Feb 01, 2022, 03:16 am
Written by Linda Pentz Gunter
Published: January 24, 2022
There are geniuses amongst us. We just didn’t know it. They are the supporters of nuclear power, who, according to the Associated Press, “say the risks can be minimized” when it comes to the perpetual and unsolved problem of long-lived, high-level radioactive waste — the main by-product of generating electricity using nuclear power.
This observation comes within an AP story headlined: “Majority of US states pursue nuclear power for emission cuts”, and which has garnered significant pickup in numerous media outlets. (However, we never do learn the secret to precisely how nuclear waste risks can be “minimized”.)
The agency surveyed “the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” finding that “about two-thirds” plan to use nuclear power to replace fossil fuels.
The mantra about solving the nuclear waste problem has been repeated since the dawn of the Nuclear Age, coming up on 80 years this December. That was when, on December 2, 1942, the first cupful of radioactive waste was generated, a result of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction achieved at the Chicago Pile-1 by Enrico Fermi and his team.
At that time, scientists knew that radioactive waste was a problem, but assumed it would be solved later. Well, here we are at “later” and it’s still unsolved. Now, “minimizing” rather than solving the problem is apparently justification enough to keep using this dangerous technology.
The AP reporters chose Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) President and CEO, Jeff Lash (no vested interest there), as the spokesperson for the continued use of nuclear power and says he,“puts it simply” when stating: “You can’t significantly reduce carbon emissions without nuclear power.”
But, of course, it’s not that simple. It’s also arguably dead wrong. As Stanford University’s Amory Lovins and others have demonstrated repeatedly:
What AP does say, all too “simply”, in order to credential Lash’s expertise, is that TVA “operates three nuclear plants” without describing how long they took to get here and what they actually do.
The three TVA plants are at Browns Ferry in Alabama, and Sequoyah and Watts Bar, both in Tennessee. The two Watts Bar reactors produce tritium for the nuclear weapons sector — a clear crossing of the supposedly inviolable line between the civilian and military nuclear sectors.
Sequoyah 1 and 2 have also been licensed to produce tritium but, so far, TVA has chosen not to use them for that purpose.
TVA is also, right now, pushing federal regulators to allow it to increase its output of tritium, an essential radioisotope used in thermonuclear warheads to boost the explosive power of an atomic bomb.
As Tom Clements, executive director of the Savannah River Site Watch, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Watts Bar 1 has been involved in tritium production for close to 20 years. Meanwhile, Watts Bar 2 holds the unenviable record of taking the longest time ever — a staggering 42 years — between the start of construction and actual operation. It is the poster child for the argument against trying to deliver new nuclear plants as some sort of answer to an urgent climate crisis already upon us that must be addressed today.
Nevertheless, when Watts Bar 2 came on line in October 2016, TVA actually heralded it as “the first new nuclear generation in 20 years.” If a 42-year old reactor is the definition of “new”, then maybe we should all go back to driving Chevrolet Monte Carlos.
The unnamed survey respondents from the state of Georgia apparently told AP that their “nuclear reactor expansion will provide ‘ample clean energy’ for 60 to 80 years”.
But again, there is no context to this bold prediction. In reality, that “expansion” consists of the only two survivors of another nuclear myth, the U.S. “Nuclear Renaissance”, always an aspiration and never a reality.
The Georgia reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4, have now been under construction since 2013. Their completion dates have been repeatedly pushed into the future — 2024 is the current, optimistic prediction, but it’s equally possible that both reactors will never achieve operational status.
Meanwhile, the costs for Vogtle 3 and 4 are predicted to balloon to $30 billion, while ratepayers, already paying more to cover these excesses, will see their monthly bills double if and when the reactors come on line. Imagine the “ample clean energy” that might have already been producing electricity in Georgia, if a renewable energy program had been initiated in 2013 instead of the nuclear boondoggle.
Majority support for nuclear energy — which does not appear to be the case publicly, even if it is so politically — is a clear testament to the power of well-funded propaganda campaigns and the deep pockets of lobbyists. None of us engaged on this subject have missed the saturation media campaign, on-going now for months if not years, that sows the erroneous notion in the heads of politicians that nuclear power is an answer — even the answer — to climate change.
Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it. Today’s media has become especially guilty of this. I recently had to correct a Financial Times reporter who, in an otherwise perfectly good article, described nuclear power as having “no carbon footprint.” There is no stop-and-think going on here. After all, even renewable energy does not have “no” carbon footprint.
As John Le Carré wrote in his 1996 book, The Tailor of Panama, paraphrased from the mouth of one of his more cynical characters:
Fortunately, there remain some good investigative reporters amongst the lapdogs. But our task is made all the harder by that constant parroting of nuclear propaganda as if it is gospel. We have an uphill climb to change it, but we must keep climbing.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/24/...her-myths/
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Related News:
Nuclear energy not feasible way to tackle climate crisis, former regulators say
Published: January 26, 2022
Nuclear energy is not part of any feasible strategy that could be used to tackle climate change, former top officials from national regulators have said.
The experts said it was too costly, risky and unlikely to have a significant impact quickly enough.
The comments were made in a joint statement by Dr Gregory Jaczko, Professor Wolfgang Renneberg, Dr Bernard Laponche and Dr Paul Dorfman, who have been involved in government nuclear regulation and radiation protection levels in the US, Germany, France and the UK respectively.
The former top officials said they felt a “collective responsibility” to comment on whether nuclear energy could play a significant role in trying to tackle the climate crisis.
Nuclear energy has been suggested as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels as its production does not produce greenhouse gas emissions.
But critics have raised concerns over safety and the high costs involved.
In their statement this month, the former regulators said nuclear energy was “neither clean, safe or smart” and was “extremely costly”.
The group - which includes the former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the ex-chief of the French Agency for Energy Management - added: “Perhaps most importantly nuclear is just not part of any feasible strategy that could counter climate change.”
This was because this form of energy was “too costly” to make a relevant contribution to global energy supplies, “inherently risky” due to the potential for accidents and “unsustainable due to the unresolved problem of very long-lived radioactive waste”, they said.
The group - which includes former UK government scientific advisor Dr Dorfman - also said it was “militarily hazardous since newly promoted reactor designs increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation”.
Nuclear energy was also “unlikely to make a relevant contribution to necessary climate change mitigation” by the 2030s due to how long it takes to develop and build plants, the experts said.
Last year, the UK government gave the go-ahead for at least one large nuclear power plant - and possibly another - by 2040 as part of its plan to reach net-zero.
France also announced last autumn it would start building its first new nuclear reactors in decades under plans to curb emissions.
https://news.yahoo.com/nuclear-energy-no...p_catchall
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Feds seeking volunteers to host America’s nuclear waste
Published: November 30, 2021
The United States can no longer ignore the conundrum at the back end of the fuel cycle — how to dispose of highly radioactive waste, federal officials acknowledged Tuesday, Nov. 30.
Kathryn Huff, principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy with the U.S. Department of Energy, announced the restart of an Obama-era push for “consent-based siting.” The idea is to create centralized, community-embraced but temporary storage sites for millions of pounds of spent fuel that’s piled up at reactors nationwide, even while the prickly issue of permanent storage is parsed.
“Management of the fuel is the responsibility of the DOE,” Huff said. “We cannot continue to defer this challenge for future generations to figure out. … Communities did not agree to host this waste in the very long term.”
That’s exactly what critics demanding the removal of 3.6 million pounds of “stranded waste” at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station have been saying for years.
The DOE isn’t looking for volunteer communities to host the waste just yet, but instead wants folks to weigh in on how to fairly and equitably identify sites for interim storage; share thoughts on the consent-based siting process itself and how to remove barriers to meaningful participation; and on the role of interim storage in the nation’s overall nuclear waste management plan.
Comments can be sent to consentbasedsiting@hq.doe.gov. Responses must be received by 2 p.m. Pacific Time on March 4.
“Hearing from and then working with communities interested in hosting one of these facilities is the best way to finally solve the nation’s spent nuclear fuel management issues,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a prepared statement. “We know there are real benefits from jobs to new infrastructure that will result in interest in areas across the country. The public’s input is central to identifying those locations to make this process as inclusive and effective as possible.”
This federal push is separate and distinct from two private, commercial temporary storage facilities proposed in Texas and New Mexico. The DOE hopes to announce funding opportunities in connection with its push next year, but Huff said it will take many years to get things up and running.
‘Extremely dangerous’
“Commercial spent nuclear fuel is extremely dangerous if not managed properly,” the Government Accountability Office said in a recent examination of the nation’s decades-long paralysis over the issue. “About 86,000 metric tons of this fuel is stored on-site at 75 operating or shutdown nuclear power plants in 33 states, an amount that grows by about 2,000 metric tons each year.”
The radioisotopes produced in a reactor can remain hazardous from a few days to many thousands of years, the GAO said.
“The longer it takes the federal government to resolve the current impasse and develop a solution for the permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel, the greater the potential risk to the environment and public health, or of security incidents associated with temporary on-site storage,” the report said. “(T)he safety of long-term dry cask storage is unknown, and the risks, such as environmental and health risks, of on-site storage increase the longer the fuel is stored there.”
Attempted sabotage and theft of radioactive material also are potential security risks, the report said. Paralysis is also expensive: The DOE was supposed to start accepting commercial waste in 1998, and its failure to do so will cost taxpayers some $40 million, the GAO said.
Momentum
“This is a widely anticipated move that is part of a fresh effort by the federal government to make progress on dealing with spent fuel,” said David Victor, a professor at UC San Diego and chair of San Onofre’s volunteer Community Engagement Panel, by email. “One of the key questions that has nagged the process is what ‘consent’ really means. This … is an effort to elicit views on that question. It also reflects that DOE more generally is getting organized to launch the ‘interim storage’ process.”
This request for information asks a lot of questions and will elicit a whole lot of reaction, but three things really matter, he said: It will reveal which other communities are as concerned as people are in Southern California, and they may become political allies. While Huff put the effort in the context of zero carbon emissions, a serious strategy for spent fuel is long overdue. And, finally, the U.S. is simply lagging behind.
“Other societies — notably Finland and Canada — are finding ways forward,” Victor said. “The problems are political and they hinge on getting consent from the communities where spent fuel is stored.”
Southern California Edison, which oversees San Onofre’s dismantlement and is eager to get the waste off the bluff, is encouraged.
“This is an important issue for SCE and the communities surrounding San Onofre, and we look forward to working with DOE to develop safe and workable solutions,” spokesman John Dobken said by email.
“We see the issue of consent as a critical part of restarting the federal spent fuel management program. Internationally, consent has emerged as one of the most important elements of siting spent fuel facilities. As we work toward long-term solutions, SCE will continue to safely store the spent nuclear fuel located on site until it can be relocated.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, has been pushing on the nuclear waste issue for years, convening a task force, co-chairing a bipartisan Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus and championing the $20 million set aside for interim storage in legislation that was signed into law last year.
“I applaud the Department of Energy for today’s long-awaited announcement that takes another step towards removing the spent fuel stored on the beach at San Onofre,” Levin said in a prepared statement. “My colleagues and I worked hard to secure the funding that made it possible to restart DOE’s consent-based siting program for spent fuel. The federal government has a responsibility to address the nation’s spent nuclear fuel challenge, but history has shown us that without the consent of the communities that will be involved with the solutions, we are unlikely to succeed.”
Huff said simply that the renewed effort “will help drive us toward the clean energy future we all need.”
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/11/30/fe...ear-waste/
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Japan: Doubts grow on water-release schedule at Fukushima plant
Published: January 31, 2022
Shovel loaders digging pits at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Jan. 17 were a rare sign of progress in the government’s contentious water-discharge plan at the stricken site.
Under the plan, millions of tons of treated but still contaminated water stored at the plant will be released into the sea over decades starting in spring 2023.
However, opposition to the plan remains fierce among local residents, the fishing industry and even overseas governments.
The pits being dug will temporarily hold radioactive water right before the release. But other preparatory work has already been stalled.
The government plans to create an undersea tunnel through which the treated and diluted radioactive water will be released into the sea about 1 kilometer from the plant.
Drilling work for the tunnel was initially scheduled to start early this year, but it was delayed to June.
Some government officials now doubt that the tunnel can be completed in time for the planned water release.
“It would be impossible to construct the underwater tunnel in less than a year,” one official said.
The government in April last year decided to discharge the contaminated water stored at the plant to move forward the decades-long process of decommissioning of the plant.
The accumulation of highly contaminated water has been a serious problem for the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the triple meltdown there.
An average of 150 tons of such water was produced each day last year as rainwater and groundwater keeps flowing into the damaged reactor buildings and mixing with water used to cool the melted nuclear fuel.
The contaminated water is treated by a multi-nuclide removal facility, known as ALPS, and stored in tanks. ALPS, however, cannot remove tritium, a beta-emitting radioactive isotope of hydrogen, and others.
The pits are being built to ensure that tritium levels in the treated water after dilution with a large amount of seawater are low enough to be sent to the planned tunnel for discharge into the sea.
Disposal of the contaminated water has become an urgent matter.
TEPCO said the existing 1,061 tanks at the plant are capable of holding a total of 1.37 million tons of water and would be full by around spring next year.
As of Jan. 20, the plant had reached 94 percent of capacity.
The government fears that continuing to add more storage tanks at the plant could jeopardize the overall decommissioning work.
EFFORTS TO EASE CONCERNS DELAYED
The government asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to send an inspection team to examine the safety of the treated radioactive water.
A seal of approval from a credible international body could go a long way in easing domestic and international opposition about the water release plan.
The IAEA team of researchers from 11 countries, including China and South Korea, which are opposed to the water release, was expected to visit Japan in December to begin its on-site inspection.
But that trip was scrapped after a new wave of novel coronavirus infections hit the global community.
Government officials are negotiating with the IAEA for a visit in spring by the team. But it remains unclear when the trip will finally materialize.
The government and TEPCO have also made little progress in gaining support from fishermen and the public, despite holding numerous briefings about the water release plan.
Distrust of the government and the utility remain high in Fukushima Prefecture over their series of mishandling of the nuclear disaster.
Fishermen, in particular, are adamantly opposed to the release of the water into areas where they make their living.
“If you insist on the safety of treated water, why don’t you spray it in your garden or dump it in a river flowing into Tokyo Bay?” Toru Takahashi, a fisherman in Soma, asked government officials at a recent briefing session.
The officials brought with them a huge stack of documents to emphasize the safety of the treated water.
But they lowered their eyes and clammed up when Takahashi and other opponents challenged their view.
“I will never ever drop my opposition,” Takahashi said.
Such opposition has created a headache for leaders of the towns hosting the plant.
They are eager to see progress in the decommissioning work, and getting rid of the huge amount of contaminated water at the plant would be a big step toward rebuilding their affected communities.
After the government’s decision to release the water, Shiro Izawa, mayor of Futaba, a town that co-hosts the plant along with Okuma, called on then industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama to gain support for the water discharge plan from the public and fisheries to advance the decommissioning process.
Futaba, a town with a population of nearly 7,000 before the nuclear disaster, is the only municipality in Fukushima Prefecture that remains entirely under an evacuation order.
In 2015, Futaba grudgingly became the storage site of contaminated soil and debris gathered in the cleanup of municipalities in the prefecture on the pretext of “moving forward rebuilding.”
If the planned water release is further delayed because of opposition from other municipalities, the future of rebuilding Futaba will remain in doubt.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14536446
Published: January 24, 2022
There are geniuses amongst us. We just didn’t know it. They are the supporters of nuclear power, who, according to the Associated Press, “say the risks can be minimized” when it comes to the perpetual and unsolved problem of long-lived, high-level radioactive waste — the main by-product of generating electricity using nuclear power.
This observation comes within an AP story headlined: “Majority of US states pursue nuclear power for emission cuts”, and which has garnered significant pickup in numerous media outlets. (However, we never do learn the secret to precisely how nuclear waste risks can be “minimized”.)
The agency surveyed “the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” finding that “about two-thirds” plan to use nuclear power to replace fossil fuels.
The mantra about solving the nuclear waste problem has been repeated since the dawn of the Nuclear Age, coming up on 80 years this December. That was when, on December 2, 1942, the first cupful of radioactive waste was generated, a result of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction achieved at the Chicago Pile-1 by Enrico Fermi and his team.
At that time, scientists knew that radioactive waste was a problem, but assumed it would be solved later. Well, here we are at “later” and it’s still unsolved. Now, “minimizing” rather than solving the problem is apparently justification enough to keep using this dangerous technology.
The AP reporters chose Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) President and CEO, Jeff Lash (no vested interest there), as the spokesperson for the continued use of nuclear power and says he,“puts it simply” when stating: “You can’t significantly reduce carbon emissions without nuclear power.”
But, of course, it’s not that simple. It’s also arguably dead wrong. As Stanford University’s Amory Lovins and others have demonstrated repeatedly:
Quote:To protect the climate, we must save the most carbon at the least cost and in the least time, counting all three variables – carbon and cost and time.
Costly options save less carbon per dollar than cheaper options. Slow options save less carbon per year than faster options. Thus even a low- or no-carbon option that is too costly or too slow will reduce and retard achievable climate protection. Being carbon-free does not establish climate-effectiveness.
To compare nuclear power with other potential climate solutions we should start with two criteria – cost and speed – because if nuclear power has no business case or takes too long, we need not address its other merits or drawbacks.
What AP does say, all too “simply”, in order to credential Lash’s expertise, is that TVA “operates three nuclear plants” without describing how long they took to get here and what they actually do.
The three TVA plants are at Browns Ferry in Alabama, and Sequoyah and Watts Bar, both in Tennessee. The two Watts Bar reactors produce tritium for the nuclear weapons sector — a clear crossing of the supposedly inviolable line between the civilian and military nuclear sectors.
Sequoyah 1 and 2 have also been licensed to produce tritium but, so far, TVA has chosen not to use them for that purpose.
TVA is also, right now, pushing federal regulators to allow it to increase its output of tritium, an essential radioisotope used in thermonuclear warheads to boost the explosive power of an atomic bomb.
As Tom Clements, executive director of the Savannah River Site Watch, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Quote:“Using commercial nuclear reactors to produce nuclear weapons materials is a violation of the international nonproliferation agreements.”
Watts Bar 1 has been involved in tritium production for close to 20 years. Meanwhile, Watts Bar 2 holds the unenviable record of taking the longest time ever — a staggering 42 years — between the start of construction and actual operation. It is the poster child for the argument against trying to deliver new nuclear plants as some sort of answer to an urgent climate crisis already upon us that must be addressed today.
Nevertheless, when Watts Bar 2 came on line in October 2016, TVA actually heralded it as “the first new nuclear generation in 20 years.” If a 42-year old reactor is the definition of “new”, then maybe we should all go back to driving Chevrolet Monte Carlos.
The unnamed survey respondents from the state of Georgia apparently told AP that their “nuclear reactor expansion will provide ‘ample clean energy’ for 60 to 80 years”.
But again, there is no context to this bold prediction. In reality, that “expansion” consists of the only two survivors of another nuclear myth, the U.S. “Nuclear Renaissance”, always an aspiration and never a reality.
The Georgia reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4, have now been under construction since 2013. Their completion dates have been repeatedly pushed into the future — 2024 is the current, optimistic prediction, but it’s equally possible that both reactors will never achieve operational status.
Meanwhile, the costs for Vogtle 3 and 4 are predicted to balloon to $30 billion, while ratepayers, already paying more to cover these excesses, will see their monthly bills double if and when the reactors come on line. Imagine the “ample clean energy” that might have already been producing electricity in Georgia, if a renewable energy program had been initiated in 2013 instead of the nuclear boondoggle.
Majority support for nuclear energy — which does not appear to be the case publicly, even if it is so politically — is a clear testament to the power of well-funded propaganda campaigns and the deep pockets of lobbyists. None of us engaged on this subject have missed the saturation media campaign, on-going now for months if not years, that sows the erroneous notion in the heads of politicians that nuclear power is an answer — even the answer — to climate change.
Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it. Today’s media has become especially guilty of this. I recently had to correct a Financial Times reporter who, in an otherwise perfectly good article, described nuclear power as having “no carbon footprint.” There is no stop-and-think going on here. After all, even renewable energy does not have “no” carbon footprint.
As John Le Carré wrote in his 1996 book, The Tailor of Panama, paraphrased from the mouth of one of his more cynical characters:
Quote:“Nothing is more predictable than the media’s parroting of its own fictions and the terror of each competitor that it will be scooped by the others, whether or not the story is true, because quite frankly dears, in the news game these days, we don’t have the staff, time, interest, energy, literacy or minimal sense of responsibility to check our facts by any means except calling up whatever has been written by other hacks on the same subject and repeating it as gospel”.
Fortunately, there remain some good investigative reporters amongst the lapdogs. But our task is made all the harder by that constant parroting of nuclear propaganda as if it is gospel. We have an uphill climb to change it, but we must keep climbing.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/24/...her-myths/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related News:
Nuclear energy not feasible way to tackle climate crisis, former regulators say
Published: January 26, 2022
Nuclear energy is not part of any feasible strategy that could be used to tackle climate change, former top officials from national regulators have said.
The experts said it was too costly, risky and unlikely to have a significant impact quickly enough.
The comments were made in a joint statement by Dr Gregory Jaczko, Professor Wolfgang Renneberg, Dr Bernard Laponche and Dr Paul Dorfman, who have been involved in government nuclear regulation and radiation protection levels in the US, Germany, France and the UK respectively.
The former top officials said they felt a “collective responsibility” to comment on whether nuclear energy could play a significant role in trying to tackle the climate crisis.
Nuclear energy has been suggested as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels as its production does not produce greenhouse gas emissions.
But critics have raised concerns over safety and the high costs involved.
In their statement this month, the former regulators said nuclear energy was “neither clean, safe or smart” and was “extremely costly”.
The group - which includes the former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the ex-chief of the French Agency for Energy Management - added: “Perhaps most importantly nuclear is just not part of any feasible strategy that could counter climate change.”
This was because this form of energy was “too costly” to make a relevant contribution to global energy supplies, “inherently risky” due to the potential for accidents and “unsustainable due to the unresolved problem of very long-lived radioactive waste”, they said.
The group - which includes former UK government scientific advisor Dr Dorfman - also said it was “militarily hazardous since newly promoted reactor designs increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation”.
Nuclear energy was also “unlikely to make a relevant contribution to necessary climate change mitigation” by the 2030s due to how long it takes to develop and build plants, the experts said.
Last year, the UK government gave the go-ahead for at least one large nuclear power plant - and possibly another - by 2040 as part of its plan to reach net-zero.
France also announced last autumn it would start building its first new nuclear reactors in decades under plans to curb emissions.
https://news.yahoo.com/nuclear-energy-no...p_catchall
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feds seeking volunteers to host America’s nuclear waste
Published: November 30, 2021
The United States can no longer ignore the conundrum at the back end of the fuel cycle — how to dispose of highly radioactive waste, federal officials acknowledged Tuesday, Nov. 30.
Kathryn Huff, principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy with the U.S. Department of Energy, announced the restart of an Obama-era push for “consent-based siting.” The idea is to create centralized, community-embraced but temporary storage sites for millions of pounds of spent fuel that’s piled up at reactors nationwide, even while the prickly issue of permanent storage is parsed.
“Management of the fuel is the responsibility of the DOE,” Huff said. “We cannot continue to defer this challenge for future generations to figure out. … Communities did not agree to host this waste in the very long term.”
That’s exactly what critics demanding the removal of 3.6 million pounds of “stranded waste” at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station have been saying for years.
The DOE isn’t looking for volunteer communities to host the waste just yet, but instead wants folks to weigh in on how to fairly and equitably identify sites for interim storage; share thoughts on the consent-based siting process itself and how to remove barriers to meaningful participation; and on the role of interim storage in the nation’s overall nuclear waste management plan.
Comments can be sent to consentbasedsiting@hq.doe.gov. Responses must be received by 2 p.m. Pacific Time on March 4.
“Hearing from and then working with communities interested in hosting one of these facilities is the best way to finally solve the nation’s spent nuclear fuel management issues,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a prepared statement. “We know there are real benefits from jobs to new infrastructure that will result in interest in areas across the country. The public’s input is central to identifying those locations to make this process as inclusive and effective as possible.”
This federal push is separate and distinct from two private, commercial temporary storage facilities proposed in Texas and New Mexico. The DOE hopes to announce funding opportunities in connection with its push next year, but Huff said it will take many years to get things up and running.
‘Extremely dangerous’
“Commercial spent nuclear fuel is extremely dangerous if not managed properly,” the Government Accountability Office said in a recent examination of the nation’s decades-long paralysis over the issue. “About 86,000 metric tons of this fuel is stored on-site at 75 operating or shutdown nuclear power plants in 33 states, an amount that grows by about 2,000 metric tons each year.”
The radioisotopes produced in a reactor can remain hazardous from a few days to many thousands of years, the GAO said.
“The longer it takes the federal government to resolve the current impasse and develop a solution for the permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel, the greater the potential risk to the environment and public health, or of security incidents associated with temporary on-site storage,” the report said. “(T)he safety of long-term dry cask storage is unknown, and the risks, such as environmental and health risks, of on-site storage increase the longer the fuel is stored there.”
Attempted sabotage and theft of radioactive material also are potential security risks, the report said. Paralysis is also expensive: The DOE was supposed to start accepting commercial waste in 1998, and its failure to do so will cost taxpayers some $40 million, the GAO said.
Momentum
“This is a widely anticipated move that is part of a fresh effort by the federal government to make progress on dealing with spent fuel,” said David Victor, a professor at UC San Diego and chair of San Onofre’s volunteer Community Engagement Panel, by email. “One of the key questions that has nagged the process is what ‘consent’ really means. This … is an effort to elicit views on that question. It also reflects that DOE more generally is getting organized to launch the ‘interim storage’ process.”
This request for information asks a lot of questions and will elicit a whole lot of reaction, but three things really matter, he said: It will reveal which other communities are as concerned as people are in Southern California, and they may become political allies. While Huff put the effort in the context of zero carbon emissions, a serious strategy for spent fuel is long overdue. And, finally, the U.S. is simply lagging behind.
“Other societies — notably Finland and Canada — are finding ways forward,” Victor said. “The problems are political and they hinge on getting consent from the communities where spent fuel is stored.”
Southern California Edison, which oversees San Onofre’s dismantlement and is eager to get the waste off the bluff, is encouraged.
“This is an important issue for SCE and the communities surrounding San Onofre, and we look forward to working with DOE to develop safe and workable solutions,” spokesman John Dobken said by email.
“We see the issue of consent as a critical part of restarting the federal spent fuel management program. Internationally, consent has emerged as one of the most important elements of siting spent fuel facilities. As we work toward long-term solutions, SCE will continue to safely store the spent nuclear fuel located on site until it can be relocated.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, has been pushing on the nuclear waste issue for years, convening a task force, co-chairing a bipartisan Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus and championing the $20 million set aside for interim storage in legislation that was signed into law last year.
“I applaud the Department of Energy for today’s long-awaited announcement that takes another step towards removing the spent fuel stored on the beach at San Onofre,” Levin said in a prepared statement. “My colleagues and I worked hard to secure the funding that made it possible to restart DOE’s consent-based siting program for spent fuel. The federal government has a responsibility to address the nation’s spent nuclear fuel challenge, but history has shown us that without the consent of the communities that will be involved with the solutions, we are unlikely to succeed.”
Huff said simply that the renewed effort “will help drive us toward the clean energy future we all need.”
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/11/30/fe...ear-waste/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japan: Doubts grow on water-release schedule at Fukushima plant
Published: January 31, 2022
Shovel loaders digging pits at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Jan. 17 were a rare sign of progress in the government’s contentious water-discharge plan at the stricken site.
Under the plan, millions of tons of treated but still contaminated water stored at the plant will be released into the sea over decades starting in spring 2023.
However, opposition to the plan remains fierce among local residents, the fishing industry and even overseas governments.
The pits being dug will temporarily hold radioactive water right before the release. But other preparatory work has already been stalled.
The government plans to create an undersea tunnel through which the treated and diluted radioactive water will be released into the sea about 1 kilometer from the plant.
Drilling work for the tunnel was initially scheduled to start early this year, but it was delayed to June.
Some government officials now doubt that the tunnel can be completed in time for the planned water release.
“It would be impossible to construct the underwater tunnel in less than a year,” one official said.
The government in April last year decided to discharge the contaminated water stored at the plant to move forward the decades-long process of decommissioning of the plant.
The accumulation of highly contaminated water has been a serious problem for the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the triple meltdown there.
An average of 150 tons of such water was produced each day last year as rainwater and groundwater keeps flowing into the damaged reactor buildings and mixing with water used to cool the melted nuclear fuel.
The contaminated water is treated by a multi-nuclide removal facility, known as ALPS, and stored in tanks. ALPS, however, cannot remove tritium, a beta-emitting radioactive isotope of hydrogen, and others.
The pits are being built to ensure that tritium levels in the treated water after dilution with a large amount of seawater are low enough to be sent to the planned tunnel for discharge into the sea.
Disposal of the contaminated water has become an urgent matter.
TEPCO said the existing 1,061 tanks at the plant are capable of holding a total of 1.37 million tons of water and would be full by around spring next year.
As of Jan. 20, the plant had reached 94 percent of capacity.
The government fears that continuing to add more storage tanks at the plant could jeopardize the overall decommissioning work.
EFFORTS TO EASE CONCERNS DELAYED
The government asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to send an inspection team to examine the safety of the treated radioactive water.
A seal of approval from a credible international body could go a long way in easing domestic and international opposition about the water release plan.
The IAEA team of researchers from 11 countries, including China and South Korea, which are opposed to the water release, was expected to visit Japan in December to begin its on-site inspection.
But that trip was scrapped after a new wave of novel coronavirus infections hit the global community.
Government officials are negotiating with the IAEA for a visit in spring by the team. But it remains unclear when the trip will finally materialize.
The government and TEPCO have also made little progress in gaining support from fishermen and the public, despite holding numerous briefings about the water release plan.
Distrust of the government and the utility remain high in Fukushima Prefecture over their series of mishandling of the nuclear disaster.
Fishermen, in particular, are adamantly opposed to the release of the water into areas where they make their living.
“If you insist on the safety of treated water, why don’t you spray it in your garden or dump it in a river flowing into Tokyo Bay?” Toru Takahashi, a fisherman in Soma, asked government officials at a recent briefing session.
The officials brought with them a huge stack of documents to emphasize the safety of the treated water.
But they lowered their eyes and clammed up when Takahashi and other opponents challenged their view.
“I will never ever drop my opposition,” Takahashi said.
Such opposition has created a headache for leaders of the towns hosting the plant.
They are eager to see progress in the decommissioning work, and getting rid of the huge amount of contaminated water at the plant would be a big step toward rebuilding their affected communities.
After the government’s decision to release the water, Shiro Izawa, mayor of Futaba, a town that co-hosts the plant along with Okuma, called on then industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama to gain support for the water discharge plan from the public and fisheries to advance the decommissioning process.
Futaba, a town with a population of nearly 7,000 before the nuclear disaster, is the only municipality in Fukushima Prefecture that remains entirely under an evacuation order.
In 2015, Futaba grudgingly became the storage site of contaminated soil and debris gathered in the cleanup of municipalities in the prefecture on the pretext of “moving forward rebuilding.”
If the planned water release is further delayed because of opposition from other municipalities, the future of rebuilding Futaba will remain in doubt.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14536446