Terrorist drill held for Fukushima nuclear plant

May 13, 2013

 

By Sheila Samples

 

Police and the Japan Coast Guard conducted a joint drill Saturday to prepare for a possible terrorist attack on the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. About 150 officers and other people, including members of a special assault team of the police, participated in the drill at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, about 10 km from Fukushima No. 1. Both plants are operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Submitters Website: http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com

Submitters Bio:

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a Managing Editor for OpEd News, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.

Nuclear plant spills radiation into Lake Michigan

By John Upton

NRC

Palisades Nuclear Generating Station

Last summer, a leaky tank led to the shutdown of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan. So plant owner Entergy patched up the leak, fired back up the reactor, and hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, the best did not materialize.

The tank began leaking again. But no worries, thought the Einsteins at Entergy, it was only leaking a gallon a day. That was OK, they figured, because the NRC had allowed it to leak up to 38 gallons a day. As of Friday, they were still doing that whole “hoping for the best” thing.

But on Saturday the leaky drip turned into a gush, and all the hoping in the world couldn’t hold back the tide of spilling radioactive water. Nearly 80 gallons of water containing small amounts of radioactive tritium and possibly trace amounts of cobalt and cesium spewed into Lake Michigan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the AP.

 

Early Sunday morning, the tank was ruled inoperable and the nuclear power plant began powering down. This is reportedly the ninth time that the facility has been shut down since 2011.

The Kalamazoo Gazette reports:

Leaks have been an ongoing issue at Palisades, owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which shut down four times in 2012 and twice so far this year. Most recently, in February, the plant shut down for six days to repair a component cooling water heat exchanger and replace a damaged switch.

The NRC resident inspectors monitored the shutdown and are closely watching repairs, [said the NRC's Viktoria Mitlyng], and the NRC is sending an additional inspector. There is no current timeline for when Palisades might resume service, she said.

Palisades has been under extra scrutiny after a series of safety issues in 2011. In September, the NRC conducted an 11-day inspection of the plant and determined that those problems had been “adequately addressed” by operators, but that additional monitoring was warranted. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled an extra 1,000 hours of inspection at Palisades during 2013.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, is usually a good friend of energy companies (the dirty kind, at least), but in this case, with a leaky nuke plant in his district, he’s all about safety. Upton is demanding that Entergy consider replacing the entire leaky tank to prevent a repeat of the weekend’s accident before the power plant is fired back up.

From a followup article in the Kalamazoo Gazette:

Upton said that he plans to visit Palisades with one of the five members of Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the “very near future.”

“When it comes to nuclear energy, safety must always come first, and without that assurance by the NRC, the facility needs to stay offline,” said Upton. …

“It is my understanding that the water tank will be emptied by the end of the week with the hope that the cause of the leak can be identified shortly thereafter,” said Upton. “Every option must be on the table — including a full replacement of the tank — to ensure that the continuing leak will not occur again.”

Meanwhile, the AP assures us that the radioactive leak won’t hurt anybody. But it wonders whether Entergy might:

The amount of radiation the NRC says was released is near the background level — what is found occurring in the environment on a daily basis — and shouldn’t raise any public concern, said Ronald Gilgenbach, chairman of the nuclear engineering and radiological sciences department at the University of Michigan.

The public can generally count on the NRC’s risk assessments and its willingness to get tough with operators of nuclear plants that have recurring problems, said Alan Jackson, a radiation health physicist at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

What should be of concern to regulators and the public, Jackson said, is whether any nuclear power plant has enough of a culture of safety in place. That’s especially important because of the intense pressures in the electrical power industry to keep costs low.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Local News: Radioactive leak from U.S. nuclear plant “got to the shore” — People on beaches a mile away — Officials downplaying seriousness of incident? (VIDEO)

Follow-up to: Nuclear plant spills radioactive water into Lake Michigan (AUDIO)

WSBT: Search for radioactive leak at Palisades nuclear plant[...] WSBT visited a park not far from the plant to hear from people on the beaches. [...] Palisades sits about a mile down the beach [...] “That’s not good, so I mean I get mad about ribbons and balloons, so radiation is obviously not thrilling either,” Larmee added. [...] Groups opposing nuclear power plants, however, say regulators and the plant’s operator are downplaying the seriousness of the incident. “This plant is an accident waiting to happen, and it really needs to be permanently shut down before the worst happens there,” said Kevin Kamps of “Beyond Nuclear.” [...]

WHTC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said that 79 gallons of the tainted water had escaped, but by the time it got to the shore, it was highly diluted and posed no threat.

Businessweek: Saturday’s radiation leak “most likely … is not a public health concern,” [Alan Jackson, a radiation health physicist at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit] said. “What’s more a concern is why do these things keep happening?” “I would fixate on, ‘OK, you have this problem. Why aren’t you fixing it?’” he said.

One nuke plant in Wisconsin will shutter, another in California might not be switched back on

By John Upton

Shutterstock / Julius Fekete

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Americans worried by the threat of a nuclear meltdown could soon have two fewer reasons to fret.

A nuclear power plant in Wisconsin will be powered down on Tuesday and the owner of a trouble-plagued plant in California is considering shutting it down for good.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Kewaunee [Power Station] owner Dominion Resources Inc. has announced it will shut the plant on May 7, a move that is expected to result in the loss of hundreds of jobs.

The reactor is closing because the Wisconsin utilities that had purchased its electricity declined to continue buying it, citing the low price of natural gas. Dominion put the power plant up for sale in 2011, but no buyer emerged.

 

So in a few short weeks, the mission of those who work at Kewaunee will change from generating power to cleaning up the power plant site.

Meanwhile, stubborn maintenance problems at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station between San Diego and Los Angeles might finally achieve what decades of anti-nuclear activism has failed to do: permanently shutter the facility, which operates along the Pacific shoreline in a seismically active region.

San Onofre is one of two nuke plants operating in California. The 2,200-megawatt, double-reactor facility has been powered down since new tubes leaked radioactive water into the sea in January 2012. New troubles continue to emerge and repair costs keep on mounting. (Those would be the costs for real repairs. Not like the jerry-rigged repairs we told you about last week, in which workers at the facility patched together a leaking pipe using plastic, masking tape, and broomsticks.)

The facility’s owner has decided that if it can’t be at least partially fired up this year, then it may never be fired up again. From the AP:

Costs tied to the long-running shutdown of California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant have soared to $553 million, while the majority owner raised the possibility [last month] of retiring the plant if it can’t get one reactor running later this year. …

[Southern California Edison] has asked federal regulators for permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power for a five-month test period, in hopes of stopping vibration blamed for tube damage. Without that approval, Chairman Ted Craver told Wall Street analysts in a conference call that a decision on whether to retire one or both reactors might be made this year.

Whenever activists have pushed to shutter the plant in the past, they’ve been told that Californians would run out of electricity and endure blackouts without their biggest single source of power. That hasn’t happened during the facility’s 15-month outage. The recent wind-turbine building spree in the state has helped fill the gap; windy weather led to wind producing more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity at one point last month.

Of course, it isn’t easy to kill a nuclear power plant – they’re like zombies, wreaking havoc even after their vital organs have stopped functioning. The nuclear waste lives on after the generators have been switched off, and that waste must be continuously kept cool to prevent a meltdown. Just look at the never-ending debacle in Fukushima. The shutdown and cleanup at the Kewaunee nuke plant in Wisconsin, which hasn’t even melted down, is expected to cost nearly $1 billion and take until the 2070s to complete.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is doling out financial support to help industry build new nuclear power plants, part of its “all of the above” energy policy.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Echoes of Fukushima: Will Duke Energy Avoid Nuclear Meltdown in the Carolinas?

An infant being tested for exposure to radiation near the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. (photo: Reuters)

By Phil Radford, EcoWatch

04 May 13

 

uke Energy and government regulators have been hiding a not-so-little secret from the people of the Carolinas. Duke’s Oconee nuclear power plant-three aged nuclear reactors 30 miles from Greenville, SC – is at risk of a meltdown should an upstream dam fail. If that were to happen, a meltdown of all three reactors on the scale of the Fukushima meltdowns and subsequent containment failure are virtual certainties according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents obtained by Greenpeace.

We’ve also received a tip that the cost to upgrade the Oconee nuclear plant site to address this triple meltdown threat would cost Duke Energy a billion dollars.

A billion dollars.

So at Duke Energy’s annual shareholder meeting yesterday in Charlotte, NC, I asked Duke CEO Jim Rogers a question about his company’s dangerous nuke plants and the billion dollar cost to protect and upgrade. Tellingly, Jim Rogers did not dispute the billion dollar price tag nor the need to better defend Oconee from flood waters.

Here’s Rogers’ response (you can listen to it at the 51:35 mark):

With respect to the billion dollar expenditures … I mean the reality is we’re the most capital intensive industry in the country, and what we try to do is – we reinvest and take our nuclear because you’re thinking about our Oconee plant and how do you deal with the dam and that situation – that’s a-our nuclear fleet because of the investments we make in it – over the last several years – our cheapest electricity - our nuclear fleet is the – provides electricity at a lower price than of other nuclear fleet in the United States. So cost is really important to our consumers – so our ability to invest that money and maintain that fleet is important …

It’s worth noting that Rogers didn’t deny the potential billion dollar price tag of the Oconee repairs. Even for Duke, that’s a serious amount of money.

I wonder if Duke’s shareholders know that the company could end up being on the hook for that kind of a pricey fix?

Greenpeace appreciates Rogers acknowledging the threat to Oconee and the enormous expense of fixing it. If Rogers wants to do the most fiscally prudent thing for Duke’s investors, he should retire the reactors. Duke and its regulators have known about this threat for decades and have utterly failed to address it. While regulation of nuclear power can be very complex, the issue at Oconee is pretty simple to understand. According to documents, the potential flood height at Duke Energy’s Oconee nuclear plant is well above the height of Oconee’s flood walls leaving important safety equipment vulnerable.

Does this sound familiar? It should. In Japan, the nuclear industry knew that the flood wall at Fukushima was too low and did nothing about it there either.

Other nuclear laden electric corporations face steep costs to upgrade old and dangerous reactors. Dominion recently testified that Fukushima fixes would cost their corporation between $30 and $40 million. But the billion dollar price tag to reduce the risks at Oconee is truly staggering. Rather than wasting a billion dollars on old reactors that will never be safe, Duke Energy should invest in renewable energy and efficiency. Wind turbines and solar panelsdon’t threaten the Carolinas with the prospect of nuclear meltdowns.

 

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In the past year, Hanford Challenge broke the news of the leaking double-shell waste tank, AY-102; was consulted for advice and explanation about various things at Hanford for hundreds of news stories in national and international news; issued statements on government reports, such as the Hanford Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement.

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Los Angeles to San Onofre: ‘Not So Fast!’

April 29, 2013

 

By Harvey Wasserman

There is a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California & much of the Southwest.

::::::::

San Onofre by U.S.NRC

A unanimous Los Angeles City Council has demanded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct extended investigations before any restart at the San Onofre atomic power plant.

The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.

Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.

On April 23, LA’s eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to “make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit” until it conducts a “prudent, transparent and precautionary” investigation. The city wants “ample opportunity” for public comment and confirmation that “mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions” have been completed to guarantee the public safety.

California’s largest city thus joins Del Mar, Encinitas, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Santa Monica, Solana Beach, Vista, Berkeley, Fairfax and the San Diego Unified School District board in asking the NRC to take all steps necessary to guarantee the public safety. Some resolutions include the demand that the NRC make utility officials testify under oath in public before San Onofre might be allowed to go back on line.

The sentiment has been echoed by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the NRC. Boxer has been joined by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) in questioning whether Southern California Edison knew steam generators being installed at San Onofre were faulty.

The new Mitsubishi generators cost some $770,000,000. But critical tubes began banging together and sprang leaks after less than a year of operations. As many as 17 percent of the plant’s 19,400 tubes may have been involved.

The reactors were shut in January, 2012. Edison has since billed ratepayers roughly a billion dollars for them, even though they’ve generated no electricity for more than a year. The utility says it needs the reactors’ power for the coming southern California summer, even though the region operated just fine last summer without them.

ABC News has now broadcast warnings from a 25-year insider at San Onofre. “There is something grossly wrong,” the whistleblower told a San Diego TV in a carefully disguised appearance.

Edison wants to operate Unit Two for five months on an experimental basis. But there are 8 million people living within a 50-mile radius. “If an accident like this happens, (an) emergency plan is not geared to handle such a public safety devastation,” says ABC’s inside source. “Those things have never been practiced or demonstrated in a drill scenario.”

The Government Accountability Office has recently confirmed the confused state of atomic evacuation planning nationwide, a warning picked up by Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA).

Such warnings echo those of former NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko, who has told the public that none of the 104 reactors currently licensed to operate in the U.S. are safe. The industry, he says, is “just rolling the dice” by continuing to operate these commercial reactors, including San Onofre.

Edison has dismissed Jaczko, the GAO and the whistleblower’s warnings in demanding a June 1 restart. Boxer and Markey want the NRC to refuse approval until public hearings can be held. But the Commission seems to be rushing ahead with the licensing process.

This unanimous resolution from Los Angeles and so many other southern California communities may have a significant impact. The public is being asked to call Boxer ((202) 224-3553) and Markey ((202) 225-2836) in support of formal hearings to pre-date any licensing.

Putting Edison, Mitsubishi and the reactors’ inside operators under oath, on the stand, in front of the public could help answer some key questions about some very expensive decisions that have put the health, safety and economy of southern California at serious risk.

Despite Edison’s fierce opposition, renewables are spreading rapidly throughout the region. With no real need for San Onofre’s power, activism has never had more a more decisive potential impact.

A radioactive cloud from a restarted San Onofre could have completely contaminated San Diego, Los Angeles and the central valley, carrying all the way across the U.S. within four days.

With an NRC decision apparently imminent, Senator Boxer and the city of Los Angeles are right to demand complete transparency and total public access to everything there is to know about this infernal machine.

This power plant is truly on the brink of being shut forever. Let’s make sure that happens. The time is now.

Crossposted at Huffington Post 

Submitters Bio:

Harvey Wasserman edits  www.nukefree.org . His SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at  www.solartopia.org . The Solartopia Green Power & Wellness Show airs at  www.progressiveradionetwork.com .

HARVEY WASSERMAN’S HISTORY OF THE US is available at http://www.harveywasserman.com/, as is A GLIMPSE OF THE BIG LIGHT and clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.

Washington’s Nuclear Hypocrisy

Published on Monday, April 29, 2013 by Foreign Policy In Focus

by Michael Walker

In April 2009, President Barack Obama gave hope to nuclear disarmament activists around the globe. Speaking in the Czech Republic, he affirmed “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” It was, and remains, the most laudable of objectives. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that the president is truly committed to eliminating these terrifying weapons of mass destruction.

This might come as a surprise to those whose knowledge of the issue is limited to Washington’s dealings with North Korea and Iran, for the U.S. government has made it plain that these nations’ purported nuclear activities will not be tolerated. As Secretary of State John Kerry declared during a visit to Seoul earlier this month, “North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power.” Regarding Iran, President Obama emphasized in an interview aired on Israeli television in March that “I have been crystal clear about my position on Iran possessing a nuclear weapon. That is a red line for us.”

These words have been matched by deeds. The Obama administration has been dogged in its efforts to punish these states for their alleged nuclear ambitions. A case in point occurred in March, when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice led the way in pushing for the imposition of new sanctions on the reclusive North Korean regime following its third nuclear test. Tehran has likewise been targeted with crippling U.S. and international economic sanctions.

However, if we look beyond these two cases, the non-proliferation edifice begins to crumble. It was reported over the weekend, for example, that the United States intends to spend around $10 billion enhancing its Europe-based nuclear weapons. This plan, which would involve turning the bombs into guided weapons that could be fired by F-35 warplanes, would represent “a significant upgrade of the U.S. nuclear capability in Europe,” according to one expert.

Then there is the matter of Washington’s cozy relations with nuclear weapons states India and Israel. The courting of India, a nation that conducted a so-called “peaceful nuclear explosion” as far back as 1974 and has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), is not a new phenomenon. The embrace of this South Asian giant began during George W. Bush’s presidency, when his administration signed a 10-year defense agreement with New Delhi and blew a giant hole in the global non-proliferation regime by agreeing to a civil nuclear cooperation deal.

President Obama’s team has been hypnotized by New Delhi’s potential as a buyer of U.S. arms and military hardware. In 2010 the president paid a visit to India where he lobbied on behalf of U.S. defense contractors Lockheed and Boeing, which were at the time bidding for a multi-billion dollar contract to provide the country’s military with 126 new warplanes. Although Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh torpedoed the U.S. bids, preferring to negotiate with the French company Dassault, the Obama administration has continued its efforts to pry open the lucrative Indian market.

Indeed, Andrew Shapiro, a high-ranking State Department official, recently boasted that “we have made tremendous progress in the [U.S.-India] defense trade relationship,” with U.S. military sales to New Delhi hitting roughly $8 billion, up from zero in 2008. He held out the appealing prospect of “billions of dollars more in the next couple of years.” In short, this logic holds that while India may have atomic weapons, what’s more important is that the country is an ally and buys large quantities of U.S. military equipment.

Unsurprisingly, Israel also gets special treatment on the nuclear front. An undeclared nuclear weapons state that has declined to sign the NPT, Israel is presumed to possess an arsenal of several hundred nuclear warheads. Notwithstanding this, the Israelis are showered with U.S. military aid, averaging around $3 billion annually. The administration’s unstinting support for Israel was recently underlined when Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flew to the Middle East to discuss a multi-billion dollar arms deal for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. As reported in the New York Times, this package is “intended to further increase Israel’s military edge over other powers in the region.” The secretary noted that the deal would send a “very clear signal to Iran.” One signal is certain to have been received loud and clear: While Washington permits its friends to have the ultimate weapon, a different set of rules applies to its enemies.

If President Obama wishes to be taken seriously as an advocate of nuclear non-proliferation, he should be consistent. The U.S. loses credibility when it vilifies North Korea and Iran while at the same time remaining silent about the atomic weapons of its friends.

Here, then, is a policy suggestion for the president: Impose sanctions against India and Israel, and end the arms deals with those nuclear states. Alas, such a course of action is unlikely, to say the least. Therefore, the outlook for nuclear non-proliferation and eventual disarmament remains bleak.

© 2013 Foreign Policy In Focus

Los Angeles to San Onofre: “Not So Fast!”

http://www.nukefree.org/editorsblog/los-angeles-san-onofre-not-so-fast     Harvey Wasserman

April 26, 2013

A unanimous Los Angeles City Council has demanded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct extended investigations before any restart at the San Onofre atomic power plant.

The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.

Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.

On April 23, LA’s eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to “make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit” until it conducts a “prudent, transparent and precautionary” investigation. The city wants “ample opportunity” for public comment and confirmation that “mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions” have been completed to guarantee the public safety.

California’s largest city thus joins Del Mar, Encinitas, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Santa Monica, Solana Beach, Vista, Berkeley, Fairfax and the San Diego Unified School District board in asking the NRC to take all steps necessary to guarantee the public safety. Some resolutions include the demand that the NRC make utility officials testify under oath in public before San Onofre might be allowed to go back on line.

The sentiment has been echoed by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the NRC. Boxer has been joined by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) in questioning whether Southern California Edison knew steam generators being installed at San Onofre were faulty.

The new Mitsubishi generators cost some $770,000,000. But critical tubes began banging together and sprang leaks after less than a year of operations. As many as 17% of the plant’s 19,400 tubes may have been involved.

The reactors were shut in January, 2012. Edison has since billed ratepayers roughly a billion dollars for them, even though they’ve generated no electricity for more than a year. The utility says it needs the reactors’ power for the coming southern California summer, even though the region operated just fine last summer without them.

ABC News has now broadcast warnings from a 25-year insider at San Onofre. “There is something grossly wrong,” the whistleblower told a San Diego TV in a carefully disguised appearance.

Edison wants to operate Unit Two for five months on an experimental basis. But there are 8 million people living within a 50-mile radius. “If an accident like this happens, (an) emergency plan is not geared to handle such a public safety devastation,” says ABC’s inside source. “Those things have never been practiced or demonstrated in a drill scenario.”

The Government Accountability Office has recently confirmed the confused state of atomic evacuation planning nationwide, a warning picked up by Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA).

Such warnings echo those of former NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko, who has told the public that none of the 104 reactors currently licensed to operate in the US are safe. The industry, he says, is “just rolling the dice” by continuing to operate these commercial reactors, including San Onofre.

Edison has dismissed Jaczko, the GAO and the whistleblower’s warnings in demanding a June 1 restart. Boxer and Markey want the NRC to refuse approval until public hearings can be held. But the Commission seems to be rushing ahead with the licensing process.

This unanimous resolution from Los Angeles and so many other southern California communities may have a significant impact. The public is being asked to call Boxer ((202) 224-3553) and Markey ((202) 225-2836) in support of formal hearings to pre-date any licensing.

Putting Edison, Mitsubishi and the reactors’ inside operators under oath, on the stand, in front of the public could help answer some key questions about some very expensive decisions that have put the health, safety and economy of southern California at serious risk.

Despite Edison’s fierce opposition, renewables are spreading rapidly throughout the region. With no real need for San Onofre’s power, activism has never had more a more decisive potential impact.

A radioactive cloud from a restarted San Onofre could have completely contaminate San Diego, Los Angeles and the central valley, carrying all the way across the US within four days.

With an NRC decision apparently imminent, Senator Boxer and the city of Los Angeles are right to demand complete transparency and total public access to everything there is to know about this infernal machine.

This power plant is truly on the brink of being shut forever. Let’s make sure that happens. The time is now.

–
Harvey Wasserman edits www.nukefree.org and is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH.

San Onofre Whistleblower Cites “Potentially Catastrophic” Design Flaw

Published on Friday, April 26, 2013 by Common Dreams

Inside source tells local news channel that cracked generator pipes at nuclear power plant could cause a full or partial meltdown

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

A former safety engineer with the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is blowing the whistle on a “potentially catastrophic problem” at the currently offline Southern California Edison plan.

Surfers catch waves in the shadows of the San Onofre nuclear plant. (Photo: digitizedchaos/ Flickr)According to a report by San Diego’s Channel 10 News, the unnamed source—who has 25 years working in the field of nuclear safety—said that a faulty redesign of the plant’s steam generators has put the system at risk of a “full or partial meltdown.”

“There is something grossly wrong,” he told the news station.

Since Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) undertook a redesign of the generators in 2010 and 2011, the tubes that carry scalding water and steam from the generator have been crashing into one another creating cracks and “unprecedented tube failure.”

Of 19,400 tubes, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report found more than 17 percent were damaged.

Dr. Joe Hopenfeld, a former employee of the NRC, explained to Channel 10 that “the worst case scenario is a main steam line break,” which could be caused by tubes cracking, the tube walls thinning or metal fatigue.

Both the unnamed safety engineer and Hopenfeld agree that if such a thing occurs, “there is potential for the reactor core to overheat—which could mean a full or partial meltdown.”

“Many tubes, and I don’t know how many, have exhausted their fatigue life—they have no fatigue life left,” Hopenfeld added. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a very serious risk.”

Earlier this month, Southern California Edison announced intentions to fire up the plant, after nearly a year spent offline, by June 1. Though the NRC has not committed to meet their target date, they are expected to make a decision about the possible restart within the coming weeks.

Both the anonymous source and Hopenfeld said that “no one can predict what will happen if the plant restarts.”

“If an accident like this happens, (an) emergency plan is not geared to handle such a public safety devastation,” added the inside source. “Those things have never been practiced or demonstrated in a drill scenario.”

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