"Fukushima in review: A complex disaster, a disastrous response"

Yoichi Funabashi and Kay Kitazawa are chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, and staff director of the Foundation's Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident, respectively. They have published an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) entitled "Fukushima in review: A complex disaster, a disastrous response." It's an overview of a 400 page study on the lessons to be learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, first reported by the New York Times on Feb. 27. The BAS abstract reads:

"On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The emerging crisis at the plant was complex, and, to make matters worse, it was exacerbated by communication gaps between the government and the nuclear industry. An independent investigation panel, established by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, reviewed how the government, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), and other relevant actors responded. In this article, the panel's program director writes about their findings and how these players were thoroughly unprepared on almost every level for the cascading nuclear disaster. This lack of preparation was caused, in part, by a public myth of "absolute safety" that nuclear power proponents had nurtured over decades and was aggravated by dysfunction within and between government agencies and Tepco, particularly in regard to political leadership and crisis management. The investigation also found that the tsunami that began the nuclear disaster could and should have been anticipated and that ambiguity about the roles of public and private institutions in such a crisis was a factor in the poor response at Fukushima."

The article announces that the full report, in Japanese only, would be released at the end of Feb. However, the English translation will not be ready until sometime this summer.

Davis-Besse blames Blizzard of '78 for containment cracks, but critics charge that's merely a "snow job of convenience"

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)The long awaited First Energy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) "root cause analysis" on extensive cracking of the Davis-Besse concrete containment shield building was published on Feb. 28th. Astoundingly, the nuclear utility blames a severe blizzard in January 1978, and the fact that it failed to apply weatherproofing to the exterior of its containment. Asked why FENOC and its predecessors had failed to apply sealant from 1971 (when the shield building was first constructed) and 2012, FENOC spokeswoman Jennifer Young said simply it had not been required. When asked why other safety-significant concrete structures on site had been sealed, Young said their concrete exteriors appeared splotchy, so a coating was applied for cosmetic purposes.

The Toledo Blade quoted U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, pictured left) and Don't Waste Michigan's Michael Keegan:

"Every homeowner knows you paint a house not just for decoration, but to protect it from the elements," Mr. Kucinich said, repeating his assertion that the plant should be shut down until the shield building's strength is thoroughly assessed.

And Michael Keegan, a representative of Don't Waste Michigan -- one of several anti-nuclear organizations fighting FirstEnergy's petition for a 20-year license renewal after Davis-Besse's initial operating permit expires in five years -- called the Blizzard of 1978 explanation a "snow job of convenience."

"While it may be true that the extreme weather damaged the concrete, what other assaults have occurred since that time?" he asked. "How is it that [FirstEnergy] can suggest that they'll seal it now, and the damage will be arrested? The damage goes down to the rebar and is structural."

Kucinich has long watchdogged Davis-Besse. His assertive questioning of FENOC and NRC, his revelations to the public, and his success at winning an NRC public meeting on Jan. 5th -- with the backing of NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko -- have been the main sources of information about the significance of the cracking since it was first revealed in October. Based on this information, Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste Michigan, allied with Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario and the Green Party of Ohio, filed a cracked containment contention on Jan. 10th against Davis-Besse's proposed 20 year license extension, which it defended on Feb. 14th.

Kucinich's  Feb. 8th revelation that the outer steel reinforcement rebar of the concrete containment shield building is now considered no longer structurally functional due to the severe, extensive cracking led to the environmental coalition, represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, filing a supplement to its contention on Feb. 27th.

The Port Clinton News Herald also reported on this story, and the Toledo Blade's Tom Henry editorialized:

"Even if the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepts FirstEnergy Corp.'s explanation of the cracks in the outer containment shield of its Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, the agency must look more closely at the utility's request to extend the plant's operating license...

Whether or not Davis-Besse's cracks amount only to engineering artifacts, they suggest a larger problem with due diligence. The NRC should investigate concrete industry standards and codes to determine whether Davis-Besse complies with them. The commission also needs to review critically the plant's safety analysis report.

The NRC must drive home a point it has made to FirstEnergy before: Minimal compliance with nuclear industry standards is not good enough -- especially at a plant the utility wants to operate for another two decades."

"Demonic" reality of Fukushima, versus absurdity of NRC

NRC file photo of Peach Bottom Units 2 & 3 in PennsylvaniaIn the days following the March 11, 2011 beginning of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano repeatedly reassured the Japanese public, news media, and world community that there was "no immediate health risk" from mounting radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. His choice of words was very similar to the U.S. nuclear power establishment's during the Three Mile Island meltdown of 1979, as captured by Rosalie Bertell's classic anti-nuclear primer No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth.

However, as the New York Times revealed Monday, Edano and his colleagues at the highest levels of the Japanese federal government were actually worried about a worst-case scenario, a "demonic chain reaction" of atomic reactor meltdowns spreading catastrophic amounts of deadly radioactivity from the three operating units at Fukushima Daiichi (as well as multiple high-level radioactive waste storage pools there), to the four operating reactors and pools at Fukushima Daini (just 7 miles south, which itself avoided catastrophe thanks to a single surviving offsite power line; several offsite power lines were lost to the earthquake, and all diesel generators were lost to the tsunami), to the operating reactor and pool at Tokai (much closer to Tokyo). They feared clouds of deadly radioactivity could have forced plant workers to abandon Daiichi, Daini, and Tokai, leading to meltdowns at all operating reactors, not to mention pool fires at all units. 

Regarding such a nightmare scenario, eerily similar to what Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa depicted in Dreams, the New York Times reported:

“We would lose Fukushima Daini, then we would lose Tokai,” Mr. Edano is quoted as saying, naming two other nuclear plants. “If that happened, it was only logical to conclude that we would also lose Tokyo itself.”

On March 13, 2011, even as Fukushima Daiichi's reactors were melting down and exploding, and its storage pools at risk of boiling or draining dry and the high-level radioactive waste catching fire, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) provided false assurance to the U.S. public and news media, that no harmful levels of radioactive fallout would reach U.S. territories. However, at the very same time, we now know, NRC was itself worried about potentially hazardous levels of radioactive Iodine-131 reaching Alaska.

Just last week, NRC held public meetings about its newly unveiled, so-called "State of the Art Reactor Consequence Analysis" (SOARCA). One meeting took place near the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania (see photo, above left), nor far from Philadelphia or Washington D.C., where two General Electric Boiling Water Reactors of the Mark I design (GE BWR Mark I) operate. Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear's Reactor Oversight Project Director, attended and testified.

SOARCA is meant to replace a 1982 study, "Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences" (CRAC-2). CRAC-2 made shocking projections of casualties and property damage that would result downwind of a catastrophic radioactivity release from an accident at either Peach Bottom Unit 2 or 3: 72,000 "peak early fatalities"; 45,000 "peak early injuries"; 37,000 "peak cancer deaths"; and $119 billion in property damages. But CRAC-2 was based on 1970 U.S. Census data. Populations have grown significantly in the past 42 years, so casualty figures would now be much worse. And when adjusted for inflation, property damages would now top $265 billion, in 2010 dollars. Such shocking figures may explain why NRC, which commissioned the study, tried to conceal its results from the public. But U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) made the information public in congressional hearings.

Of course, as shown by Fukushima Daiichi, a major accident at either Peach Bottom reactor could very easily spread to the second reactor. And, as Yukio Edano -- who now serves as Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), with direct oversight of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) -- warned about Fukushima Daini and Tokai, a catastrophic radioactivity release from Peach Bottom could spread to other nearby nuclear power plants, such as Limerick Units 1 and 2, Three Mile Island Unit 1, and Salem Units 1 and 2/Hope Creek, forcing workers to evacuate and putting many additional reactors' and high-level radioactive waste storage pools' safety at risk.

Despite all this, NRC's SOARCA -- by assuming almost all radioactivity will be contained during an accident, any releases will happen slowly and in a predictable fashion, that emergency evacuation will come off without a hitch, etc. -- claims that casualties will be low, or even non-existent. Such false assurances fall flat on their face in light of the lessons learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, including the new revelations described above.

In fact, Peach Bottom 2 and 3 are bigger in size than Fukushima's Units 1 to 4. Peach Bottom 2 and 3 are both 1,112 Megawatt-electric (MW-e) reactors, 2,224 MW-e altogether. Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 was 460 MW-e. Units 2 and 3 were each 784 MW-e. Altogether, they were "only" 2,028 MW-e, smaller in size than Peach Bottom 2 and 3. The same is true regarding high-level radioactive wastes. The Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 storage pools contained a total of 354 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel. According to the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Final Environmental Impact Statement for Yucca Mountain (Feb. 2002), and accounting for average annual discharges since, Peach Bottom nuclear power plant, however, stores well over 1,500 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel on-site. Although Peach Bottom has installed dry cask storage, the vast majority of irradiated fuel is still stored in the Mark I elevated, and vulnerable, pools. Beyond Nuclear recently published a backgrounder on the risk of Mark I high-level radioactive waste storage pools.

NRC should immediately withdraw its absurd SOARCA report, and get about the business of protecting public health, safety, and the environment -- its mandate -- rather than doing the nuclear power industry's bidding by downplaying risks as at Peach Bottom 2 and 3. A good place to start would be immediately and permanently shutting down all 23 operating Mark Is in the U.S., including Peach Bottom 2 and 3, as Beyond Nuclear's "Freeze Our Fukushimas" campaign calls for.

(This Beyond Nuclear article is featured on this weekend's Counterpunch website.)

Environmental coalition supplements Davis-Besse cracked containment contention: Rep. Kucinich reveals outer rebar no longer functional

U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has long watchdogged the Davis-Besse atomic reactor near ToledoThe environmental coalition opposing the Davis-Besse atomic reactor's 20 year license extension (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio) has filed a supplement to its cracked containment contention. In a motion filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and License Board (ASLB) today, the coalition cited a Feb. 8th revelation by the office of U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, pictured at left), which broke the news to the public that the NRC considers the outer rebar steel reinforcement layer in the Davis-Besse atomic reactor to have lost its functional effectiveness due to the extensive cracking. Despite this, NRC approved Davis-Besse's restart in early December 2011. The ASLB plans oral pre-hearings near Davis-Besse in the weeks ahead on the cracked containment contention. A copy of today's filing, with the Kucinich Feb. 8th media release, as well as an NRC inspection report dated Jan. 31st, is posted here. The NRC inspection report provides further detail on structural cracking in the upper 20 feet of the containment building. The coalition published a media release on today's filing, posted here.

Important NRC public meeting re: problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor, Wed., Feb. 29, 6pm EST -- please call-in or attend!

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has announced a very important public meeting regarding recent significant incidents at the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, MI, less than 5 miles south of South Haven, on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

 

Date and time: Wed., Feb. 29, 6-8:30pm Eastern

 

The meeting location is: Beach Haven Event Center, 10420 M-140, South Haven, MI 49090. If you can make it in person, please do; otherwise, please call-in: 1-800-621-9524; Passcode: 7846814.

  

NRC has posted a meeting notice, with links to additional details, including an NRC point of contact. Links to the six technical documents -- the final determination letters, root cause analyses, and inspection reports -- cited in NRC's meeting notice are provided at the bottom of this entry.

 

The most serious recent event was a Sept. 25, 2011 incident of "substantial safety significance" (a so-called NRC "yellow finding") involving the near electrocution of an electrician, causing the loss of electrical power to half of the control room which, through a number of different pathways, came precariously close to a potential Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) in the reactor core. A LOCA of long enough duration can lead to a meltdown.

 

Another recent incident of supposedly "low to moderate safety significance" (a so-called NRC "white finding") involved "the failure of the safety-related service water pump (P-7C) on August 9, 2011, due to intergranular stress corrosion cracking on coupling #6." Palisades only has three safety-significant service water pumps. NRC determined that Palisades had not properly guarded against the risk of "common cause failure" leading to the loss of all three service water pumps at the same time. Worse, Palisades had experienced an almost identical incident two years earlier, yet failed to learn from that mistake. More information on these, and many other incidents at Palisades, is given below.

 

According to NRC, the format for this meeting will be a 30 minute NRC introductory presentation, followed by two hours dedicated to answering questions from the public. NRC has also stated "the public is invited to participate in this meeting by providing comments and asking questions throughout the meeting."

 

NRC attendees will include several NRC officials from its Region III (Midwestern) headquarters office near Chicago, as well as NRC resident inspectors from both Palisades and the D.C. Cook nuclear power plant (30 miles south of Palisades, also on the Lake Michigan shore, in Bridgman, MI). Namely, these include: C. Pederson, Acting Region III Administrator; S. West, Director, RIII Divison of Reactor Projects; J. Giessner, RIII Branch 4 Chief, Div. of Rctr. Proj.; T. Taylor, Senior Resident Inspector, Palisades; J. Ellegood, Sr. Res. Insp., D.C. Cook; and others, as designated.

 

NRC has also mentioned that "external participants" attending will include representatives from Entergy Nuclear Palisades, Limited Liability Corporation (LLC), as well as American Electric Power's D.C. Cook nuclear power plant.Forming a self-contained LLC at Palisades is Entergy's way of sheltering its riches -- above and beyond the Price-Anderson Act -- at corporate headquaters elsewhere, as in New Orleans, in the event of a catastrophic radioactivity release, or an expensive decommissioning -- by declaring bankruptcy and walking away, leaving the mess for the public to deal with.

 

MORE BACKGROUND ON RECENT INCIDENTS AT PALISADES:

 

The Detroit Free Press on Jan. 15 and Feb. 15, and the Kalamazoo Gazette on Feb. 16 and Feb. 19, have printed articles on the recent incidents at Palisades. Due to this litany of near misses and unsolved problems, NRC has lowered Palisades' safety status to among the four worst reactors in the U.S., out of 104 operating. Enhanced inspections will result.

However, it was NRC that -- despite concerted environmental resistance and the "break down phase" status of the plant -- rubberstamped Palisades' 2011 to 2031 license extension in the first place. This more than 40 year old, age-degraded reactor would have been permanently shut down by now, if not for NRC's weakening of safety regulations on reactor pressure vessel embrittlement/pressurized thermal shock risks, and its allowing Entergy to long postpone or even outright cancel major safety repairs and replacement of degraded vital systems, structures, and components, such as the reactor vessel head and the steam generators. NRC has also been complicit in relaxation of fire protections at Palisades, as it has at atomic reactors across the country.

Sept. 25, 2011 incident of "substantial safety significance" (a so-called NRC "yellow finding") involving the near electrocution of an electrician which caused the loss of electrical power to half of the control room

Within just the first minute after the loss of power, the control room went haywire, with 22 separate events related to the electrical fault occurring across the plant, according to an NRC final safety significance determination document timeline. Just an hour later, enough chaos still reigned that both the pressurizer and one of the steam generators had reached 98% and 97% liquid water levels, respectively, each coming within 9 minutes of "going solid" (completely filling with water). This would have meant the loss of control over pressure, the risk of breaking pipes and tubes, and the potential for a "Loss of Coolant Accident" (LOCA) in the core and consequent meltdown. NRC has stated that if operators had made mistakes in their response to the emergency, there would likely have been no time for recovery. This was a very close call to a very significant accident at Palisades, especially considering the degraded state of its reactor pressure vessel and steam generators. Palisades has the most embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in the country, at risk of fracturing like a hot glass under cold water if the Emergency Core Cooling System is ever activated -- something that came very close to happening on Sept. 25, 2011. A RPV fracture would also lead to a LOCA. In addition, its second, current set of steam generators are also significantly degraded and in need of yet another replacement. Cascading steam generator tube ruptures could also lead to a LOCA. These significant points about this incident have yet to be reported by the news media.

Also on Jan. 15, the Detroit Free Press provided this helpful synopsis of "Recent problems at Palisades," including five unplanned reactor shutdowns in 2011 alone (note that Entergy Nuclear took over ownership and operations at Palisades in 2007, so all these incidents took place on its watch):

"2008: Palisades fails to assess employees' radiation exposure after they handle tools and their radiation monitors show evidence of exposure, leading to a plant downgrade for much of 2009. Later in 2008, five workers are trapped for 90 minutes inside a high-temperature area because of a hatch malfunction. The extent of worker exposure to radiation in the first incident is not clear. 

2010: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission downgrades the plant one category for nine months after finding that workers failed in 2009 to detect a neutron absorber had degraded in the fuel pool where spent fuel rods are stored.

Oct. 23, 2010: A supervisor walks off the job in the control room without permission, apparently after an argument, which leads to a violation notice.

May 10, 2011: One of three water pumps that cools hot reactor equipment fails because a worker improperly greased it.

Aug. 9, 2011: A pump fails because of cracking and corrosion, a repeat of a previous event in 2009, causing a shutdown.

Sept. 16, 2011: Water leakage in the reactor's cooling system leads to a shutdown.

Sept. 25, 2011: Work on an electrical breaker causes a loss of power and an automatic shutdown.

Dec. 14-15, 2011: Two main feed pumps trip, leading to a shutdown, because of an apparent problem with a valve. The reason is still under investigation.

Jan. 5, 2012: Entergy shuts down the plant for four days to repair a seal on a control rod mechanism.

Jan. 30, 2012: The NRC plans a major inspection to identify and resolve problems at the plant."

Another close call to a major accident at Palisades, which also garnered front page coverage in the Detroit Free Press in March 2006, took place in Oct. 2005. NRC helped cover up the incident for half a year, claiming it was "not a reportable event." Due to a subcontracted technician improperly setting a crane because he was in a rush to leave for vacation, Palisades experienced a two-day "dangle" of a 107 ton, fully loaded high-level radioactive waste transfer cask above its storage pool, packed full of decades worth of high-level radioactive waste. Worse, Palisades workers, due to their impatience and unfamiliarity with the crane, nearly released the emergency brakes on this "Sword of Damocles." The heavy load could have crashed through the floor of the pool, draining the vital cooling water away. A 1997 study commissioned by NRC reported that such a pool drain down could spark a radioactive waste inferno, which, because pools are not located within radiological containment structures, could cause downwind up to 143,000 latent cancer deaths, 2,700 square miles of agricultural land condemned, and more than $500 billion in economic costs due to evacuation. A backgrounder on this 2005 incident, based upon documents released by NRC under FOIA, is posted online.

Along the same lines, an NRC commissioned study referred to as CRAC-2 (Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences), concealed by NRC until released by U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) in congressional hearings in 1982, revealed that a major reactor accident and radioactivity release at Palisades would cause 1,000 "Peak Early Fatalities," 7,000 "Peak Early Injuries," and 10,000 "Peak Cancer Deaths," as well as $52.6 billion in property damage. The population has grown since, so casualties would now be worse, and when adjusted for inflation, property damage would now top $117 billion.

LINKS TO NRC TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS LISTED IN ITS MEETING NOTICE:

Final determination letter dated Feb. 14, 2012

P-7C coupling failure root cause re: 8 9 2011 accident

Plant trip during D-11-2 maintenance root cause re: 9 25 2011 accident

Preliminary yellow finding inspection report, dated 11 29 2011, re: 9 25 2011 accident

Preliminary white finding inspection report, dated 11 29 2011, re: 8 9 2011 accident

Auxiliary feedwater pump final white determination letter dated 1 3 2012, re: 5 10 2011 accident

Update on February 25, 2012 by admin

The Kalamazoo Gazette in southwest Michigan has run an op-ed by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps in the run up to the NRC meeting, warning against falling for NRC claims of "enhanced inspections" at Palisades being sufficient, given the agency's decades-running safety regulation weakening, and rubberstamp of the 20 year license extension -- the only reasons the age-degraded reactor is still operating.