Last week, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission met to hear recommendations about the future of America's nuclear plants after Japan's nuclear crisis. The nuclear industry, which just a year ago had been wildly optimistic about the prospects for a "nuclear renaissance," is now hobbled by concerns over the health, safety and financial ramifications of the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima. After being told for decades that nuclear power is safe, reliable, clean and cheap, it's worth carefully considering how the fantasy of a nuclear dream gave way to the reality of a nuclear nightmare.
The most recent reminder of that terrible reality came when an earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, causing fires, explosions, and three complete core meltdowns. 770,000 terabecquerels of radiation were released in just the first few days of the crisis, equivalent to 40 percent of the total radiation released from Chernobyl. Further consequences remain to be seen, as plant operators are still struggling to bring the reactors to a complete shutdown and contain radioactive material, but alarms are already being raised about high radiation levels at elementary schools dozens of miles away. Tens of thousands of evacuees will likely never return to their homes, and radiation spread around Japan and the surrounding ocean is causing major food and health concerns.
The public had previously been roused from its nuclear fantasy when a routine safety check gone wrong at the Chernobyl power plant led to the worst nuclear disaster to date, forcing a quarter million people to permanently evacuate their homes and leaving thousands to struggle with the tragic legacy of cancer as the result of high radiation exposures. Twenty-five years after the disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear reactors lie inside a shaky and structurally unsound concrete sarcophagus at the center of the Exclusion Zone, awaiting the day hundreds or thousands of years from now when the dangerously irradiated area will be safely habitable once more.
And more than thirty years ago, mechanical and human errors woke the public from a pro-nuke slumber when they caused a partial core meltdown in a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, forcing 140,000 people to evacuate and initiating a cleanup that took 12 years and cost $973 million.
Each of these tragic disasters is a poignant reminder of just how dangerous nuclear power truly is. And there are more minor incidents as well, the risks that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission willfully accommodates by rewriting safety precautions and relaxing regulations: cracked tubing, corroded pipes, broken nozzles, rust, and more. Not only could these factors cripple a reactor in the event of an emergency, but an Associated Press investigation uncovered leaks of radioactive tritium at 48 of 65 sites, with some leaks at hundreds of times the allowable Environmental Protection Agency standard. Among those leaky reactors is the Palisades Power Plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which reported tritium levels above the EPA standard in 2007 and again in 2009. I can see the steam plume of the Palisades plant from the backyard of my father's farm; now I worry that my family might drink irradiated water from that same reactor.
Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,000 years, but the human memory operates on a far shorter span. As recent tragedies become more distant, it is too easy to fall back on false illusions, even if they are haunted by the ever-present specter of another possible nuclear disaster. If the public is lulled back into the nuclear fantasy of "safe, reliable, clean and cheap," what will be next? A disaster at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska, surrounded by Missouri floodwater? Meltdowns at the Diablo Canyon or San Onofre nuclear plants in California, both located near a major fault line and the Pacific Coast?
Questions and headaches for the nuclear industry
It is past time to wake up and face the hard truths of this recurring nuclear nightmare. After the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the nuclear industry is struggling against stiff headwinds in the United States as both old reactors and proposed new reactors around the country meet growing opposition.
A case in point: the recently failed proposal to construct new nuclear reactors in Iowa. In order to pay for the new reactors, MidAmerican Energy wanted legislation that would raise electricity rates. MidAmerican would have kept the money even if it never followed through on actually building the reactors. It was a shoddy deal for ordinary Iowans, and yet the proposal attracted little attention, sailed through committee consideration, and was expected to easily pass the state legislature.
After the Fukushima crisis, things began to change. Just as national support for the construction of new nuclear reactors dropped, Iowans expressed their strong opposition to the MidAmerican proposal, with 75 percent against the bill. Friends of the Earth helped mobilize public sentiment by running print and television ads criticizing the bill and encouraging Iowans to express their concerns to the state legislature. Not surprisingly, state legislators started having doubts as well. "We got the details and realized that the rate payers really have to have all the risk in this thing," said State Senator Bill Dotzler (D-Waterloo). Despite MidAmerican's extensive lobbying, the Iowa state legislature adjourned on July 1 without passing the bill, a major setback for the bill's supporters.
This is just one setback among many. Various proposed nuclear plants in Texas have been scrapped, mainly for financial reasons. Exelon withdrew plans to construct a twin-unit nuclear plant in Victoria County, Texas in order to focus on wind energy instead. After ground was broken for new nuclear reactors in Georgia and South Carolina, construction prospects were impeded by serious questions about the safety of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors to be built at those sites. Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had previously been expected to approve the reactors by the end of summer, significant delays are likely after flawed calculations in Westinghouse's submission "led to more questions," according to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko.
Existing reactors are facing challenges as well. The Vermont legislature voted 26-4 to shut down the aged Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which contains a reactor similar in design to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, although the decision is being disputed by a lawsuit from the plant's operator, Entergy. And Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York recently reaffirmed his intentions to shut down the Indian Point nuclear plant, less than 30 miles from New York City.
Real problems need real solutions
Nuclear power currently supplies 19 percent of all electricity in the United States. Nuclear advocates argue that nuclear is preferable to fossil fuels, but this is a dangerous and misleading argument. There are better options, like renewable energy and increases in energy efficiency.
The challenges for the nuclear industry are even steeper elsewhere. Germany, led by the conservative Angela Merkel, has published a plan to invest heavily in renewable energy and close all of its nuclear reactors by 2017 - without the construction of new coal plants or significant rate hikes. Similarly, Switzerland has pledged to phase out its nuclear reactors by 2034 and make up the difference entirely in renewable energy. Even though nuclear power is currently the source for 30 percent of Japan's energy, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has expressed support for a complete nuclear phase-out. Already, 35 of Japan's 54 nuclear plants have halted operations in the wake of the Fukushima crisis, and "setsuden" conservation measures aim to make up the difference by reducing energy consumption by 15 percent this summer. Furthermore, billionaire Japanese businessman Masayoshi Son has unveiled plans to build solar farms around the country, which would triple Japan's use of renewable energy to 30 percent of the nation's total by 2020.
Altogether, these efforts demonstrate that with innovation and political willpower, an end to nuclear energy is not only possible, but entirely feasible. The idea that nuclear energy could be a safe solution to the world's energy needs was never more than an empty dream. Clearly, nuclear is just another nightmare problem. It's time to wake up to that awful reality and start focusing on better answers.
Follow Erich Pica on Twitter: www.twitter.com/foe_us
Jeffrey Rubin: Setsuden Poised to Replace Nuclear Power in Japan
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Nuclear power in Germany: Taking a step backward from energy challenge
Detection of Radioactive Materials from Seawater near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (130th release)
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11073109-e.html
http://www.nottinghamshiretimes.co.uk/Spainsgreendisaster.html
Now they have a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster to deal with for decades!
Wake Up to the modern reality of dangerous Nuclear!
As a point of perspective, 770,000 terabequerels of radiation is equivalent to...a couple thousand freighter loads of bananas. Seriously. The natural radiation of a banana is about 15 bequerels due to its potassium content, there's roughly one hundred bananas per crate, fifty crates to a pallet, and a typical freighter load is about five thousand pallets.
Small reactors insure that no matter what the natural disaster, now it will be a nuclear disaster, what were you thinking?
Solar wind and waste bio fuels and char is the 24/7 forever solution. with natural gas in the interim to back up solar and wind.
... Any day anytime 24/7/365!
... Since Nature can do that any day anytime 24/7/365!
No Reactor is safe from Nature...
Good Post
Remember how the transistor replaced the vacuum tube...
'Eyes Opened NOW'
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And this that a Poster posted here yesterday:
A Keeper!
“We need a war room” - "Every Effort Must Be Made to Seek Out, Discover and Pursue Any Person, Inventor or Corporation That Has New Energy Conservation Products or Claims of Solutions.
Richard Branson
CaptD
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Right On
All he has to do is to offer some seed money as a prize and then get a review panel to sift through the submissions! Hope he will allow some folks like US to be part of that selection group!
Of course Richard Branson advocates nuclear energy on a scale similar to France's.
... Once they see the Trillion Dollar Eco-Disasters,
... That Nuclear can cause!
I did...
~ J. Krishnamurti
And our Society is $ICK of Nuclear Trillion Dollar Eco-Disasters...
BTW: Om is my MO
A Keeper!
“We need a war room” - "Every Effort Must Be Made to Seek Out, Discover and Pursue Any Person, Inventor or Corporation That Has New Energy Conservation Products or Claims of Solutions.
Richard Branson
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/07/part-3-professor-tatsuhiko-kodama-of.html
snip
I strongly ask you to do whatever you can to protect the children.
Another thing is, what I strongly feel when I'm doing the decontamination work in Fukushima is that emergency decontamination and permanent decontamination should be dealt with separately.
We've been doing a lot of emergency decontamination work. For example, if you look at this diagram, you will notice that the bottom of this slide is where small children put their hands on. ,,, We should do more emergency decontamination work .
The ground right under the roof gutter is also where children frequently put their hands on. If you use high pressure washer you can reduce the radiation level from 2 microsieverts to 0.5 microsievert.
However, it is extremely difficult to lower the level to less than 0.5microsievert, because everything is contaminated. Buildings, trees, whole areas. You can lower radiation dose of one place, but very difficult to do that for the whole area.
Then, how much will it cost when you seriously do the decontamination work? In case of "Itai-Itai Disease" caused by cadmium poisoning, to decontaminate half of cadmium-contaminated area of roughly 3,000 hectare, the government has spent 800 billion yen so far.
How much money will be needed if we have to decontaminate the area 1,000 times as big?
http://www.energyboom.com/policy/us-military-holds-key-green-energy-push
snip
A recent New York Times article quoted Navy Secretary Ray Mabus as saying that the U.S. Navy uses 1% of the energy that the entire country uses, a staggering amount considering the size of the Navy is one-tenth of a percent of the size of the entire country.
As a result of this, Mabus told the Times, “Within 10 years, the United States Navy will get one half of all its energy needs, both afloat and onshore, from non-fossil fuel sources. America and the Navy rely too much on fossil fuels. It makes the military, in this case our Navy and Marine Corps, far too vulnerable to some sort of disruption.”
Mabus also pointed out that a recent hybrid ship, known as the Makin Island, was produced last year and saved an estimated US$2 million in fuel costs on a trip from Mississippi to California.
Each is a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster waiting to happen!
Hopefully they will expand their use of this compact, deployable and reliable source of energy.
Better control and much smaller scale and secure!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8wXie8KRrk
Military going GREEN & Saving MONEY & Lives
(Finally some Data not more Nuclear Baloney (NB))
The new CTBTO radioactive isotope data is in.
http://www.cpdnp.jp/pdf/110729Takasaki_report_Jul26.pdf
NOTE : Long document with Data on multiple pages at the end!
snip VERY large amount of Radionuclides Detected!
1. Were analyzed by the Secretariat CTBTO measurements of air trapped between 14 days from March 12 at station Takasaki radionuclide particulate multiple is not usually detected, namely, cesium (Cs) -134, 136 and 137, iodine (I) -131 ~ 133, lanthanum (La) -140, tellurium (Te) 132 and -129,129 m, technetium (Tc)-99m, etc. are detected, they are very high concentrations shown.
Radionuclides, these are Ru is believed to be originating from nuclear power plant disaster in Fukushima, whether it was included in the air trapped between 12 - March 14 is the uncertainty, the atmosphere After the collection of measurements (after 15 identical) to contaminate the detector and its surroundings and open to be seen and not been detected. Therefore, the observed radionuclides are qualitatively correct but their concentrations do not show accurate measurements.
How about quoting some of those "VERY large amounts".
There are pages of data!
There is no reason to suffer the harms from nuclear power, as it is not cheap, not clean , and not safe.
There is this persistent myth that there is such a thing as baseload "concentrated solar power with energy storage". Why do you believe this exists? The storage experiments that have been undertaken have been partial and small-scale. Nowhere is there a CSP facility that delivers continuous power.
Nuclear power keeps per-capita carbon-dioxide emissions in France significantly lower than other countries. Climate change needs action and we have an effective model in front of us. We should use nuclear power much more widely than we do at present.
Nuclear reactors can become a deadly Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster at any time anytime 24/7/365! Ask The Japanese!
This simple but ignored fact should be added to all statistical calculations!
That will make Nuclear Energy too RI$KY!
CSP with molton salt heat storage is a reality, and a baseline reliable power system. The variability of hour to hour output is levelized by drawing the heat off the molton salt instead of straight off the mirrors. Here are examples of some working systems. CSP: Targeting Grid-Parity in Spain | Renewable Energy World Magazine Article
Baseload (24/7) Solar: A Brief History and Bright Future of a Game-Changing Innovation - Tony Seba - Clean Energy and Entrepreneurship - Forbes
The concentrated solar power system has been used for years, but recently more are paying attention to this clean and safe power source, and many new facilities are coming. Sahara Forest Project
Obama administration grants $737 million for a 24/7 solar power plant - Todd Woody - Green Wombat - Forbes
Spanish CSP Plant with Storage Produces Electricity for 24 Hours Straight | Renewable Energy News Article
San Diego's New CPV Solar Giant | Special Supplement: Large Scale Solar Magazine Article
http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/flash/flash.pdf