How Safe is Vermont Yankee? Ask the NRC, Not CNN.

Another colleague of mine here at NEI forwarded me a copy of the 4Q2011 Performance Summary at Vermont Yankee conducted by the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Open it up and what will you find? Nothing but the color green.

For more details, click here. Bottom line, this plant is operating safely and efficiently.

Some Facts on Vermont Yankee That Didn't Make the CNN Report

My colleague Tom Kaufmann shared a couple of data points with me that didn't make it into the excerpt of the CNN report by Amber Lyon that we watched today -- facts that demonstrate just how important the plant is to the state, its environment and economy.

• VY makes 73.3% of the electricity generated in Vermont and accounts for 79% of the state’s emission-free energy.

• VY’s three-year average capacity factor is 92.2% - above the industry average.

• VY avoided the emission of 2.7 million metric tons of CO2 last year.

• VY’s output could charge over 800,000 all-electric automobiles in one night / 2.4 million in a day. There are less than 300,000 cars registered in the state of Vermont.

A Preview of CNN's Report on Vermont Yankee

For a number of weeks, we've been waiting for CNN to air an extended piece concerning the fight to keep Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant operating -- a battle that's been thoroughly chronicled at the excellent blog, Yes Vermont Yankee. CNN has just posted a 4:40 teaser on their Web site, and if this snippet is any indication, we're in for more of the sort of alarmist reporting that's helped send the former cable news giant's ratings spinning into oblivion.

Case in point, this on-screen graphic that CNN's Amber Lyon calls the "damage area," around Vermont Yankee.


In the nuclear industry, this is actually known as the emergency planning zone or EPZ, drawn in a 10-mile radius around every nuclear power plant in America. As NEI notes in one of its fact sheets on emergency planning:

Within the 10-mile EPZ, the main immediate protective actions for the public include instructions for sheltering in place or evacuation. The slow pace at which an event may unfold—over several hours or days—provides time for orderly sheltering or evacuation, if necessary.

The nuclear industry prepares for any eventuality at its plants even though the risk of an actual accident causing any fatalities is incredibly small. Just a few weeks ago, the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission released its State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses or SOARCA. Its conclusions are encouraging:

The study found there was "essentially zero risk" to the public of early fatalities due to radiation exposure following a severe accident. The long-term risk of dying from cancer due to radiation exposure after an accident was less than one in a billion and less than the U.S. average risk of dying from other causes of cancer, which is about two in one thousand.

Later, Lyon quoted anti-nuclear campaigner Arnie Gundersen as saying that many American nuclear plants are just one "earthquake, hurricane or flood away from disaster," backed with video of the terrible floods that plagued the state in the wake of Hurricane Irene. But what Lyon failed to mention is that even when Vermont Yankee's hometown of Brattleboro was inundated by those floods, the plant remained safe (thanks again to the precautions taken in design and construction of the plant) and continued to provide electricity to consumers as they recovered from the storm.

When it comes to extreme weather events, 2011 was something of a real-life stress test for American nuclear power facilities, with plants all over the country successfully enduring earthquakes, a hurricane, massive flooding in the Midwest and a spate of violent twisters in the Southeast. We chronicled all of this in an interactive graphic we posted on our SafetyFirst microsite back in January:



All of this information, and more, could really help provide some balance to the CNN report, which is scheduled to run at 8:00 p.m. EST on both Saturday and Sunday night. Unfortunately, for some reason, CNN never bothered calling us here at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's policy arm, to ask for an interview. We've since reached out to CNN's Amber Lyon letting her know that we're available. We'll update our readers if and when we get any response.

Aftermath of Frontline's “Nuclear Aftershocks”

Yesterday afternoon Miles O’Brien, correspondent for Tuesday night’s FRONTLINE piece “Nuclear Aftershocks,” and producer Jon Palfreman held a live chat with the public on reactions to the documentary and overall opinions as to what the future holds for nuclear energy in the United States. What did the public decide? Well, according to an unscientific poll taken from the audience during the chat—keep building more nuclear plants!


Their opinions closely mirrored our October 2011 public opinion poll which found that 62 percent of respondents said they favor the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity in the United States.

The chat’s audience also said that their opinions about nuclear power were not influenced by Tuesday night’s documentary:


This survey result really only proves one thing—that people are generally distrustful of media reports, but interested enough in the subject matter to take part in an online chat at 1 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon!

During the chat, people posed questions on a variety of topics, including: building advanced reactors, how other countries (namely Japan and Germany) plan to meet their electricity demands and carbon reduction goals while reducing the number of nuclear plants, and how nuclear energy facilities prepare for emergencies. I took part in the one-and-a-half hour chat and provided several comments to help build on the discussion and add facts to the debate, but none of my comments were accepted or posted by the chat’s moderator. Although I am not surprised that my comments were not accepted (since I had “NEI” next to my name), I am hopeful that they will at least provide the reporters with more context to the bigger picture.

Below are a few areas where I think the discussion should have warranted a little more explanation/clarification.

1) The “Moribund” Nuclear Industry & Aging Nukes


There are two problems with this statement. First, I think it is unfair to call the industry “moribund” when there are currently 12 combined license applications that are under active review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build 20 nuclear plants and new designs have either been approved (Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000) or are still in the design stages in this country. Companies spend several years either designing new reactors or working to build reactors at a given site, so to equate the industry with “dying” or “inactivity” is simply untrue.

Second, and this is a point that we keep coming back to on the blog and on our website, it is important to understand that 40-year licenses for nuclear plants were never meant to be an indicator of a plant’s safe operation. The 40-year time period was simply chosen to parallel the financing amortization period for a plant. The NRC’s website explains:

The Atomic Energy Act and NRC regulations limit commercial power reactor licenses to an initial 40 years but also permit such licenses to be renewed. This original 40-year term for reactor licenses was based on economic and antitrust considerations -- not on limitations of nuclear technology.

Nuclear plants are continually undergoing maintenance and upgrades so that they are equipped—no matter their age—to meet all of the NRC’s safety regulations. So, whether it’s day one or day 14,600, rest assured that each of the nation’s nuclear plants are meeting the NRC’s stringent safety requirements or else they will be subject to federal disciplinary actions, including up to the shutdown of a reactor until safety improvements are made.

2) Germany’s Nuclear Energy Situation


The nation’s nuclear power plants are among the safest and most secure industrial facilities in the United States. See for yourself. But, if you do not agree with that statement, I still think it’s important to look at the facts before making a rash decision.

Just yesterday, Siemens, which built all of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants, estimated that an exit from nuclear energy could cost the European country’s energy consumers or taxpayers as much as 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030. Much of that estimate assumes a strong expansion of renewables, with feed-in tariffs being the biggest chunk of costs, a Reuters article reports.

Besides the high costs, cutting nuclear energy from the country’s energy portfolio will mean more carbon emissions. One of our recent blog posts quotes Laszlo Varro, the head of the gas, coal, and power markets division at the International Energy Agency, who estimates that a nuclear-free Germany could cause a 25-million-ton annual increase in CO2 emissions, mainly because of the large shift to coal power that would be needed to cover the shortfall. We also referenced a Breakthrough Institute report on our blog that predicts that Germany’s carbon emissions could rise by as much as 14 percent of the country’s 2008 total carbon emissions. These estimates do not bode well for a country that aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. (They also do not bode well for O’Brien’s argument because later in the chat he says that “anything is better than coal.”)

3) Small Reactors


According to some government officials and vendors I’ve talked to recently, small reactors are—the next “big” thing. Peter Lyons, the U.S. Department of Energy’s assistant secretary of nuclear energy, just yesterday said that research will be moving forward this year toward further development and design certification of small nuclear reactors. The Tri-City Herald reports:

If there is enough demand for the small plants, large numbers could be built in a factory and then one or more would be transported to sites for use, he said. More modules could be added as needed for electricity production.

The factory model has potential to be more economical, and quality could be more readily controlled in a factory, Lyons said.

If that’s not enough, Congress has certainly indicated with a restoration of $67 million in its 2012 budget that they are still interested in the development and licensing of small reactors. At NEI, we continue to see more interest in small reactors.

4) Energy Conservation


Although I don’t have any immediate statistics at my disposal, I can assure you that conservation efforts will never be enough to meet growing electricity demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration currently forecasts that electricity demand is growing at a rate of about 1 percent per year and that the United States will need 24 percent more electricity by 2035. To meet that demand, the electric utility industry must invest between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in new power plants, environmental controls, and transmission and distribution lines.

I do not think that unplugging our electronic devices, kitchen appliances, etc., will be enough to make up the difference in electricity supply. (I also personally don’t think the image of people wearing sandals and tee-shirts and using fans instead of A/C—like O’Brien describes that they are currently doing in Japan without the added electricity from their nuclear plants—will ever be a possibility in American culture.) However, I do think that we are on the cusp of a revolution where utilities are developing smarter ways for people to use electricity to reduce cost and alleviate daily demand through smart meters. Some are doing it very well (see a recent report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for examples).

5) Relationship Between NRC & Nuclear Industry


I think this comment distorts the important work that the NRC performs each day. It is an independent agency that strives for transparency. Its five commissioners are appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. They even have a page on their website that discusses their commitment to openness and transparency in their regulatory activities.

That being said, the nuclear industry’s high levels of performance, reliability and safety are all due to the strict regulatory oversight and function that the NRC serves. The NRC helps the industry to focus on safety, training, regulatory compliance and continuous improvement. The U.S. commercial nuclear industry is arguably one of the most strictly and thoroughly regulated industries in the nation, and the NRC is a model to other countries that are developing their nuclear energy programs.

---

Altogether, I appreciated the fact that O’Brien and Palfreman held the chat to further discuss nuclear energy issues, but I felt that several of the assertions warranted further clarification (as previously explained). I really like the concept of holding these chat-type forums because I think they add context to some of the larger policy debates that are country currently faces.

Read the full transcript of the chat here. See our other blog posts on the FRONTLINE report here.

Frontline to Host Online Chat on "Nuclear Aftershocks" at 1:00 p.m. EST

The team at Frontline is hosting a live online chat today about last night's airing of "Nuclear Aftershocks" at 1:00 p.m. today. Some details:

What’s the future of nuclear after Fukushima? Can the world’s faith in nuclear energy be restored? Or could another Fukishima-like disaster bring the nuclear age to an end? Is a nuclear plant near you at risk?

Veteran science reporter Miles O’Brien and producer Jon Palfreman have been digging into these issues for the past year. We asked them to join us for a live chat to discuss these questions and take yours.

Spencer Reiss, a contributing editor at WIRED who specializes in energy issues, will be our guest questioner.

Click here to join the chat.

Former Frontline Science Advisor Blasts "Nuclear Aftershocks"

I've been perusing some of the comment strings over at Frontline since "Nuclear Aftershocks" aired last night, and I came across this comment from Neil Todreas, a professor at M.I.T who says he worked as a science advisor on last night's program. Todreas also served as co-chair of the Indian Point Independent Safety Evaluation Panel.

To say that his comment is illuminating would be a serious understatement. Please note I've inserted some line breaks in the copy in order to enhance readability:

The portion of the Frontline story which starts with the Fukushima accident is a worthwhile public service. However, as an initial scientific advisor to the team producing this show, I found the lack of accuracy and balance in the second half of the story covering the Indian Point reactor disturbing. The statement that that reactor lies "right on the faults" is not accurate, and the portrayal of the potential activity of the seismic faults by Professor Sykes is not balanced.

In 1972, the first fault was significantly studied when the Indian Point reactors were licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Earthquakes in the region were characterized as of minor magnitude and relatively trivial by the noted seismologist Charles Richter of Cal Tech, the originator of the Richter scale for characterizing earthquakes. The significance of the recently proclaimed second fault also has been disputed, most notably by Prof. Alan Kafka of Boston College. I made the producers aware of this information, but they chose not to disclose these counter opinions and only presented Professor Sykes’ views on the seismic issues.

Additionally, the story dialogue speaks of "the" evacuation route for residents near Indian Point, when in fact there are multiple routes in various directions from the plant. The producers could have balanced the correspondent's incredulous statements about the evacuation route by opinions of the surrounding county emergency response officials who have overseen the evacuation planning effort for the plant and have responsibility for its implementation should a need arise. This is a source of information I also pointed out to them.

Finally, the producers speak of the future of nuclear energy in America only in terms of the relicensing and eventual end of service of existing reactors. Balanced communication to the public would have been achieved by explaining that a new generation of reactors has been designed, certified as safe by the NRC (Westinghouse’s AP1000) and is being built in Georgia and South Carolina. Again, this was information I provided them in response to their request that I review the film prior to its airing.

Neil E. Todreas
KEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and
Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Emeritus)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Click here for a screen capture of the comment. I wonder what the producers of the program think about this?

On Frontline, Indian Point and the Ramopo Fault

On tonight's program, we're hearing a lot about the Ramopo fault, but we're not hearing a lot from experts who disagree with Columbia University seismologist Lynn Sykes and his conclusions about earthquake risk around Indian Point Energy Center.

But back in March 2011, the Journal News did ask those questions:

But the U.S. Geological Survey — one of the nation's foremost research labs — said geologic evidence about the Ramapo Fault is "insufficient to demonstrate the existence of tectonic faulting or ... slip or deformation."

It didn't even include the fault in calculations of earthquake hazards in 2008.

Geology professor Alec Gates put it more succinctly: "The Ramapo Fault is dead," said Gates, chairman of Earth and environmental sciences at Rutgers University. "It was a big fault in the old days, but not anymore."...

What differentiates this region from more earthquake-prone areas, experts say, is that it lies in the middle of the North American Plate, a tectonic slab that encompasses North America to the Pacific Ocean, including Greenland, Cuba, the Bahamas, and parts of Siberia and Iceland.

"It's not a plate boundary; that's the primary reason you don't have activity and that it's hard to predict activity," said Paul Olsen, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. "The formation of the Ramapo Fault was at least 300 million years ago. Most of the earthquakes around here have nothing to do with it."

Viewers should question why these experts weren't mentioned at all in tonight's Frontline report.

Follow Us on Twitter During Frontline's Nuclear Aftershocks

We're just sitting down to watch Frontline and its "Nuclear Aftershocks" report. We'll be following the conversation on Twitter in real time on our main NEI feed (@N_E_I) beginning at 10:00 p.m. EST. You can follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag, #Frontline. Please join in.

UPDATE: We've just finished watching the report, and you can take a look at what we tweeted by peeking at our timeline. Overall, Miles O'Brien and the Frontline team got some things right, especially when it came to the environmental and economic consequences of getting rid of nuclear energy on a global scale.

On the other hand, there were portions of the report where significant omissions were made in terms of emergency preparedness, license renewal and the proven slow-moving character of nuclear incidents.

As for next steps, I'm going home to watch the program one more time on my DVR to take some notes and then head to bed. Thanks to all our friends online who joined in the conversation tonight to defend the industry's record. Good night.

Transcript of Interview Between Entergy's Joe Pollock and Miles O'Brien of Frontline

For those of you who are watching the Frontline report, "Nuclear Aftershocks," we wanted to share with you a transcript of an interview that Frontline's Miles O'Brien conducted with Joe Pollock on December 1, 2011 (click here to download).

At the time, Joe, who is now working here at NEI as a loaned employee, was working as Vice President of Operations for Indian Point Energy Center. The audio file the transcript was derived from comes in at just over one hour, so we clearly anticipate that not nearly everything that Joe said to O'Brien will be included in tonight's program.

Still, we thought it could serve as a handy guide to some of the sausage making behind news reporting. Feel free to peruse it at your leisure.

On Frontline, Nuclear Aftershocks and Renewing the Operating License at Indian Point

Just picked up this clip from The Daily Courtland. In it, Frontline's Miles O'Brien repeats a common misconception about nuclear power plants:

“The reality is, Indian Point’s technology is not cutting edge, it’s old,” correspondent Miles O’Brien says in the documentary. The documentary shows scenes of the Village of Buchanan, Mayor Sean Murray and inside Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants, discussing the relicensing of the 40-year-old plants.

Again, I refer back to the transcript of the December 1, 2011 interview that O'Brien conducted with Joe Pollock, then Vice President of Operations with Indian Point Energy Center:

MR. O’BRIEN: 60 years seems like a long time to run a plant. And I’ve even heard some people say, hey, maybe we can go 80 years with some of these plants. First of all, did you take a position on that yet? Or are you still –

MR. POLLOCK: No, we have already – we’re working on 20 years. And when the plants were designed, they built for the 40 year life cycle. It was believed that the reactor vessel was the limiting addition. So at that time, when we built them, we put specimens in the vessel that we could take out every 10 years and measure the impacts and the influence from the neutrons from reactivity. And what we’ve found out, it was far less than what we had done in our calculations. So that’s how it came about, that we looked at and said: We could extend the life of these plants, at least from a reactor standpoint, and then be able to do the maintenance and the life extension on the other equipment that was part of it.

[...]

MR. O’BRIEN: So how can you assure – people are concerned when they think about a plant running as long as that. I guess what you’re saying is it really isn’t 60 years old. Is that – the way I look at it?

MR. POLLOCK: Well, it’s not 40 years old, you know. And you know, a lot of the equipment in here is not 10 years old. As you go through, we do total teardowns and rebuilds on emergency diesel generators, I believe, you got to see on your tour. We do complete teardowns and inspections over there of every refueling outage. We test them once a month. They have to start within 10 seconds, you know, without failure and be able to load up and be available. But the realities are they don’t run. So it’s like starting your car you have in your garage once a month to make sure it starts. And then, what we do is, after two years, we’ll go in there and tear apart and inspect it to make sure everything’s OK, and then we’ll go do an endurance run on it, you know. So then we’ll go take that long drive to make sure it’s going to work.

This is an issue that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also addressed:

A 40-year license term was selected on the basis of economic and antitrust considerations, not technical limitations.

And, as NEI mentioned in one of its fact sheets ...

The 40‐year term of a nuclear power plant license has nothing to do with aging plant components or a belief that safety needs to be reviewed on a 40‐year cycle. Instead, the period was chosen to parallel the financing amortization period for a plant. Exceeding federal safety standards is an ongoing activity for companies that operate nuclear power plants.

For more, I'll refer you back to this post from Victoria Barq, one where she made the case that the idea that Japan should shut down reactors once they reached the 40-year mark was wrongheaded for all sorts of reasons -- especially when there's absolutely no evidence that the incident at Fukushima Daiichi occurred because of the age of the plant.

As I've said previously, more updates as warranted.

Some Notes On Frontline, Indian Point and Emergency Preparedness

Tonight, PBS will be airing a new episode of Frontline entitled, "Nuclear Aftershocks," a look at the world's reaction to the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. Here on the East Coast, the program will begin at 10:00 p.m. EST.

As we noted at NEI Nuclear Notes last week, the nuclear industry cooperated extensively with Frontline on the broadcast, and over the past few days, we've been getting a better idea on the direction of the program.

A good portion of the program deals with Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) and the question of whether or not the sort of incident that occurred in Japan could happen there.

Chief among the questions posed by reporter Miles O'Brien is whether or not the area around IPEC could be evacuated in time in case of an accident. As it turns out, that's a question that's been recently addressed by NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko. As Bloomberg reported in Decmember:

The New York City area may be safely evacuated in the event of a Fukushima-like disaster at the Indian Point nuclear plant because a crisis would unfold slowly, the top U.S. nuclear regulator said.

“Nuclear accidents do develop slowly, they do develop over time, and we saw that at Fukushima,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, 41, said in an interview today at Bloomberg's headquarters in New York. It's unlikely a nuclear accident would require prompt action beyond “more than a few miles,” where the highest radiation levels would be, he said.

That's a point that O'Brien ought to include in tonight's broadcast, because after all, he's already been told just that. Back on December 1, 2011, O'Brien interviewed Joe Pollock, then Vice President of Operations at IPEC. A representative of Entergy recorded that interview and we made a transcript:

MR. O’BRIEN: But because of all those people, it – the problem of evacuation, if something goes wrong, is a bigger challenge, isn’t it?

MR. POLLOCK: The evacuation is handled through the state and the counties, but the – at Indian Point we do a traffic study – emergency traffic study – every year. It’s required once every 10 years, but here we do that analysis, and we provide that to the state as well as the counties to implement evacuation. It considers ongoing weather; it considers a football game at West Point; so how would you handle the crowds on that day. So we continue to update that.

The key thing to remember – and it actually showed in Japan – these are not fast-moving events, you know, where you have to evacuate in two hours. In fact, there are days – a long time before they would be to a level that, should something happen, you would have to have that evacuation.

MR. O’BRIEN: So there’s – the notion of an instant event that would require everybody in a 50-mile radius to get out is hard to imagine?

MR. POLLOCK: It’s hard to imagine. Matter of fact, if you look at all the studies, all the analysis done by both the NRC, independent labs and the manufacturers, that there is not a scenario that’s an instant scenario.

We'll be posting that transcript on our Web site later today.

Here are some other points to keep in mind when considering IPEC and a potential evacuation:

• Indian Point Energy Center —like other nuclear facilities—is designed with wide margins to withstand the toughest natural phenomena predicted for its area.
• It has a very robust safety record, including during severe events. In 2011 alone, American nuclear facilities were able to withstand hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and even an earthquake. Click here to view the interactive graphic that recounts those events.
• The EPZ standard for evacuation—created and approved by the NRC—is 10-miles. Indian Point is 24 miles from NYC.
• The 2nd EPZ of 50 miles is for monitoring of radiation levels—not evacuation.

We have a number of resources available on this topic for readers who would like to know more:

NEI Web site: Emergency Preparedness;

NEI Fact Sheet: Emergency Preparedness and Nuclear Energy Facilities

NEI Fact Sheet: Nuclear Power Plant Emergency Preparedness: Protecting Our Neighbors in the Event of an Emergency

We'll have other updates throughout the day. Please stay tuned.

On "Frontline" and "Nuclear Aftershocks"

My colleague, John Keeley, asked that I share the following note with our readers:

On January 17, PBS’ "Frontline" program will air "Nuclear Aftershocks," a documentary which purports to examine “the hazards and benefits of nuclear power.” Former CNN science reporter Miles O’Brien, with 30 years of journalism experience covering space, science and technology, leads the investigation and analysis for the program. O’Brien is a solid journo with a reputation for resisting the melodramatic and sensational in favor of substantive and balanced pieces. Would that we’d seen more of that among O’Brien’s broadcast peers covering Fukushima last spring.

Still, there are focus points to the piece we already know about that cause concern. O’Brien – who has been tweeting about the production for a few weeks – and his documentary team visited Indian Point Energy Center ostensibly on the premise that what happened at Fukushima Diachii could potentially happen at the New York plant located on the Hudson River. Indian Point is very much a political piñata in New York, but few of its critics, I think, posit any likelihood of the plant being visited by a 48-foot tsunami. And in the U.S., we don’t locate our nuclear plants on subduction zones.

Know this: industry offered PBS inordinate assistance with this project. Both Exelon and Indian Point’s operator, Entergy, afforded "Frontline" generous access to their respective plant sites, and made executives available for reflection about industry in a post-Fukushima world. Exelon spent a full day with Frontline last August at its LaSalle site. The Frontline team was afforded a tour of the fuel pool/building, the B5b equipment stage areas, the cask loading area, dry cask storage, a working hydrogen recombiner, and a number of underground spaces where backup equipment, emergency fuel supplies, and submarine doors were visible.

Industry had hoped to preview this program in advance of its airing, but the representative of one of our member companies has yet to hear back from the producers of the program. We will be paying close attention to "Nuclear Aftershocks" to see if the show attempts to achieve some context for decisions made in both Germany and Japan to shutter nuclear plants, such as acknowledging that globally today more than 60 new nuclear plants are under construction. We do know that "Frontline" met with individuals outside of industry concerned by recent decisions by some countries to abandon nuclear power.

“We have not yet found a base-load electric power without carbon emissions, other than nuclear power,” NASA’s James Hansen informed O’Brien in an interview.

The program airs on PBS around the country beginning on January 17. Click here to check when it will air on your local PBS member station.

Entergy Responds to Rep. Markey on Sr-90 Found in Fish

Two weeks ago, I blogged about Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) accusing Entergy of not being truthful when it came to Strontium-90 (Sr-90) emissions from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. I just found out that Entergy’s Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Roderick West responded to Rep. Markey’s accusations in a letter to the congressman last week.
Entergy’s overall position remains the same:

While some may speculate as to the source of the Sr-90, the scientific evidence does not support any connection between the operations of Vermont Yankee and the June 2010 fish sample.

In the letter, West quotes an Aug. 2 post written by Bill Irwin, radiological health chief at the Vermont Department of Health, who provides detailed information and data on the types of fish sampling conducted and compares that to previous research. However, without further evidence, Irwin says it is impossible to draw a clear conclusion that the Sr-90 that was found in the fish could be a result of the plant’s operations.

Sr-90 is found throughout our environment and in our diet. All humans have Sr-90 within their bodies. Given that Sr-90 is detected in fish collected from various locations, as well as many other media in the environment, we cannot associate low levels of Sr-90 in fish in the Connecticut River with Vermont Yankee-related radioactive materials without other supporting evidence.

That last part is especially important, he continues, in proving the source of the Sr-90 found in the fish:

Other supporting evidence would include measuring Sr-90 in groundwater samples as well as measuring other nuclear power plant-related radionuclides in both fish and groundwater samples. To date, the Health Department Laboratory has not measured other nuclear power plant-related radionuclides in fish or groundwater samples.

Irwin concurs with the company’s position and said he doesn’t believe the Sr-90 found in the fish was from Vermont Yankee.

We would need to see a pathway between the source and the fish, he said. Such a pathway isn’t apparent.

West outlines very clearly at the end of the letter that “all available evidence suggests that there is no such pathway.”

Given this conclusion, West also points out that Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who late this summer accused Entergy of “putting their shareholders’ profits above the welfare of Vermonters” because of the incident, changed his opinion.

We don’t know exactly where [the Strontium-90] came from.

Barring further evidence, I think Gov. Shumlin’s comment sums it up.
The full text of the letter can be downloaded here.
Photo: Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

Entergy Rejects Reports SR-90 Found In Connecticut River Is From Vermont Yankee

Late on Friday afternoon, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko accusing Entergy, the owner of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, of being less than truthful when it came to emissions of Strontium-90 (Sr-90) from the plant.

The following comes from the Associated Press:

Rep. Edward Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, wrote Friday to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko to complain that a spokesman for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant had made statements “at odds with the factual history of the plant,’’ and that the “NRC had not appropriately responded to concerns raised about this issue.’’

Markey’s letter came nearly three months after the incident in question. On Aug. 2, the Vermont Health Department announced that the radioactive isotope strontium-90 had been found in the flesh of small-mouth bass caught in the Connecticut River about 9 miles upstream from the reactor in Vernon. The plant is about three miles from the Massachusetts line; the river flows through Massachusetts and Connecticut before emptying into Long Island Sound.

Markey took issue with a statement issued by Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith saying that “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Vermont Yankee is the source for the strontium-90’’ in the fish.

We should note that well before Rep. Markey sent his letter to the NRC, that Entergy had already communicated with Vermont officials twice regarding the test results in question. On August 19, 2011, Vermont Yankee Site Vice President Michael Colomb sent a letter to Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin denying that the sample found in the Connecticut River could have come from the plant:

None of our groundwater monitoring samples has ever shown the presence of any plant-generated radionuclide other than tritium. As such, we believe there is no connection between the Sr-90 detected in the recent fish sample from the Connecticut River and the water passing through the grounds of Vermont Yankee.

Later in the letter, Colomb explains that strontium has never been present in any liquid releases from the plant:

Vermont Yankee routinely monitors the environment for Sr-90. Test results of our gaseous releases from the last 10 years show that Vermont Yankee has had three gaseous releases which included some Sr-90. These releases were extremely small, were all well within allowable NRC limits, and were reported as required to the NRC.

Colomb notes, however, that 99 percent of all Sr-90 found throughout the world comes from former atomic weapons testing programs, followed by a large dispersal after the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

As numerous studies demonstrate, the existence of trace amounts of Sr-90 in fish is not a new or unexpected occurrence, but has been recognized and studied for decades.

A full copy of the letter is below:

Just a few weeks ago, Colomb sent another letter to Vermont Department of Health Commissioner Harry Chen to follow-up on his request for the plant to increase fish sampling near the plant as a result of the incident. He reiterated that the Sr-90 found in the fish sample is unlikely to be attributed to Vermont Yankee as opposed to other sources.

In fact, according to the NRC and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, approximately 16.8 million curies of Sr-90 were dispersed into the atmosphere from nuclear testing through 1980. … In comparison, the total annual release of Sr-90 by all U.S. nuclear plants is typically only 1/1000th of a curie.

He continues:

I want to reaffirm that we meet or exceed all environmental monitoring requirements of the NRC, which has exclusive authority to regulate radiological safety and any radiological discharges by Vermont Yankee.

That letter can be read in full by clicking the below image:

The fact remains that Vermont Yankee has never had Sr-90 in any of its liquid releases and has not detected elevated levels of Sr-90 in any of its NRC-required environmental samples of ground water, fish, surface water, soil or vegetation around the Vermont Yankee site. Given these facts, Colomb reconfirmed in his letters that the presence of Sr-90 in the fish sample cannot be attributed to the plant.

As far as we know, Chairman Jaczko has yet to respond to Rep. Markey's letter. When he does, we'll be sure to share it with you.

NEI Top Industry Practice Awards for 2011

Every year, nuclear utilities and vendors submit to NEI new and innovative practices they’ve developed to achieve better operations. NEI and a few industry folks analyze the submissions and hand out awards for the best new practices. The awards recognize industry employees in 14 categories—four vendor awards, nine process awards for innovation to improve safety, efficiency and nuclear plant performance, and one award for vision and leadership. This year there are a number of excellent innovations highlighted below. The full list of awards and descriptions can be found here. 

Real-Time Method to Prevent Fuel Rod Defects

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) employees at the Browns Ferry nuclear energy facility in Alabama have been honored with the B. Ralph Sylvia “Best of the Best” Award for developing a state-of-the-art method to prevent reactor fuel rod defects. Using real-time stress monitoring of the sealed tubes that hold the uranium fuel pellets, a new methodology called XEDOR has proven highly effective.

Five years ago, the industry established a goal to eliminate by the end of 2010 fuel rod defects that could release radionuclides from fuel pellets. Some damage is caused by the interaction between fuel pellets and the metal tube material called cladding. The phenomenon can result in additional costs to utilities, affect plant operation and subject personnel performing repairs to additional radiation exposure.

Working with AREVA, the winning TVA team implemented a new methodology that performs real-time, on-line stress calculations for every six-inch fuel rod segment in all parts of the reactor core. It is the first method that can calculate how close fuel rods are to cladding damage, thus ensuring fuel integrity performance. The user-friendly methodology is incorporated into the core monitoring system, and provides the plant operating staff with fuel condition information that can be easily understood and applied. This method has reduced fuel leaks, increased reactor productivity, and avoided millions of dollars in additional costs.

Tungsten Radiation Shielding

Entergy employees at Arkansas Nuclear One won the Materials and Services Process Award for creating tungsten radiation shielding that effectively protects both equipment and personnel. The innovation has been used in Japan in response to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station.

The new material shields piping and surfaces effectively and economically, and also has been fabricated into a radiation-shielding vest that workers wear—a breakthrough application. Made primarily from tungsten with iron metal powder immersed in a silicone polymer, the material is flexible, heat-resistant, nontoxic and nonhazardous.

The tungsten vest is a major advancement. Traditionally, the industry has only thought to “shield the source” of radiation. Now “shielding the person” can be done in a lightweight and effective way to reduce exposure on an individual level and provide industrial safety value. Tungsten shielding is twice as effective at lowering exposure rates as lead and saves more than $300,000 per maintenance outage.

Medical Isotopes

Employees at Exelon Nuclear’s Clinton power station in Illinois are recipients of the Vision & Leadership Award for their pioneering development of the Isotope Test Assembly project. By simultaneously generating power and creating a widely used medical isotope—cobalt-60—the Exelon Nuclear team is addressing an urgent international medical need.

Cobalt-60 is used in noninvasive cancer therapy, with more than 15 million treatments each year in 80 countries. Cobalt-60 also is used in medical instrument sterilization, food preservation, package decontamination and pharmaceutical purification. The United States imports 95 percent of the cobalt isotopes that it uses for such purposes. To maintain a steady supply of isotopes to satisfy demand for necessary nuclear medicine procedures, the Exelon Nuclear’s team is working to create cobalt-60 in a commercial reactor during normal power generation.

To produce the isotope, cobalt-59 “targets” are added to some fuel assemblies in the reactor. During reactor operations, cobalt-59 atoms absorb neutrons and are transformed into cobalt-60 isotopes. The isotope rods are removed and shipped to a processing facility after several operating cycles. Cobalt-60 then is available for medical and other health and safety applications. The first commercial supply of cobalt-60 from Clinton will be available in 2014. Be sure to check out the rest of the awards.

Update, 5/13:

A short video explaining the radiation shielding is below. As well, below is another short video explaining Exelon's medical isotopes project.

Not Wasting Opportunities

A few posts down, we spotlighted continued support for nuclear energy from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. The billionaire’s club may not be big, but it certainly is interested in energy issues.

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has contributed to a $19.5 million round of funding for Canadian nuclear fusion startup General Fusion, marking the web billionaire’s first major investment in nuclear energy.

General Fusion describes itself as a venture capital funded company, so this infusion will doubtless be very welcome. Here’s how the company describes what it is doing:

General Fusion’s approach is based on “magnetized target fusion” concepts first developed about 30 years ago. This approach is a hybrid of traditional “magnetic fusion” and “inertial confinement fusion” methods, and involves first confining plasma in a magnetic field, and then compressing the confined plasma to thermonuclear conditions. General Fusion’s patent-pending fusion technology involves the equipment needed to contain and compress the plasma, and the systems needed to manage the process.

And a little more:

Our generator will operate in a repeating cycle, with each cycle culminating in a burst of fusion energy.

Each cycle will involve:

• creating plasma of deuterium and tritium,

• trapping the plasma within a magnetic field,

• compressing the magnetic field and the plasma within it to thermonuclear conditions, and

• capturing the heat that results from the fusion reaction and using it to generate electricity and power the next cycle.

The company says it will be ready to commercialize its technology by the end of the decade, which sort of fits the “always tomorrow” theme that has dominated nuclear fusion projects. But who knows? I’m not sure Bezos’ money will help fusion to find a commercial application any more than any one else’s money has up to now. But it never hurts to think big. Maybe this time, fusion really does have a tomorrow.

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The confluence of events this week can certainly, along with elation, cause considerable nervousness. So this seems germane:

The tires on a semitrailer delivering hydrogen to Iowa's only nuclear power plant exploded Tuesday, prompting an alert, but the safety of the plant and the public were never affected, a spokeswoman said.

That would be Duane Arnold. Naturally, that led to:

The tires that blew were on a trailer holding several long tanks of hydrogen. A fire started, but officials didn't know whether the exploding tires caused the fire or the fire caused the tires to pop. The plant's on-site fire brigade and local firefighters responded, prompting the alert.

A fire. Around hydrogen. The fire was put out quickly enough, the driver sent to the hospital and the hydrogen put in storage, but anyone who read about this in little bursts had every right to jitter just a little. But the end result?

The plant remains at 100 percent power. It's operating safely," Nelson [Renee Nelson, spokeswoman for NextEra Energy Resources] said.

So there you go. I doubt this would have made the Iowa papers (much less Business Week, where this account originated) most other weeks.

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So why waste an opportunity?

A grass-roots group organized after the Japan nuclear disaster is holding what is expected to be a large rally for nuclear safety at Plymouth Rock on Saturday. Its leaders say it is neither antinuclear nor political in purpose.

“It’s about families. It’s not about politics,’’ said Anna Baker, coleader of Pilgrim: Make Us Safe Today, or Pilgrim: MUST.

The Pilgrim plant? Really? It went online in 1972 and has quietly gone about its business for 40 years, powering about 600,000 homes around about Plymouth (and creating jobs and economic activity and not producing a bunch of emissions). It’s up for license renewal in 2012, so that’s the reason to do something this year.

The protesters sort of grasp that this is a protest against nothing in particular:

To make the rally more positive, the group is focusing on specific problems and proposing solutions. The list begins with the storage of nuclear waste in water inside a plant, which experts say was the source of the greatest danger in the Japanese crisis.

The protest isn’t being held directly in front of Pilgrim but in a nearby state park next to Plymouth Rock. I hope Entergy gets some of the plant employees over there to contribute to the discussion. Sounds like a friendly enough crowd inclined to listen as well as be heard. So why waste an opportunity?

The Pilgrim nuclear plant.

Exelon and Constellation Merge; E.ON; Japan

Here's the news, via World Nuclear News:

Exelon and Constellation Energy have announced a $7.9 billion merger. Under the name Exelon, the resulting firm will be America's largest generator of nuclear power by an even greater margin. 

A definitive agreement posted today will see a stock-for-stock transaction combine the two companies. The new firm wants to take advantage of Exelon's large low-carbon generation fleet and Constellation's customer-facing business. 

The CEO's of the two company's, John Rowe of Exelon and Mayo Shattuck of Constellation, and Exelon's COO Chris Crane, held a press conference about this a little earlier today, so there'll be more on this later. 

Exelon is headquartered in Chicago and Constellation in Baltimore; the former has full or majority share in 17 nuclear reactors at 10 sites while Constellation Energy nuclear Group operates operates five reactors at three power stations - Maryland's Calvert Cliffs and New York's R.E. Ginna and Nine Mile Point.

Stay tuned.

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Over in Germany, E.ON's chief Johannes Teyssen tries to make the case for nuclear energy while not getting sticks thrown at him:

Speaking at a televised session of a commission to evaluate ethical questions related to atomic power generation, Teyssen said nuclear energy should be regarded as a "bridge technology" to help the country's transformation to a low-carbon, renewable energy supply.

"Germany unconditionally...needs to retain its ability the achieve its internationally binding climate protection commitments," Teyssen told a panel of energy experts from industrial companies, utilities, scientists, energy associations and non-governmental groups.

Meeting Germany's climate protection goals--which include a 40% reduction of carbon dioxide emission by 2020 compared with 1990 levels--will be impossible if all of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors "were to be switched off by the end of this decade," Teyssen said.

So true. E.ON has energy interests throughout Europe, though it is headquartered in Dusseldorf. 
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Some news about Fukushima Daiichi, via NHK:

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan has reassessed its estimates of fuel damage in reactors No.1 to No.3.

Tokyo Electric Power Company on Wednesday announced new estimates of damage after the country's nuclear safety agency questioned the accuracy of the initial assessments. The utility has revised the estimated fuel damage in the No.1 reactor from 70 percent to 55 percent, saying radiation levels were not correct.

TEPCO also says that it acted inappropriately in excluding fuel damage of less than 5 percent in calculating total damage ratios for the No.2 and No.3 reactors.

E.On's Johannes Teyssen. The company color is orange, so you'll often see him posed against this kind of backdrop. 

On Vermont Yankee and States’ Rights

Over at the ANS Nuclear Cafe, Meredith Angwin who blogs at Yes Vermont Yankee, makes the case for why the NRC has jurisdiction over nuclear plants:

Watching the POP [Vermont Public Oversight Panel] at work, it was clear to me why the NRC has jurisdiction, and why nuclear regulation cannot be a state privilege. Nuclear energy cannot be regulated by a group of people who may be eager to please their legislative employers. There needs to be objective criteria, assessed by full-time experts, in order to keep a plant working well.

Having the internal workings of the plant doubly-assessed, by a group of people chosen politically, could get in the way of plant operations. It could even possibly degrade safety. Part-time inspectors with political agendas? This is not the same as having the Occupational Safety and Health Administration come to the plant. Trained OSHA inspectors go to many industrial facilities.

The NRC catches a lot of guff in the nuclear industry: The NRC is slow to act. The NRC is an expensive, overgrown bureaucracy. The NRC is headed by political appointees.

But still, down in the trenches at the inspection level, the NRC knows what it is doing. The inspectors are trained and professional. They don’t have political agendas. They won’t accept a cup of coffee from the people they are inspecting.

After watching the POP activities, it is clear to me that nuclear regulation is the business of the federal government. The Atomic Energy Act was the precursor of the NRC, and kept the nuclear safety regulation at the federal level of the government. That is how it must remain.

Thank you, NRC, for your day-to-day professionalism.

Hope ANS didn’t mind us copying many of the good parts, though there is still plenty left for others to check out.

U.S. District Court to Decide Vermont Yankee’s Future

Entergy filed a complaint today with the U.S. District Court to seek “a judgment to prevent the state of Vermont from forcing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to cease operation on March 21, 2012.” Looks like they have a solid case, though I’m not a lawyer so don’t quote me. Here’s one of the more notables lines from Entergy’s statement:

“We have made every reasonable effort to accommodate the state of Vermont and its officials while allowing the continued operation of Vermont Yankee – an outcome that benefits all stakeholders, including Vermont consumers and the approximately 650 men and women who work at the plant,” said Richard Smith, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities. “Despite the fact that Vermont Yankee is important to the reliability of the New England electric transmission grid, emits virtually no greenhouse gases, and provides more than $100 million in annual economic benefits to the state of Vermont, it has been made clear that state officials are singularly focused on shutting down the plant. That has left us with no other choice but to seek relief in the court system.”

Stay tuned.

Update, 12:05: Yes Vermont Yankee has more on the suit.