"Downstream," by Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, has posted a blog entitled "Downstream," about the radioactive risks to the Great Lakes from dozens of atomic reactors located on their shorelines, in both the U.S. and Canada.

Gundersen has served as expert witness for Beyond Nuclear et al. in numerous challenges to continued operations at risky reactors on the Great Lakes, including Palisades and Fermi 3 in Michigan, as well as Davis-Besse in Ohio.

(Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet, "Routine Radioactive Releases from U.S. Nuclear Power Plants," also shows it doesn't take an accident to cause contamination of surface fresh water supplies, nor coastal oceanic fisheries for that matter. A map is included, indicating which watersheds are impacted by each operating reactor in the U.S.)

"Rickety & risky": Applying RPV embrittlement lessons learned at Palisades to Diablo Canyon

In a post entitled NRC: ‘Diablo Canyon among ‘most embrittled plants in the U.S.,’ Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle have posted an article at NoNukesCA.net applying the lessons learned about reactor pressure vessel (RPV) embrittlement at Diablo Canyon.

In a document dated March/April 2013 (see point #4, on p. 5 of 15 of PDF counter), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission listed Diablo Canyon Unit 1 as having one of the worst neutron radiation embrittled RPVs in the country, surpassing safety screening criteria by 2033. However, given that Palisades' own End-of-Life dates have been predicted as early as the mid-1990s, or even the early 1980s, only to be postponed to 2017, with applications for regulatory relief out to 2031, Diablo Canyon's "good to go" till 2033 NRC seal of approval must be subjected to critical scrutiny.

Pacific Gas & Electric has applied to NRC for 20-year license extensions at Diablo Canyon 1 & 2. Friends of the Earth recently won a hearing from the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board for a hearing on earthquake risks. A similar legal victory in 2013 led to the permanent closure of San Onofre 2 & 3 in southern CA.

UCS's Lochbaum's insights on RPV embrittlement risks at Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor

David Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS, photo left), recently shared the following insights about reactor pressure vessel (RPV) embrittlement risks at Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor located in Covert, MI. And he gave us permission to share them:

"Embrittlement is the issue that compelled the owners of the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant to permanently shut it down in September 1991.

Palisades has the least embrittlement margin of any U.S. nuclear power reactor vessel. And it would not be allowed to operate if the standards applied to Yankee Rowe were applied to Palisades. The NRC worked behind the scenes with the nuclear industry to revise the standards and now - magically - Palisades has ample margin.

So, the NRC colludes with industry to move the goal posts and then does not allow the coalition to contest the new location of the goal posts. Welcome to the Soviet Union of Michigan.

The NRC encourages public participation -- until the public seeks to participate.

To be fair (or less unfair) to the NRC, they don't have a clue where the embrittlement line is drawn. They are conducting an experiment in Michigan hoping that the redrawn line doesn't kill anyone. If no one gets killed in the experiment, the NRC might allow other reactors in other states to give it a try. Or maybe even redraw the line again.

Even if moving the goal posts was technically sound, doing it after conspiring with the industry while barring the public  moves the sleaze meter to 11. Someone really needs to take the NRC to the wood shed for antics like these. 

If no one gets killed in Michigan, it'll be due more to luck than the NRC working even-handedly with all its stakeholders to do the greatest good for the greatest number.

Thanks,

Dave Lochbaum

UCS

P.S. - I wonder which NRC senior manager will soon retire and find employment by Entergy at a very healthy salary?".

Beyond Nuclear hosted a MI and OH speaking tour featuring Lochbaum in April 2013, including southwest MI events focused on Palisades. Palisades had suffered three near-misses in just a two year time period, vying for worst such record in the entire country, as documented in Lochbaum's annual nuclear safety report that year, that year entitled Tolerating the Intolerable.

Lochbaum just published an "All Things Nuclear"/"Fission Stories" blog about yet another example of the abnormally high risks at Palisades.

NIW: "The Palisades Embrittlement Battle"

Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor is located on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, MI.Rosa Lin at Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (NIW) has written an article entitled "United States: The Palisades Embrittlement Battle" (reproduced here with permission from the publisher), about dueling appeals submitted to the full U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Environmental intervenors, including Beyond Nuclear, have appealed an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel's (ASLBP) rejection, on May 8th, of its contention against an Entergy Nuclear License Amendment Request (LAR) for regulatory relief regarding brittle fracture risk in Palisades' reactor pressure vessel (RPV) at colder temperatures. Entergy has just appealed the same ASLBP's granting of an evidentiary hearing, on June 18th, to the intervenors regarding an Entergy LAR for RPV ductile fracture risk at hotter temperatures.

NRC has recognized, on numerous occassions, that Palisades has the worst neutron radiation embrittled RPV in the U.S., but numerous other pressurized water reactors (including Point Beach, WI; Indian Point 3, NY; Diablo Canyon 1, CA; Beaver Valley 1, PA; and Davis-Besse, OH) are not far behind. Embrittled RPVs are at risk of pressurized thermal shock through-wall fracture, which would lead to core meltdown.

Lin quotes Beyond Nuclear, as well as Dave Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at UCS:

Palisades "would not be allowed to operate if the standards applied to Yankee Rowe were applied" to it, said Dave Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to a plant shut down in 1992 due to embrittlement.

"Palisades 50," by Dave Lochbaum, UCS

Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor, on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, MIDave Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), has penned another of his "Fisson Stories," entitled "Palisades 50," yet another installment in his watchdogging of Entergy Nuclear's problem-plagued atomic reactor.

Remarkably, during U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission CDBI (Component Design Bases Inspections) in 2014, 10 violations were discovered at Palisades, out of 20 components (with "vitally imporant safety functions") inspected. This was nearly three times the national average.

Lochbaum concluded: "The testing and inspection programs are supposed to demonstrate that the public is adequately protected.

That’s not happening.

That must get fixed before impaired safety components contribute to the next nuclear disaster."