Leaks spotlight aging nuclear plants

[ensho]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35186159/ns/us_news-environment/


Latest in Vermont has governor calling it a ‘breach of trust’


Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, now taints at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants.

The leaks — many from deteriorating underground pipes — come as the nuclear industry is seeking and obtaining federal license renewals, casting itself as a clean-green alternative to power plants that burn fossil fuels.

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"What has happened at Vermont Yankee is a breach of trust that cannot be tolerated," said Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, who until now has been a strong supporter of the state's lone nuclear plant.

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President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address last week, called for "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." His 2011 budget request to Congress on Monday called for $54 billion in additional loan guarantees for nuclear power.

The 104 nuclear reactors operating in 31 states provide only 20 percent of the nation's electricity. But they are responsible for 70 percent of the power from non-greenhouse gas producing sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric dams.

-snip-

The Braidwood nuclear station in Illinois was found in the 1990s to be leaking millions of gallons of tritium-laced water, some of which contaminated residential water wells. Plant owner Exelon Corp. ended up paying for a new municipal water system.

-snip-

In New Jersey last year, tritium was reported leaking a second time from the Oyster Creek plant in Ocean County, just days after Exelon won NRC approval for a 20-year license extension there. The Pilgrim plant in Plymouth, Mass., like Vermont Yankee, owned by Entergy, reported low levels of tritium on the ground in 2007. The Vermont leak has prompted a Plymouth-area citizens group to demand more test wells at the Massachusetts plant.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan says leaks have occurred at at least 27 of the nation's 104 commercial reactors at 65 plant sites. He said the list likely does not include every plant where tritium has leaked.

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"When you have public officials that the public depends on for their health and welfare making casual statements that a radioactive substance is not harmful to you, I think that's ludicrous," Klein said.

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"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said when the NAS released its study.

Paul Gunter of the Maryland-based anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, said in many instances, it's impossible to know how much tritium is getting into the environment.

"These are uncontrolled, unmonitored releases from these plants," he said.
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[rurallib]

1. And Obama wants more. And 'clean coal'.

[TheMadMonk]

2. Let's see. The operators (not inspectors) reported the leaks...

...when they discovered them. They took appropriate corrective/remedial action.

The operators also wish to replace their aging reactors with new, modern and even safer designs. (BTW: The nuclear industry has a far, far better safety record than virtually any other industry on the planet already.) However they are unable to obtain regulatory approval and are forced to continue operation with equipment that they want to retire and replace. And ultimately, unless they are allowed to do so, the most likely scenario is that these operators will simply shut the gate and walk away, leaving the problem for the government/public to deal with. And they won't have any choice but to do so, since there are no facilities to take the waste, and as it stands the law requires that waste be stored on site.

"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said when the NAS released its study.

Now that's a disingenuous use of the facts. Whilst true, this statement neglects to mention: That granite benchtops, and concrete emit more ionising radiation than contaminated groundwater; That modern energy efficient house designs can in the right(wrong) circumstances cause a buildup of naturally occuring radon; That living at any significant height above sea level exposes people to considerably elevated levels of ionising radiation; That many medical imaging techniques cause significant exposure far in excess of man made environmental exposure.


Yes there are problems with unwanted leaks/releases from nuclear power plants. Mostly as a result of aging infrastructure that was NEVER intended to be operated for as long as it has. The obvious solution is to replace the old with newer and better equipment.

However, the anti-nuclear forces will not be satisfied with anything but a total abandonment of the technology, and it is my firm (if only personal) belief that these people are so "devoted" to their cause, that the want and welcome every single opportunity to scream "I told you so!" and are willing to have the public suffer as many such events as are necessary to achieve their goal.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. funny, funny stuff! especially the way you ignore the elephant in the room

can we send all the waste you so casually mention, in passing, to your country?

but, then, you, or your kids (maybe their kids) won't be around when the chickens come home to roost

some say they have, in certain ways (ask the French)

and, speaking of misinformation, care to deal with the huge lie that nukes are carbon-pollution/neutral? master of all nuclear knowledge that you are, you certainly know what I'm talking about.

[TheMadMonk]

4. As a matter of fact. Yes you may. Provided of course you pay.

Where I come from, we got tens of thousands of square miles of undisturbed bedrock well over 1 billion years old, that is just perfect for siting a repository.

IF we needed such a damned stupid wasteful thing.


Thorium fueled and fast breeder reactors are both perfectly capapble of "incinerating" nuclear waste. I don't like fast breeders for any number of reasons. However, the moten salt thorium reactor looks very, very nice. The technology was proven long ago, and then abandoned because of the huge difficulty in weaponising it.

Then there is the neutron beam route. A benchtop device capable of either "incinerating" nuclear waste, or burning a wide range of fuels in subcritical amounts. Used as a trigger, the potential exists for building power plants ranging in output from a few kilowatts upwards.

AND this my friend would deal with your last objection. Mining equipment, railway locomotives, even heavy road transport could be nuclear powered. Safely. Indeed, there are no obvious reasons why the technology couldn't be scaled down to safely power personal people movers and individual dwellings. Replacing calcium oxide with magnesium oxide in concrete turns concrete into a pretty decent carbon sink. Not that thorium salt, or neutron beam triggered reactors would need anything like the amount of concrete that existing reactors require.


You point at 40-50 year old technology which HAS NOT BEEN PERMITTED to be improved in any but the most superficial ways in that time and with absolutely no basis to do so, declare that exactly the same objections MUST apply to the new. I will conceed that your concerns about the older technology are indeed valid, if somewhat overstated.

HOWEVER, they do not apply to either thorium salt or beam triggered reactors. Uranium fueled reactors generate tons of long lived waste every year. Thorium Salt and beam triggered, generate kilograms of short lived waste AND at the same time are capable of "incinerating" the accumulated long lived waste we already have to deal with.


But as I have already noted, anti-nuke forces don't want the problems fixed. They want it gone, gone, gone.

[Go2Peace]

7. Would you be so kind to provide a link to this incredible incinerating tech?

So you are saying that this technology will incinerate nuclear waste without releasing radiation into the atmosphere or producing a toxic byproduct?

Then why are we not using it?

[hansont]

12. Still waiting for the link. Honestly, I am really interested, *if* there really is such a thing

[Go2Peace]

15. Doesn't look like there is one

It's really difficult to believe such an incinerator exists? But you never know with technology. So it would have been interesting to see proof..

[TheMadMonk]

21. Sorry for having a life. I was out picking up a roll of carpet...

...for my niece's bedroom.

See above.

[TheMadMonk]

16. Try googling "nuclear waste transmutation"

And "neutron beam generator"

Transmutation of waste has been demonstrated small scale, and no obvious reasons exist as to why it can't be scaled up to commercial levels.

Radiation released into the atmosphere? And there we have an indication of the fundamental ignorance of the anti-nuke movement. Radiation released into the atmosphere is essentially harmless. The radiation must impinge directly on a biological entity to be harmful.

Now if what you really mean is the release of radioactive materials into the environment, then the answer is: No, such materials would not be released. The whole idea of the process is to take materials with a lifespan measured in centuries, millenia and longer, and to convert them into materials that are either radiologically stable, or have lifespans measured in days, weeks or years. These can then be stored for the neccessary amount of time that it takes for them to decay into stable materials and then disposed of as any other sort of industrial waste would be.

Yes some of the final product would be toxic, most metals are to some degree. However they would not be radiotoxic, which is the concern being addressed here. Furthermore, the actual quantities involved are a drop in the bucket in comparison to the "normal" industrial waste stream we manage with greater and lesser degrees of success already.


We are not using it right now because at the moment the only facilities that exist capable of doing large scale transmutation are fast breeder reactors and apart from a small amount of reasearch use, they have a much, much more important task. Manufacturing plutonium for bombs. :sarcasm:

I susspect that we haven't gone forward with accelerator derrived neutron beam technology for much the same reason. It has great weaponisation potential. The development of a table top device was annonuced and then suddenly nothing. The developer suddenly switched to a completely unrelated field of research and no one else has taken it up in the public arena. I truly think it went the way of NASA's scramjet, which as soon as it was demonstrated as viable, suddenly ended up in the hands of the DoD.

That leaves thorium, which is being developed by India and a few others, but I suspect not in the US because of it's low weaponisation potential.

[Confusious]

23. here

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/

[ddeclue]

5. This is just more anti-nuke scare tactic nonsense and was refuted in a previous posting.

Please put an end to the incessant and insane anti-nuke postings here. They have no basis in science.

[Go2Peace]

6. This is simply a reporting of incidents. It's postings like yours that are political

Do you have a problem with this information being seen?

[ddeclue]

8. No your posting is a vast exaggeration of reality and is the REAL political game being played.

The average coal plant puts 18 TONS of uranium and thorium particles into the air every year (in addition to mercury and lead and several million tons of CO2).

Hydro electric plants have killed thousands in this country in the last 120 years.

Nuke plants are far safer and cleaner EVEN on issues of radioactivity. Of course you don't know that because you are being knee jerk anti-nuke.

[Go2Peace]

9. No, I have relatives that have lost their hair from a nuclear accident asshole

(and had other health problems obviously that I would rather not discuss here). so your response was innapropriate.

[ddeclue]

10. Oh yeah sure.. unless they are from Chernobyl it didn't happen.

There has never been a serious accident in commercial nuclear power in this country. That's a fact.

Turn off Silkwood and take the tinfoil off.

[Go2Peace]

11. You are a total insensitive jerk. Yes that is where they are from idiot!

Edited to add, not from the city itself, but close enough, too close.

[ddeclue]

13. Well that's NOT here and can't happen here.

The reactors are designed to much better standards here and even THEIR reactors had to be forced to fail through a series of deliberate acts by the operators that they KNEW were dangerous.

You do NOT get to equate the two because it is NOT scientifically valid to do so.

[Go2Peace]

14. Yes, of course, you are the Nuclear post cop, you still don't get a pass for your insensitivity

Obviously you can't have a conversation about this without losing perspective. You think this dialog was productive for you? Do you think it convinced me of anything? Do you think by alienating me and belittling something that is very serious to me you are doing your cause a service?

[ddeclue]

18. Truth is truth. I'm sorry if you can't handle it. I'm not here to make you like me.

This dialog WAS productive because I've corrected your errors of fact. That's all that matters.

[Go2Peace]

22. take a break from your ego. Your on my ignore list now. Bye!

[Confusious]

24. Obviously you can't have a conversation about this without losing perspective

hmm, kettle pot black?

So if a drunk driver in a Toyota hurts a family member of mine, I should blame Toyota, and not the drunk driver?

[Go2Peace]

26. Come on

I really didn't want to get too specific with a bunch of people who are more concerned with winning an argument than they care about my life. (personal information removed)

Maybe you are right, I don't think so. But I sure as hell would be a little more sensitive with someone on this board who has had a tragic personal experience like this. Sometimes I don't know what is wrong with people when they get on a board like this. Everything is not about "winning an argument".

[TheMadMonk]

19. And your point is? Thousands died, or were crippled for life by Bhopal.

Hundreds of children were turned into vegetables by Minimata. Lead and mercury poisoning are rife all over China because of our (Western) electronic waste stream, and good old capitalistic lowest bidder mentality.

Conservative estimates put the global death toll from conventional coal fired plants at over 80,000 every year.

Thousands die every year because our technological appetite demands Central African tantalum.

Accident, ignorance, mismanagement, the cost of doing business.

Tens of thousands die (and millions more are injured) in motor vehicle accidents every years, but I don't see you screaming for the abolition of cars. Tens of thousands more die in industrial accidents.

Whatever might have happened to your relatives, the simple truth is that the nuclear industry has an overall safety record second to none. Even if you factor in Chernobyl and numerous other examples of Soviet missmanagement. Properly regulated, it's safer than climbing a flight of stairs to the general public and for those who actually work in the industry it still remains far safer that virtually every other workplace on the planet.

BTW: Given that we were not aware of your personal familiy history the remarks were perfectly appropriate, and remain so even knowing that history. Chernobyl might over a period of 50 years, kill what the coal industry kills every 3 years. Yes it sucks to have been there, but in the greater scheme of things it really is small potatoes.

Chernobyl was a completely atypical nuclear event, and in no way would I characterise it as an accident. It was a monumnetal cockup. Take one first generation reactor of a type that was retired very early in the piece in the West because of its inherently unsafe design, then turn off the barely adequate safety systems that it did have to see what would happen.

For a similar incident to take place with second generation designs, it would take something along the lines of a direct meteor strike, or direct physical intervention (sabotage) by a very large number of (suicidal) people working together to simultaneously disable multiple interlinked safety system.

Third generation plants would be succeptible to virtually nothing less than that meteor strike. Not that we're likely to see many as fourth generation designs are ready for prototyping as a result of opposition and heel dragging.

And for those, after the meteor hits, it would be pretty much a case of fill in the hole and forget about it.

[Go2Peace]

25. Nobody is "screaming" (rhetorically) except you. I expressed my opinion and it is valid

As far as the remarks from the other guy, he made those insensitive remarks *after* I mentioned my reason was personal for not liking this technology.

You guys both are a little bit evangelical, which is fine, but don't cross the line and forget that someone may have personal reasons and experience.

The "lesson" of Chernobyl is not how or how often it can happen. The lesson is the catastrophic consequences and real human costs of a single incident.

I also know the TRUTH about the extent of the suffering from that accident, and it is NOT YET RECOGNIZED. My relative lived *****400**** miles from Chernobyl. In addition to the fallout that was serious clear to Sweden, there was serious contamination of the water supply far south of the incident that has never been followed up on. There was no way to contain all of the contaminated water around the sarcophogas except by building a huge dam, which for a number of years was overrun by spring runnoff. Thyroid cancers occured all over Europe from it. Anyone who tries to represent the affects as insignificant is not being honest.

I know from living in Ukraine that the numbers of cancers are way undercounted. The problem with these incidents is that the results become politicized, and in addition, it is always difficult scientifically to link incidents of cancer to the cause. The science to link them is very difficult and it is easy for proponents to dismiss claims. Just like happened for many years with cigarettes. Why do you think finding a cure for cancer is so difficult?

You will never convince me that the danger is not significant, I know better. And as for the arguments about the health effects of coal plants, well, I don't play the percentages games with people's lives. If 80,000 people die a year from the effects of coal burning that is a political problem; because it is possible to scrub coal and mitigate issues, but that is unrelated to the dangers involved with nuclear energy.

Well, you are obviously invested in this technology, so I am sure you will get in the last word, but I am out of here. Hopefully you can finish your take, should you decide, with a little more care and tread a little more lightly with the barbs (that incinuate that those who feel differently are uneducated, think with their emotions, whatever).
We are on the same side, if not in agreement on this particular subject.

[TheMadMonk]

27. Actually you were the first with an accusation of an "inappropriate response."

ddeclue made an off the cuff remark, which may seem insensitive to you, but in the context of the many TMI "survivors" (or people who claim to know such) we get here it was in all probability nothing more than a bit of snark with no personal animosty behind it.

Chernobyl should not have happened. Chernobyl WOULD NOT have happened except for the deliberate disabling of the safety systems.

Yes there were and are serious health problems arising from the incident. I've seen summaries of the "sanitised" govt. reports as well as the far more pesemistic report that was posted here about a week or so ago. And of course they are not insignificant to those affected. But as a purely statistical matter, stacked up against the many other "incidental" anthropogenic ways people die before their time every year, Chernobyl is not a major killer. And when Chernobyl is eliminated as an anomalous data point as it properly should be (statistically speaking) the death and injury toll of nuclear power is insignificant.

The potential danger is not insignificant. Nor is the potential danger inherent in a ship load of fertiliser, or a chemical plant or a refinery.

However, properly managed (and the civilian nuclear power industry is one of the most heavily regulated and closely overseen industries on the planet) the actual danger is insignificant and if it were allowed to progress into the twenty first century both the potential and actual danger would be reduced to virtually nothing.


Indeed, cleaning up coal is a political matter, it is also a financial one, but even if somhow it were possible to fit perfect scrubbers, and have them emit nothing but CO2, it's still a losing proposition. Right now it's still too early to accurately quantify the cost of climate change, but Pacific islands are begining to disappear, and soon great chunks of Bangladesh will be underwater also. Soon we will be able to begin making that quantification, and I can virtually guarantee that the numbers will not be pretty.


Through our own stupidity, greed and refusal to see the writing on the wall, we have reached a tipping point. Any attempt to step backwards is impossible without condemning hundreds of millions, or possibly even billions and the same is true of continuing with business as usual.

Absent some incredible, and unforseeable scientific breakthrough, the only realistic way forward is to embrace nuclear power.

[spanone]

17. they will continue to leak....radiation is just about forever

[TheMadMonk]

20. Which is why the industry wants to decommision its 40, 50, 60 year old...

...reactors and replace them with far superior installations. Installation which have the capacity to change that forever into twenty years or less.


These leaks will be fixed. More leaks will happen. Why? Because right now, the only game in town are variations on sixty year old designs wrapped in with layer after layer after layer of safety measures. Enormous complexity, which while preventing "the big one", makes small scale failures such as these absolutely inevitable.