IAEA= International Atomic Energy Agency – update here
Story below from the Register:
The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the incident in increasingly blunt terms.
Seawater cooling of the three damaged reactor cores (Nos 1, 2 and 3) at the site continues. US officials and other foreign commentators continued to remain focused on a spent-fuel storage pool at the No 4 reactor (whose fuel had been removed and placed in the pool some three months prior to the quake).
Despite this, operations by Japanese powerplant technicians, military personnel and emergency services at the site focused instead on cooling the spent-fuel pool at the No 3 building, and on restoring grid electrical power at the plant. Japanese officials continued to contend that water remained in the No 4 pool and the situation there was less serious than that at No 3. Police riot vehicles mounting powerful water cannon and fire trucks were used to douse the spent-fuel pool at No 3 with water, causing steam to emerge – confirming that some cooling at least was being achieved. One of the fire trucks was reportedly lent by US military units based locally, though operated by Japanese troops.
World Nuclear News reports that radiation levels have generally decreased across the plant, though they remain hazardous in the immediate area of reactors 2 and 3; levels also climb temporarily when technicians open valves to vent steam from the damaged cores in order to allow fresh seawater coolant to be pumped in, prompting teams to retreat before venting is carried out. Nonetheless 180 personnel are now working within the site where and when radiation levels permit them to do so safely.
An external power line has now been laid out to the plant and latest reports indicate that this will be connected to its systems by tomorrow: final hookup has been delayed by steam-venting operations from the cores. Powerplant technicians hope that this will restore cooling service to reactor cores and spent-fuel pools across the plant, in particular to the pools at reactors 3 and 4. If normal water levels can be restored to the pools high levels of radiation above and immediately around the buildings will be cut off by the liquid’s shielding effect. The buildings’ roofs would normally help with this, but both have been blown off in previous hydrogen explosions.
Meanwhile, plant operator TEPCO said that on-site diesel generation serving units 5 and 6 – which are safely shut down, but which also have spent fuel in their storage pools – has been restored. The plant’s diesels were mostly crippled by the tsunami which followed the quake: the wave was higher than the facility’s protective barriers had been designed for. The prospect of any trouble at these reactors now seems remote.
…
The IAEA seems to accept that things are settling down: a senior official at the agency tells Reuters that the situation is now “reasonably stable”.
Radiation readings at the site boundary remained low through Friday morning in Japan, dropping to 0.26 millisievert/hour. Personnel at the site are normally permitted to sustain 20 millisievert in a year: this has been raised to 250 millisievert owing to the emergency.
Normal dosage from background radiation is 2-3 millisievert annually: a chest CT scan delivers 7 millisievert. The highest radiation level detected anywhere beyond the site was a single brief reading of 0.17 millisievert at the boundary of the evacuation zone, but on average (Japanese government PDF/72KB) readings at the zone boundary are hardly above background.
Read the complete and detailed report here
h/t to Bernd Felsche via Facebook
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 19, 2011 at 1:45 am
Good call on safer.
Nuclear Plants are only as safe as thier operators follow the rules and the regulators that make them comply with such.
Allowing defective fuel and control rods to be used anyway. Try getting away with defective equipment on your car or semi while stopped by a patrol officer.
Allowing ponds with spent fuel rods as your primary means of permanent storgage is like giving 9 year olds a case of firecrackers and matches.
This is 2011, not 1960. Geez. We still have plants & fuel sitting on top of known faults.
It’s not the nuclear power so much that bothers me, it’s the unassuming in charge all too willing to look the other way.
Sound like Wall St & Regulators?
Same game, different business sector.
There is a series of interviews with a Navy (ret) nuclear engineer and nuclear power instructor. He also has worked at a plant like the one at Fukushima. The first part is from last Saturday, 3/12/11. And there is one part from each day through the week. He gives his view from the news he was able to gather. He knew a few things that clearly were not available in the media. Though he doesn’t tell everything because, he says, he can’t.
in 8 parts starting with
PART 1
Doug Badgero says:
March 19, 2011 at 9:52 am
I also have an engineering degree (Mechanical), I also have 25+ years in nuclear operations and training. I was a licensed operator for 8 years and senior operator for another 8.
Doug,
I am wondering if you’d take the time to listen to the series of 8 videos I linked to in my previous comment. It’s approx 4 hours total. I know it would take up your time. And you might not have the time to. But I am curious what you would think of what he had to say.
I also wanted to make a suggestion to you, and the other fellows talking in tech terms that most people are not going to understand. It will just be blah blah blah to most people. It’s a sort of rule of thumb to always try to talk at a 5th grade level when addressing the general population. And that’s not because people are dumb. It’s because most people just don’t have time to pay attention to anything beyond a 5th grade vocabulary. There’s too many things on their mind. If something is stated to them in a simple to understand way they may stop and listen for a while because most people really do want to understand.
rbateman says:
March 19, 2011 at 11:13 am
Nuclear Plants are only as safe as thier operators follow the rules and the regulators that make them comply with such.
I can agree with that. The Navy has never had a nuclear accident. But I’m pretty sure it’s only because the Navy is soldiers. And soldiers have 24 hour a day vigilance.
My biggest concern with nuclear is the smaller countries that may not have a level of caution required to run a nuclear plant. You could bet good money there will be more nuclear disasters somewhere.
What happens when a coal fired power plant has a serious breakdown? You repair it and start shoveling coal again. No water cannons needed.
Roger Sowell says:
“Nuclear industry people cannot be trusted – they know that they have one narrow escape after another and have gotten by solely by sheer luck and a tight code of never talking about the hazards and near-misses”
Response to Sowell: Every incident that every plant has had is out there for you to read. Just go to http://www.nrc.gov and look under the event report link.
It’s not sheer luck that the nuclear industry has gotten by. The standards that a nuke plant has to maintain is extremely high.
—————————–
Response from Max:
Talked with my industry contacts this week.
Re-affirmed that all the plants in my state had additional Diesel generators put in during the ’90’s. They are in earthquake, bomb, flood, tornado, hurricane proof buildings. They are ELEVATED (about 40′ above the ground).
They contain 2 weeks worth of fuel. Part of a program known as “station black out” from the NRC.
Japan CAN be faulted for NOT having this level of defense in depth.
Max
@Scott Brim on March 19, 2011 at 11:10 am
“A question for Roger Sowell:
Suppose that a national policy decision were made this year to phase out nuclear power in the United States in an orderly fashion, but with all deliberate speed. What specific plan would you offer for implementing that decision in terms of: (a) your proposed schedule for plant shutdowns, (b) your proposed disposition of spent fuel and nuclear infrastructure, and (c) your proposed contingency plans for coping with power shortages while alternative sources of power are being implemented?”
Scott, I earn a part of my living providing advice such as you requested. So, I won’t answer in any detail here.
However, I will say regarding point (c) that there would be no power shortages. An orderly plan, by definition, would have no power shortages involved. Secondly, state utility regulators are required under law to ensure a safe, reliable supply of electricity so any shut down plans and new construction plans are given ample time for design, regulatory review, construction and startup. A utility will ordinarily advise the state regulators years in advance of a plant’s planned shutdown and removal from service, and advise or request permission to construct a similar long time in advance, perhaps 10 years depending on the type of plant and the size.
As to the alternative power sources, there are presently only three economically viable sources: coal, natural gas, and purchased power from others where available. For example, New England states can and do purchase hydroelectric power from Canada.
Each state must make its own economic choices and follow whatever laws exist.
@ur momisugly Roger Sowell
Roger, I went to your blog. You have a plot of Average Power Price vs. Percent Nuclear in State. A few comments:
1. You have drawn a line through a swarm of bees.
2. You present no statistical information on the correlation coefficient or any other indication on the statistical significance of your “results”.
3.You don’t account for any factors like in-state regulations, interstate power trading etc.
4. You were a chemical engineer (or have a degree in Chemical Engineering) but are now a lawyer. I am not surprised.
5. As much harm as lawyers have done to this nation, based upon the level of analysis you have presented, I am personally very relieved at your career switch. The thought of you designing or maintaining a chemical facility is frightening.
Nice nic (gives real confidence and inspiration); suggest there is NOTHING present in that area to present specular reflection
gees … do you not notice the position of shadows on the interior of the building wrt to the position of the glowing light source, or the fact the area should is covered 100% with concrete dust? Have you forgotten about the aftermath of 9-11-2001 and the tower collapses?
Have you calculated the probability of an anomaly in EXACTLY that position?
Take a really, really good look at that glowing – note the position of that source from the camera: run a line straight down into the reactor building and after having spent some time studying the GE Mark I containment system and building construction tell me that line does not intersect what would be the ‘plug’ area atop the internal ‘drywell’ containment structure …
Noting a critical lack of thinking skills on the part of some individuals; maybe it’s more a lack of your having studied every detail that has become available for study on this subject, including the reactor building physical layout, schematics of systems, and the available photos with which to perform some crude photogrammetry to determine position in structures …
Does not also the absence of steam form the damaged core in Rx building 3 mean anything – are they circulating seawater into/trough Rx 3 at the moment (not with AC power on site they aren’t, and last report they were still sans AC power)? With a lack of cooling, WHAT do you think is happening to temperatures in that reactor vessel?
I didn’t think this would have to be defended in any way … it is a piece of unbiased evidence that should be added to the mix in determining what is taking place at Fukushima I. Apparently not. So sad …
.
@roger Sowell,
Try this one. A barrel of crude can produce about 10 gallons of diesel and 20 gallons of gasoline. Let’s just treat it all as diesel and put it in a semi truck (getting about 7 mpg) hauling 20 tons of cargo about 210 miles. The cost of the fuel is about $100 and the truck driver gets paid for 3 hours of travel, say $50.
Or you could use 200 men pushing wheelbarrows at 3 mph, each loaded with 200 pounds, taking them 70 hours to deliver the same load the same distance. Even if I pay them half as much as the truck driver (because it’s unskilled labor) the delivery cost still tops $110,000, and they’re working 16 hours days with no overtime and having to cover four nights and food out of their own pocket.
So even though I’m spending a hundred thousand dollars instead of $150 to deliver the load, all I’ve done is throw 200 people into backbreaking labor and poverty, taking four days and a small army to deliver what I used to get in 3 hours from a guy named Ralph. The $100,000 in wage-slave labor is what sits in the barrel of oil.
The oil doesn’t cost $100,000 because it long, long ago drove the human-powered competition out of business, and now it only competes with other barrels.
Anderson 360 may soon do a 180 and go home.
@lanceman on March 19, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Re: statistical analysis.
Ah, you have noticed what many others have, also. Don’t be too enamored of statistical tricks and oddities. Of course there is much more to any analysis than simply plotting points on a graph and drawing a trend line. (and re your snide comment about my engineering abilities, my clients were and remain highly satisfied with the engineering I performed for them. I made millions of dollars per year for them.)
But the simple truth remains: more nuclear power does NOT, in general, reduce a state’s average cost of power. Surprise! The data clearly shows that.
And a digression for a moment about noisy data, and whether or not it could or should be used in the real world. If one were to accept your premise, that noisy data without an r-squared of at least 0.8 is useless, then the engineers would get little accomplished.
I work in the real world. I took terabytes of data in my time, or received it from others, and was tasked with making sense of it and making decisions based upon that data. Multi-million dollar decisions, some of them. Life-threatening decisions sometimes, too. Real world data is noisy. Sometimes it is pure junk and must be rejected, sometimes it is useful. The key is to have the background and knowledge to know which is which.
Most of the data we obtained from real-world operating plants has an r-squared somewhere between .5 and .8. Seldom did we see higher than 0.8. Yet we designed and built and safely operated thousands of complex process units that produced on-spec material round the clock for year after year. So, carp all you want about my engineering skills. What your comments show is something about your level of understanding of the real world.
I’m reminded of another pretty good engineer, Burt Rutan I believe, who once made a video of himself holding up a graph of what the theory said about some parameter, and what the test pilots’ data showed. The theory had a smooth line across the graph, and the actual data was scattered all about the graph. Yet the airplanes fly. Imagine that!
The broader point about my graph of power costs vs nuclear power percentage is that any new nuclear power plants would not only increase the nuclear percentage, but dramatically increase the state’s power price because of the very high cost of a new nuclear power plant – at about $10 billion per reactor, probably more like $12 to $13 billion per reactor.
Re the point “lanceman” was making on a graph, this link below from wikipedia has a fairly good diagram that illustrates the difference between data sets with a correlation coefficient of 1.0, 0.8, 0.4, and 0.0.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence
“that there would be no power shortages. An orderly plan, by definition, would have no power shortages involved.”
So there will be no shortages because the plans won’t call for them. Sounds like a plan to me!
@ur momisugly George Turner, thanks for that, good example. Labor-saving devices (the original LSD) freed mankind from sheer human drudgery and exhaustion. Even a wheelbarrow is a LSD. Before those were invented, men carried things in sacks on their shoulders, or suspended on a pole resting on the shoulders. One can still see such ancient carrying devices in underdeveloped countries.
I worked in some fairly primitive, remote locations where human labor was used to do things. One instance was a heavy lift, several tons, of a distance of about 10 feet. No crane was available, so a structure was built to hold a chainfall hoist. A chainfall hoist has a series of pulleys and a latching mechanism. One pulls on a length of chain that turns the pulleys and the load is lifted. Two men were assigned to the lifting task, each pulled about 5 times on the chain, then rested while the other one pulled. That was their job, 8 hours per day. It took them about 3 weeks to lift the load in this manner.
A diesel-powered crane could have lifted the thing into place in a matter of minutes. The diesel consumed would have been trivial.
One of the things that makes nuclear cost so much is the two-fold amount they pay for storing radioactive waste. 10+Bil for a plant? Probably because of the numerous safeguards they have in place and all the regulations that makes the plant actually have lower radiation levels in its working areas then background radiation. That takes serious shielding..you would end up getting less radiation working inside one then anywhere else.
Common sense is needed there. I highly doubt that the Japan nuclear incident is going to be on par with TMI with issues as they are in reactor 3, but its not going to be much worse at all and no one ever died or suffered from TMI. I doubt anyone will suffer from this incident, but I do deem it possible that some workers might be affected due to the contrainsts on radiation exposure being lifted so high.
Other then that, I doubt we will see anything at all.
But back to the two-fold expenses paid for by nuclear plants: On one hand, they are required to pay for and have for over 30 years for the Government to store nuclear waste permantly. This is money they already spent which the Government (in the US to be precise) has not followed through on its promises.
On the other current nuclear plants have to store that spent fuel and this costs money to maintain the facilities to do so safely.
That is a large chunk of change right there. Now if the Government would actually store the spent fuel like it promised, this might cut the cost a little bit for nuclear power. It would also make nuclear power safer, but the Government does not seem to care about that aspect, they seem to enjoy playing a heavy hand for no particular reason.
I am all for safety regulations and rules to make sure nuclear plants are safe. But are the regulations just making plants impossible to approve and as such impossible to build or do the regulations serve a purpose?
Gen 3 reactors are quite safe from what happened in this particular case or even at TMI or Chernobyl. Passive cooling goes a long way to making sure that this is not an issue.
And Gen 4 reactors would make this even less of an issue with thorium.
All I am saying is not to go overboard. Maybe full fledged nuclear is not a solution to power the US or any other country…but I doubt simply cutting it out is a good solution either. Let the earthquake effects settle down, let the rebuilding start in Japan, and then lets come to a conclusion on what this means for the future.
Roger, I plotted your data ( I eyeballed the graph, but I got a slope close to what you did). My results indicated an R-Squared correlation of 0.05 which means almost zero correlation. Furthermore, there are a few data points that, any one of which once removed, make a significant difference in the slope (yet little change in correlation). You are seeing phantoms. The person using this method of supporting nuclear power economics is equally nonsensical.
The economics of existing nuclear plants depends almost entirely on when they were built. They all have low variable operating costs. The difference is in levelized capitol cost…………..dominated by the cost to build the plant. Plants completed in the 1970s were cheap, plants completed in the late 1980s cost a fortune.
@lanceman onMarch 19, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Sorry, not what those data show. R-squared is 0.11. It does not matter what you think about such correlations and the statistics. Complain all you like, the facts are clear: nuclear power plants increase the price of power. New nuclear plants will increase the power price much more than is the case today.
Not that anyone has to worry about that in the USA for the next few decades, as no utility will obtain financing for one. And if they do, we the attorneys are ready to tie them up in court for a very, very, long and expensive battle. Only a foolish utility executive would dare risk building a new nuclear power plant in the USA. And they know it.
Roger, the generalized approach you have outlined for shutting down the nuclear industry in America could take anywhere from thirty to fifty years to fully implement.
That’s a lot of paying work for the anti-nuclear lawyers, no doubt. And, of course, it is the public that eventually ends up paying for the cost of your activities.
In the meantime, let us note that Southern Nuclear is moving ahead at the Vogtle plant in Georgia to construct two new AP1000s, with the prospect of a federal loan guarantee to support it, in addition to their own financing.
Moreover, TVA has brought one previously mothballed reactor on line, they are working on another, and there are prospects they will go after a third.
Naturally, I am very curious as to what specific strategy you will be using to prevent these near-term projects from going forward.
Roger Sowell says:
March 19, 2011 at 1:04 pm
” about $10 billion per reactor, probably more like $12 to $13 billion per reactor.”
$12-$13 billion is for a twin reactor. I.E. One nuclear plant with twin 1.1 GW reactors.
The ‘quad’ nuclear plant being build in UAE will cost $20 billion. It will have Four 1.4 GW reactors. FOr a cost of less then $4billion/GW.
Some basics on power generation economics:
Costs can be divided into three categories; Levelized capitol costs, fixed operating (O&M) costs and variable operating costs. These costs are generally expressed as dollars per unit output, for power plants usually it is in dollars per megawatt hour.
Levelized capitol cost is the cost of the capitol to build the plant. It is determined by the cost, in today’s dollars, to build the plant and the “cost of capitol” to obtain financing. Cost of capitol can be thought of as the interest rate on the loan for borrowed capitol. Nuclear costs a lot to build, coal somewhat less and nat gas is the cheapest of the three. When someone is attempting to make nuclear look expensive find out what their assumed cost of capitol is. Assuming an absurdly high cost of capitol is usually the modus operandi.
Fixed operating costs are those costs that must be paid whether the plant is operating or not. Some of these costs are labor and certain maintenance activities. Nuclear costs are again highest with coal second and gas cheapest.
Variable operating costs (are those costs that depend on how much the plant operates. This is dominated by fuel costs for coal and nat gas. This cost is very low for nuclear.
This link, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/electricity_generation.html, provides estimates from the US Energy Information Administration for these costs for new generation in 2016. Note this is a snapshot of costs in 2016 not the costs throughout the plants lifetime. The link contains a table the last column of that table is total cost. The disadvantage of nuclear is they cost a lot to build the advantage is they provide some long term insurance against increases in fuel costs for nat gas and coal. Take a look and decide for yourself.
Roger Sowell says:
March 19, 2011 at 4:25 pm
>>Not that anyone has to worry about that in the USA for the next few decades, as no >>utility will obtain financing for one. And if they do, we the attorneys are ready to tie >>them up in court for a very, very, long and expensive battle
I always trust math challenged attorneys that don’t know the difference between a single nuclear reactor and a twin nuclear power plant to give me financial advice and represent me in court. /sarc off
I am always curious as to why some people can get so angry about nuclear power. I ask a series of questions,
1) Have you been hurt by nuclear power radiation? Naturally the answer is always – no.
2) Do you personally know anyone that has been hurt by nuclear power radiation? The answer is still – no.
3) Can you point me to anyone in the United States that has been hurt by nuclear power? Again -no
3) So where does this anger stem from that drives you to hate nuclear power so much?
I often tell these folks that they really need to reassess their anger. It is unwarranted by their own admission. This line of questioning brings some people up short. It takes awhile (I’ve seen months later), but some folks change their minds about nuclear power. Many will try to argue with you anyway, but I do not argue. I just leave them with these questions and thoughts. Plant a seed and it may grow.
@ur momisuglyharrywr2 on March 19, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Re costs of nuclear power plants — dream on. Not here in the USA, those costs don’t apply. Ask the South Texas expansion project guys.
@ur momisugly Scott Brim re Vogtle plant — not going to happen. Costs way too much and they know it. Re specific strategies, not willing to say. But, the usual plaintiffs’ issues will likely suffice – improper compliance with nuclear codes, inadequate environmental reviews, endangered species act violations, shoddy construction, shareholder derivative suits, and other such things as were used in the previous round of nuclear construction madness. Each nuclear plant will have its own unique characteristics that will dictate the lawsuit strategy. There are hundreds more lawyers now compared to the 1970s, and we have far more laws on the books upon which to base lawsuits.
Re 30 to 50 years, nope, more like 10 years tops to get them all shut down in an orderly manner. Unless an executive order is issued that shuts them down immediately based upon some urgent public health concern. One never knows…
@Scott Brim “That’s a lot of paying work for the anti-nuclear lawyers, no doubt.”
Well, Roger IS a lawyer….