"Security Issue at Fermi Probed"

NRC file photo of Fermi 2, located on the Lake Erie shore in Monroe Co., MI.The Monroe Evening News has reported that Detroit Edison's Fermi 2 atomic reactor was found to have a security breach earlier this year, which could have allowed access to the "Protected Area" (including the reactor and control room). Detroit Edison claimed the vulnerability was corrected that very day. Security-related matters are almost always cloaked in secrecy, post-9/11, so the public can not know exactly what is being described.

Beyond Nuclear is part of an environmental coalition, including Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario (CEA), Don't Waste MI, and the Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter officially intervening before NRC's Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) against a proposed new reactor targeted at the same site, Fermi 3. The proposed new reactor's design is a GE-Hitachi, so-calleed "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor," which has been built nowhere in the world before. Even the ESBWR design certification has experienced major problems, such as 6,000 Requests for Additional Information by NRC itself, and a legal settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over fraud and falsifications regarding the ESBWR steam dryer design.

Fermi 2 could apply to NRC for a 20-year license extension as early as this year. Fermi 2 is the largest General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor in the world. It is nearly as big as Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 and 2 -- of identical design -- put together.

RMI: "Nuclear Power's Competitive Landscape and Climate Opportunity Cost"

Amory B. Lovins, Cofounder and Chief Scientist, RMITitiaan Palazzi, Special Aid, RMIAmory B. Lovins, Cofounder and Chief Scientist, and Titiaan Palazzi, Special Aid (photos, left), of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, CO, presented "Nuclear Power's Competitive Landscape and Climate Opportunity Cost" at "Three Mile Island 35th Anniversary Symposium: The Past, Present, and Future of Nuclear Energy" held at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, on 28 March 2014.

Lovins and Palazzi report that, when compared to nuclear power: (1) Efficiency and renewables are far cheaper; (2) Renewables can deliver similar or better service and reliability; (3) Renewables can scale faster;  and (4) For climate protection, efficiency and renewables are far more effective solutions than new nuclear build, which indeed is counterproductive.

Lovins and Palazzi's economic critique extends not only to proposed new atomic reactors, but even to existing, age-degraded reactors. They state "Reactors are promoted as costly to build but cheap to run. Yet as Daniel Allegretti ably described, many existing, long-paid-for U.S. reactors are now starting to be shut down because just their operating cost can no longer compete with wholesale power prices, typically depressed by gas-fired plants or windpower."

Lovins and Palazzi conclude that "efficiency is clearly cheaper than average nuclear operating costs, which exceed 4¢/kWh [4 cents per kilowatt-hour] at the busbar and 8¢ delivered. Thus overall, for saving coal plants’ carbon emissions, efficiency is about 10–50x more cost-effective than new nuclear build—or about 2–12x more cost-effective than just operating the average U.S. nuclear plant."

Regarding nuclear power's retreat, Lovins and Palazzi report:

"Nuclear power also has to run ever faster to stay in the same place as its 1970s and 1980s growth turns into a bulge  of retirements. After the next few years, retirements will exceed all planned or conceivable global nuclear additions, even with all license extensions as shown here. Power reactors’ terminal decline will be over by about 2060—and in view of both competition and aging, this projection by Mycle Schneider [Mycle Schneider et al., World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013] is more likely to overstate its longevity than its brevity."

They conclude their presentation by stating: "So whether you choose e fficiency, cogeneration, or renewables, just being nearly carbon-free does not make new nuclear build an effective climate solution. Rather, because it saves ~3–50x less carbon per dollar than its main competitors, and deploys slower, new nuclear build reduces and retards climate protection. If climate is a problem, we must invest judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most solution per dollar and per year. Anything less makes the problem worse. Nor do we need nuclear power to offset PVs’ and windpower’s variability, or to scale faster than renewables, or to save or make money, because, as we’ve seen, nuclear power cannot do any of these things. So there is no reason to build more nuclear plants. Capital markets, seeing big new costs and risks without offsetting benefits, long ago reached the same conclusion. Existing nuclear plants, a future idea whose time has passed, will simply retire; the only choice is how quickly and at what cost to whom. End of story." (bold added)

DOE signs $6.5 billion federal nuclear loan guarantee for Vogtle 3 & 4

Aerial image of Plant Vogtle Nuclear Generating Station - photo credit to High Flyer. The photo shows the operating Units 1 and 2, as well as the construction site for proposed new Units 3 and 4.U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) will sign an agreement with Southern Co. and Oglethorpe Power for a $6.5 billion loan guarantee that puts federal taxpayers on the hook if the Vogtle 3 & 4 new reactor project defaults on its loan repayments. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will speak at the proposed new reactor construction site at 2 PM Eastern today, Thursday, Feb. 20th (you can listen to his address by calling 1-800-282-1696).

President Obama gave the Vogtle 3 & 4 federal loan guarantee offer (for a total of $8.3 billion) the highest profile possible, by announcing it himself at a press event in Feb. 2010. Despite this, it has taken over four years for the project proponents to sign on the dotted line, given their reluctance to put any of their own "skin in the game," in the form of credit subsidy fees. The nuclear loan guarantee program was authorized in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, and $22.5 billion was approved by Congress and George W. Bush for new nuclear facilities on Dec. 23, 2007 ($18.5 billion for new reactors, $4 billion for new uranium enrichment).

The $8.3 billion Vogtle 3 & 4 federal loan guarantee is 15 times bigger than the infamous Solyndra solar loan guarantee, which defaulted on its loan repayment, a $585 million loss to the U.S. Treasury. But the Vogtle 3 & 4 loan guarantee is at much higher financial risk of default than was the Solyndra solar project!

Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter blasted the deal in a Common Dreams interview. Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) also blasted the deal in a press release. Harvey Wasserman has penned an essay entitled "Obama's Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America's Energy Future."

Please contact President Obama and Energy Secretary Moniz, registering your disapproval of this $6.5 billion nuclear loan guarantee, and urging them not to grant the remaining $1.8 billion nuclear loan guarantee to project partner MEAG for Vogtle 3 & 4. Also urge them to withdraw any further nuclear loan guarantee offers, with the remaining $10.2 billion authorized for new reactors, and $4 billion authorized for new uranium enrichment.

But the federal nuclear loan guarantees, and even the CWIP charges which are gouging Georgia ratepayers, are not the only subsidies benefitting this proposed new reactor project. If Vogtle 3 & 4 do get built and operated, the George W. Bush DOE also obligated U.S. taxpayers to ultimate liability for the risks and costs of the high-level radioactive waste they would generate. DOE hastily signed the contract in the last days of the Bush administration, despite the fact that federal courts are awarding $500 million per year in damages to nuclear utilities for DOE's breach of contract for failing to begin taking title to irradiated nuclear fuel in 1998 under the contractual agreements signed in the mid-1980s. The hastily signed contacts were exposed by D.C. attorney Diane Curran, IEER President Arjun Makhijani, and Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps in a March 24, 2010 press conference based on a FOIA Request.

Update on February 20, 2014 by admin

Since when did Georgia Power/Southern Company take over communications for DOE?! When Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps phoned into the teleconference call audio broadcast of the DOE-Southern Co. "loan guarantee signing ceremony," at the toll-free number listed above, a Georgia Power (not a DOE) public relations official answered the call and patched him through!

Coalition files "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" on QA violations at Fermi 3

Environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge of ToledoAn environmental coalition has just submitted its "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" regarding quality assurance violations (QA) at Detroit Edison's (DTE) proposed Fermi 3 atomic reactor targeted at the Fermi nuclear power plant in Monroe County, MI on the Lake Erie shoreline.

Terry Lodge (photo, left) of Toledo serves as the coalition's attorney. Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, Inc. of Vermont serves as the coalition's expert witness on QA.

The coalition includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste MI, and Sierra Club Michigan Chapter.

The coalition, joined by additional environmental, public interest, and concerned citizen allies, has opposed the Fermi 3 combined Construction and Operating License Application (COLA) since Detroit Edison filed it in September 2008.

Oral evidentiary arguments were held in Monroe last Halloween on the remaining two, of dozens of contentions submitted.

The other remaining contention regards the state-threatened Eastern Fox Snake, an indigenous constrictor whose habitat is found in wetlands along the shoreline of Lake Erie, which will be destroyed if Fermi 3 is built. The coalition submitted "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" regarding the Eastern Fox Snake as well.

The rest the contentions have been outright rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, or else dismissed over time under attacks by DTE or NRC staff.

Meanwhile, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Department of Justice has settled with General Electric-Hitachi, imposing a $2.7 million civil penalty on the company for false statements it made to both the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding a safety-significant system on its proposed new so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR) design. Under DOE's unfortunately named "Nuclear Power 2010" program (launched on Valentine's Day 2002, intended to see new reactor construction and operation by the end of the last decade), funded under the terms of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the ESBWR has enjoyed large taxpayer subsidies, a 50/50 cost-share with DOE for research, design, and licensing expenses. The false statements came to light thanks to whistleblower revelations.

Update on January 27, 2014 by admin

Kendra Ulrich, Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace International, has blogged on this story. Kendra also serves as a Beyond Nuclear board of directors member.

Rust bucket reactors….By Harvey Wasserman

Harvey Wasserman, editor of Nukefree.org and author of Solartopia, has written a blog inspired by the announced closure of the Kewaunee atomic reactor in Wisconsin. He begins by stating 'The US fleet of 104 deteriorating atomic reactors is starting to fall. The much-hyped "nuclear renaissance" is now definitively headed in reverse.'

He points out that Kewaunee may be but the first domino to fall, describing the impact of "low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and escalating public resistance" at numerous other old, age-degraded, troubled reactors across the U.S., including San Onofre, CA; Crystal River, FL; Cooper and Fort Calhoun in NE; Vermont Yankee; Indian Point, NY; Oyster Creek, NJ; and Davis-Besse, OH. But Harvey also points out the momentum applies to new reactors as well, such as at Vogtle, GA and Summer, SC, as well as overseas, in the wake of Fukushima, not only in Japan, but also India, and even Europe, led by Germany's nuclear power phase out.

Harvey writes about the flagship new reactors proposed in the U.S.:

"The two reactors under construction in Georgia, along with two in South Carolina, are all threatened by severe delays, massive cost overruns and faulty construction scandals, including the use of substandard rebar steel and inferior concrete, both of which will be extremely costly to correct.

A high-priced PR campaign has long hyped a "nuclear renaissance." But in the wake of Fukushima, a dicey electricity market, cheap gas and the failure to secure federal loan guarantees in the face of intensifying public opposition, the bottom may soon drop out of both projects.

A proposed French-financed reactor for Maryland has been cancelled thanks to a powerful grassroots campaign. Any other new reactor projects will face public opposition and economic pitfalls at least as powerful."

Harvey, a senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), will address "From Fukushima to Fermi-3: Getting to Solartopia Before It's Too Late" in Dearborn, MI on Dec. 7th at the official launch event for the new organization, the Alliance to Halt Fermi-3.