Arnie Gundersen at the Japan National Press Club

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen (pictured at left) of Fairewinds Associates in Vermont, who has become regarded as a regular, trusted expert on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Catrastrophe and other nuclear power matters by such national media outlets as CNN, just presented at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. Over 80 journalists were present. Arnie presented on various aspects of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, including the ongoing risks associated with GE Mark I BWR atomic reactors. A video recording of Arnie's presentation and the question and answer session is viewable online at Fairewinds' website.

Head of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission admits country's regulations flawedd

As reported by the Washington Post, the head of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission had admitted in the aftermath of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe that the country's nuclear safety regulations are dangerously flawed and inadequate. Previous disregard for the risks of massive tsunamis is but one example. In another sign of deep incompetence, it is reported that the head of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) lacked nuclear, technical, or scientific expertise himself, as did his staff. He largely "sat out" the critical initial weeks of the crisis, even lacking a hotline capability at his office.

However, indications in the article that U.S. nuclear safety regulations are far superior to Japanese regulations, or are somehow adequate to ensure nuclear safety, are false. Last summer, AP, for example, published a four part series on "Aging Nukes," showing how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission weakens its safety regulations in order to allow old reactors to keep operating. The Davis-Besse Hole-In-the-Head fiasco near Toledo is but one of many examples of close-calls with disaster that have occurred in the past decade alone, due to NRC prioritization of industry profits over public safety. Anti-nuclear watchdogs in the U.S. have known about, protested, and resisted these sorts of short cuts on safety, and derelictions of duty, for decades.

Major seismic aftershock at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 could unleash 8 times Chernobyl's Cs-137

Recent photo of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 reactor building ruins. Note workers, wearing white protective suits, near pool's surface (beneath topmost girders).Robert Alvarez at the Institute for Policy Studies warns that a major seismic aftershock at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could be the straw that breaks the camel's back at the precarious Unit 4 pool storing high-level radioactive waste. If the pool's cooling water drains away, its 135 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel could catch fire, releasing 8 times more hazardous radioactive Cesium-137 than was released by the Chernobyl Nuclear Catastrophe in 1986. Read more.

Beyond Nuclear recently published a backgrounder on the risks of high-level radioactive waste storage pools in General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, as part of its Freeze Our Fukushimas campaign.

Entergy Nuclear infamous for "buying reactors cheap, then running them into the ground," owns a number of plants on the U.S.-Canadian border

The Kalamazoo Gazette has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps responding to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's downgrading of the Palisades nuclear power plant's safety status as one of the worst in the country. The call has gone out from grassroots Vermont Yankee watchdogs for the formation of an "Entergy Watch," to monitor reactor risks at the second biggest corporate nuclear power fleet across the U.S., which includes the following dozen atomic reactors at 10 different nuclear power plants: Arkansas Nuclear One, Units 1 and 2; Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska; FitzPatrick in upstate New York; Grand Gulf in Mississippi; Indian Point Units 2 and 3 near New York City; Palisades in Michigan; Pilgrim near Boston; Riverbend in Louisiana;Vermont Yankee; and Waterford in Louisiana. Of these, Cooper, FitzPatrick, Pilgrim, and Vermont Yankee are General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors (GE BWR Mark Is), identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4, the focus of Beyond Nuclear's "Freeze Our Fukushimas" shutdown campaign. 

As Beyond Nuclear spelled out in a recent backgrounder, GE BWR Mark I storage pools for high-level radioactive waste are especially vulernable to catastrophic radioactivity releases, whether due to natural disaster, accident or attack.

Although a catastrophic radioactivity release from a number of Entergy-owned and operated reactors could impact Canada downwind and downstream, FitzPatrick in upstate New York is especially risky in this regard. Located on the south shore of Lake Ontario, directly across from the province of Ontario, this reactor had claimed to have installed a "hardened vent" in order to compensate for its small, weak containment, but that claim was later proved to be untrue.

Bi-national coalition presses case against cracked containment, seeks to block Davis-Besse license extension

The "Red Photo" showing boric acid corrosion of Davis-Besse's reactor vessel head, which came within 3/16ths of an inch of a Loss of Coolant Accident in 2002Yesterday, the environmental coalition opposing the 20 year extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo defended its contention about the recently revealed severe cracking in the concrete shield building against challenges by FirstEnergy nuclear utility, as well as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff. Terry Lodge of Toledo serves as the coalition's attorney.

One revelation the coalition exposed today is that FirstEnergy, with NRC staff complicity, kept secret from the public, and even from FirstEnergy investors, cracking in the upper 20 feet of the structure for five weeks -- until pressure by U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat-Ohio) forced NRC staff to admit the truth to his staff. Kucinich made the information public the very next day, and won NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo's support for an NRC public meeting near Davis-Besse, where FirstEnergy was forced to admit publicly for the first time the expanded extent of the problem.

The environmental coalition intervening against Davis-Besse's license extension includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio. The reactor, located on the Lake Erie shore just east of Toledo, is just 50 miles from the heart of Windsor, Ontario. Davis-Besse has had a disproportionately large number of near-misses with disaster in its 35 years of operations, including a Three Mile Island precursor incident 18 months before the infamous meltdown, a very dicey direct hit by a tornado in 1998, and its own infamous "Hole-In-The-Head Fiasco" in 2002.

Update on February 14, 2012 by admin

The environmental coalition issued a media release about its defense of the cracked containment contention.