The 3rd party investigation prompted by Niigata prefecture concluded that TEPCO’s president instructed company officials to not mention the word melt down in regard to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Others from TEPCO tried to claim that the Prime Minister’s office requested not using the word.  fukuleaks.org

TEPCO’s nuclear commercials draw disgust from evacuees. asahi.com

A contract has been signed for the civil construction of the nuclear islands of Phase III of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in Jiangsu province. Construction of unit 5 has already begun, while that of unit 6 is scheduled to start next year. world-nuclear-news.org

AREVA said Tuesday that its nuclear logistic division AREVA TN, had opened a concrete casting facility in North Carolina that is designed to manufacture components for the company’s NUHOMS horizontal spent fuel storage modules. nuclearstreet.com

 

        There has been a lot of new lately about the deal being forged between India and Westinghouse for the construction of six new nuclear reactors in India. The India government really wants nuclear power to help with their chronic shortage of electricity. The U.S. wants to help Westinghouse sell reactors to other nations.

        President Obama and India Prime Minister Modi met recently and issued a joint statement about the preliminary work on the contract for six of the new AP1000 Westinghouse reactors. The six reactors could cost up to forty billion dollars which would make it the biggest commercial contract ever between India and the U.S.

        Critics of the deal complain that the selection of Westinghouse was based on executive decisions and not on regular market practices. The former head of the Indian Nuclear Energy Commission admitted that India had to consider the commercial interests of other countries and their companies. He said that India was obligated to buy these reactors from the U.S. in return for diplomatic support on international issues.

        Other concerns have been raised about Westinghouse’s financial problems. This year, Toshiba, the Japanese company that owns Westinghouse, announced that it was going to have to write down two billion three hundred million dollars of the value of Westinghouse. One of the main reasons for the write down was the fact that Westinghouse is having trouble selling its new AP1000 reactor design. Ten years ago, Westinghouse expected to have a dozen orders for its new reactor. Currently, only four reactors have been ordered. Florida Power and Light just delayed its planned purchase of two AP1000s for four years and the Tennessee Valley Authority cancelled their plan to buy two AP1000 reactors because of financial concerns.

         Currently, two AP1000s are being constructed in the state of Georgia. The estimated cost for the two reactors is now about twenty one billion dollars. This works out to about one hundred and four thousand dollars per megawatt of capacity. The current capital costs of Indian domestic reactors is about fifteen thousand dollars per megawatt of capacity which puts the AP1000s way over the cost of constructing domestic reactors in India. The costs of electricity from the AP1000s in the first year could be as much as five times the cost of installed solar power systems. This just does not make any sense economically. In addition, considering the AP1000 reactors to be low-carbon sources in the fight against climate change works out to much more cost for lowering carbon emissions than green sources such as solar.

        Indian concessions to Westinghouse have also drawn criticism. Indian has the most stringent industrial accident laws in the world that make equipment manufactures liable for accidents caused by their equipment. India just passed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation” (CSC) for Nuclear Damage law which is a direct contradiction of the earlier law. If there is an accident at one of the AP1000 reactors, it may be difficult to sue Westinghouse because of the new law and the grounds that Indian courts do not have jurisdiction over a multination corporation that is not based in India.

       India would be well advised to cancel the purchase of the AP1000s from Westinghouse. This deal is just not beneficial to India.

Democratic Party Secretary General Yukio Edano may take legal action to challenge Fukushima crisis report. english.kyodonews.jp

The second unit at the Changjiang nuclear power plant on China’s southern island province of Hainan has been connected to the electricity grid, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has announced.  world-nuclear-news.org

Bulgaria hopes to reach an agreement with Russia’s Rosatom to allow it to sell a nuclear reactor project to a third party, after an arbitration court ruled that Bulgaria must pay for equipment it has ordered as part of the cancelled project. reuters.com

Russia recently floated out the Arktika, which it bills as the “largest and most powerful” nuclear-powered icebreaker in the world.  engadget.com

 

 

The Japanese nuclear regulator has today approved the operation of units 1 and 2 of Kansai Electric Power Company’s Takahama nuclear power plant for up to 60 years. They become the first Japanese units to be granted a licence extension beyond 40 years under revised regulations. world-nuclear-news.org

Fukushima-harvested rice will hit the stores in Britain in July, which might make it the first member of the EU to import the grain, following a sustained effort by a group of Fukushima natives in London fighting rumors about the safety of the crop. japantimes.co.uk

Ministers need to talk to the Chinese about fast-tracking the planned reactor at Bradwell in Essex because the future of the £18bn Hinkley Point project is so uncertain, according to a leading pro-nuclear campaigner. theguardian.com

Uranium is a Fossil Fuel. closeindianpoint.wordpress.com

 

Beginning on Monday, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, or NSG – 48 countries that export most of the world’s nuclear material, equipment, and technology – will meet in Seoul to decide whether India should now be allowed to join. The United States has strongly urged the NSG to say yes. thediplomat.com

After tortuous negotiations, New India Assurance has issued the much-awaited nuclear insurance policy to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL). indianexpress.com

A SEASIDE paradise in Suffolk, U.K. is now the centre of a nuclear leak scare after traces of deadly radioactive materials were found on the beach. thesun.co.uk

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will join other national military and policy experts in Albuquerque next week for a symposium on the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. abqjournal.com

        I have mentioned in previous blogs that I am concerned about the degree to which the operators of nuclear power plants follow government regulations with respect to problems and accidents at nuclear power plants.

       The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is charged with making sure that U.S. nuclear power plants develop plans for what their workers must do in case of an accident. These plans include actions that must be taken at the plant as well as notification of local, state and federal authorities with respect to actions that should be take outside of the plant such as warning nearby residents.

        The NRC has four levels of classification for emergencies at nuclear power plants. They are Unusual Event, Alert, Site Area Emergency and General Emergency with increasing severity. These are called Emergency Action Levels (EALs). Each site has a set of these pre-determined observable thresholds that tell the operators which of these levels a particular incident falls into. EALs include such things as readings on instruments, status indicators on equipment, results of analytical testing, and other types of records. Once a level has been established, a series of appropriate and timely responses are supposed to be triggered. EALs have been circulated  since by the NRC to U.S. nuclear plant operators since 1976.

 

       Successful emergency responses depend on correct identification of level and execution of proper actions in a timely fashion. The more severe the level of the incident, the more resources need to be brought to bear. If the severity of the incident is not properly identified, the correct responses are not given, and/or things to not happen on the proper schedule, then the necessary actions to protect the public may not be taken.

       Unfortunately, despite the distribution of EALs to plant operators and the requirement that all U.S. nuclear plants have detailed and site specific emergency procedures that follow the EALs, these plans are not always correctly followed when incidents occur. Whether through lack of training, lack of maintenance of equipment, lax supervision or other problems, U.S. nuclear plant emergencies have not always been dealt with in a manner consistent with the mandated protection of the public and the environment.

       In 2004 at the Perry nuclear plant in Ohio, it took the operators one hundred and sixty minutes to carry out the necessary readings. In the Surry plant in Virginia in 2006, an event was misclassified as to severity level. In River Bend in Louisiana in 2004 and 2005, the operators did not repair seismic detectors that were inoperable in spite of the fact that they were necessary of evaluation EALs. At the Summer plant in South Carolina, workers improperly altered their EALs to require unavailable information to declare an emergency level. In 2010 EALs at the Prairie Island plant in Minnesota and in 2011 at Crystal River 3 in Florida demanded radiation level readings that were not possible for the monitoring equipment.   

       These are only a few examples among many that illustrate exactly the concerns that I have expressing. If operators of nuclear plants cannot or will not follow proper procedures in evaluating the severity of nuclear accidents, then those nuclear power plants should be shut down to protect the public and the environment.