side of the cost equation, is the fact that there are economies of scale for the old style reactors. They can often be upscaled to generate substantially more electricity without a parallel large increase in capital expense. It is hoped that the new style reactors could be produced in a factory to reduce construction costs.  The problem with this approach is that there would have to be a large number of orders for the new reactors in order for the cost savings of factory production to attractive and, giving the soft energy market in the U.S., there is no guarantee that there would be enough orders. Ultimately, the new reactors will have to be able to compete with cheap natural gas for U.S. power generation and they may not be able to.

Small Modular Reactor design from Oak Ridge Laboratory:

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on March 28, 2013

Ambient office = .113 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .117 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .093 microsieverts per hour

Mango from grocery store  = .088 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .102 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .083 microsieverts per hour

A type of mollusk has disappeared from an area that stretches 30 kilometers along Fukushima Prefecture and includes the site of the crippled nuclear power plant.  ajw.asahi.com

TWO years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster local children are showing signs of cancer, prompting cries of a cover-up. express.co.uk

Nuclear lobby will exploit climate change to promote nuclear power. japantimes.co.jp

Russia is offering to help South Africa to develop its own nuclear industry from resource production to power plant design and manufacture. world-nuclear-news.org

           The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is located near San Luis Obispo in southern California on the Pacific Coast. The plant has two one thousand one hundred Westinghouse pressurized water nuclear reactors.  Unit One was commissioned in 1985 and Unit Two was commissioned in 1986. The plant is owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric. In 2009, PG&E applied for a twenty year extension of the licenses for the reactors.

           The population in the NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about twenty six thousand people. The NRC ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about four hundred and sixty five thousand people. The NRC estimates that there is a high risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant. The plant was originally designed to withstand a six point seven five earthquake but was upgraded to withstand a seven point five earthquake.

          Construction of the plant began in 1968. By the time the plant was completed in 1973, a new fault had been discovered several miles offshore in the area of the plant. The fault was capable of generating earthquakes beyond the level of quake that the plant had been designed to withstand. New plans were drawn up to upgrade earthquake resistance and the work was carried out. After the changes were made, it was discovered that the plans for hardening in reactors were supposed to be reversed for the second reactor but the second reactor was reinforced exactly as the first had been. This meant that some parts of the second reactor were unnecessarily reinforced but other parts that needed to be reinforced were not reinforced. After consideration, the NRC did not require that the work on the second reactor be redone.

        In 2000, a failed electrical conductor caused a fire that cut off the power to the coolant and water circulating water pumps that are necessary to keep the core from overheating. A safety review by the NRC in 2010 found that the Diablo Canyon plant operated for a year and a half with some important emergency systems disabled because of repairs of valves that “would open fast enough.” The improper repairs led to an even worse situation which was not detected by tests that should have identified the new problems.

       Following the Fukushima disaster, PG&E requested that the NRC suspend the extension of the licenses applied for in 2009 until the company had had the opportunity to conduct more studies on the subject of earthquake and flooding threats.

       At Diablo Canyon, there were design problems, oversight problems, bad repairs, non-functional emergency systems and all these happening in a plant on an ocean coast in an earthquake zone similar to the situation at Fukushima before disaster struck.

Picture from Doc Searls of Santa Barbara, California.