In 2014 and 2015 the Department of Energy finalized $8.3 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for the Vogtle Nuclear Reactor Project in eastern Georgia. Now, as the project has ballooned in cost and must adjust to the recent bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the project’s construction firm, the Energy Department is proposing to provide yet another handout to the project. This is quite literally throwing good money after bad, and Congress or the Energy Department itself should put a stop to it. Thehill.com

The Department of Energy and the City of Oak Ridge launched a project to preserve the history of the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant on Thursday with a tour of the K-25 History Center’s future home in the Oak Ridge Fire Station Number Four building at the East Tennessee Technology Park.  Knoxnews.com

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said on Sunday the government will continue to phase out nuclear-generated electricity, following a public opinion survey that dealt a blow to his plans to do so. Reuters.com

The economic sanctions the USA and the European Union have imposed on Russia are not impacting the work of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom, its director-general Alexey Likhachov told delegates at the World Festival of Youth and Students in Sochi earlier this week. World-nuclear-news.org

Should the details of any progress on trying to push through a costly and deemed unnecessary nuclear build program not be open to the public, the DA will not hesitate to go to court to interdict it. Fin24.com

U.S. President Donald Trump risks driving Iran towards nuclear proliferation and worsening a standoff with North Korea if Washington ends a nuclear deal with Tehran, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said late on Thursday. Reuters.com

NATO is holding an American nuclear weapons safety procedure exercise at a base in Büchel, Germany and in the Belgian town of Kleine-Brogel. The legitimacy of such actions and the deployment of nuclear weapons in non-nuclear countries raises several questions. The drills have also been criticized by Russia. Sputniknews.com

An important report assessing the viability of new “mini” nuclear power plants for the UK to be published this week is expected to give the green light to develop designs proposed by a British consortium led by Rolls-Royce. Telegraph.co.uk

The Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants, near Cleveland and Toledo, respectively, can’t compete with new natural-gas-fueled power plants. So, to help insulate FirstEnergy from its bad decisions, the utility wants to make consumers pay. The latest effort would cost ratepayers roughly $2.50 a month extra (about $30 a year), The Plain Dealer’s John Funk reported this week. Reuter.com

British Army explosive experts have been called to Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant after a “chemical incident” at the site. Independent.co.uk

Russia has demanded Donald Trump returns nuclear weapons deployed in Europe back to the United States to prevent an all-out war with North Korea. Express.co.uk

Romania has significantly strengthened its regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety in recent years, a mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has concluded. The team also made recommendations for further improvement. World-nuclear-news.org

 

 

 

 

Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)

      Among other accomplishments, warnings from the Board helped to force the adoption of uniform emergency preparedness standards for all nuclear weapons sites in the U.S. The Board has also battled with nuclear weapons contractors over seismic vulnerabilities at nuclear weapons facilities in New Mexico, Washington state and South Carolina.

      In spite of the work done by the Board, the nuclear weapons complexes in the U.S. have experienced many serious problems in recent years. These problems include the mishandling of plutonium, a radioactive explosion, mis-shipment of radioactive materials, and contamination of work area at nuclear weapons facilities.

      The nuclear weapons defense contractors who run the nuclear weapons facilities do not appreciate the hard work of the Board. Some claim that the Board investigations are invasive and that the Board warnings are excessive. A 2012 report by the National Academy of Sciences criticized the Board with input from the nuclear weapons contractors. It complained that the nuclear weapons contractors had to “spend a great deal of time and overhead” dealing with the Board’s inspections.

       The report was created by a panel chaired by Charles Shank, a former director of the DoE funded Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. During the work on the report, Shank was a paid consultant for a corporation which was running one of the national weapons laboratories in New Mexico. Shank was one of the witnesses at a 2012 Congressional hearing on strategic forces. He called for less oversight from Washington for the nuclear weapons laboratories. He argued that they no longer needed the “special attention” from the Board.

       One suggestion from the NAS report is especially troubling. The report said that the federal government “should accept more operational risks in its work supporting the U.S. nuclear arsenal.” Perhaps an argument could be made that operational risks should be tolerated during an actual war but such is not the current case. Ignoring risks during the Cold War resulted in some horribly polluted nuclear weapons sites such as the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State where liquids full of toxic and radioactive chemicals and materials were poured into unlined trenches dug into the dirt.

       In 2014, there was an internal report generated by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) about the problems at LANL. The report blamed the NNSA for failing to appreciate how serious the problems at the LANL were. The report said, “the safety culture that existed within NNSA was to allow the contractor to manage the problem with minimal Federal intervention.” The report also said that the NNSA did not ask enough questions about the claim by the LANL that risks of an accidental nuclear chain reaction were being deal with when they were plainly not. Emails about problems at the LANL showed that concerns were raised in 2012 but no actions were taken until 2013.

       Bob Alvarez, a former DoE official said that the “DoE does not really regulate these guys.” He worked with Senator John Glenn on the investigations and drafting of legislation that led to the creation of the Board. He also said that “There always needs to be some form of independent eyes and ears watching these guys. DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments [responsible for punishing contractors for safety and security lapses] is like a watchdog chained to a doghouse. All they do is threaten to bark. They don’t even bark. They just threaten to bark.”

Please read Part 3

Construction of two nuclear plants in South Korea, halted this July by President Moon Jae-in’s announced policy to phase out nuclear power, will continue after a citizens’ jury voted to resume the projects. Powermag.com

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are pushing to ensure a federal oversight panel will have the resources it needs to continue monitoring operations at national laboratories and other nuclear sites around the country. Usnews.com

Steve Inskeep talks to Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. Gholamali Khoshroo, who says the nuclear deal his country signed cannot be renegotiated, despite President Trump’s call for changes. Npr.org

A formal complaint has been filed over Westinghouse’s decision not to use professional engineers to draft the construction blueprints for a pair of $9 billion abandoned nuclear reactors in South Carolina.  Postandcourier.com

Part 1 of 3 Parts

      Congress created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in 1988 because of concerns about health and safety protection that the Department of Energy was providing the public and workers at nuclear weapons facilities. Congress wanted to reassure that public that the DoE facilities were being safely designed, constructed, operated and decommissioned. The Board consists of five experts in the field of nuclear safety. The current make-up of the Board is two Republicans and three Democrats.

      The mission statement of the DNFSB states that the Board was created “within the Executive Branch (42 U.S.C. § 2286, et seq.) to identify the nature and consequences of potential threats to public health and safety at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) defense nuclear facilities, to elevate such issues to the highest levels of authority, and to inform the public. Since DOE is a self-regulating entity, the Board constitutes the only independent technical oversight of operations at the Nation’s defense nuclear facilities. Under its legislative mandate, the Board plays a key role in maintaining the future viability of the Nation’s nuclear deterrent capability by:

·        Ensuring that the health and safety of the public and the workers at DOE’s defense nuclear facilities located throughout the United States are adequately protected, as DOE maintains the readiness of the nuclear arsenal, dismantles surplus weapons, disposes of excess radioactive materials, cleans up surplus defense nuclear facilities, and constructs new defense nuclear facilities;

·        Enhancing the safety and security at our Nation’s most sensitive defense nuclear facilities when hazardous nuclear materials and components are placed in more secure and stable storage; and

·        Providing for the early identification of health and safety vulnerabilities, allowing the Secretary of Energy to address issues before they become major problems.”

       One of the reasons that the Board was created in the first place is that there were very serious problems with plutonium contamination at the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado. The site was raided by the FBI and closed in 1989. Contractors who operated the site eventually pleaded guilty to a variety of environmental crimes.

       Since its inception, the Board has helped to convince the federal government to create and monitor tighter safety rules and regulations for the more than forty thousand workers at eight nuclear weapons sites where nuclear weapons and their components are either produced or stored. The Board has jurisdiction over all the sites where private contractors conduct weapons research, fabrication, assembly or maintenance of thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads for the U.S nuclear arsenal. In the last decade, the defense contractors who operate the nuclear weapons facilities have made over two billion dollars of profit.

      There are one hundred and twenty people currently working for the Board. Ten of these people are stationed at five of the nuclear weapons facilities. These ten members of the Board staff write up weekly public reports about the safety practices and problems at the facilities. Warnings from the Board were instrumental in getting contractors at Hanford to heed a whistleblower concerns. Critical facilities were redesigned to help prevent an accidental nuclear chain reaction. Investigators from the Board also documented and warned about safety problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The LANL is still having problems adhering to the requirements of the Board.

Please read Part 2