Many years ago, shortly after I left college, I was talking to some folks about nuclear power. I said that I was confident that engineers could design safe systems but that we would have to rely on government and industry to be far more competent and honest than they had ever been in order to use nuclear power without major accidents. After years of writing these essays about nuclear issues, I see no reason to change my opinion.
       The nuclear power industry is appealing to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to cut back on the number of inspections at U.S. nuclear power plants. They also want to be able to tell the public less about problems at their plants. The NRC is currently considering some of the requests by the nuclear industry as they conduct a major review of how the Commission enforces regulations at the ninety-eight operating nuclear power reactors. The five-member board of the NRC will be issuing their recommendation in June.
       Annie Caputo is a member of the NRC board appointed by President Trump. Previously, she was a lobbyist for the nuclear industry. At a nuclear industry meeting this week, she said that she was “open to self-assessments” by nuclear power plant operators. Members of the nuclear industry are suggesting that self-reporting by plant operators be allowed instead of some NRC inspections.
       The Trump administration is well-known for being hostile to federal regulation of U.S. industries, including the nuclear industry. Trump has appointed four members of the current five-member board. Trump appointees and industry representatives claim that changes in oversight are overdue because the industry has improved its safety record and the nuclear industry is having financial problems turning a profit at some power plants. The cost of operating aging nuclear power plants is rising as the cost of renewables and natural gas is falling.
       In reaction to this activity at the NRC, nuclear industry critics are alarmed at the idea of relaxing regulations and trusting the industry to monitor itself. Geoffrey Fettus is a senior attorney for nuclear issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He points out that the regulation cutting in some federal departments would not lead to the kind of accidents such cutting may risk at nuclear power plants. Paul Gunter is a member of the anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear. He said, “For an industry that is increasingly under financial decline … to take regulatory authority away from the NRC puts us on a collision course with a nuclear accident.”
      The nuclear industry made its request for regulatory changes in a letter from the Nuclear Energy Institute. One major request has to do with eliminating required press releases about lower level safety issues at plants. Such problems could result in increased inspections and oversight at a nuclear power plant but would not be considered emergencies. The industry group requested that the NRC relieve the industry of the “burden of radiation-protection and emergency-preparedness inspections.” Industry representatives repeated their requests at an annual industry function in Washington, D.C. this week.
       Greg Halnon is the vice president of regulatory affairs for FirstEnergy Corp. in Ohio. He said that it would be better to scale back reporting of lower-level problems at plants “than to put out a headline on the webpage to the world.” He said that following reporting of such lower level problems there were “rapid calls from the press and SEC filings get impacted because of potential financial impact.”
       The NRC will be issuing a new set of regulations this spring in response to the lessons learned from the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Nuclear power plants will be required to harden themselves against major floods and other natural disasters that could result the release of radioactive materials.
       Over the past seventy years of nuclear power generation there have been many stories of nuclear power plant operators failing to follow regulations requiring safety measures and the reporting of problems. It would be far better for the citizens of this country to have the NRC concentrate on enforcing regulations than removing them.

Ambient office  =  102 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Yellow Onion from Central Market = 131 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

       One of the major problems that could impact the global nuclear industry is a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. When the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan was destroyed by flooding following a tsunami in March of 2011, the shock of the accident reverberated around the world. Germany decided to retire all of its nuclear power reactors. Other countries put nuclear projects on hold while they studied the disaster. The Obama administration ordered a national emergency review of all one hundred U.S. nuclear power reactors. Eventually many countries drafted new more stringent safety regulation for nuclear power plants to avoid a repeat of the Fukushima disaster.
       The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing major new regulations this spring to codify some of the measures taken by U.S. nuclear power plants in response to Fukushima. A NRC spokesperson said in an interview that “The NRC remains satisfied that the overall response to what we learned from Fukushima means U.S. nuclear power plants have appropriately enhanced their already robust ability to safely withstand severe events of any kind.”
       The new post-Fukushima set of NRC regulations are referred to as the “Mitigation of Beyond-Design-Basis Events rule.” The U.S. nuclear industry is being given about two years to comply with the new safety regulation regarding earthquakes and other events that could cause a leak of radioactive materials that would pose a threat to public health and the environment. These new regulations are called “major” because an analysis of their impact indicates that the cost will be over a hundred million dollars. There are three major requirements for the Owners of commercial nuclear power reactors.
        First, steps must be taken to insure that reactor cores are kept properly cooled in the event that the emergency electricity supply is damaged or destroyed. In addition, modifications and procedures must be put into place to keep spent fuel cooling pools full of water in the event of an emergency that cuts all emergency power.
        Second, the nuclear power plant operators must install equipment that can be relied upon to accurately measure the water levels in the spent nuclear fuel cooling pools. When nuclear fuel rods have been used up in a reactor core, they are very radioactive and must be kept in a cooling pool for up to five years in order for some of the radioactivity to dissipate. Once removed from the cooling pools, spent fuel rods will have to be stored onsite in dry casks at each nuclear power plant because there is no permanent national repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel.
       Third, every nuclear power plant must “reserve the resources” necessary to physically protect the reactor cores and spent fuel pools from external threats that might breach the walls of the plant and/or the reactor containment vessels.
       The NRC states that it will be proactive with respect to the assessment of future risks that might arise outside of the current rule making process. This includes analyses of the need for additional improvements to nuclear power plants to deal with upgraded risk assessments for flooding and/or seismic events.

Ambient office  =  93 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 62 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
       Tom Scott is a professor of nuclear materials at the University of Bristol. His team works with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency on the Fukushima cleanup. They found slightly larger radioactive beads near the plant. Tom Scott’s group has theorized that each reactor may have formed a specific combination of particles in the beads created when they were destroyed. This would help scientists understand exactly how the meltdowns were similar and different.
        Scott’s group is using information from its study of these radioactive glass beads to create and refine maps of contamination and radiation risk around the ruins of the Fukushima plant. The cesium contaminated beads were not distributed as widely by the disaster as other forms of cesium in the radioactive plume which were carried around the world. They are mainly found in the contamination zone establish around the Fukushima plant. Some beads were also found in an air filter in Tokyo which is over one hundred and fifty miles from the Fukushima plant.
      Researchers found that while less cesium fell on Tokyo than near the Fukushima site, more of the Tokyo cesium was in the form of the glass beads. These research finding were scheduled to be published in 2017 in Scientific Reports but publication of the report was delayed because a group that provided an air filter to the researchers were unhappy with its mention in the report.
       There was no evidence of wrong doing and the conclusions of the report were not questioned. After two years of arguments about the rights to use the information about the air filter, the journal dropped its offer to publish the study. Fortunately, a description of the key findings of the unpublished study was eventually published.
      A deep understanding of the nature of the glass beads, how they moved and how far they spread is critical to assessing any potential health and environmental risks they may pose. Researchers are trying to determine how long it may take for such beads to dissolve in water. It is known that they will disintegrate very slowly, releasing their radioactive contents like a time release capsule releases medication. If their disintegration takes long enough, the radioactive materials they contain may decay before they are released. It turns out that there is little reason for serious concern with respect to the cesium in the beads.
        Some of the radioactive glass bead contain uranium and may contain plutonium. Both of these elements are chemically toxic and could be a danger to health. Particles with uranium have only been found near the ruins of the power plant. It is not clear how much a threat these particular beads constitute.
       Researchers have found that these radioactive glass beads tend to accumulate at particular points on the Japanese landscape such as river bends or in rain drain downspouts after being washed off roofs by rain. This fact could result in the creation of radioactive hotspots. There is also concern that some of these particles might become airborne again and spread further. Some research has indicated that these beads quickly become buried in soil and are unlikely to become airborne.
        A clear understanding of the nature and behavior of these radioactive glass bead will assist in decontamination work around Fukushima. So far, top layers of soil are being removed and buildings are being pressure washed. Research on these radioactive beads continues today.

Ambient office  =  87 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Garlic bulb from Central Market = 124 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 64 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 46 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts
       On March 11, 2011, an earthquake off the Japanese coast caused a tidal wave that led to flooding of a nuclear power plant on the coast of the Fukushima Prefect. Three of the reactors melted down and one of those exploded which destroyed a fourth reactor. A huge plume of dirt, debris, and smoke containing radioactive materials was spewed into the air above the site and spread over that part of Japan. What was not known until 2013 was that the material in the radioactive plume released by the explosions also contained glass beads the size of bacteria that contained high levels of radioactive cesium.
       These radioactive beads have been found in soil and air samples all over the zone contaminated by the disaster. The beads are of special concern because they contain much higher levels of radioactive cesium than the other particles in the radioactive plume. Because they are tiny, they are easily inhaled deep into the lungs. Because they have a glass shell, they tend not to dissolve in body fluids. This means that they could continue to damage body tissues for a long time if inhaled.
       In addition to posing a major health threat, these particles are also of scientific interest because a close examination of them can shed light on exactly what happened when the reactors exploded. This may be of use in deciding exactly how to proceed with the clean up of the Fukushima site.
      Following the accident, it was first thought that all of the radioactive cesium released in the disaster would be a form that could dissolve in water so it would be distributed pretty evenly throughout the environment contaminated by the disaster. When the scientists examined the contamination, they found radioactive hotspots that contained high levels of cesium as well as bits of iron and zinc. These hotspots were enclosed in a shell of silica or glass. Within a few miles of the nuclear power plant, the beads also contained tiny pieces of uranium dioxide nuclear fuel from the reactor cores.
      The cesium beads were produced early in the meltdown following the flooding. The reactor cooling systems were damaged by the tsunami which resulted in the fuel heating up. As the temperature rose, the metal cladding covering the fuel rods began to break down and release hydrogen gas. Apparently, a spark triggered an explosion in the accumulating hydrogen gas. The glass beads contain a physical record of the sequence of chemical reactions that took place as a result of the disaster. This helps scientists form a timeline of damage and may help them devise a better strategy for cleaning up the damaged reactors.
      The composition of the beads indicates that cesium and other fission products were vaporized during the meltdown of the cores and ultimate condensed like rain drops. The condensing clusters of fission products attracted bits of iron dioxide and zinc dioxide that had been created by the corrosion and disintegration of the cladding on the fuel rods. Some of the silica in the concrete of the plant buildings vaporized into silicon dioxide which condensed around the clusters of fission products, iron and zinc.
Please read Part 2