The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is located between Fort Calhoun and Blair, Nebraska near the Missouri River. There is one four hundred and eighty four megawatt Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor at the plant. The reactor began operation in 1973 with a forty year license which expired in 2003. At that time, the plant was relicensed until 2033. The plant is owned by the Omaha Public Power District and currently operated by Exelon Nuclear Partners. It has been shut down since April of 2011 because of serious problems.

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

           In 2009, a flood threat assessment by the NRC concluded that the plant could not handle a flood that 1014 feet above sea level as mandated by NRC regulation.  In 2010, a key electrical part failed during a test at the plant. Also in 2010, serious concerns were raised about the ability of the plant to deal with flooding of the nearby Missouri River. The NRC said that that the plant “did not have adequate procedures to protect the intake structure and auxiliary building against external flooding events” and that the plant was not prepared for a “worst-case flooding scenario.”  Vulnerabilities to potential floods were identified and changes were made by the plant owners.

           In April of 2011, the reactor was shut down for routine refueling. However, a number of problems had been identified at the plant including the use of Teflon for cable insulation which tends to break down in high radiation environments. Structural problems were identified when inspections were made in preparation for installing extra equipment to boost power output.     

           On June 7^th, 2011, there was a fire in an electrical switch room at the plant that briefly knocked out power to the cooling system for the spent fuel pool. Power was restored in ninety minutes. A backup generator was ready to take over supplying power to the cooling pumps if necessary but the main system was repaired and the backup pump was not used. It turned out that a breaker had failed that had been replaced eighteen months earlier.

            In late June of 2011, the Missouri River flooded and area remained flooded for weeks. Sandbags and berms were placed around the plant as a precaution and, although the flood waters surrounded the plant, the reactor itself was not flooded. A berm collapsed and external power was shut off but emergency generators supplied power to the cooling system. A no fly zone was put in place for the air space above the plant and there were wild rumors of a major disaster but no nuclear accident was caused by the floor. There was widespread damage to the area that did require extensive repairs.

          The plant has remained closed since the refueling shut down in April 2011 for repairs related to the flooding in 2011 and for repairs and work on a number of other problems at the plant. A 2013 report stated that the NRC had added to the checklist of problems that must be solved before the plant can be restarted. Electrical rates have already risen in the area to help pay for the necessary repairs.

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on April 1, 2013

Ambient office = .099 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .130 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain = .138 microsieverts per hour

Romaine lettuce .093 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .093 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .077 microsieverts per hour

U.S. Arkansas Nuclear One plant suffers “significant industrial accident.” enenews.com

Watchdog says U.S. nuclear regulator needs public image polished. bloomberg.com

NRC Questions for TVA Documentation on thousands of parts at Watts Bar and other plants. nuclearstreet.com

NRC gives Fort Calhoun nuclear plant mixed review. omaha.com

          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: