Part One of Two Parts.

       Yesterday, I posted comments on a list of problems with nuclear power. Today I am going to comment on another list of “dangerous nuclear misconception.” This list was published on the listverse.com website.

1) The Fukushima disaster is under control. There is a lot of confusion about the current status of the efforts to clean up after the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. While the Fukushima aftermath has largely faded from the headlines, stories keep appearing cataloging continuing problems and failures on the part of TEPCO to solve problems such as contaminated water leaking from a huge farm of tanks. They still don’t even know exactly where the melted reactor cores are and, even if they did, they have no way of dealing with them. If the cores melt through to the groundwater beneath the plant, there could be radioactive steam explosions that would spread contamination over the countryside. The ruins of the reactors are highly radioactive making cleanup difficult if not impossible. It is estimated that it will require fifty billion dollars and several years to complete the cleanup. I think that this is a very optimistic estimate.

2) There is a great danger that aggressive and/or unstable countries will secretly develop their own domestic nuclear industries and proceed to create nuclear arsenals. It is very difficult and expensive for a country to create an domestic nuclear industry with reactor construction, uranium processing, plutonium recovery and nuclear weapons development. Unless a country has its own uranium mines, international purchases of uranium are closely monitored and expensive. The technological infrastructure needed to refine uranium and recover plutonium is complex, expensive and requires skilled scientists. These capabilities and staffing would be impossible to obtain without other countries being aware of attempts and preventing acquisition of needed hardware such as centrifuges. Nuclear weapons development ultimately requires testing which would be impossible to conceal.

3) Nuclear waste is being safely stored. There are many legal nuclear waste facilities around the world which are leaking radioactive materials. There are also many illegal dumps of nuclear waste that are leaking into the environment. There has been a lot of talk about creating permanent geological nuclear waste storage facilities but so far, only a few have been created. Germany closed such a facility because it was leaking into the groundwater. The U.S. was going to build a facility at Yucca Mountain but analyses of the site revealed that the original assessments of the site failed to account for groundwater movement. The U.S. did build a geological repository in New Mexico for waste from nuclear weapons development which was shut down recently because a waste drum exploded and radioactive materials were spread over twenty miles from the site. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is leaking a witches brew of radioactive and toxic chemicals from hundreds of deteriorating underground storage tanks.

4) There are many potential sites for additional nuclear waste disposal. Worldwide, there is a rejection of government attempts to find new places to store nuclear waste. Japan has changed a policy of allowing local governments to volunteer for waste siting to one where the government will select the site. States in the U.S. have passed laws to prevent the storage of high level wastes inside their borders. Other nations have faced fierce public backlash when considering sites for nuclear waste disposal. There is underground traffic all over the world where criminal enterprises are being paid to illegally dump nuclear waste because of a lack of legal facilities.

5) We always know if people are injured by radioactive contamination. Radiation is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. There is background radiation from natural uranium in varying amounts everywhere. Radon gas is produced from natural radium and can collect in basements of homes and buildings. There are spikes in radioactive steam and gas released from nuclear power plants during normal operations. Biological damage from these different sources radiation can take years or even decades to show up in the form of cancers and other diseases. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people die in the U.S. each year from radioactive poisoning from natural or man-made sources.

(See Part Two)

Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State:

 

Spent fuel at the Hamaoka nuclear power station in Shizuoka Prefecture could exceed the capacity of storage pools some two years after the plant is restarted — much sooner than the previously assumed eight years, according to sources. nuclear-news.net

Containers holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant are at risk of hydrogen explosions, with 10 percent of them found to be leaking. As many as 333 containers may be defective, according to TEPCO. nuclear-news.net

Uranium investors are being urged to exercise caution in the short term due to three events which could affect the prices of the nuclear fuel and the companies that mine it, according to a recent report by Dundee Capital Markets. mining.com

Brazil, which is looking for a solution to its fitful electricity generation, will turn to the private sector for its next generation of nuclear power plants, Energy Minister Eduardo Braga said this week. nuclearstreet.com

             I recently saw a list of problems facing the nuclear industry on nuclear-news.net. Since I have been blogging lately about problems with major nuclear companies in different countries, I decided that I would comment on the items in their list.

1). The nuclear industry is living with the reality that there will be another major nuclear accident soon which will upset the public and investors. Combining a push by nuclear construction companies and some national governments for a new nuclear reactor construction boom with the fact that there are serious concerns about corruption and incompetence in the industry and its regulators, a major nuclear accident is virtually guaranteed. There are estimates that one may happen in the next six years.

2) Many of the operating nuclear reactors in the world were built in the 1970s. They are reaching the end of their life spans and are becoming more dangerous and harder to repair. Recently a U.S. reactor was shut down because it was too expensive to repair. There will be an very expensive and complex wave of reactor decommissioning in the next decade.

3) There is a great deal of publicity about a bunch of orders for new reactors which turn out to be mostly hot air. A deeper analysis reveals that while there is a great deal of discussion going on, there are few actually signed firm orders for new reactor construction.

4) Countries which have the capability to build new reactors are encountering public resistance and investor apathy domestically so they are in fierce competition to sell reactors to other countries. There may be a lot more sellers than buyers. And questions have been raised that even if some of the nuclear exporters get orders, they may not be able to deliver.

5) Climate change is already having an impact on nuclear reactors. Several reactors in the U.S. have had to be temporarily shut down because the bodies of water they were using for cooling became too warm. Reactors have been shut down because of dangers posed by severe storms recently. Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of such storms. At least twenty reactors in the U.S. are in danger from flooding which will increase due to climate change.

6) The strategic need for nuclear arsenals is diminishing. Small scale conflicts and asymmetric warfare call for different types of weapons such as drones. Although major nuclear powers are spending on upgrading nuclear arsenals, nuclear weapon infrastructure is deteriorating in the U.S. and Russia. Calls for complete nuclear armament are increasing across the globe.

7) Global economic problems have reduced the demand for electricity. Conservation has also reduced demand. There is less demand for construction of any new power plants including nuclear. 

8) Renewable energy is becoming more popular worldwide. Innovation is rapidly lowering prices for wind and solar. National governments are mandating investment in renewable energy sources as an alternative to new nuclear plants.

9) Nuclear power plants are in danger because of war and terrorism. The Ukrainian government has expressed fear that their nuclear reactors may be damaged or destroyed by the civil war there, either by intent or accident. Nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools will be tempting targets for terrorists. Their destruction would deprive the target country of electric power and possibly threaten millions of people with radioactive fallout.

10) Public opinion is turning against nuclear power across the world. The Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 was a major blow to the reputation of nuclear power as a safe energy source. In China, a uranium processing plant project was abandoned due to public pressure. One more big nuclear accident and there will be huge global public rejection of nuclear power.

The Tennessee Valley Authority said Wednesday it had reached a regulatory milestone, announcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had voted to direct the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to issue an operating license for Watts Bar 2, decades after construction had begun on the unit. nuclearstreet.com

The MOU was signed during a CNNC delegation’s visit to Egypt between 21 and 23 May.  talkingpointsmemo.com

A state of national emergency was declared by the USA in 2000 to help to ensure that payments to Russia under the 1993 agreement to downblend surplus military high-enriched uranium could not be derailed by unrelated legal actions.  world-nuclear-news.org

France says it will oppose any deal that does not include on-site inspections of Iran’s military bases, which Iran’s Supreme Leader denounces as a deal breaker. atimes.com

 

 

             China has the most ambitious plans for nuclear reactor construction in the world today. They intend to spend tens of billions of dollars on the construction of dozens of nuclear power reactors by 2020. This would raise the share of Chinese electricity from nuclear from three percent to six percent. Considering the cost and possible problems with such ambitions, that does not seem like much of a benefit.

         Following the 2011 disaster at Fukushima, China declared a moratorium on new reactor construction for a review of reactor siting and safety measures. A few months ago, the moratorium was lifted and the construction of two new reactors was approved. It would appear that it is full speed ahead for their reactor construction boom.

         The U.S. has signed a deal with China to facilitate purchase of U.S. designed reactors and to possibly provide technology to allow China to process plutonium from spent fuel. (This seems rather odd as the Pentagon is getting worked up about the military threat posed by China.)

        Now a Chinese nuclear physicist named He Zuoxiu is speaking out publicly against the wisdom of the aggressive Chinese reactor program. He says that the plans for construction of so many reactors in such a short time is dangerous. He insists that there is not sufficient time  being allocated to put in place the safety and monitoring expertise that will be necessary to prevent major accidents.

       As would be expected, there are two competing voices on the Chinese reactors ambitions. One of the groups is stressing the need for safety and the other is stressing the need for fast development. He is concerned about the dangers of corruption, poor management, poor oversight and bad decision making with respect to the development push. He says that the plan to build fifty eight gigawatts  of nuclear generation capacity by 2020 is “insane.”

       He is calling for China to halt new reactor approval and just finish the reactors now under construction. Most of China’s currently operating reactors were started after 2000. He points out that China just does not have sufficient experience in reactor construction and operation to embark on such an ambitious building program. A few decades of successfully operating existing reactors and those under construction would provide a base of experience to build more in the future.

         Chinese authorities claim that they have taken the lessons of Fukushima into account but He counters that the Chinese experts did not pay sufficient attention to the role that the failure of human institutions played in the disaster. China had considered instituting stronger safety standards after Fukushima but the pressure for rapid nuclear expansion partly driven by profit-seeking companies caused rejection of those stronger standards. There is no independent watchdog agency for nuclear regulation in China and it is risky to go against official government policy which discourages whistle blowers.

       He is especially worried about plans to build a lot of power reactors inland. The government has been claiming that they could build reactors in desert areas but there is no water for cooling in deserts. Any inland area of China with sufficient water to cool a reactor and sufficient demand to take the electricity is densely populated. An accident inland could contaminate rivers that supply water for hundreds of millions of people as well as pollute groundwater that is needed for huge areas of farmland.

      A uranium processing plant project in Guangdong has already been cancelled because of public resistance. One major accident at a Chinese nuclear power plant would mobilize huge masses of people against the construction of any new reactors. I think that it is highly unlikely that China will complete construction of dozens of new power reactors by 2020.

A nuclear plant in southern Japan on Wednesday obtained the final permit needed to restart its reactors, paving the way for it to become the first to go back online under new safety standards introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. news.yahoo.com

Almost all of the contaminated water stored on the Fukushima Daiichi plant site in Japan has been treated to remove strontium, and in some cases even more nuclides, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) announced today. world-nuclear-news.org

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Inspector General said that French nuclear engineering firm Areva over-billed the TVA by more than $1.2 million for assessment work at the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Hollywood, Alabama. nuclearstreet.com

Nuclear envoys from South Korea, Japan and the United States agreed Wednesday to step up pressure — including possible sanctions — on North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons, while keeping diplomatic options “open.” news.yahoo.com

 

        My last three posts were about the Russian state owned nuclear technology company Rosatom and their issues with participation in the nuclear technology market. Today I am going to discuss some difficulties that France’s nuclear technology company Areva is having. Areva is one of the major nuclear reactor construction companies in the world and the only such company in Europe.

       The Hinkley Point C project in Great Britain is the current high profile project for Areva and its cost is about twenty six billion dollars. The project calls for the construction of two reactors based on the European Pressurized Reactors (EPR) design. The two reactors to be built in Somerset area of southwest England will be the first reactors to be constructed in many years in Great Britain. The project was approved by the British government and a fixed purchase price for the electricity from the reactors was guaranteed. Although there was a problem with the legality of state price guarantees in the European Union, the European Commission eventually ruled in favor of the project.   Austria was not satisfied with the ruling of the Commission and intends to challenge it in court.

       Despite the approval of the various governing agencies and the guaranteed price, investors have been slow to put money into the project. Although companies from Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Great Britain have been mentioned as potential investors, none of them have invested yet. China’s National Nuclear Corporation has been also been suggested as an investor but their involvement was contingent on China being granted ownership of a new nuclear power plant at the Bradwell site in Essex in the southeast part of England. National security concerns have been raised in England over granting China access to the national power grid.

      Another reason for investor reluctance, is based on the requirement that Areva has to come up with at least ten percent of the total cost of the project. In the fall of 2014, Areva admitted that it was having problems raising the ten percent share and might not be able to satisfy that requirement.

       Areva’s current financial problems are a result of its involvement in another reactor construction project in Finland at the Olkiluoto site. Areva lost about five and a half billion dollars on the Olkiluoto project in 2014. The project was originally scheduled for 2009 but was recently pushed out to 2019.

        Areva has announced that it is planning on investing around a billion dollars in a turn-around plan. To raise that money, they may have to lay off as many as one thousand people and sell some of the company’s assets.  EDF, the French national energy utility is expect to assist in the recovery plan.

       India is working on a deal with Areva for an EPR in Jaitapur and Areva has ambitions to sell EPR reactors to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. The cost overruns and schedule delays in Finland and on domestic reactor projects in France will not be good selling points for such exports.

      Soon the French government will have to contract for the decommissioning of French reactors reaching the end of their life spans. The estimated cost of decommissioning is over three hundred billion dollars. It is probable that this cost (which could easily rise) will reduce the money available to assist Areva in its ambitions to export the EPR technology.