Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Associates: "Can Spent Fuel Pools Catch Fire?"

Fairewinds Associates Chief Engineer Arnie GundersenReproduced verbatim from the Fairewinds Associates website: "In this Fairewinds’ feature, Fairewinds Associates Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen [pictured, left] analyzes a US government national laboratory simulation video that shows nuclear spent fuel rods do catch fire when exposed to air. This simulation video proves Fairewinds’ assertions that nuclear fuel rods can catch fire when exposed to air, and Arnie discusses the ramifications of this phenomena if the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent fuel pool were to lose cooling water. 

The Sandia National Laboratories video in its entirety can be seen here."

Update on August 29, 2012 by admin

There is more than one way a pool can be drained of its cooling water supply. In 2005-2006, Kevin Kamps, then working at NIRS, along with colleagues Alice Hirt and Michael Keegan, discovered that NRC was aiding and abetting the Palisades atomic reactor in Michigan in covering up a "dangle" of a 107-ton, fully-loaded high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) transfer cask above its HLRW storage pool. Had the cask plunged into the pool's floor or wall, it could have breached it, draining the water away. Palisades' personnel, ignorant about the crane's use, nearly overrode the crane's emergency brake system, flirting with catastrophe. The Detroit Free Press ran a front page article on the cover up and near-miss, based on Kevin's FOIA revelations.

Beyond Nuclear files contentions against 4 atomic reactors based on court ruling nullifying NRC's Nuke Waste Con Game

The Obama administration's wise cancellation of the proposed Yucca Mountain, NV dumpsite for high-level radioactive waste means that irradiated nuclear fuel continues to pile up at atomic reactor sites, in both indoor pools and outdoor dry casks. In this photo by Gabriela Bulisova, a ceremonial Western Shoshone Indian sweat lodge frames their sacred Yucca Mtn.Beyond Nuclear has filed intervention contentions against a total of four atomic reactors (proposed new reactors at Grand Gulf Unit 3, MS and Fermi Unit 3, MI seeking construction and operating licenses, as well as degraded old reactors at Grand Gulf Unit 1, MS and Davis-Besse Unit 1, OH seeking 20 year license extensions) based on a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling gutting the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision."

That confidence game has been used against states, environmental groups, and concerned citizens for decades, blocking them from challening the generation of high-level radioactive waste in atomc reactor licensing proceedings, as the NRC has flippantly expressed "confidence" that storage on-site was safe for decades or even centuries, and that a geologic repository for permanently disposing of irradiated nuclear fuel was just over the horizon -- despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

More.

Yucca dump's cancellation, court's nullification of NRC's Nuclear Waste Con Game, blocks to nuclear expansion

In a blog posted at Forbes, climate denier and nuclear power proponet Larry Bell cannot deny the the Obama administration's wise cancellation of the proposed high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, represents a powerful block to nuclear power's expansion in the U.S. Likewise, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' recent ruling, that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision" assurances of irradiated nuclear fuel safety and security at reactor sites for 120 years was unfounded, powerfully undermines the Nuclear Relapse.

Fears continue over potential collapse of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool

Common Dreams has reported on May 28th in an article entitled "Growing Fear Over Fukushima Fuel Pool 4 as Wall Bulge Detected".

The article is based largely on New York Times reporting in an article entitled "Concerns Grow About Spent Fuel Rods at Fukushima Daiichi," by Hiroko Tabuchi and Matthew L. Wald on May 26, 2012.

The New York Times reported that Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment and nuclear minister, inspected "the No. 4 reactor building at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Saturday, May 26, 2012. The visit by Hosono, apparently aimed at demonstrating the safety of the facility, came amid renewed concerns about conditions at the plant's No. 4 reactor after its operator reported a bulging of the building's wall. (Toshiaki Shimizu, Japan Pool) [Yellow reactor containment dome at center background.]" (see photo, left; note that the high-level radioactive waste pool is located beneath the white plastic tarp just beside Hosono on his left).

The New York Times also quotes Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute and one of the experts raising concerns: “The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state, down to the floor that holds the spent fuel pool. Any radioactive release could be huge and go directly into the environment.”

(Koide spoke on May 5th at the University of Chicago. Beyond Nuclear partner Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) information tabled at the event, while Beyond Nuclear covered the Chicago Green Festival.)

The New York Times also quoted Tadahiro Katsuta, an associate professor of nuclear science at Tokyo’s Meiji University: “Japan did not want to admit that the nuclear fuel cycle might be a failed policy, and did not think seriously about a safer, more permanent way to store spent fuel.”

(In August 2010, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps was introduced to Dr. Katsuta in Tokyo, not long after Kevin had visited Fukushima Daiichi. In September 2010, Dr. Katsuta requested that Kevin help him arrange meetings in Washington, D.C. Dr. Katsuta was working in collaboration with Dr. Frank Von Hippel at Princeton University on a study regarding alternatives to reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel in Japan. While the Nuclear Energy Institute's Steve Kraft, and the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future's Allison Macfarlane, gladly accepted Dr. Katsuta's invitation to meet, not one office at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted the request. This despite initially positive responses from a number of NRC Commissioners' offices, as well as NRC's Spent Fuel Project Office, its international relations office, etc. Apparently, the kabosh was put on any meetings taking place at NRC once the Office of Public Affairs found out. NRC's OPA is headed by Elliot Brenner, who previously headed communications for Dick Cheney.)

Update on May 31, 2012 by admin

On May 30th, Thom Hartmann, host of The Big Picture, interviewed Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear about the latest news on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4's high-level radioactive waste storage pool (this discussion begins at minute 7:30 -- prior to that, Thom and Kevin discuss the breaking news of Fukushima radioactively contaminated bluefin tuna documented on the California coast).

"Fukushima Daiichi: It May Be Too Late Unless the Military Steps In"

Workers in white radiation suits beside the surface of the elevated high-level radioactive waste storage pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumura has posted a new blog proposing that military intervention be deployed to prevent the worst from happening at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 (see photo, left). He proposes that the Japan Self-Defense Forces be deployed to Unit 4 to offload high-level radioactive waste, before another, almost inevitable earthquake topples the building and its irradiated nuclear fuel catches fire. Unit 4's pool holds 8 times the radioactive Cesium-137 released by Chernobyl. But a fire in Unit 4's pool would very likely lead to the evacuation of the entire site, risking 85 times Chernobyl's hazardous Cesium-137 escaping if all 7 of Fukushima Daiichi's pools are allowed to boil dry and catch fire (not to mention what more would happen if its three melted down reactor cores are no longer cooled either).