By Susan Q. Stranahan, iWatch News
These are rocky days at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which finds itself under attack from the outside for decisions ranging from new reactor designs to safety issues that have languished for years, including the agency's failure to get serious about fire hazards.
Many issues laid bare since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster are anything but new. Critics have for years railed about regulators' coziness with industry, relative inattention to safety concerns and minimizing of seemingly unlikely events -- the same factors that have brought the Japanese nuclear industry to its knees.
What's different now is that some leaders within the tightly-knit community of U.S. overseers are openly expressing their concerns -- including the chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, who has come under withering criticism in recent days for his management style.
He recently went so far as to scold his NRC colleagues for not dealing more aggressively with the threat of fire at the nation's nuclear plants.
"The continued willingness to tie inspectors' hands by limiting the tools they have available to ensure we meet our mission of protecting public health and safety, is more than disappointing -- it is unacceptable," Jaczko wrote.
As iWatch News recently reported, fires are the most likely accident to threaten a reactor core, and critics claim the NRC for decades has been far too lenient on fire safety.
In a commission vote, taken in late May but officially released last week, Jaczko cast the lone negative vote against a plan that will give nearly half the nation's nuclear plants more time and leeway in meeting fire safety rules, a process that has already dragged on for more than eight years, he noted.
"The bottom line is that licensees have had years to identify fire protection deficiencies and the Commission must close this very long chapter of not enforcing all fire protection violations," wrote Jaczko in a lengthy comment.
Underlying much of the criticism of the NRC of late are doubts about the agency's ability to ensure public health and safety with the nation's current fleet of 104 reactors. As iWatch News reported last month, the NRC increasingly is handing over decisions on safety to reactor owners, allowing them to prioritize risks based on computer modeling and respond accordingly.
Safety issues have been raised on several other fronts within the past week. A rundown of recent events:
In the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, questions also are being raised about the ability of nuclear plants to handle unforeseen events, such as what occurred in Japan. The NRC has launched a 90-day review of safety compliance at U.S. reactors and Wednesday's update came at the 60-day mark of the assessment. The final report is due to the NRC on July 12.
Opponents of the AP 1000 design have argued that the assessment may result in new rules and costly safety upgrades at all reactors, including those still on the drawing boards. They say all work should be halted on the approval process until the full extent of any changes is known.
"The NRC keeps falling further behind [on the AP1000 licensing review] due to Westinghouse's failures," said Jim Warren of NC Warn, a nuclear watchdog in Durham, N.C., one of the groups filing the petition. "And all this is before they even begin incorporating safety changes in the U.S. stemming from the Fukushima disaster -- which the NRC and even industry leaders admit could be extensive."
The public interest groups claim the NRC has ignored or covered up long-standing problems with the design, which has been selected for two twin-reactor projects already under construction, and at one time was the design of choice for 14 new reactors, most in southeastern states.
The two projects already underway, despite final certification from the NRC, are in Georgia (Vogtle Units 3 and 4) and South Carolina (V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3). Utility customers have already paid $1 billion in increased rates to finance construction, the public interest groups note.
If approved, the AP 1000 would be the first new reactor design authorized by the NRC in decades. Critics, including some within the NRC, have challenged the design's ability to withstand earthquakes and severe weather. Further changes in design may be required as a result of lessons learned from the Fukushima accident in Japan.
Also uncertain until the post-Fukushima review is completed is whether the NRC will order so-called "back-fits" on older plants. Older plants, many of similar vintage and design as the Fukushima reactors, were often licensed without features now required on newer plants. In a number of instances, the NRC has granted 20-year license extensions to those older reactors without requiring updates.
That also drew criticism from the NRC's Jaczko. "We have, over the years, done things only half-way and maybe not all the way to try and address these things," Jaczko said during Wednesday's commission meeting.
The NRC is required by law to prove that the benefits of the "back-fits" are greater than the cost of making the upgrades. In the past, the nuclear industry has successfully opposed changes on the basis of cost versus benefit.
For its part, the nuclear industry says it is already making improvements and will continue to do so as more is known about the Fukushima disaster. Three industry groups, the Electric Power Research Institute, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations and the Nuclear Energy Institute, plus nuclear utility executives are cooperating to develop their own response.
"A comprehensive investigation of the events at Fukushima Daiichi will take considerable time," the group said. "Yet, there is also a need to act in a deliberate and decisive manner."
The 4-1 NRC vote on fire safety came in the wake of two independent investigative reports last month on lax enforcement of fire regulations at reactors by iWatch News and ProPublica.
The NRC vote was part of a proposal to give reactors owners more time to switch from fire regulations, known as Appendix R (which are prescriptive in nature), to newer rules that are risk-based and are called NFPA 805.
As iWatch News reported last month, fires are the most likely threat to reactor safety and occur 10 times a year on average. The NRC and nuclear industry have been encouraging a move away from Appendix R, which sets out specific rules, to a new risk-based program that allows reactor owners to adopt their own responses to fire threats, based on an estimated level of risk. In the meantime, they can continue to use interim safety measures, such as fire patrols or other temporary fixes.
Critics claim that the NRC knowingly has allowed reactor owners for years to use interim measures to sidestep full compliance. The vote in May was to set up a staggered timetable for more plants to come into compliance with the new 805 rules.
During the transition, NRC inspectors will be required to use "enforcement discretion," meaning they will only cite the most serious violations.
"It is disappointing enough that we, as a regulator, have allowed the transition of NFPA 805 to be voluntary," wrote Jaczko.
Jackzo has come in for some sharp criticism of his own. Last week, in a report requested by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the NRC's Inspector General Hubert Bell said the chairman was "not forthcoming" to other commissioners in his efforts to shut down the long-delayed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
According to Bell's report, Jaczko intimidated staff members who disagreed with his efforts to halt work on the controversial project and withheld information from fellow commissioners to win support for pulling the plug on the project. Jaczko was an aide to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is a staunch opponent of Yucca Mountain.
On Tuesday, a leading House Republican told reporters Jaczko should resign. Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Kentuckian who heads the Energy and Power Subcommittee, said Jazcko withheld information from fellow commissioners to ensure that a scientific review on the project did not proceed.
Jaczko rejected the call, telling a reporter he had "no intention" of stepping down.
Follow The Center for Public Integrity on Twitter: www.twitter.com/iwatch
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The NRC remains convinced that U.S. nuclear power plants are designed and operated in a manner that protects public health and safety. The implementation of the defense-in-depth principles by the NRC and industry, conservative decision making, use of risk insights, the results of the recent TI inspections and continuous routine inspections performed by the NRC’s Resident Inspectors, industry initiatives and actions coordinated through the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, robust corrective programs, and an absence of complacency in responding the events at Fukushima provides for further assurance that the U.S. nuclear power plants continue to remain safe.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269475/fire-nrc-chairman-gregory-jaczko-robert-zubrin
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19 hours ago (3:06 PM)
Shoot the messenger? how cheap.
Does any rube want to debate that?
Fission power is a power fail away from meltdown and explosion.
Fission can never be safe: Waste, terrorism, proliferation, accidents. That pile of deadly radioactive materials will always be a threat.
You devote yourself to old fifties designed model T reactors.
Current reliability is 3 major accidents for every 50 years for 500 nukes. Right? That's a major disaster for every 8000 reactor years. If you have 1000's of reactors as pro nuke folks suggest, you have a major disaster every year or so.
Recall that today's old reactors also have that ridiculous reliability claim. No credibility whatsoever.
Add to that, that the models assume total corporate responsibility, when in fact, big companies cut corners till things break. Even we speak, the US nuclear power industry brags about ruining old reactors over spec and past their deign lifetimes. There goes you reliability numbers...
http://www.emcbc.doe.gov/files/dept/logistics/CRADs/INPO%20Principles%20for%20a%20Strong%20Nuclear%20Safety%20Culture.pdf
Why this religious faith in big business in the face of all the available evidence? Big business cuts corners til things break.
"When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny." John Adams
"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard." Alexander Hamilton
John Ritch, director general of the World Nuclear Association, said the industry had been struggling in the last decade to limit capital costs while building a new generation of reactors.
"In this context, it is crucially important that regulatory actions taken in response to Fukushima have demonstrable benefit arising from any increased costs," he told a major international safety conference, according to a copy of his speech.
"Focus solely on cost-effective measures," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/21/us-nuclear-safety-costs-idUSTRE75K3TL20110621
Safety of a Nuclear Facility and it's surrounding inhabitants vs Cost Effectiveness?? Guess whats going to win?? $$$... every nickle adds to the bottom line..
"Because I-937 requires Lewis County PUD to acquire qualifying renewable power regardless of whether the District needs additional power or not, the District has purchased wind power at about 8 to 9 cents per kwh and backed off low cost BPA hydro power at about 3 cents per kwh, while also adding additional programs and measures to expand its conservation program. The BPA rate increase and the I-937 compliance costs have added approximately $4 million to the PUD's annual costs for 2010"
http://www.lcpud.org/rates.html
In other words wind power is costing the ratepayres of Lewis County PUD twice what they would have paid. Wind is not exactly cheap or ratepayer friendly.
See more: http://www.billwilsonwriter.com/index.php?p=1_6_COMANCHE-PEAK-NUCLEAR-FACILITY
This is but one of the many ways that the nuclear industry runs up bills that it does not intend to pay. As far as reprocessing is concerned; www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/nuclear_terrorism/technical_issues/reprocessing-and-nuclear.html
Wow that is a lot of plants to go bankrupt. I must have missed all those headlines over the past few years.
The last I saw was that Exelon and Entergy were doing quite well for the biggest owners of bankrupt power generators.
And what forgiveness of debt affected the operating reactors?
Reactors are incredible money makers. Once natural gas goes back to the prices of a couple years ago they will be regular money printing machines. Which is what scares the natural gas industry and why they are fighting so hard to make sure nuclear power plants aren't built.
And thanks to people like you I will probably have to pay 2-3 times more for my electricity 10-15 years from now after natural gas doubles in price.
This, and the laxity of enforcement of safety rules in general, illustrates again why nuclear power is unsuitable for continued use, and why new construction of nuclear plants should not be allowed. Who or what agency can we put in place to monitor and safeguard such a dangerous form of energy production? Neither private industry nor government regulators to date has been anything like adequate, as each has chosen to underplay the inherent dangers, and each has chosen expediency over actual safety.
And now of, course, most plants here are old and showing a bit of age--- so now the industry is pressing the government to extend the licenses of the plants, without offering up any real evidence that they can operate safely past their obsolescence date. After Fukushima, this a bit of risky business we had better not buy into.
If nuclear power was a really good idea, why will no private businesses build plants without government investment and protection against liability? If nuclear power were really safe, why will no private insurer cover nuclear plants?
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"If nuclear power was a really good idea, why will no private businesses build plants without government investment and protection against liability? If nuclear power were really safe, why will no private insurer cover nuclear plants?"
Here is the answer: Price Andersen act does not require plants to obtain private insurance. Plain and simple.
Under existing policy, owners of nuclear power plants pay a premium each year for $375 million in private insurance for offsite liability coverage for each reactor unit. This primary or first tier, insurance is supplemented by a second tier. In the event a nuclear accident, causes damages in excess of $375 million, each licensee would be assessed a prorated share of the excess up to $111.9 million. With 104 reactors currently licensed to operate, this secondary tier of funds contains about $11.6 billion. If 15 percent of these funds are expended, prioritization of the remaining amount would be left to a federal district court. If the second tier is depleted, Congress is committed to determine whether additional disaster relief is required.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html
But I would be interested in your thoughts regarding this portion of my comment: "Who or what agency can we put in place to monitor and safeguard such a dangerous form of energy production? Neither private industry nor government regulators to date has been anything like adequate, as each has chosen to underplay the inherent dangers, and each has chosen expediency over actual safety."
As we saw play out at Fukushima, government and industry spokesmodels worked as one to under-inform and mollify. The industry is so enmeshed with its host government, that neither can be relied on to be truthful, since the truth, at least in this instance, made both look incompetent and under-prepared.
Finally, where will spent fuel rods and radioactive water be housed? There is quite a bit of these items throughout the US now. More plants, and old plants in operation longer, will only make the amount increase. So far as I know, there no long-term storage facilities suitable or available for use.