Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant during the height of the flood after a 2000 foot long water filled barrier berm failed

In the meantime, the NRC issued a memo yesterday announcing that the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant will be receiving additional oversight from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission because of problems associated with the reactor protection system at the plant that was uncovered during a scheduled test on June 14, 2010.  At that time, one of four electrical contacts failed in a system used to “trip” or automatically shut down the reactor. The condition appears to have existed for 63 days before it was discovered.  This means the condition was in place before flooding was a concern at the plant,  Fort Calhoun has been shut down since April 7th for a refueling outage, and remained shutdown after June 6 when concerns about flooding along the Missouri River began.  The emergency status abated with the river cresting June 23rd .

While the NRC says the failure did not pose a danger to public health or safety, because other means existed to perform that safety function if necessary and the operator of the plant has replaced the defective electrical component, it does appear that had the plant been operating when the flooding occurred, emergency shutdown might have been compromised.

The NRC preliminarily determined that the violation was “yellow,” meaning it has substantial safety significance (NRC evaluates performance at nuclear power plants with a color coded process which classifies regulatory findings as either green, white, yellow or red, in order of increasing safety significance) and has since downgraded it to white.

The report has been given to the five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who are responsible for making decisions regarding the Task Force’s recommendations.

While declaring that “a sequence of events like the Fukushima accident is unlikely to occur in the United States” and that plants can be operated safely, the Task Force also recognized that “an accident involving core damage and uncontrolled release of radioactivity to the environment, even one without significant health consequences, is inherently unacceptable and proposed a comprehensive set of 12 recommendations to increase safety and redefine what level of protection of public health is regarded as adequate. It also recommended additional study of some issues.

The recommendations looked at ensuring protection, enhancing accident mitigation, strengthening emergency preparedness and improving the efficiency of NRC programs.

The report noted that the current NRC approach to regulation includes requirements for protection and responses for events that the facilities were originally designed to stand up to, such as earthquakes of the largest magnitude, or the highest flood level, or the strongest hurricane that had been experienced in the area at the time the permit was approved.  These are referred to as “design-basis” events.  There are also modest requirements for some “beyond-design-basis” events as well as voluntary initiatives by individual plant operators to address severe accident issues that are part of the NRC’s current framework for protection against what happened at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima.  But as noted by the task force, the current approach is piecemeal.

The report recommends a more coherent regulatory framework that balances defense-in-depth (layered security mechanisms that increase security of the system as a whole) and risk considerations that includes, but is not limited to:

• Requiring plants to reevaluate and upgrade as necessary their seismic and flooding protections and reconfirm every 10 years;
• Strengthening Station Black Out (SBO) systems so that plants could cope with offsite or onsite power outages for a minimum of 8 hours; establishing equipment, procedures and training to keep the core and spent fuel pool cool at least 72 hours; and developing plans for offsite resources to be delivered to the site to support uninterrupted core and pool cooling;
• Requiring that emergency plans address prolonged station blackouts and events involving multiple reactors;
• Requiring additional instrumentation and seismically protected systems to provide additional cooling water to spent fuel pools if necessary;

• Reviewing vent designs and identifying, as part of the longer term review, insights about hydrogen control and mitigation inside containment or in other buildings.

We now wait to see if and how the NRC will incorporate these recommendations into their licensing and regulatory authority over the U.S.’s nuclear fleet.  It is doubtful that this will slow the rush to relicense that is occurring around the country as plants near the end of their planned life.

Click here to read the full 79-page report.

NRC says there is currently no impact to the public health and safety and the environment.

The leak has been stopped and clean up by plant workers is underway.  The utility reported about 330 gallons of the chemical leaked and two plant workers who were working in the area were taken offsite for treatment due to possible inhalation of the chemical fumes

Governor Yasushi Furukawa of Saga Prefecture, must decide in coming days whether to support a request by Prime Minister Naoto Kan to restart two reactors at a local nuclear plant that have been shut down since last winter for regular maintenance.  If Governor Furukawa decides no, and other governors follow his lead, every nuclear reactor in Japan could end up idled in less than a year, turning Japan into a non-nuclear country faster than Germany.

Japan’s reactors are legally required to shut down every 13 months for routine maintenance. Thirty-five of the nation’s 54 reactors are now offline, some because of damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but most because of the maintenance requirement. Unless some of them are turned back on, the last reactor in Japan will be shut down by next April.  Currently nuclear reactors provide the nation with almost a third of its electricity.

Turning the reactors back on requires the central government’s approval, which has not been granted since the Fukushima accident. In the public backlash against nuclear power that has followed the disaster, the government is asking local political leaders to sign off on the restarts as well.

Mr. Furukawa is the first governor who is being called upon to make a decision. This has turned him into a reluctant leader of sorts on this nation’s nuclear future, as his decision will be closely watched by other local leaders, most of whom are on the fence about restarting reactors as they weigh issues of public anxieties about safety versus the threat of electricity shortages.

Recent Japanese opinion polls show an overwhelming majority — 82 percent in a survey conducted last month for Tokyo Shimbun — support getting rid of the nation’s reactors, but do not favor an immediate halt, prefering a gradual phasing out of nuclear power as alternatives are found.

Japan has a long history with nuclear power, and is the world’s principle manufacturer of some nuclear reactor components.  A pull back of their commitment to nuclear power could have a resounding affect on the future of nuclear power throughout the world, including those countries – the U.S., India, and Poland - who are still promoting the expansion of nuclear power.  The Saga Prefecture governor should make a decision in the next couple of weeks and we’ll update this blog at that time.

Even as nuclear plants run at higher power, posing more danger in the event of an accident, populations around the facilities have swelled as much as 4½ times since 1980.  At the same time estimates of evacuation times have not been updated in decades.  Emergency plans would direct residents to flee on antiquated, two-lane roads that clog hopelessly at rush hour. And evacuation zones have remained frozen at a 10-mile radius from each plant since they were set in 1978.

With about 120 million people, almost 40 percent of all Americans, living within 50 miles of a nuclear plant (using 2010 Census data) this scenario smacks of human tragedy, for any nuclear accident in this country.

Click here to read this segment of AP’s investigative study of Nuclear Power in America.

A new Ipsos/Reuters poll released on June 22nd reveal that global support for nuclear power has plummetted in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. A survey of over 19,000 people in 24 countries showed that three quarters of people now think nuclear power will soon be obsolete.  Only three countries still show support for nuclear power: the U.S., India and Poland.

Recent investigative reporting shows that the relative safety of nuclear power in the U.S. is tenuous, despite what some politicians have claimed. A big problem is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been working with the nuclear power industry to keep our country’s reactors operating within safety standards, but they’ve been doing it by either weakening those standards, or not enforcing them at all. A year-long investigation by the Associated Press (AP) revealed that the NRC has extended licenses for dozens of aging U.S. nuclear plants despite their having multiple problems, like rusted pipes, broken seals, failed cables and leaking valves. When such problems are found, the NRC will weaken the standards to help the plants meet them instead of ordering them to be repaired to meet current standards. The nuclear industry argues that the standards they are violating are “unnecessarily conservative,” so the NRC simply loosens the standards.

Just last year, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to nuclear reactor vessels — for the second time. Through public record requests to the NRC, the AP obtained photographs of badly rusted valves, holes eaten into the tops of reactor vessels, severe rust in pipes carrying essential water supplies, peeling walls, actively leaking water pipes and other problems found among the nation’s fleet of aging nuclear reactors.

Fukushima has been a wake up call about the dangers of nuclear power, and some countries are heeding the information. But it seems the U.S. is lagging behind when it comes to this issue. Light-to-absent coverage of TEPCO’s struggles to bring Fukushima under control, legislators who insist on acting favorably towards the nuclear power industry despite the deteriorated state of our current reactor fleet and an ineffective Nuclear Regulatory Commission have all contributed to a bad combination of a dangerous situation and a complacent American public on this issue.

This combination of lax regulations and questionable maintenance at US nuclear facilities is especially concerning with the flooding that two Nebraska nuclear plants are now facing from the swollen Missiouri River. 

Here in Texas, the first hearing to determine what issues would be addressed in the Sustaninable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition’s intervention in the re-licensing application of the South Texas Nuclear plant in Matagorda County happened Monday.  There are indications that the NRC is being more mindful that they appear more concerned with safety issues in the relicensing process, but we will see whether this is window dressing or if the agency is going to apply some lessons learned from Fukushima to our country’s relicensing process as this application moves forward.

In an official report that will go to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) set up in 1957, Japan now says nuclear fuel in three reactors possibly melted through several pressure vessels and into the earth below.  This type of event, called a melt-through, is the worst outcome in a nuclear accident.

GOSHI HOSONO, SPECIAL ADVISOR TO JAPANESE PM (Translation): At present there is damage to the bottom of the reactor container, we call this ‘core melting’ in English. Part of the nuclear fuel has fallen onto the dry earth floor and it’s possible that it’s still lodged there.

TETSURO FUKUYAMA, GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN (Translation): Hot spots were found, meaning there were certain spots with very high readings of radiation.

According to atomic experts, this is about as serious as it gets in a nuclear disaster. Dangerous levels of radioactive iodine and cesium have already contaminated the sea, the soil, groundwater, and the air.

This week plutonium was detected for the first time outside the stricken plant, and Strontium-90, known as a bone seeker because it can cause bone cancer and leukemia, has now been found as far away as 37 miles from the facility.

In a draft report to the IAEA, Japan admitted that it wasn’t prepared for the Fukushima meltdown.  Further, it also acknowledged that its nuclear regulator was run by a ministry, which has been the chief promoter of nuclear energy for decades (sound like another nuclear regulatory agency that we know closer to home?).

In an NRC memo issued on Thursday – Subject:  NRC MONITORED ALERT, FLOODING (and a FIRE!!!!) AT FORT CALHOUN NUCLEAR STATION (the portion in red are mine, the rest is the NRC’s memo).

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Tuesday monitored conditions at the Fort Calhoun Station, located 19 miles north of Omaha, Neb. The plant, operated by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), declared an Alert at 9:40 a.m. CDT.

The Alert was declared due to an indication of fire in the west switchgear room at 9:30 a.m. Automated fire suppression systems activated as expected and the fire was confirmed out at 10:20 a.m. OPPD exited the alert at 1:15 p.m. An “Alert” is the second lowest of four emergency classes. OPPD briefly activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the Joint Information Center (JIC).

For the duration of the event the NRC monitored developments from its incident response center at its Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, and received updates from the onsite NRC Inspectors. OPPD notified the states of Nebraska and Iowa.

There was no danger to the public of a radiation release because the plant has been shut down since early April for a refueling outage and remains in that condition (much like the Fukushima Dai-ichi units 4, 5, and 6). Although the plant briefly lost its normal ability to cool the spent fuel pool, temperatures in the pool remained at safe levels and the plant recovered pool cooling without the need for any of the plant’s multiple backup systems.

The licensee previously entered a Notice of Unusual Event due to the rising level of the Missouri River and some onsite flooding on June 6. Since that time, NRC has provided round the clock staffing with its Resident Inspectors and they will continue to remain on site and monitor the situation during the flood conditions.

Just last month, two US nuclear plants went into emergency shut down due to outside power loss and a fire in a switchyard adjacent to the plant when tornados tore through the Southeast.  Neither of these two plants were hit directly by a tornado, which would have made containment of the situation much more difficult.  But, scarely.one was discovered, just three months prior to the tornados, to have had issues for as long as nine months with their backup coolant system, which would have made the incident following the tornado much more dire. 

The disaster in Japan has forced numerous countries to re-evaluate the safety of their nuclear fleet of power plants and their ability to respond to safety incidents compounded by natural disasters that make containment more difficult.  Switzerland and Germany have made the decision to pursue other renewable energy sources and to phase out their nuclear units as their licenses come to their end. 

As the US looks at three incidents, in three months associated with natural disasters

• unusual flooding,
• what is amounting to one of the most prolific and deadly tornado seasons this country has seen in decades, and
• a hurricane season that has just come upon us and is predicted to be an above average Atlantic hurricane season according to the most recent forecasts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project (CSUTMP).

In the words of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya punk?”

ACT NOW TO BLOCK “CEDA”!

The Senate Energy Committee is scheduled to consider today–May 26, 2011–a bill establishing a new “clean energy” bank called the Clean Energy Development Administration (CEDA).

Unfortunately, this “clean energy” bank is anything but a source for funding genuinely clean energy. In fact, both new nuclear reactors and certain coal projects would be eligible for unlimited taxpayer backed loans if this bank were to be realized.

Take action now: tell your Senators to reject CEDA unless nuclear power and coal are removed.

Please act quickly and tell your Senators–especially if they are on the Energy Committee (members listed below)–to reject CEDA as currently written. There is nothing “clean” about nuclear power and they have a 50% default rate on financing for new plants.  A glance at any photo of Fukushima should make it clear that “clean” can no longer be considered a way to describe nuclear power. Unless nuclear power and dirty coal are taken out of the CEDA program, it should be defeated.

If one of your Senators is on the Energy Committee (members listed below), please also call him/her today and urge him/her to reject CEDA unless nuclear and coal are removed from the program. Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121.

Senate Energy Committee
Democrats:    
Chairman Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Ron Wyden (OR)
Tim Johnson (SD)
Mary L. Landrieu (LA)
Maria Cantwell (WA)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Debbie Stabenow (MI)
Mark Udall (CO)
Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
Al Franken (MN)
Joe Manchin (WV)
Christopher A. Coons (DE)
   
Republicans:
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
John Barrasso (WY)
James E. Risch (ID)
Mike Lee (UT)
Rand Paul (KY)
Daniel Coats (IN)
Rob Portman (OH)
John Hoeven (ND)
Dean Heller (NV)
Bob Corker (TN)

The meeting, which will be open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. at:

Wharton County Junior College
Center for Energy Development
4000 Avenue F
Bay City, Texas.

Click here to read our earlier blog for more details.  If you live within the now infamous 50 mile circle around the nuclear plant, you might want to stop in to ask questions about the safety of this plant and what measures have been put in place to protect you and your family in the event of an accident.

Most of us are familiar with the 10 and 50 mile zones around Fukushima, this map shows those same zones around the South Texas nuclear plant located just 76 miles outside of Houston.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet in Bay City, Texas, on Thursday, May 19, with representatives of South Texas Project (STP) Nuclear Operating Co., to discuss the agency’s assessment of safety performance for the South Texas Project nuclear power plant located near Bay City.

The meeting, which will be open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Wharton County Junior College (Center for Energy Development) 4000 Avenue F, Bay City, Texas.

In addition to the performance assessment, the NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of the South Texas (Nuclear) Project and the NRC’s role in ensuring safe plant operation.

The meeting will provide an opportunity for NRC to discuss their annual assessment of the plant with the company, local officials and the public.   NRC will answer any questions attendees may have about their oversight.

A letter sent from the NRC Region IV office to plant officials addresses the performance of the plant during 2010 and will serve as the basis for discussion. It is available on the NRC website – click here to read the letter.

In light of public concerns that have emerged regarding the safety of nuclear plants here in the U.S. in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster at Fukushima, this public meeting provides an excellent opportunity for citizens living 10, 50, or even 150 miles away to find out what measures are in place at South Texas Project to protect it’s neighbors.

Related Articles

• NRC chief says nuke agency to look at flood risk (sfgate.com)
• America’s Nuclear Nightmare: The U.S. has 31 aging reactors just like Fukushima (rollingstone.com)
• NRC chief questions blackout plans for US plants (sfgate.com)

NRC inspection findings are evaluated using a safety significance scale with four levels, ranging from “green” for minor significance, through “white” and “yellow” to “red” for high significance. On Oct. 23, 2010, a valve failed to open when operators attempted to use a shutdown cooling loop during refueling. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the plant operator, later determined that the last time the valve had definitely worked as required was on March 12, 2009 when the loop was placed in service. At the time, the public was not endangered because no actual event occurred. However, the system is counted on for core cooling during certain accident scenarios and the valve failure left it inoperable, which potentially could have led to core damage had an accident involving a series of unlikely events occurred.

An accident such as the one that occurred on April 27th when the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, only 100 miles south of the Browns Ferry nuclear plant, was devastated by an estimated EF-4 tornado over a mile wide that stayed on the ground for 2 hours, leaving behind a shocking landscape of twisted wreckage for seven miles.  That same storm cell took out transmission lines to the plant causing it to lose offsite power and triggering the three units at the plant to shut down automatically.

A regulatory conference to discuss the issue was held on April 4, just weeks before the massive tornado cell swept through the southeast. TVA stated that the failed valve was the result of defective manufacturing but still would have opened and supplied the necessary cooling water. The NRC review disagreed and concluded the violation was “red” or of “high safety significance.” The valve was repaired after its failure was discovered last October and prior to returning the unit to service, however the NRC has determined that significant problems involving key safety systems warrant more extensive NRC inspection and oversight. 

Had the problem not been discovered and repaired six months before the the tornados shut down the plant, would the outcome have been different?  More Fukashima-like?  The increased scrutiny of the nation’s aging nuclear industry, due in large part to the disaster in Japan, is uncovering some disquieting issues.  Will the NRC’s return to being a regulatory agency instead of a shill for the industry, and their heightened oversight prevent another nuclear disaster – or is it only a matter of time before an undetected problem at a plant, coupled with unforeseen events, has the US coping with its own disaster?

Most of us are familiar with the 10 and 50 mile zones around Fukushima, this map shows those same zones around the Comanche Peak nuclear plant located just 38 miles outside of Fort Worth.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet in Glen Rose, Texas, on Thursday, May 12, with representatives of Luminant Generation Co., to discuss the agency’s assessment of safety performance for the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is located near Glen Rose.

The meeting, which will be open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Somervell County Expo Exhibit Hall, 102 Northeast Vine Street, Glen Rose, Texas.

In addition to the performance assessment, the NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of Comanche Peak and the NRC’s role in ensuring safe plant operation.

The meeting will provide an opportunity for NRC to discuss their annual assessment of the plant with the company, local officials and the public.   NRC will answer any questions attendees may have about their oversight.

A letter sent from the NRC Region IV office to plant officials addresses the performance of the plant during 2010 and will serve as the basis for discussion. It is available on the NRC website – click here to read the letter.

In light of public concerns that have emerged regarding the safety of nuclear plants here in the U.S. in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster at Fukushima, this public meeting provides an excellent opportunity for citizens living 10, 50, or even 150 miles away to find out what measures are in place at Comanche Peak to protect it’s neighbors.

Related Articles

• NRC chief says nuke agency to look at flood risk (sfgate.com)
• America’s Nuclear Nightmare: The U.S. has 31 aging reactors just like Fukushima (rollingstone.com)
• NRC chief questions blackout plans for US plants (sfgate.com)

Damage at the Fukashima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant following a devastating earthquake and tsunami

A recent ABC News-Washington Post poll shows Americans oppose building more nuclear power plants in the United States, by a margin of 2-1.  This is an 11-point increase in opposition, up from a few years ago.

In the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear plant crisis, 64 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll now oppose new  nuclear plant construction, while 33 percent support  it. “Strong” opposition outstrips strong  support, 47-20 percent. Opposition is up from 53  percent in a 2008 poll, and strong opposition is up  even more, by 24 points.

This ABC News-Washington Post poll was conducted  by telephone April 14-17, 2011, among a random  national sample of 1,001 adults, including landline  and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a  margin of sampling error of 3.5 points. The survey  was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y, with sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa.  Click here to check out the charts and questionnaire.

This poll reflects changing public attitudes that goes beyond a not-in-my-back-yard phenomenon. The survey finds that while 67 percent of Americans oppose construction of a nuclear plant within 50 miles of their home, this number is not significantly different than the number who oppose it regardless of location.  Opposition also appears to be bipartisan, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike opposed to new nuclear plant construction.

Still, there are differences among groups; opposition is higher among Democrats (75 percent, vs. 59 percent of Republicans and independents combined), women (73 percent, vs. 53 percent of men) and liberals (74 percent, vs. 60 percent of moderates and conservatives).

In the past, support for building nuclear plants has fluctuated, showing sensitivity to nuclear crises. In the mid-1970′s when nuclear plant building was booming 61 percent supported nuclear power, however support fell sharply after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and bottomed out at just 19 percent in May 1986 after the Chernobyl crisis (whose 25th anniversary will be marked next week).  

Most Americans do not say that nuclear power is unsafe, but the subtle difference in their perception of how safe nuclear plants are plays into whether or not they support the building of new nuclear plants.  Indeed, 53 percent of Americans said that nuclear power is safe overall, 11 points above the immediate post-Chernobyl level.  But only 23 percent see it as “very safe,” which apparently is what’s needed to sustain public support, and very justly so, given the potential consequences should a plant prove unsafe.  Among people surveyed who think nuclear power plants are very safe, 84 percent favor building new ones. But that falls to 33 percent of those who just think it’s only somewhat safe. And those who think it’s unsafe are nearly unanimous (93 percent) in their opposition.

Not surprisingly, 42 percent say the crisis in Japan has made them less confident in the safety of nuclear power overall; 51 percent say it’s had no effect. This, too, ties in closely with support for construction:  Among those who are less confident now, 84 percent  oppose building new plants. Among those whose opinions haven’t changed, opposition falls to 48 percent.

These changing attitudes toward nuclear power have been reflected in recent events that include:

• NRG’s decision to write off their investment in a proposed expansion of theSouth Texas(Nuclear) Project, effectively killing that project. 
• In a contested case brought by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), the NRC Licensing Board, said that UniStar Nuclear is not eligible to build a reactor in theU.S.ordered UniStar and the NRC Staff to show cause as to why they shouldn’t rule in NIRS’ favor, and deny a construction license for Calvert Cliffs-3.
• Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced HR 1242, a nuclear bill that would:

• Ensure that nuclear power plants and spent nuclear fuel pools can withstand and adequately respond to earthquakes, tsunamis, strong storms, long power outages, or other events that threaten a major impact.
• Require nuclear power plants to have emergency backup plans and systems that can withstand longer electricity outages.
• Require spent nuclear fuel to be moved into safer dry cask storage as soon as the fuel is sufficiently cooled to do so.
• Require the Department of Energy to factor in the lessons learned from the Fukushima melt down when calculating the risk of default on loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants.

These are all pretty dramatic changes from what was happening in this country, with respect to the nuclear renaissance, just over a month ago.  It took 20 years for the memory of Chernobyl to fade enough for the industry to take up the mantle of promoting a nuclear expansion in this country as the panacea for our varied energy woes that included high oil prices, environmental concerns prompted by the Gulf oil spill a year ago and efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.  The ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima is showing the world that when things do go wrong, the costs of nuclear in terms of high prices, and environmental concerns are higher than people want to pay.

Click here to read the 2003 NRC report and click here to read the 2005 re-evaluation report.  Draw your own conclusions but be warned, these are not user friendly reports.

Click here to go to MSNBC”s interactive US map showing the risk for plants around the country.

A Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) official said this week that the company has tasks fit for “jumpers” (ジャンパー) — workers so called because they “jump” into highly radioactive areas to accomplish a job in a minimum of time and race out as quickly as possible.  Sometimes jumpers can make multiple runs if the cumulative dosage is within acceptable limits — although “acceptable” can be open to interpretation.  In cases of extreme leaks however the radiation might be so intense that jumpers can only make one such foray in their entire lives, or risk serious radiation poisoning.

Asked how the contaminated water could be pumped out and how long it would take, a TEPCO official replied: “The pump could be powered from an independent generator, and all that someone would have to do is bring one end of the pump to the water and dump it in, and then run out.”

Translation: Jumpers wanted.

In its attempts to bring under control its radiation leaky nuclear power plant that was severely damaged by last month’s massive earthquake and tsunami,  TEPCO is trying to get workers ever closer to the sources of radiation at the plant.

Workers are reportedly being offered hazard pay to work in the damaged reactors of up to $5,000 per day.

So if you aren’t concerned about the quality of your life 10 to 15 years down the line and are not planning on having children, this may be the job for you.

The applicant for license renewal is STPNOC – the South Texas Nuclear Operating Company. The Matagorda County nuclear reactors are owned by NRG South Texas LP, CPS Energy and the City of Austin. Austin gets 16% of its power from the two units.

For information on how citizens can comment on re-licensing of the reactors call Carmen Fells at 1-800-368-5642, ext. 6337.

Related documents are online at www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/south-texas-project.html.

Click here to submit your comment online.

According to an article in Mother Jones:

The compact allows him (Simmons) to get paid for burying other states’ nuclear trash while outsourcing much of the risk to Texas taxpayers. Though the state will receive a cut of disposal fees and $36 million to cover “corrective action” and ”post-closure” expenses, it will have to bear any other cleanup costs on its own. According to a report by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission: “Potential future contamination [from the waste] could not only have a severe impact to the environment and human health, but to the State, which bears the ultimate financial responsibility for compact waste disposal facility site.“

Click here to read the recent Mother Jones article on the history and issues with this site.

In light of the massive cleanup that faces Japan from the radiation that is flooding the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in the wake of its ongoing recovery efforts – seemingly contributed to by Japan’s failure to adequately regulate and reign in the runaway plant operator, is it in Texas’ best interest to just let this company have their way with us?

This bill will go next to the floor of the House and if it continues to move, as we expect it will given the money and influence behind it, on to a Senate committee.  If we are to have any chance of making this bill more protective of the health, well-being and pocketbooks of regular Texans, regular Texans are going to have to let their lawmakers know they are concerned.

How close do you live to a nuclear plant? I got curious and this is what I found out.

If a crisis at a nuclear reactor happened in the U.S., could you be living in a danger zone? In a 10-mile radius, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the air could be unsafe to breathe in the event of a major catastrophe. In 50 miles, food and water supplies may be unsafe.  Click here to go to CNN.Money’s plant locator.

Don’t forget that radioactive particles can be carried on the wind and many of us in Texas know how far the wind can carry things - for example, every year, when we start coughing each time we walk outside, when Mexico is burning fields.

Chernobyl – 180 tons of fuel exploded into the atmosphere

*       Reactor No. 3 is reported to have reprocessed fuel which means there is a mixture of uranium and plutonium in the fuel rods.

**     This information was reported by HKN News Japan, and was verified by MSNBC through Japanese and American nuclear experts as being their best estimate of the nuclear fuel on site at Fukushima Dai-ichi.

***   The spent fuel is less hot and less radioactive than the reactor fuel in the core, but without knowing how old the spent fuel rods are there is know way to know what the total radioactivity house at the plant is.

Related Articles

• Spent Fuel Rods at Plant Pose Big Risk (online.wsj.com)
• Helicopter Dumps Water on Crippled Nuclear Plant Fuel Rods (businessweek.com)