VIDEO: Helen Caldicott Explains Fukushima Threat | The Energy Collective#comment-14869
VIDEO: Helen Caldicott Explains Fukushima Threat The Energy Collective#comment-14869
One Million Deaths from Chernobyl and Fukishima is an even worse disaster. The largest medical science cover up in history. Global nuclear fallout from Chernobyl & Fukishima. "Depleted Uranium Ammunition" contaminating the cradle of civilization in the middle east by U.S. Troops, and they also are exposed to the radiation.
It is time that every citizen on earth demands: 1. A massive and immediate global switch to clean, green energy such as wind, solar, and tidal electricity production. 2. United Nations Resolutions that: A. Oil is only used as a manufacturing ingredient, and not used as a fuel. B. Water is only used for human, animal, and agricultural consumption, and not to be used for the aquisition and/or production of coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. C. Crops are grown for human and animal consumptionand not used as "bio-fuel" D. Forests are not used as fuel.
Finding someone with the insight and knowledge and as important, with the guts, to state what’s really happening as a result of the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, has unfortunately become an equally disastrous media event. The lack of comprehensive news coverage is perhaps a symptomatic display of where corporate power and corporate media has taken us, and nothing more. Good information sources are out there but they can be difficult to find I you don’t know where to look.
This video news piece is Helen Caldicott speaking on the subject of the health hazards posed by radioactive waste and she gives us some perspective on the seriousness of the unfolding disaster at Fukushima. Helen is “The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 38 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.”
If you don’t want to hear about this subject then I would suggest you don’t watch this video. Helen is straight forward and candid.
One Million Deaths from Chernobyl and Fukishima is an even worse disaster. The largest medical science cover up in history. Global nuclear fallout from Chernobyl & Fukishima. "Depleted Uranium Ammunition" contaminating the cradle of civilization in the middle east by U.S. Troops, and they also are exposed to the radiation.
It is time that every citizen on earth demands: 1. A massive and immediate global switch to clean, green energy such as wind, solar, and tidal electricity production. 2. United Nations Resolutions that: A. Oil is only used as a manufacturing ingredient, and not used as a fuel. B. Water is only used for human, animal, and agricultural consumption, and not to be used for the aquisition and/or production of coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. C. Crops are grown for human and animal consumptionand not used as "bio-fuel" D. Forests are not used as fuel.
Japan Abandons Nuclear Power Expansion Guardian UK
Japan nuclear power expansion plans abandoned
Prime minister Naoto Kan says renewables will become a key part of energy policy as country marks two months since tsunami
• Damian Carrington: If Japan and Germany don't need nuclear, why does anyone?
• Damian Carrington: If Japan and Germany don't need nuclear, why does anyone?
Nuclear evacuees in protective clothing return to their homes in the exclusion zone to collect belongings. Photograph: The Asahi Shimbun/Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
Japan is to abandon plans to expand its nuclear power industry and make renewables a key part of its energy policy, the prime minister, Naoto Kan, said as the country marked two months since the tsunami disaster.
As workers continued efforts to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Kan said he would "start from scratch" a policy that initially envisaged nuclear making up more than 50% of Japan's energy needs by 2030.Japan, whose 54 nuclear reactors provide 30% of its electricity, had planned to build at least 14 new reactors over the next 20 years, but policymakers accept that will be impossible in light of the Fukushima crisis.
Kan said that renewables, which make up 20% of overall supply, would have a bigger role to play in meeting the country's energy needs. "I think it is necessary to move in the direction of promoting natural energy and renewable energy such as wind, solar and biomass," he said.
The stronger commitment to renewables marks Kan's second sudden shift on nuclear power in the space of a week following his order to close the Hamaoka atomic plant, which sits on an active fault line, while a new tsunami wall is built.Confronted with low approval ratings and criticism of his handling of the nuclear crisis from inside his own party, the prime minister's public commitment to nuclear power has markedly weakened in recent days.
But Kan, who will not take his salary until the Fukushima crisis is resolved, said Japan would retain the use of fossil fuel and ruled out an abandonment of nuclear power. "We need to start from scratch," he said. "We need to make nuclear energy safer and do more to promote renewable energy."
He added: "I believe the government bears a major responsibility for having promoted nuclear energy as national policy. I apologise to the people for failing to prevent the nuclear accident."
His announcement came as the first of tens of thousands of nuclear evacuees were allowed to return home for two hours to collect clothes and other personal items.
About 100 residents of Kawauchi village – a small portion of those who will make similar trips in the coming weeks – were each permitted to fill one large bag with belongings.
Dressed in protective suits, goggles and facemasks, the residents were given personal radiation monitors and walkie-talkies as they made their short but emotional return home for the first time in weeks. They were taken out of the zone on chartered government buses and screened for radiation exposure.
About 80,000 people within 20km of the Fukushima Daiichi plant were forced out of their homes by the accident and have yet to be told when they will be able to return permanently.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), has vowed to stabilise radiation levels and achieve safe "cold shutdown" of the plant's damaged reactors within six to nine months.
In the past few days, workers have entered the No 1 reactor building to start reconnecting cooling systems knocked out by the tsunami. On Tuesday they were preparing to flood the reactor's containment vessel to immerse overheating fuel rods in cool water.
Tepco sought to calm fears about rising temperatures in the No 3 reactor, releasing an image showing fuel rods covered with debris from hydrogen explosions in March. The firm said it believed the fuel rods, some of which contain plutonium, had been largely undamaged.
On Wednesday, Tepco said it would accept the conditions for state support for a massive compensation payout for those deprived of their homes and businesses by the Fukushima accident.
The utility, which has seen its market value plummet since the disaster, accepted there should be no upper limit on damages that could reach 10 trillion yen. It must also dramatically cut costs and cooperate with an investigation by a government-appointed panel.
The government is considering setting up a fund that would draw on cash from the state and other power companies if Tepco were unable to cover all of the compensation claims itself.
Quake-Rattled Nuke Plant Loses Power in Virginia
.. ya can't spill true green energy ...
Quake-Rattled Nuke Plant
Loses Power in Virginia
William Pentland Contributor
Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife
The North Anna Power Station has two nuclear reactors and is reportedly operating on four diesel generators to maintain cooling operations. The plant automatically shut down in the wake of the earthquake.
“As far as we know, everything is safe,” said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre.
UPDATE: The NRC has issued the following information bulletin regarding the situation at the North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia:
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission headquarters in Rockville, Md., is monitoring an Alert at the North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia, following today’s earthquake in central Virginia.
The NRC is also monitoring Unusual Events, the lowest emergency classification, declared at several other Eastern U.S. nuclear power plants. In accordance with agency procedures, the NRC’s regional offices in King of Prussia, Pa., and Atlanta have activated their incident response centers. NRC resident inspectors at the affected nuclear power plants will continue to monitor conditions for the duration of the event.
North Anna declared its Alert, the second-lowest of the NRC’s four emergency classifications, when the plant lost electricity from the grid following the quake just before 2 p.m. Tuesday. Power is being provided by onsite diesel generators and the plant’s safety systems are operating normally. Plant personnel and NRC resident inspectors are continuing to examine plant conditions . . . The NRC is in direct communications with North Anna and is coordinating its response with other federal agencies.
COMMENTS:
Nuclear Energy is only safe until there is an accident. You can't spill True Green Energy. The waste will always be with us, it will always be dangerous, and it will always be a security risk. How Stupid.
A true Green Energy Future is a world wide: Industrial, Economic, Political, and Social (R)Evolution. We should be deploying wind and solar power along every freeway interstate, in every parking lot, on everylamp-post and building that already exists. The safest way to ensure the National Security of our agruculture system is with Electric farming Equipment. Now those are some smart things we can invest in.
GreenPeace U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Map and "Red Zones"
Find your city and your friends cities here on this interactive map and see how close the nearest nuclear reactor is. It's frightening how many millions of americans are living in harms way of a nuclear accident, many more than you may think.
Vermont Nuclear Powerplant Operators Think They Are "Above The Laws" Of The States That They Pollute
Wednesday June 8, 2011
BRATTLEBORO -- A contractor for Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant recently presented a map of the hydrogeological conditions underneath the facility in Vernon to Entergy, which owns and operates the plant.
The map was developed in response to a leak of tritiated water that was discovered at the plant in January 2010. It will be used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this month in its review of Yankee's voluntary groundwater monitoring initiative, which was developed by the Nuclear Energy Institute in response to a number of tritiated water leaks at plants around the country.
According to the lawsuit filed in federal court, Entergy (operators of the leaking Vermont Yanky Nuclear Power Plant are claiming the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and the Vermont Public Service Board have "zero jurisdiction" over the operation of the plant.
Sarah Hofmann, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service said the map remains "confidential." Sandy Levine, senior legal counsel for the Conservation Law Foundation, which is an intervener in the Vermont Public Service Board's investigation of the tritium leak, has not seen the map. "I think it should be made publicly available," she said. "It's disappointing that Entergy and the states are not sharing the information they have about public resources."
Tritium is a radioactive product of the nuclear fission of uranium-235, plutonium-239, and uranium-233 . This means that the release or recovery of tritium needs to be considered in the operation of nuclear reactors, especially in the reprocessing of nuclear fuels and in the storage of spent nuclear fuel.
Read original article here. Battleboro Reformer. Battleboro Vermont.
BRATTLEBORO -- A contractor for Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant recently presented a map of the hydrogeological conditions underneath the facility in Vernon to Entergy, which owns and operates the plant.
The map was developed in response to a leak of tritiated water that was discovered at the plant in January 2010. It will be used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this month in its review of Yankee's voluntary groundwater monitoring initiative, which was developed by the Nuclear Energy Institute in response to a number of tritiated water leaks at plants around the country.
According to the lawsuit filed in federal court, Entergy (operators of the leaking Vermont Yanky Nuclear Power Plant are claiming the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and the Vermont Public Service Board have "zero jurisdiction" over the operation of the plant.
Sarah Hofmann, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service said the map remains "confidential." Sandy Levine, senior legal counsel for the Conservation Law Foundation, which is an intervener in the Vermont Public Service Board's investigation of the tritium leak, has not seen the map. "I think it should be made publicly available," she said. "It's disappointing that Entergy and the states are not sharing the information they have about public resources."
Tritium is a radioactive product of the nuclear fission of uranium-235, plutonium-239, and uranium-233 . This means that the release or recovery of tritium needs to be considered in the operation of nuclear reactors, especially in the reprocessing of nuclear fuels and in the storage of spent nuclear fuel.
Read original article here. Battleboro Reformer. Battleboro Vermont.
U.S. Looks to Export Nuclear Waste; Uranium 'Leasing' : William Pentland
Arriving in Mongolia on Monday for the first visit by a U.S. vice president since 1944, Joe Biden stoked already intense speculations about the U.S. government’s plans to deal with the nation’s massive nuclear waste problem.
One of the most persistent, albeit unconfirmed, of those rumors has the U.S. Department of Energy concocting a scheme to export America’s vast supplies of nuclear waste to some remote corner of Mongolia.While this rumor is only a rumor, the Obama administration has publicly endorsed plans to “lease” uranium from foreign entities. When the lease expires, the U.S. would return the “uranium” in the form of spent nuclear fuel to the originating entity.
In early August, a senior Obama administration official told Greenwire earlier this month that the U.S. has begun preliminary negotiations for commercial nuclear fuel leasing arrangements with several countries, including Mongolia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
Mongolia has become a critical battleground for mining companies competing to secure access to the nation’s vast mineral deposits. For example, Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi project in the South Gobi Desert is expected to yield 1.2 billion metric tons of copper and 650,000 ounces of gold a year in its first 10 years.
Pilgrim nuke plant is 2nd most in risk of all US nuclear facilities
Pilgrim nuke plant is 2nd most in risk of all US nuclear facilities
Renewal of license is studied, Governor on the fence
A new Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report places Pilgrim at second highest risk of a quake event in the U.S. When asked whether the renewal of the operating license for the Pilgrim nuclear power plant is a given, Governor Deval Patrick said, "I don't know that to be true, and I only want it to be true if all the safety measures and all of the ways in which a breach would affect the people of the Commonwealth have been thought through."
As the disaster in Japan worsens, President Obama has ordered a safety review of all U.S. nuclear power plants. One that's under particular scrutiny is in Massachusetts.
The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth - built a year after the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Tokyo and with an operating license that expires next year - is asking to have its license renewed for 20 years.
Massachusetts sits within 50 miles of three nuclear power plants. Because of this, Gov. Deval Patrick says he'd like to take a regional approach.
Read the WBUR report here.
Vote in our poll "Would you like to see Pilgrim Nuclear shut down?" here.
PILGRIM: We Have a Problem
PILGRIM: We Have a Problem
The Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Mass. When new monitoring wells were dug in May, one well on the ocean side of the plant showed immediate spikes in radioactive tritium. (Photo from www.pilgrimpower.com)
PLYMOUTH, MASS. – The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has a leak.
Safety and PR officials at Entergy, the Louisiana-based owner of the Pilgrim nuke plant at Plymouth, Mass., are scrambling to find the source of a radioactive tritium leak that, after new monitoring wells were dug in May, flared to unacceptable during levels July and continues to show evidence of a leak.
Published reports and sources tapped by Northampton Media reveal that state public health officials are holding urgent meetings to deal with the Pilgrim’s tritium leak, and that Pilgrim plant officials meet first thing every morning to deal with the issue.
While the Pilgrim leak, documented in late spring, amounts to far less of the radioactive material than was found at Vermont Yankee last year, the fact that the reactor is located next to Cape Cod Bay and is less than 40 miles from Boston, and 20 miles as the seagull flies from Provincetown, is cause for concern.
The radioactive element tritium is a byproduct of nuclear plants, and is measured in picocuries per liter. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “acceptable level” for tritium in drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter, many times higher than the level considered safe by some states (including California, which uses 400 picocuries) and some countries (Canada’s standard is 540 picocuries). [For views on the properties and dangers of tritium, see web pages at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.]
Pilgrim’s radiation leak comes at an awkward time for Entergy, since the Pilgrim plant is nearing the end of a 20-year relicensing application for the 38-year-old nuclear power plant — especially after what happened at the Entergy’s other nuclear plant in the region, Vermont Yankee.Pilgrim and Its Sister Nuke, Vermont Yankee
Located in Vernon, Vt., Vermont Yankee’s operating license expires in a year and a half, but in February the Vermont Senate voted 26-4 against allowing the Public Service Board to issue a Certificate of Public Good, required for Entergy to operate the plant for an additional 20 years past March 2012.
That turn of events came after dangerous tritium levels were found in groundwater last fall. Leaky underground pipes, like those suspected at Pilgrim, were blamed for tritium levels that were many times higher than federal limits. Although Entergy has said it has found, fixed and remediated the Vermont Yankee’s radioactive leak, relicensing is no sure thing.
Vermont Yankee, where a massive tritium leak was discovered last fall. Energy giant Entergy owns this plant and the Pilgrim nuke in Plymouth.
In a report issued last week, the Vermont Department of Health detailed its investigation so far into the tritium leaks, and estimates that about 245,000 gallons of “tritium-contaminated groundwater” has been pumped from the plant site. The agency says the water contains tritium concentrations in the range of about 76,000 picocuries per liter. The report, however, documents that some monitoring wells there are detecting tritium levels as high as 370,000 picocuries.
Meanwhile, Entergy is fighting an investigation by the Vermont Public Safety Board (PSB) into the leaks, stating in a filing with the board that it has no jurisdiction “about the release of rsdionuclides,” which it says are the sole purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to an Aug. 28 article in the Rutland Herald. Meanwhile, the article says, the Conservation Law Foundation and the New England Coalition have petitioned the PSB to shut down Vermont Yankee until the tritium leak issue is resolved for good.
At Pilgrim this May, a new groundwater monitoring well on the ocean side of the plant immediately began showing tritium levels 5-10 times higher than the other 11 test wells. And after that initial reading of 5,810 picocuries per liter, the well – dubbed MW-205 – continued to reveal rising tritium levels.
On July 7, the numbers at MW-205 peaked at 25,552 picocuries, higher than even the EPA’s suspect standard of 20,000. By Aug. 9, the state Department of Public Health’s latest published readings, tritium levels had dropped to a still-alarming level of over 12,000 picocuries. (To view a state spreadsheet showing all Pilgrim monitoring-well readings since 2007, click here.)
U.S. Rep. Edward Markey has blasted the NRC for its lax oversight of underground pipes at nuclear plants. Photo: www.markey.house.gov
Amazingly, groundwater monitoring at the Pilgrim plant was done voluntarily, and only started in 2007 when six test wells were dug; testing, though, was sketchy at best until April 2008. Critics of the plant’s monitoring, including the citizens group Pilgrim Watch, have called for the installation of many more wells to monitor ground water.
Samples taken by Entergy are separately analyzed by the company and by the Massachusetts Environmental Radiation Laboratory.
The Pilgrim plant is located on the edge of Cape Cod Bay, south of Boston. According to Entergy and Asbestos.com, the plant covers 1,600 acres, uses a General Electric boiling water reactor and stores spent fuel rods on-site; it was built by the Bechtel Corporation, opened in 1972, and was originally run by Boston Edison. Its maximum operating power capacity is about 688 megawatts.
Vermont Yankee, which also opened in 1972 with a General Electric boiling water reactor, was designed by Ebasco and has an operating capacity of about 610 megawatts, according to the Entergy and Asbestos.com websites. The plant sits on a 125-acre site along the west bank of the Connecticut River. In 2002, Entergy Nuclear Northeast of White Plains, N.Y. bought the plant from a consortium of power company owners.
Pilgrim’s relicensing rests in the hands of the Atomic Safety Licensing Board.
UMass-Amherst engineering professor David Ahlfeld told the NRC that monitoring wells at the Pilgrim nuke were sited using flawed data. (Photo from UMass website)
After high levels of tritium were discovered at Pilgrim, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was notified. The federal agency issued an incident report, which caught the attention of some journalists in Plymouth and Boston, but the news stories were generally ignored by other media sources in the region. Curiously, even the NRC’s own “Event Notification Report,” dated July 21, 2010, failed to document the peak levels of 25,000 picocuries, citing instead a level of 11,072 picocuries sampled a month earlier.
No other incident reports could be found on a recent search of the NRC web site.
Some news stories, like one found July 12 on DigitalJounal.com, gave brief, one-time reports citing much lower tritium-level readings and quoting only plant spokesman David Tarantino, who said public health and safety were not impacted “in any way.” There was no follow-up.
The Boston Globe ran a few stories which, while not exactly hard-hitting, did reveal some startling items. One, in a July 14 Globe story, was a statement by plant flack Tarantino, who claimed the high tritium levels were due to “washout” from water vapor returning to the ground as rain. The same article quoted Ralph Anderson, a top official for The Nuclear Energy Institute, trade-group organization for the nuclear industry, as saying the discovery of tritium showed the safety systems in place worked just fine.
The Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth.
Some of the best and most dogged reporting on Pilgrim’s tritium leak has come from the GateHouse News Service (picked up largely by WickedLocal.com), which generated more stories and gave a more balanced assessment of the situation. One example is a GateHouse story featured on Wicked Local’s July 9 edition, even though it quoted lower levels of tritium logged in several weeks before the peak reading (which occurred on July 7).
GateHouse also generated an Aug. 30 story on Pilgrim Watch’s continuing legal challenge to Entergy’s relicensing application for the Pilgrim nuke. The advocacy group had hoped to disqualify one of three judges on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board whom it considered too familiar with Entergy; but a presidential commission that oversees the NRC ruled that Judge Paul Abramson’s familiarity with computer models Entergy uses to predict nuclear plant accident scenarios was insufficient to disqualify him.
And a July 21 GateHouse story revealed that officials at the Pilgrim plant are meeting on the tritium leak first thing every morning at 8 a.m. The story also said that, according to David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Pilgrim’s problem just enforces the need for more consistent testing of all the country’s nuke plants.”
PR Blackout, a Petition, and Political Pressure
Visitors to the Pilgrim plant’s website, however, will have no clue that anything is amiss at Pilgrim.
“Pilgrim Station has an impeccable safety record,” the home page reads under a headline entitled “Safe, Secure, Vital.” “We take great pride in our ability to maintain a critical source of power safely and securely,” the Pilgrim website reads. “We make significant operational improvements on an ongoing basis to help ensure the safety and performance of our facility.”Dissatisfied with the official oversight of Pilgrim, Pilgrim Watch has stepped into the breach on a number of fronts. While continuing its opposition to Pilgrim’s relicensing, the group last month filed a petition asking the NRC to order Entergy to immediately perform an updated hydrological assessment of the area under and around the Pilgrim plant.
Pilgrim Watch posted this map, showing areas for fatalities from accidents or terrorist attacks at the region's nuclear power plants.
“This is necessary,” the Pilgrim Watch petition reads, “to provide reasonable assurance that the leaks are not occurring so that piping and other buried components are able to perform their intended safety function (and) for Entergy to [be] in compliance with the Industry Ground Water Protection Initiative at Pilgrim Station that they agreed to follow. . ..”
Dated Aug. 13, the petition was submitted by Pilgrim Watch Director Mary Lampert and sent to R. William Borchardt, the NRC’s executive director of operations in Washington, D.C.The petition includes testimony on groundwater monitoring by Dr. David Ahlfeld, a University of Massachusetts-Amherst engineering professor who heads the university’s Groundwater Management Group and is also an expert working with Pilgrim Watch. Lampert cites Ahlfeld’s analysis that Pilgrim’s 12 monitoring wells may have been dug in the wrong spots. The monitoring-well placement, she writes, were fixed using a 1967 hydrology study, conducted long before the power plant was built. “No subsurface investigations have been performed for over 40 years, as they clearly should have been,” Lampert concluded.
Massachusetts’ Gov. Deval Patrick and U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey have also gotten into the act this year, asking the NRC to get tough on radioactive leaks; Patrick called for the NRC to suspend relicensing of both Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim until the leak issues are resolved.
In Patrick’s Feb. 9, 2010 letter to NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko and other commissioners, he asked the NRC to order “extensive testing for leaks of tritium and other radioactive substances at both Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim” and to halt “any further consideration of the of the relicensing of both plants until the leak issues are resolved.”
In his position as chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and The Environment Subcommittee, Markey wrote NRC Chairman Jaczko on July 15 this year, after reading a Globe report on Pilgrim’s tritium leak.
“Sadly, this appears to be just another in a long line of failures of buried piping systems and our nation’s nuclear plants,” Markey wrote. “This lack of a serious and comprehensive (NRC) inspection regime for buried piping systems has long been a concern of mine.. . .The current inspection regime for buried pipes – physical inspections conducted only in those rare instances when pipes are dug out for other purposes – is incapable of ensuring the integrity of decades-old piping systems.. . .“Other industries have figured out how to inspect their buried pipes in a proactive and comprehensive fashion,” Markey concluded. “How many more failures does the nuclear industry and the NRC need before they admit that aging buried systems need additional attention?”
[Note: In February 2010, the independently produced media program "Living on Earth" interviewed Pilgrim plant spokesman David Tarantino and Pilgrim Watch's Mary Lampert at the plant site. A transcript of the program and an audio link are available by clicking here.]
PILGRIM: We Have a Problem
RSOE EDIS Event Report: Tenessee USA - NUCLEAR EVENT - February 13, 2012
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Nuclear Event in USA on Monday, 13 February, 2012 at 04:16 (04:16 AM) UTC.
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Nuclear agency to probe Pilgrim nuke shutdown
Nuclear agency to probe Pilgrim nuke shutdown
Nuclear agency to probe Pilgrim nuke shutdownTue May 17, 2011 10:04 am | about: ETR NEWS PROVIDED BY: McClatchy May 17--
The federal agency that oversees nuclear power plants in the United States has sent a special inspection team to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth to investigate an unplanned shutdown there last week. The nuclear reactor was being brought back online May 10 after a refueling operation when human error caused it to automatically shut down, according to an Entergy Corp. official. Entergy runs the Plymouth plant, which is the only commercial nuclear power plant operating in Massachusetts. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that it had sent a three-member special inspection team to the plant to "review plant operator performance and decision-making, the effectiveness of Entergy's response to the event and corrective actions taken by the company to date." "There were no immediate safety implications associated with the unplanned shutdown," NRC Region I Administrator Bill Dean said in a statement released by the agency. "Nevertheless, we want to gain a better understanding of exactly why the shutdown occurred, what role human performance issues may have played in the event and the steps being taken by the company to learn from this event and prevent it from happening again in the future."
Before the shutdown, plant operators were withdrawing control rods to increase the rate of nuclear fission and to add heat to the reactor, according to the NRC. Plant operators detected a "higher-than-expected heat-up rate," and in attempting to achieve a more reasonable rate they took actions that caused the emergency shutdown, according to the NRC. Entergy spokeswoman Carol Wightman declined to comment on whether any personnel had been disciplined following the unplanned shutdown. Because of competitive concerns, Wightman could not say when the plant might be back in operation. "We will work with the NRC's special inspection team to provide any information related to this human performance error," she wrote in an email to the Times. A report on the team's findings will be issued within 45 days after the inspection is complete, NRC officials said. Special inspections rare The NRC rarely sends the special inspection teams out to the country's 104 nuclear plants, agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said. In 2010, nine such teams were dispatched, he said. The team arrives at Pilgrim on the heels of a second aborted attempt to restart the plant over the weekend.
The plant was operating at about 14 percent power on Friday while conducting tests during startup procedures when operators observed a problem with pressure between a dry well around the reactor and a water reservoir at the bottom of the reactor building, according to Wightman. "To investigate the cause of the pressure differential, operators safely shut the plant down early Saturday morning, and we remain offline, continuing with our investigation," Wightman wrote. While the weekend shutdown will be reviewed as part of the NRC investigation, it was unclear whether it will be considered an unplanned shutdown, since operators took the action purposefully, Sheehan said. The special inspection team will focus on the May 10 shutdown, he said. Deficient pressure levels in the dry well around the reactor caused the problem that led to the shutdown over the weekend, said David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists Nuclear Safety Project. The pressure differential between the dry well and a doughnut-shaped vessel partially filled with water at the bottom of the reactor building is meant to lower water levels in a series of pipes connecting the two areas, Lochbaum said. The lower water levels in these pipes act to decrease potential stresses on the reservoir, he said. "They think it's a valve that's partially open," Lochbaum said of the pressure problem. Danger minimized Last week's emergency shutdown, although a result of human error, did not appear serious, Lochbaum said. "In any event the automatic safety systems worked," he said. "While things were trending in a bad direction for a while it wasn't like we were 30 seconds or 30 minutes away from a disaster." Pilgrim and other nuclear plants around the world have faced increased scrutiny over safety issues since an earthquake and tsunami in Japan led to an ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
The Plymouth plant's operating license expires in 2012, and Entergy's request to extend the license for another 20 years is pending before the NRC. Even if the NRC does not complete its review on the plant's license renewal, Pilgrim will be allowed to operate until a decision is made, Sheehan said. Advocates for more oversight of safety issues at nuclear plants argue that the crisis in Japan has raised serious concerns for plants in the United States, especially ones such as Pilgrim, which is the same type as the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., has asked that the NRC suspend all pending license decisions until the safety lessons and environmental consequences related to the Japanese nuclear crisis can be addressed. In a letter sent to the NRC May 13, Markey highlighted the May 10 shutdown of Pilgrim as another example of the "fragility of our nuclear power plants and the need to ensure that the highest possible safety standards are required and maintained." The NRC continues its review of safety measures at U.S. nuclear plants in the wake of the Japanese nuclear crisis but does not plan to hold up pending license decisions, Sheehan said.
___ To see more of the Cape Cod Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.capecodonline.com. Copyright (c) 2011, Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544)
(vid) Prison For Your Mind : Channel 44connected
Quotes from the video:
"You have the look of a man who accepts what he see's because he is expecting to wake up."
"There is a reason education sucks, it is the same reason that will never ever ever be fixed ....because the owners of this country don't want that. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions...."
"They own the politicians that are put there to make you think you have freedom of choice. YOU DON'T. You have no choice, you have owners, they own you, they own everything, they own all the important land, they own and control the corporations they have long since bought and paid for the the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they've got the judges in their back pocket, and they own all the big media and news organizations, they control just about everything you hear, they have got you by the balls. "
YOU ARE THE 99%
"You have the look of a man who accepts what he see's because he is expecting to wake up."
"There is a reason education sucks, it is the same reason that will never ever ever be fixed ....because the owners of this country don't want that. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions...."
"They own the politicians that are put there to make you think you have freedom of choice. YOU DON'T. You have no choice, you have owners, they own you, they own everything, they own all the important land, they own and control the corporations they have long since bought and paid for the the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they've got the judges in their back pocket, and they own all the big media and news organizations, they control just about everything you hear, they have got you by the balls. "
YOU ARE THE 99%
(vid) WAKE UP : Bill Cooper recordings 1993-1996
Milton William Cooper (May 6, 1943 -- November 6, 2001) was an American writer, shortwave broadcaster, conspiracy theorist, and political activist.
Quotes from the video:
"I think you need to start examining yourself, your agenda, your mission, who are you, what are you about, what do you believe about america, is it true? Are you helping to divide us more or are you helping to bring us together?"
"Do you really understand what this country is all about? The constitution is this country. Destroy it and this country ceases to exist instantly."
"These men (who control our country) belong to all different races, all different nationalities, all different religions to the puiblic point of view, but in secret it's a different story..... Their whole purpose throughout history has been to teach a small number of people how to become adept at controlling everyone else. Their goal is to destroy all existing images, save theirs. All existing governments, save theirs, and shackle the mob in a system of eternal oppressive debt chained to a computer for the rest of their life in a propagandized rule to make them believe that they are happy in this system."
you are the 99% - we are the 99%
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