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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Accidents

Nuclear fear has been purposely created. It can be overcome

May 15, 2017 By Rod Adams

Jon Talton of the Seattle Times published a piece in reaction to the recent kerfuffle about a structural collapse at an old, wooden beam-reinforced tunnel roof at the Hanford site in eastern Washington. The tunnel has been the storage location for equipment and obsolete components that were used several decades ago when the site was producing materials for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

The equipment stored in the tunnel is assumed to contains some radioactive isotopes. Because of its complexity, it is difficult to impossible to decontaminate.

That does not mean, however, that having a roof collapse on the equipment would cause a radioactive material release. There isn’t a driving force that would push dirt out of discarded machinery, up and out of a tunnel, through the collapsed covering material and into the surrounding environment more than a few feet from its original location.

It’s not much of a surprise to find out that the site workers have been trained to react to events like this one as if there was a real reason to be concerned.

In his Seattle Times piece, Talton acknowledged that there was no radiation release. He then went on to explain how the latest rendition of “Hanford nuclear reservation emergency” plays into a long history of public overreaction to nuclear-related situations that have caused stress and hand-wringing with few, if any real consequences.

He mentions, in a casual way, that coal and oil have killed more people and that nuclear energy does not contribute to the CO2 emissions blamed for causing climate change. I had high hopes that he was going to draw the logical conclusion that it’s time to take action to address the irrational sources of excessive nuclear fear so that we can take better advantage of the demonstrated record of operational safety, abundant fuel, reliable electricity and clean energy benefits.

Sadly, he ended his piece by concluding that nuclear fear – justified or not – was a good enough reason to avoid building new nuclear plants and to allow those in use today to expire quietly as they get older.

Though the selected headline for Talton’s article is Latest Hanford alert is another reminder of nuclear industry’s many challenges the article URL reveals that Talton’s draft probably had a title like Nuclear fears exceed its benefits.

That perception may be – and probably is – true for a certain segment of the population, but it does not have to be a permanent condition.

We know how to take action to address fears and improve decision making, even on a societal level. It is an activity that is much more likely to lead to an improved situation for society than attempting to invent “cold fusion,” develop a “cheap grid-scale battery,” produce a wind turbine that needs no wind or create a solar panel that can produce power without the sun shining.



Here is a copy of an email that I sent to Mr. Talton.

Jon:

Your recent piece about the Hanford alert and challenges to the nuclear industry was fascinating. You came ever so close to a logical conclusion but then fell short of taking the final steps.

The fear of nuclear energy is far worse than the measured effects of nuclear energy. Given that is true, the question curious minds should ask is WHY?

As you clearly illustrated, the government, industry and public react to nuclear events in ways that are difficult to explain once the event is over and the effects – including contamination, injuries or deaths – are counted up. The reaction to the tunnel collapse was a great example; it immediately resulted in activation of numerous reactionary procedures and notifications that caused anxiety and lost work hours for thousands of people but there was no evidence of any harmful radioactive material measurements anywhere.

There never was any justification for alarm; even if there are some pockets of radioactive material among all of the equipment and refuse stored in the tunnels, a collapse in the structure doesn’t provide any driving force that would spread any substantial portion of that material beyond a few yards from the tunnel itself, even in the worst possible conditions.

You note that coal and oil kill “more people” and that nuclear holds a special claim on fear in the American mind while other countries are moving forward. Then you make an unusually illogical, unsupported and ill-informed set of statements:

But the big problems with nukes have little to do with popular anxiety or federal regulation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an industry-friendly regulator, to say the least.

Beyond the waste-disposal challenge, safe nuclear-generating stations are extremely complex, prone to repeated delays and in most cases prohibitively expensive.

To be fair, some of the hurdles are a result of waiting for permits and political opposition, but hardly all. Most challenges come from technology that must perform flawlessly, fluctuating energy prices, and in some cases mismanagement by builders and utilities.

These realities have made it almost impossible to raise capital for nuclear plants on Wall Street.

If the NRC was an industry friendly regulator, nuclear generating stations would be far simpler, they would not be subjected to repeated (and often lengthy) delays; they would not have to perform “flawlessly” or risk forced regulatory shutdowns; and it would be much easier to raise capital on Wall Street, at development banks like The World Bank, or even from commercial banks that like steady, long term repayments.

I’m not trying to lay all of the blame on the regulator, but the truth is that the regulator is officially agnostic about whether or not there is a nuclear industry at all and certainly does not make any decision based on whether or not that industry has commercial success or not. It believes that its sole mission is to adequately protect the public from radiation and radioactive materials, even at levels that are hundreds of times lower than those that can harm anyone.

My working theory is that fear of nuclear energy has been skillfully and purposefully created by a propaganda effort sustained for more than half a century by people with economic motives for suppressing competition in the energy business.

The biggest risk to profitability in selling coal, oil and gas is, and always has been, the fact that energy prices inevitably fall dramatically whenever the supply exceeds demand by even a small amount for very long.

Nuclear energy scares OPEC and its partners in Big Oil and Gas because it has the potential to eliminate periodic, artificial scarcity as a price driver and source of windfall profits.

If the enormous benefits of clean, reliable electricity and heat created by fissioning tiny quantities of abundantly available fuel were recognized and the real, measured impacts of the proven hazards were understood, Americans would embrace the risk versus reward balance. Unfortunately, most nuclear proponents have been cowed into silence. The ones who are not quiet are often engineers or scientists who are not specialists in public communications.

They certainly do not have the skills and propaganda experience embodied in the vast universe of people that have obtained their wealth and power because modern, industrialized society depends on consuming vast quantities of hydrocarbon based fuels.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, the Atomic Show
Contributor, Forbes

Filed Under: Accidents

Unshielded radiation levels inside Fukushima unit 2 are extremely high

February 9, 2017 By Rod Adams

NEWS FLASH: Radiation levels measured inside the containment and shielding of a damaged nuclear reactor are HIGH. That is about as unexpected as finding out that the temperatures inside a coal-fired furnace are high enough to cause instant death to any unprotected living creature, including human beings.

There is absolutely no reason for the public to be concerned about high radiation levels measured inside a nuclear reactor.

Unfortunately, even well-resourced and established publications like the Washington Post cannot resist the lure of using a scary headline – Japanese nuclear plant just recorded an astronomical radiation level. Should we be worried? – to introduce a typically “balanced” news report that turned what could have been an opportunity to spread knowledge into a “he said, she said” opinion piece that leaves most readers in the dark about who to believe.

After quoting several experts who provided credible responses and interpretations about the recently announced radiation dose rate measurements, the reporter chose to conclude with the following statement from one of the usual suspects.

Indeed, Ai Kashiwagi, an energy campaigner at Greenpeace Japan, said the findings showed how little the government and Tepco knew about what was happening inside the reaction.

“The prime minister said everything was under control and has been pushing to restart nuclear plants, but no one knew the actual state of the plant and more serious facts could come out in the future,” she said. “It’s important to keep an eye on radiation-monitoring data and how Tepco’s investigations go.”

Relatively Routine Progress Report Of A Continuing Effort Turned Into NEWS!

Tepco, the Japanese utility company that owns the severely damaged electricity generation station known as Fukushima Dai-ichi continues to issue reports about its progress in cleaning up the industrial site. It has been nearly six years since a 45 foot high tsunami washed over the installed barrier to destroy the plant’s emergency generators and external power connections.

The resulting damage to the four reactor units that lost power to all cooling and indication systems for several days was unprecedented and extensive. As has been known for years, the site clean up effort is expected to take several decades. There will be new discoveries and learning opportunities throughout that period. Some of the progress reports will provide information that surprise some or most of the people who read them.

One part of Tepco’s planned work has always been to eventually send cameras and sensors into inaccessible areas of the damaged reactor units at the station.

On January 30, 2017, Tepco released a several page presentation with illustrations that described results of sending a small remote controlled camera into the primary containment vessel (PCV) in the pedastal area directly under the reactor pressure vessel (RPV).

BWR/6 Reactor Assembly
BWR-6-Reactor Assembly

The camera not only senses photons (light) to produce images, but it also senses gamma radiation with a +- 30% accuracy. At the levels expected for a device that would be placed closer to the damaged reactor fuel core than any other previous device, that accuracy is good enough. For such a high range measuring device, the key characteristic is to be able to produce a measurement without becoming saturated with an off-scale radiation dose rate.

The remote inspection showed that the control rod drive housings, the position indicator cables and the control rod drive exchange mechanism had not moved from their normal locations in an undamaged plant. There were some deposits on some surfaces and part of the grating that is located under the CDM housings was deformed.

Investigators noticed some water dripping, presumably from the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel. The RPV and the PCV were reported as being stably cooled.

The measured radiation level was 530 Gy/hr. (Note: Tepco and the media reported it as 530 Sv/hr, but Gy (Gray) and Sv (Sievert) are equivalent units for gamma dose rate.)

There are no external impacts from the radiation levels measured inside the PCV under the damaged core because they are adequately shielded by the containment vessel and the buildings.

New Knowledge

A portion of the hot corium apparently exited the pressure vessel and distorted the grating below the CDM housing area. This photo (recommend looking at a full sized version) shows the current state of the grating.

Reconstituted photo of grating under FD 2 RPV Jan 30, 2017

If there had been any large scale melt through, the CDM housings and position indication cables would not be in undisturbed locations.

The deformation in the grating indicates that there was a period of time when the pedastal area got hot enough to warp the steel tendons used in typical grating and there was something heavy enough to bend the softened metal.

The dripping water noted indicates that there are some tiny penetrations, most likely in the areas where the CDM housings are welded to the pressure vessel. If the penetrations were any size at all, water would be flowing, not dripping.

The surprisingly high radiation readings indicate that there is a large amount of radioactive cesium in the pedastal area. That low melting point, soluable element would have escaped from fuel rods when they were damaged. It would have dissolved into water used to keep the reactor stably cooled over the past 6 years and would have been able to drip down to accumulate in the pedastal area.

Radiation levels measured under an undamaged core are far lower, even though undamaged cores contain just as much cesium. The difference is that the radiation flux from cesium that is retained inside fuel pellets, inside fuel cladding, and in the designed core configuration has a lot of distributed shielding and distance between it and a radiation detector located in the CDM housing area.

Cesium that has left the fuel rods and accumulated under the reactor pressure vessel is virtually unshielded. The dose rate is lower now than it was six years ago because short lived Cs-134 is mostly decayed away. However, the longer lived Cs-137 has only gone through one fifth of its first 30 year half life. Radiation doses measured in the pedastal area of Fukushima Dai-ichi Unit 2 will not decrease anytime soon, but they will also not hurt anyone because there is sufficient distance and shielding to reduce the radiation to safe levels.

Note: Post has been updated with a better photo of the deformed area of the grating and a changed interpretation of how much of the melted core exited the RPV.

Additional Reading

ANS Nuclear Cafe Feb 7, 2017 – Radiation Levels Not Soaring At Fukushima Daiichi

Filed Under: Accidents, International nuclear, Radiation

Carnival of nuclear energy bloggers #303

March 14, 2016 By Rod Adams 2 Comments

It’s time for another weekly roundup of the best of the pronuclear blogs. Last week included the fifth anniversary of the March 11, 2011 twin natural disaster that included a 9.0 earthquake and a 15 meter tall tsunami. Those two closely linked forces of nature resulted in widespread infrastructure devastation over a 150 km long […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Carnival, Natural disasters

Why haven’t world leaders learned the most useful lessons from Fukushima?

March 11, 2016 By Rod Adams 35 Comments

Despite the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars that have been spent by governments and nuclear plant operators in the wake of three core melt events at the six-unit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, the most useful lessons available from the experience remain unlearned. At Fukushima Daiichi, the robust, defense-in-depth approach used in nuclear […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Nuclear Communications, Politics of Nuclear Energy

Natural gas leak polluting Porter Ranch in LA county since October 23, 2015

December 15, 2015 By Rod Adams 4 Comments

Earlier today, I found a link in one of my news feeds to a December 14, 2015 MarketPlace story titled A Natural Gas Leak With Seemingly No End. It describes an event near a community called Porter Ranch in Los Angeles county, California that has been in progress since October 23, 2015. Here is the […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Book, Climate change, Health Effects, Natural Gas

Message is reaching the public – radiation risks have been greatly exaggerated

September 24, 2015 By Rod Adams 35 Comments

An important message that has been discussed often by web publications like Hiroshima Syndrome, Yes Vermont Yankee, Canadian Energy Issues, Nuke Power Talk, Neutron Bytes, Atomic Power Review, and ANS Nuclear Cafe has jumped to the mainstream press in the form of a New York Times article by George Johnson titled When Radiation Isn’t the […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Contamination, Health Effects, LNT

Fukushima – The Price of “No Safe Dose” Assumption

August 31, 2015 By Rod Adams 15 Comments

A friend pointed me to a heart-rending piece in the New York Review of Books titled Fukushima: The Price of Nuclear Power by Michael Ignatieff. The piece is a first hand account of a visit to Japan’s Fukushima prefecture; it includes vivid descriptions of the devastation caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Health Effects, LNT

Atomic Show #240 – Prof Gerry Thomas radiation health effects

June 29, 2015 By Rod Adams

Gerry Thomas, Professor of Molecular Pathology of the Imperial College of London, has a subspecialty in the study of the health effects of radiation. She strongly believes that “public involvement and information is a key part of academic research,” and she is “actively involved in the public communication of research, particularly with respect to radiation […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Health Effects, hormesis, LNT, Podcast

60 Minutes on coal ash – muted outrage, lots of smiles and nods

December 8, 2014 By Rod Adams

On December 7, 2014, 60 Minutes, the venerable investigative reporting television show that has been on the air since 1968, aired a segment about Duke Energy’s Dan River coal ash spill, which occurred on February 2, 2014. That large release of coal waste was a big topic in local newspapers and television shows in my […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Coal, Contamination, Fossil fuel competition

Is Chernobyl still dangerous or was 60 Minutes pushing propaganda?

December 1, 2014 By Rod Adams

On November 23, 2014, 60 minutes, the venerable CBS News Sunday evening program that has been on the air since its launch in 1968, aired a segment titled Chernobyl: The Catastrophe That Never Ended. The show is full of fascinating contrasts between what the cameras show to the audience and what the narrator tells the […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Atomic history, Contamination, Health Effects, Radiation

From the HPS President – Health Physics News November 2014

October 29, 2014 By Guest Author

This is a reprint of an article published in HP News, an official publication of the Health Physics Society (www.hps.org). Neither the Health Physics Society nor the author of the article have any affiliation with Atomic Insights. Barbara Hamrick, CHP, JD, HPS Fellow At 2:46 p.m. Japan Standard Time (JST) on 11 March 2011, the […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Health Effects, Natural disasters

Nuclear energy getting attention on No Agenda podcast

October 2, 2014 By Rod Adams

No Agenda, staring Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak bills itself as “The Best Podcast in the Universe.” It is the best, most entertaining, most thought-provoking, and most professionally-produced podcast I listen to, so I cannot argue with the frequently repeated claim. On Episode 656, recorded and released on September 28, Curry and Dvorak chatted […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Advanced Atomic Technologies

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