Tag Archives: Nuclear

Trust the radiation-lying document-forging nuclear industry to build new nukes?

TEPCO that lied about deadly levels of radiation at Fukushima is part of the industry Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning brags about as producing

“nuclear power as a clean, safe, affordable solution for this world’s energy future”.

SO and Georgia Power are building two new nukes at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River, including parts by Korea’s document-forging Doosan. Forging as in lying, as in what the Korean press is now calling the Korean nuclear mafia of power companies, vendors, and testers. Stateside U.S. NRC is refusing to supply Congress with safety documents. And when I asked NRC if they were going to take account of Doosan in their webinar about foreign ownership of U.S. nuclear reactors NRC staff told me Vogtle was an unbuilt reactor and they were only dealing with existing power reactors. Which is very strange, considering their Commission Direction explicitly refers to unbuilt and not-even-permitted Calvert Cliffs 3 in its subject.

And considering Doosan’s online map of its customers includes not only six not built yet, Vogtle 3,4, Summer 2,3, Duke Energy’s Levy County 1,2 (since cancelled), but also nine operating nuclear power reactors, Entergy’s Waterford 3 (west of New Orleans; remember the dark Super Bowl?), TVA’s Sequoyah 1 and 2 near Chattanooga and Watts Bar 1 near Knoxville (all within 500 miles of here) plus Entergy’s Indian Point 2 and 3 near New York City and Arizona Public Service’s Palo Verde 1,2,3 near Phoenix, Arizona. With Vogtle 2 and 3, that’s fifteen reactors in the U.S. supplied by document-forging Doosan. OK, 13 now that Levy County 1 and 2 won’t be built.

How about we say the same soon about Vogtle 3 and 4? That they won’t be built? Probably Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers could say that. GA PSC, Georgia legislature, or SO CEO Tom Fanning could say that. We’re listening.

-jsq

TEPCO lied about Fukushima radiation: it’s 18 times worse

Officer, I wasn’t speeding, I pegged my speedometer at 50, nevermind all those people I ran over! Like TEPCO using radiation detectors that maxed out much lower than the actual levels. Is this an industry we want building new nukes in Georgia?

Mike Adams wrote for NaturalNews.com 1 September 2013, TEPCO admits deliberately using radiation detectors that give deceptively low readings; radiation leaks far worse than reported,

We also know from news reports in 2011 that TEPCO ran around the Fukushima facility turning off the radiation detectors to prevent alarms from going off. Radiation? What radiation?

And now we find out the company has been deliberately using radiation detectors that max out at just 100 mSv.

That’s right, as BBC reported 1 September 2013, Continue reading →

Japanese government forced to take over Fukushima nuclear crisis

This is not the type of “crisis” or “leak” that ends quickly even with the Japanese government now taking over from TEPCO: radioactive water has been seeping into groundwater and the Pacific Ocean for two years, many of those tanks holding radioactive water, built with rubber seams only meant to last five years, are leaking, and the containment wall next to the ocean is making groundwater rise behind it, spreading into the aquifer and spilling over it into the ocean, with every tuna caught off California bearing radioactive signatures from Fukushima. The radioactive uranium cores are somewhere in or under their containment buildings, with no known way to extract them, still requiring cooling water poured over them for some unknown number of years, and continuing to be radioactive for thousands of years. Remember, the Fukushima reactors are the same GE Mark I model as Plant Hatch on the Altamaha River. Why are we building more nuclear reactors in Georgia when ten U.S. nukes have been cancelled or will never be built in the past year? Google already installed on time and on budget almost as much solar and wind as both new Plant Vogtle nukes would produce and for less than what has already been spent on them, plus solar panels and wind farms don’t leak radioactivity.


Photograph by Kyodo/Reuters

Latest Radioactive Leak at Fukushima: How Is It Different? by Patrick J. Kiger for National Geographic 21 August 2013,

The water from the leaking tank is so heavily contaminated with strontium-90, cesium-137, and other radioactive substances that a person standing less than two feet away would receive, in an hour’s time, a radiation dose equivalent to five times the acceptable exposure for nuclear workers, Reuters reported. Within ten hours, the exposed person would develop radiation sickness, with symptoms such as nausea and a drop in white blood cells.

Mari Yamaguchi wrote for AP 28 August 2013, Fukushima Leak Upgraded To Level 3 Severity, Continue reading →

Bloomberg illustrates 63% solar growth in 2012

A graph Bloomberg New Energy Finance posted illustrates the recent 60%+ growth deployed solar capacity, but BNEF fails to project solar’s compound interest growth forward.

Look at the solar numbers in that graph:

2008200920102011 2012
1.6 2.0 2.9 4.9 8.0
Change 25% 45% 69% 63%

Then look at that last row I added, which is each year’s percentage increase over the previous year, as in 8.0 for 2012 divided by 4.9 for 2011 = 1.63 or 63%. Slightly more for the previous year, and less in years before that. In other words, the annual compound growth rate for solar is around the 65% rate reported by the solar industry.

And slightly higher than the 60.9% FERC rate I used Continue reading →

Pull out your phone, MacGyver, and take a picture of cars powered by rooftop solar

MacGyver needs to show an imprint on a floorboard to someone. Pull out your phone and take a picture! No, in 1986 he MacGyvers a chisel and hammer and pries the floorboard up.

Even in 1996 the telcos and most of the public thought dedicated copper and fiber connections were needed for reliable communications. (“Allison, can you explain what the Internet is?”)

But now you can pull out your phone and take a picture and post it over the packet-switched Internet to facebook for all the world to see.

In 2023 baseload nukes and coal plants and oil pipelines will be like phone booths connected by dedicated copper, while rooftop solar charging cars will be as common as phones in your pockets. Solar power will win like the Internet did, beating all other sources of power within a decade.

Meanwhile, Continue reading →

Entergy shutting down Vermont Yankee nuke: tenth down or never to be built in past year

As Entergy has been preparing to do for some time, it’s down forever for Vermont Yankee. That’s at least ten (10) down forever (Vermont Yankee, Kewaunee, Crystal River 3, San Onofre 2 and 3) or never to be built (Calvert Cliffs 3, South Texas Nuclear Project 3 and 4, Bellefonte, and Levy County) in the past year. How many will it take before Southern Company (or more likely GA PSC or even the Georgia legislature) realizes new nukes make no financial sense and terminates the Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 boondoggle on the Savannah River?

Entergy blamed Vermont Yankee on shale gas, but you ain’t seen nothing yet, as Moore’s Law for solar really kicks in. Next one to go: I say Entergy’s often-down Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts; everything Entergy said about Vermont Yankee applies in spades to Pilgrim 1. Or maybe ten-times-down-this-year Palisades. Or bouncy man-killer Arkansas Nuclear One. So many to choose from!

Entergy PR on Market Watch today, Entergy to Close, Decommission Vermont Yankee –Decision driven by sustained low power prices, high cost structure and wholesale electricity market design flaws for Vermont Yankee plant –Focus to remain on safety during remaining operation and after shutdown,

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 27, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Entergy Corporation ETR -0.21% today said it plans to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, Vt. The station is expected to cease power production after its current fuel cycle and move to safe shutdown in the fourth quarter of 2014. The station will remain under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission throughout the decommissioning process.

“This was an agonizing decision and Continue reading →

Salem 1 nuke back up in NJ

No, that can’t be: NRC hasn’t said it’s up after Salem 1 was scrammed down last week.. Of course, NRC never posts events or status on weekends, no matter what’s down, up, or on fire.

Bill Gallo Jr. wrote for the South Jersey Times yesterday, Salem 1 nuclear reactor returns to service after faulty valve is repaired,

The Salem 1 nuclear reactor was returned to service today, less than 48 hours after a leaking valve caused the plant to be shut down.

The plant began sending electricity out over the regional power grid at 4:47 p.m. today, according to Joe Delmar, spokesman for the reactor’s operator, PSEG Nuclear….

On Thursday, operators became aware Continue reading →

Solar power will win like the Internet did

Remember BITNET, FidoNet, or UUCP? Nope, the Internet overtook all of those. And in 20 years that’s how young people will remember coal and natural gas plants, although the waste-disposal costs of nukes will be with us for ten thousand years. Solar power is going to overtake all other power sources within a decade. Here’s why I think that.

Jerry Grillo quoted me in Georgia Trend July 2013, Sun Dancing: As Georgia’s solar capacity shoots skyward, a new state utility is proposed,

“Solar power is the fastest-growing industry in the world, and it’s growing along in the same way the Internet did,” says John S. Quarterman, a Harvard-educated author and Internet pioneer who launched the first commercial online newsletter, among other things, and who lives in rural Lowndes County.

“Think back 20 years to 1993. How many people had heard of the Internet? And look at how far we’ve come. What I’m seeing with solar energy is the same kind of exponential growth. It’s clean energy that works, and it generates jobs.”

Here are 1992 ten-year graphs of Internet growth from that newsletter, Matrix News, using Continue reading →

Pilgrim and Salem nukes scrammed down

Two nukes down Friday: “lowering reactor water level was due to the trip of all three Feedwater Pumps” (Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts) and “unidentified leakage” (Salem 1 in New Jersey). That’s the fifth downtime for Entergy’s Pilgrim 1 this year: cold, heat, leak, and now feedwater pumps. Remind me about the reliability and safety of big baseload nuclear?

Pilgrim 1 and Salem 1 down 23 August 2013

Event Number: 49296 Facility: PILGRIM,

REACTOR PROTECTION ACTUATION (SCRAM)

“On Thursday, August 22, 2013 at 0755 hours [EDT], with the reactor critical at approximately 98% core thermal power, and the mode switch in RUN, a manual reactor scram was inserted due to lowering reactor water level. The cause of the lowering reactor water level was due to the trip of all three Feedwater Pumps. The cause of the Feedwater Pump trip event is currently under investigation.

“Following the reactor scram, Continue reading →

Solar will overtake everything –FERC Chair Jon Wellinghof

“Everybody’s roof is out there,” for solar power, so natural gas or oil pipelines are a waste of time. Solar prices dropping exponentially drive solar deployment up like compound interest, eventually onto everybody’s rooftops, where eventually means in about a decade, after which we’ll be ramping down natural gas like we’re already ramping down coal. It’s time for Georgia Power and Southern Company and all of Georgia’s EMCs to get on with solar and stop wasting resources on dead ends, especially that bad idea of fifty years ago, nuclear power.

Herman K. Trabish wrote for Green Tech Media yesterday, FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff: Solar ‘Is Going to Overtake Everything’: One of the country’s top regulators explains why he is so bullish on solar.

“Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything,” Wellinghoff told GTM last week in a sideline conversation at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

If a single drop of water on the pitcher’s mound at Dodger Stadium is doubled every minute, Wellinghoff said, a person chained to the highest seat would be in danger of drowning in an hour.

“That’s what is happening in solar. It could double every two years,” he said.

Indeed, as GTM Research’s MJ Shiao recently pointed out, in the next 2 1/2 years the U.S. will Continue reading →