Reporting on the BRC Report

The NEI coverage of the Blue Ribbon Commission final report is below this post and gives a good summary of industry response. We’d thought we’d take a look at some of the coverage in the press and see how it is playing around the country. These are news stories, so we’re not gauging reaction, as we would with editorials, just the accuracy and usefulness of the reporting.

And some are better than others. The TriCity [Wash.] Herald, using the AP story as a base, sort of misses the boat with this lede:

The United States should immediately start looking for an alternative to replace the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, which cost an estimated $15 billion but was never completed, a presidential commission said Thursday.

It’s not wrong exactly, but the stress on Yucca Mountain suggests the commission had something to say about it. In fact, it had nothing specific to say about it and, if Yucca Mountain were determined to still be the best locale for a central used fuel repository, that would be consistent with the report.

Yucca Mountain was picked by a process established by law, but "now the Blue Ribbon Commission suggests we just ignore the law and start all over?" said Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is running for governor as a Republican, in a statement. "That recommendation could set our country back at least 25 years."

Well, he said it, but it isn’t really the case that Yucca has been eliminated from consideration. The report didn’t eliminate any location from consideration. President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, yes, blue ribbon commission, no.

Here’s what the report says. It’s pretty direct:

The Blue Ribbon Commission was not chartered as a siting commission. Accordingly we have not evaluated Yucca Mountain or any other location as a potential site for the storage or disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, nor have we taken a position on the Administration’s request to withdraw the license application.

The New York Time’s Matt Wald gets closer to the gist and introduced in the lede the second element that picked up a lot of attention, the consent-based approach to siting a repository:

A commission appointed to find alternatives to a failed plan to store nuclear waste in the Nevada desert declared on Thursday that the United States would have to develop a "consent-based approach" for choosing a site because leaving the decision to Congress had failed.

By securing local consent, the panel said, the government might avoid the kind of conflicts that led to the cancellation of plans to create a repository at Yucca Mountain, a site 100 miles from Las Vegas, in 2010. It noted that local willingness had been crucial to decision-making on sites for nuclear waste depots in Finland, France, Spain and Sweden.

This is true, though it ignores that Yucca Mountain might well be open today if President Obama had not closed it – and neither Obama nor Secretary Chu have offered a definitive reason for closing it, so we not sure if “conflicts” led to its shuttering. One can infer a lot of things, but not really know them.

Here’s what the commission says about the consent-based approach:

By contrast [to a top-down, federal-led approach], the approach we recommend is explicitly adaptive, staged, and consent-based. Based on a review of successful siting processes in the United States and abroad—including most notably the siting of a disposal facility for transuranic radioactive waste, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, and recent positive outcomes in Finland, France, Spain and Sweden—we believe this type of approach can provide the flexibility and sustain the public trust and confidence needed to see controversial  facilities through to completion.

And it’s right. This has worked to tamp down public opposition in those place – WIPP is almost a case study on how to do it - though it takes more time and effort to engage with local communities and any attempted process may come to nothing. That’s the risk.

Back to Wald:

The panel … also suggested that the government, which assumed responsibility for high-level waste 30 years ago, take the job of managing the waste out of the hands of the Energy Department and give it to a federally chartered corporation created for that purpose.

Such an agency would be more effective than the Department of Energy, which "must balance multiple agendas or policy priorities," it said.

The idea of the chartered corporation appears further down  in a number of stories, so a fair number of writers may have decided it’s a little more arcane a subject for general interest readers but still important.

Here’s the commission on the corporation:

[T]he Commission concludes that a new, single-purpose organization is needed to provide the stability, focus, and credibility that are essential to get the waste program back on track. We believe a congressionally chartered federal corporation offers the best model, but whatever the specific form of the new organization it must possess the attributes, independence, and resources to effectively carry out its mission.

The central task of the new organization would be to site, license, build, and operate facilities for the safe consolidated storage and final disposal of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable timeframe. In most stories I’ve read, Yucca Mountain and consent based siting have been the biggest subjects.

Even as the third most covered aspect of the report in most stories I’ve read, it’s often buried. CNN has it at paragraph 11:

It [the report] said this congressionally chartered federal corporation should have substantial authority and access to funds to accomplish its mission. A board, nominated by the president and confirmed by Congress, would oversee the organization.

I missed much coverage of interim storage sites, another of the report’s recommendations – that seems germane to various communities – but maybe that will be thought most important to communities where they will be sited.

---

The story in the Las Vegas Sun, opposition central for Yucca Mountain in Nevada media, runs through the same subjects as the other stories we reviewed. What I liked was the headline:

Commission: Store nuclear waste where it’s wanted

Yeah, wise guys, where it’s wanted.

It’s a newsboy. I was a bicycle based suburban newsboy back when rather than a wuxtry-wuxtry urban type of newsboy. The former still have some currency – the latter, our boy in the picture, none at all. Count him as among the culturally lost.

Having a Future

Even after the Fukushima Daiichi facility achieves a cold shutdown and even if no one becomes sick or dies as a result of the accident – no one has so far – the impact to the nuclear energy industry on a global basis is not yet in full focus.

This lack of focus became, um, clearer after I read an interesting story in the New York Times that aims to address this issue – it’s here, called “After Fukushima, Does Nuclear Energy Have a Future?,” that does a reasonable job of surveying what different countries are doing with nuclear energy in the shadow of Fukushima. The story tilts toward what one might call the worst case scenario, but it’s not unrealistic and it points out inconvenient counter-facts, always a plus in my book.

Despite this relatively dismal outlook for nuclear energy, the London-based World Nuclear Association predicts a 30 percent increase in global nuclear generating capacity over the next decade; it foresees 79 more reactors online by 2020, for a total of 514, even taking Fukushima into account. And it sees a 66 percent increase by 2030, with capacity additions in China, India, South Korea and Russia outnumbering projected declines in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

May not portend titanic growth but it doesn’t suggest a “dismal outlook,” either. Maybe writer Stephanie Cook even had to rush a bit to get the U.K. into her panoply of gloom before the country’s apparent decision to move forward – she does go for the worst case.

But really, so what? As the selection of stories included here indicates, things are happening in the nuclear sphere and people are saying encouraging things. Here in the U.S., there have been plentiful opportunities for big protests and hijacking public meetings, but there hasn’t really been any of that.

Now, I’ll gladly admit that some countries are trying to ensure nothing happens in the nuclear sphere and saying discouraging things – maybe I’ll round up a few of those later on – but this strikes me as the time where things will get said on all sides and energy policies will be formed and reformed accordingly. Nuclear energy may lose some ground but may well make up a lot of it – the point is, we don’t yet seem to be on the leaf of the calendar where that tale can be told fully and honestly.

---

Meanwhile, however, there are bits of the story to be told. Consider:

The U.K.'s chief nuclear inspector said Tuesday he saw no reason to curtail operations at existing nuclear power plants or change siting strategies for new reactors following the Fukushima disaster, effectively giving the green light for investments in new nuclear reactors to move forward.

And over to China:

Chinese regulators performed a four-month review of safety at all existing nuclear reactors and reactors under construction after the Fukushima meltdowns and declared them safe. Safety reviews continue at reactors where construction had not yet started at the time of the Fukushima accident.

And:

Mr. Jiang [Kejun, a director of the Energy Research Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission], said in an interview that nuclear power construction targets for 2020 had not yet been set and might end up slightly lower than they would have been without the meltdowns in Fukushima. But he and other Chinese officials say that China’s rapidly rising electricity consumption makes nuclear power essential.

---

Also from the New York Times:

For instance, Germany’s decision to shut down its nuclear facilities would raise wholesale prices for utilities’ power by as much as €7, or close to $10, per megawatt hour in Germany, on average over the next decade, and by up to €5 per megawatt hour in France and the Netherlands, according to Fabien Roques, the director of European power for IHS Cera, a research and consulting firm.

“In some places we have a common market for energy, but we don’t have common procedures for generating energy that we can actually rely on,” said Mr. Roques. “You can see how this situation creates friction between countries.”

That’s a lot. It must be fantastically annoying for France, which will likely be shoveling some of its nuclear-generated electricity Germany’s way. Call it the unintended consequences of a high-minded stand.

The British nuclear fleet – from Centrica. Click for larger.

“Many Stood Up and Yelled” for Millstone

The New York Times has put up a very well implemented – and interactive – map that provides a lot of data about the Japan earthquake and about Fukushima Daiichi. Worth bookmarking.

---

The Economist has posted a debate – done in classical style, a treat for us old college arguers – that proposes the following: This house  believes that the world would be better off without nuclear energy.

Read through the arguments – very well researched on both sides, so even those in favor of the statement are worth attending to by nuclear advocates – and cast your vote. Currently, 32 percent favor the statement and 68 percent disfavor it. Technically, you can’t vote your conscience, but only for the better argument. Assuming the voters are doing this, what can we say? Go, nuclear energy!

---

Up in Connecticut, a bill in the legislature proposes taxing nuclear energy. If the bill passes, Dominion Energy, which runs the Millstone plant, will shut it down – it cannot pass the cost to customers due to contractual arrangements and it cannot afford the additional $332 million tariff per year the tax would cost. Dominion said it would try to renegotiate the contracts, but failing that, closure. (Of note: Millstone is the state’s only nuclear plant, so this is a very targeted tax – just on principle, it’s pretty atrocious.)(Oh, and Millstone produces 53 percent of the electricity in Connecticut. Hope they get those windmills up fast.)

Anyway, who knows? Still early days on this one and of course, we’ll track it. But the interesting thing is the behavior of the audience at a Waterford (where Millstone is sited) town hall:

During the question and answer period after Dominion’s presentation, Nancy Burton, president of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, began a speech on the dangers of nuclear energy. She showed several posters of Japan’s destroyed nuclear power plants, and made allegations that Millstone was casting radiation into Mystic [River] and causing cancer.

Before she could finish her speech, the public began to grow restless. Many stood up and yelled at Burton, demanding she ask one question and let everybody else talk.

Later in the question and answer period, Burton stood up again to speak. Again she made allegations that Dominion was cutting corners and misinforming the public, and that the media was backing the power company.

This time, before she could finish her speech, boos rained down. She tried to talk over the jeers, but the public just booed louder until she eventually returned to her seat.

Pretty rude, I admit, but if you’ve been to one of these, you know anti-nuclear advocates sometimes try to soak up the time to make their arguments seem dominant even when that is not true. If Ms. Burton tried that, didn’t work. If she was making a simple statement, back to rude.

But it’s striking that in the town where the plant is located, the townspeople wouldn’t have it.

Quick Hits: IAEA, Safety Codes, Whitman

The International Atomic Energy Agency starts a mission:

Starting Monday, they will hold meetings with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and others, Denis Flory, IAEA deputy director general and head of the department of nuclear safety and security, said at a separate news conference.
"The objective of this mission is to exchange views with Japanese technical experts and to get firsthand information what the current status of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is, measures to be taken and also future plans to mitigate the accident," he said.
"It is not an assessment team," he said, adding that this will also "pave the way for future missions which will be expert peer review missions."

It will also be interesting to see if the IAEA will feel it needs to rethink its own role in an incident like this. I'm not implying it has or hasn't done what it should - I really don't know - but insofar as IAEA has a role, I hope we'll see how well it's fulfilled it.

Some hopeful news from the same story:

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that levels of radioactive iodine-131 measured in the village of Iitate, about 40 km from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, have dropped below levels requiring an evacuation order.

Iodine-131 has a short half-life, so having levels descend without more of it becoming apparent is good. But hopeful is what it is - the numbers are going in the right direction.

---

Christine Todd Whitman offers her views:

While the industry is doing this, with the support of the Obama administration and many policymakers, there are others taking a less productive approach. Critics are using this crisis to press for a ban on all future nuclear energy investments and a shutdown of current U.S. nuclear power plants.
That would not only be unwise – it is unrealistic. Nuclear energy provides roughly 20 percent of the electricity that our nation uses. It would take decades — and tens of billions of dollars — to replace that capacity.
Meanwhile, nuclear energy is still one of our country’s cleanest energy options. It provides 70 percent of the country’s carbon-free power every year, and is likely to be counted on even more in the future as Washington strives to rein in harmful emissions. No other energy source can now meet the nation’s future clean energy needs on the same scale.
Moreover, it is always a bad idea to make long-term policy in the middle of a crisis. We cannot guess today how Japan will emerge from this tragedy, or what lessons it will provide.

Very welcome, not least because these mirror my thoughts almost exactly - it's nice to have your views reaffirmed occasionally. Whitman is former Governor of New Jersey and later EPA Administrator under President Bush. She has continued in public service as co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. An article well worth attending to.

---

The Times has an interesting article on the science of nuclear forensics:

Thanks to the unfamiliar but sophisticated art of atomic forensics, experts around the world have been able to document the situation [at Fukushima Daiichi] vividly. Over decades, they have become very good at illuminating the hidden workings of nuclear power plants from afar, turning scraps of information into detailed analyses.

While the Times has some examples of what these programs - called "safety codes" - do, I became a little uncomfortable with the awe-struck willingness to accept their diagnoses uncritically. Safety codes are valuable tools, but not magical ones capable of creating a full picture from a scrap of data. The more information they  get - and the quality of it - determines the quality of the output - the garbage in garbage out idea that attends all computer work.

That said, well, pretty amazing.

The Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque wrote one of the most respected codes. It models whole plants and serves as a main tool of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Washington agency that oversees the nation’s reactors.
Areva and French agencies use a reactor code-named Cathare, a complicated acronym that also refers to a kind of goat’s milk cheese.

So we may expect, when we hear assessments of events of Fukushima, that at least some of it is derived from the work of safety codes.


Christine Todd Whitman 

News Coverage: The Post and the Times (NYC and LA)

How are our major newspapers reporting on the situation in Japan today?  The New York Times still has it at the front of its site, but Libya and Syria have the lead positions.

The story leads with comments for the International Atomic Energy Agency:

The world’s chief nuclear inspector said Saturday that Japan was “still far from the end of the accident” that has stricken its Fukushima nuclear complex and continues to spew radiation into the atmosphere and the sea, and acknowledged that the authorities were still unsure about whether the nuclear cores and spent fuel were covered with the water needed to cool them and end the crisis.

That would by Yukiya Adano, head of the IAEA and Japanese himself. It seems odd not to lead with TEPCO or the Japanese government, but maybe Adano gave the most dramatic comments.

The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday that a test of seawater taken on Friday from a monitoring station at the plant showed the level of iodine 131 to be 1,250 times the legal limit. That was 147 times the level recorded on Wednesday, the agency said.

Fair enough. But:

Japanese authorities played down the news. Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general at the safety agency, said he expected the iodine to dilute rapidly, minimizing the effect on wildlife, and pointed out that fishing had been suspended in the area after the earthquake and tsunami.

“There is unlikely to be any immediate effect on nearby residents,” he said.

“Played down?” That sounds oddly American-centric. By our standards of reporting, everything the Japanese say must sound “played down.” Maybe Nishiyama just told the truth as he knew it and left it at that.

Although the Times, especially reporter Matt Wald, have done a very good job with this story since it began, the Gray Lady seems to be struggling a bit to fill column inches with it. Not bad, but a little distended.

---

The Washington Post leads with radiation found in the waters off Fukushima:

Radioactivity levels soared in the seawater outside the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, safety officials reported Saturday, igniting fresh concerns about the spread of highly radioactive material and the risks involved in completing an already dangerous job.

A little hyped, but okay. I don’t think anyone doubted from the first day of this situation that there were not risks involved in completing the job. Unlike the Times today, the Post aims to track positive progress as well as worrisome developments:

As of Saturday, some signs of progress were evident at the plant: Fresh water was being pumped in to cool the first three nuclear reactors, rather than seawater, which can ultimately impair the cooling process. And the lights were turned on in the control room of the second reactor.

I believe only Unit 4 lacks lighting now.  The Post then runs over the event of the last few days.

---

The Los Angeles Times also leads with seawater:

Radioactivity levels are soaring in seawater near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan's nuclear safety agency said Saturday, two weeks after the nuclear power plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

“Are soaring” or “have soared?” We won’t really know until more readings are taken and hopefully, they will come down. But, okay.

The L.A. Times quotes Nishiyama, but instead of commenting on his underplaying the news, tries an opinion:

Despite that reassurance, the disclosure may well heighten international concern over Japanese seafood exports.

Which is true – it may or it may not. And that’s about it for L.A. Times, which reviews the last few days in a couple of paragraphs and ends. This struck me as almost curious, as Los Angeles is, of the three cities, closest to Japan. But sticking to the facts as known at the moment and moving on seems a good approach to the news of the day. I’ll take it.

It’s a newsboy.