Category Archives: Nuclear

Alcohol, drugs, and broken nuke equipment

A broken cooling water pump at Fermi 2 yesterday plus 60% lost safety data today. Airflow and quality problems at Kewaunee and Three Mile Island. Drugs at Saint Lucie in Florida and alcohol at Nine Mile Point 1 in New York and at Braidwood in Illinois. And four workers injured at Callaway in Missouri. Apparently nuke employees can get terminated for off-site recreational drug use, but not for fires or broken equipment.

We’ve already seen the event about fire at Plant Vogtle. Here are more events in the NRC Current Event Notification Report for April 4, 2013 and also today, April 5, 2013,

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Fire at Plant Vogtle

Vogtle 1 since 2006 Does a Nuclear Operations Unusual Event (NOUE) give you a warm and fuzzy feeling? When it’s a fire at a nuke on the Savannah River? They didn’t shut Unit 1 down for that, but Unit 2 has been down for almost a month.

NRC Current Event Notification Report for April 4, 2013,

NOTIFICATION OF UNUSUAL EVENT BASED ON A FIRE IN THE PROTECTED AREA LASTING GREATER THAN 15 MINUTES

“Vogtle Unit 1 has declared an NOUE based on a fire within the protected area boundary not extinguished within 15 minutes of detection.

“At 0632 [EDT] Unit 1 received a fire alarm in the Unit 1 control building. A systems operator was dispatched to investigate and reported back that a small flame was visible inside 1ND3I1, computer inverter. Fire brigade was dispatched in accordance with fire response procedures. No other systems or parameters affected.

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Even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts, and most nukes leak tritium.

Received yesterday on Nuclear Plant Hatch radioactive leaks. Tritium (3H, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) is the stuff nuclear Plant Hatch is letting leak into our groundwater. NRC lists 44 leaking sites out of 65 active reactor locations. No solar or wind plants leak tritium. -jsq

In case you haven’t seen this yet: TRITIUM: HEALTH CONSEQUENCES. Excerpt:

Most studies indicate that tritium in living creatures can produce

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Apple: from 35% to 75% renewable energy in two years

All it takes is the will to get it done, and Apple is doing it: from 35% renewable energy in 2010 to 75% in 2012, and 100% at all Apple data centers. Cost? They’ll save more than they spent. Time for Georgia Power and Southern Company to stop dragging their feet and help us get on with it in Georgia.

Peter Burrows wrote for Bloomberg Thursday that Apple got nudged:

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Nuclear Plant Hatch radioactive leaks

The NRC publishes annual Radioactive Effluent and Environmental Reports for every operating nuclear power reactor. The reports for Plant Hatch 1 & 2 say radioactive tritium has repeatedly leaked into the soil and groundwater, but the internal swamp is getting less radioactive. Reports like this are not needed for wind or solar plants.

Plant Hatch Unconfined Perched Aquifer Tritium Concentration November 2011
Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Reports for 2011

According to a 2007 Industry Groundwater Protection Initiative Voluntary Data Collection Questionnaire,

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$1.88 billion and more on Kemper Coal to be charged to Mississippi Power customers

Risks at Southern Company’s Kemper Coal plant in Mississippi? Push those costs onto the public, of course! Southern Company and its subsidiary Mississippi Power got the MS Public Service Commissioners to approve super-CWIP (Construction Work in Progress) for Kemper Coal: automatic rate increases for MS Power customers for years. Just like Southern Company and its biggest subsidiary Georgia Power got the Georgia legislature to approve Super-CWIP for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle back in 2009. And both CWIP projects are already over budget. How about we cancel those boondoggles and build solar and wind instead?

AP reported 13 December 2012, After spending $1.88 billion, Southern Co. still faces risks on plant in Kemper County,

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David defeats Goliath: Calvert Cliffs 3 nuke license denied, first ever by NRC

David (tiny five-person activist group NIRS with no lawyer) defeated Goliath (the world’s biggest nuclear reactor manufacturer, Areva, and operator, EDF). Previously a committee terminated the licensing process but the proposed operator wanted NRC review for the Calvert Cliffs 3 nuclear reactor. For the first time ever, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a nuclear license, closing the book on Calvert Cliffs 3 for good, and probably taking down with it half a dozen or more other proposed reactors.

ENENEWS posted a roundup 12 March 2013, NIRS: Victory! License denied for U.S. nuclear reactor — First time in history NRC has upheld denial

Who is this proposed nuclear operator? The NIRS press release explains:

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Fukushima still broken 2 years after

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that heavily damaged four of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi in Japan on 11 March 2011, also known as 3/11. The broken reactors at Fukushima continue to leak radioactive substances into groundwater, the sea, and the air, where it is carried across oceans to the U.S. and elsewhere. And it could still get much worse: if the No. 4 reactor pool, still suspended in the air, collapses and causes the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the other reactors there, Tokyo, 200 miles away, will have to be evacuated. Fukushima’s GE reactors are the same GE Mark I design as Southern Company’s Plant Hatch 1 and 2 only 100 miles from here at Baxley, GA, and about 200 miles from Atlanta and Charleston. Hatch is leaking radioactive tritium into our groundwater again. Five more reactors within 500 miles of here are also GE Mark I.

Among the 311 or so facebook pages and websites about Fukushima or against nuclear power is this concise one, Unplug Nuclear Power, which offers a simple action anyone can take tomorrow:

On 3/11, we will mark Fukushima day by using as little utility supplied electricity as possible. This direct Action is designed to punish the utility companies for continuing to push for nuclear power even after the Fukushima disaster has proven that it is just too dangerous. On that day, we will punish them in the only way that they understand, by denying them our money. There will be four levels of participation, go to the website, www.unplugnuclearpower.com for a more complete description. Also, be sure to join the Event. Finally, if you are in a group our organization that can endorse this Action, please let us know.

As Jeremy Rifkin so concisely spelled out, nuclear power is over Continue reading →

Scorecard on Internet and Energy at the Bird Supper

Gretchen Quarterman, Dexter Sharper, Bill Slaughter, and others at the Bird Supper in Atlanta

On the 27th of February I posted Internet and Energy at the Bird Supper and Gretchen and I went to the Bird Supper in Atlanta and discussed those four bills with legislators. Our local elected officials were lobbying on the same side of many of the same bills. It’s past crossover day now, when bills are supposed to be approved by one house of the Georgia legislature in order to be taken up by the other. How did that come out? We all beat the mighty telcos and cablecos on two bills! But Georgia Power is even mightier, and won on two bills. Plus one legislator’s name is connected with 3 out of 4 of those bills. And our local delegation cancelled itself out on the one vote that actually went to the floor.

Internet Access: help stop two telecommunications bills

The local Industrial Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta City Council, and Lowndes County Commission have recently realized that fast Internet access is essential to attract businesses, for their employees to work at home, for applicants to apply for jobs, for students to submit assignments, and for general quality of life. And there’s good news from the legislature!

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SC Edison knew San Onofre nuke steam generators were flawed before installation

Southern California Edison knew the new steam generators were defective years before then even installed them in the San Onofre nuclear reactors, acccording to a report just released. These are the generators that failed and caused both San Onofre reactors to shut down. SD Edison wants to restart one of them, and this document came out in that process. Southern Company would never do this, right? We shouldn’t worry about failed concrete or 15, no now 19, months delay while the Georgia legislature won’t even limit charges to Georgia Power customers for cost overruns. Nope, no worries.

Friends of the Earth PR 8 March 2013, San Onofre: Secret Report Confirms Edison Knew of Major Problems; Friends of the Earth: ‘Bombshell’ for plans to restart crippled reactor

WASHINGTON—March 8—A secret Mitsubishi Heavy Industries report released today confirms that Southern California Edison knew about serious problems in the radically redesigned replacement steam generators for the San Onofre nuclear reactors years before the defective equipment was installed, yet failed to make changes to fix the problems. The report was released today by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) revealed its existence and demanded it be made public.

The report documents that Edison knew

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