Concerns Grow Over Risk of U.S. Nuclear Projects Post-Fukushima

[kristopher]

Concerns Grow Over Risk of U.S. Nuclear Projects Post-Fukushima
Tuesday 16 August 2011
by: Sue Sturgis, Facing South | Report

The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan is still unfolding five months later, with multiple meltdowns and significant radiation releases contaminating communities and farms downwind from the facility. Some nuclear experts are calling it "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind."

The Fukushima accident is also raising questions about the U.S. nuclear industry's current plans to build new reactors and re-license old ones.

Today, environmental and public-interest advocacy groups filed 19 legal challenges that ask the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to put the brakes on reactor licensing until it fully incorporates into its regulatory process the lessons learned from Fukushima.

A total of 25 groups and several individuals filed the contentions with the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. They cite the recently-released findings of an NRC task force appointed to conduct an emergency review of the regulatory implications from the meltdowns and radioactive releases at TEPCO's Fukushima plant. The review identified both systemic and specific problems in how NRC regulations protect the public, pointing to issues including seismic hazards, flooding, fires, station blackouts, hydrogen gas production, the vulnerability of spent-fuel pools, and multi-reactor accidents.

"Significant regulatory...

http://www.truth-out.org/concerns-grow-over-risk-us-nuclear-projects-post-fukushima/1313505605

[madokie]

1. I've always been nervous about using nuclear fission to boil water

I mean we do have a big old hot sun beaming down on us most days that we could be harnessing if we'd get off our asses and do it. Quite worrying with trying to make nuclear energy palatable to the masses, (they've failed that already,) and get our asses in gear with alternates.

The atomic energy consortium, if you can call them that then, didn't have fission down when they started pushing it on us. If not for the government needing material to make bombs with we'd not have any today or we'd only have a few heaps of concrete and steel thats cordoned off from animal and human inhabitation. Its always been a lie and will always be a lie. For a while there I was beginning to think that maybe thorium was the way to go but after spending some time reading about that I've come to the conclusion that it will be a long time if ever that comes to be. The sun, wind, geo thermal and water with a little natural gas when needed. We could cut our co2 production by leaps and bounds by going that route.

rec'd

[flamingdem]

2. Hello silver linings nt

[FBaggins]

3. The only serious concern so far in the U.S.

appears to be among the fearmongers who can't believe that these projects keep moving forward despite their best efforts (and the biggest advantage in playing field that they've had in decades).

Time's running out. What will you try next?

[kristopher]

4. How many applications were filed in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively?

How many applications that were filed are now on indefinite hold?

The nuclear industry is on life support and the patient is still failing.

[FBaggins]

5. How many reactors have been started or completed in the last few decades?

It's clear that we aren't going to match China in nuclear enthusiasm, but it's just as clear that the gates have opened and Fukushima hasn't done much of anything to stop it. The biggest impact on new reactor delays is what it ought to be... a slow economy simultaneously making investment capital scarce and making generating demand even scarcer. Fortunately, it looks like some of the old coal plants will be pushed out of service and demand needs (as with TVA) for nuclear will return with just a short delay.

How many applications that were filed are now on indefinite hold?

What qualifies as an indefinite hold in your mind? If Arnie says that there's a problem with the AP1000 and the NRC asks for some new paperwork, does that put everything on hold? Do you consider Calvert Cliffs to be on "indefinite hold"?

As is usually the case, reality and your perception aren't on speaking terms with one another.

TVA signals an order for six SMRs.

A bill to fund research on SMRs for a bit under half a billion dollars just came out of Senate committee in the last few weeks with a recommendation that it be taken up. Only one senator opposed the bill (and more Democrats sponsored it than Republicans).

NRC staff just took the penultimate step on approving the AP1000 and the first construction approval is expected around the end of the year (give or take a couple months).

Arnie (and a group of zombies) pulled out all the stops trying to scare the TVA into thinking that Bellefonte shouldn’t be completed. They voted overwhelmingly against him (and, of course, Watts Bar’s new reactor is just about completed and ready to begin fueling).

The only project I’m aware of that stalled post-fukushima is the one in Texas, which pretty clearly had more to do with the finances of one of the key players (TEPCO – for obvious reasons) than any safety concerns related to nuclear power in general. And even that project isn’t apparently dead (in fact there were NRC hearings just this past week)