BlueRidgeNow.com: Officials: Ala nuclear plant can withstand tornado
A powerful tornado that came within a few miles of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant last month wouldn't have splattered north Alabama with radiation even if it had hit a reactor directly, federal regulators told a skeptical crowd Tuesday during a meeting at the troubled installation.
The plant's Unit One has the lowest safety marks of any reactor in the nation because an important cooling valve was found inoperable last fall, and the close call with an EF-5 tornado that plowed across the region on April 27 heightened fears of a nuclear disaster at the plant, which is nearly identical to the Fukushima plant that was damaged after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
While Browns Ferry wasn't damaged in last month's near miss, operators had to shut down the reactors because they lost power from the outside when transmission lines were severed by the twister, which the weather service says had winds up to 210 mph.
Both area residents and nuclear opponents who attended a public review of the plant's safety record questioned whether Browns Ferry would have withstood a direct strike by a twister. Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said such an event wasn't a threat to safety.
Victor McCree, NRC's regional administrator, said the plant's steel roof was designed with side panels that would come off the building during a tornado strike. That would reduce pressure inside and prevent spent fuel pellets and radioactive water in huge cooling pools from being sucked up by a twister and slung all over the countryside.
"It's not a concern," McCree said.
The assurances didn't satisfy people who have seen images of buildings that were leveled across Alabama when dozens of twisters hit last month, killing 238 people statewide.
"If you're not concerned you should be," said Nancy Hughes, of Florence.
Kathleen Ferris said both NRC and TVA have a credibility problem.
"If you really believe an EF-5 would not damage those spent fuels, you need to visit Tuscaloosa or Joplin, Mo.," said Ferris, of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Used fuel from Browns Ferry's three reactors is stored in huge concrete-and-steel pools beneath the metal roof. TVA spokesman Ray Golden said the water is 40 feet deep, so there's little chance of fuel being uncovered by a tornado even in a worst-case scenario.
"The water is only mildly radioactive; the fuel itself is the concern, and it is protected," he said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Browns Ferry operated safety last year, but there were issues that included a problem with a valve on a system that would be used to cool the reactor during an accident. Officials aren't sure how long the valve had been inoperable.
Because of that problem, which was uncovered in October, the NRC placed the plant in an oversight category lower than every other plant in the country. Charlie Stancil, an NRC inspector who oversees Browns Ferry, said the ranking means the plant will get extra attention indefinitely.
"Unit One has the problems, but we will be giving them more attention plantwide," said Stancil.
Browns Ferry, where a worker with a candle started a fire that damaged plant controls in 1975, was idled for more than two decades because of safety concerns. The third and final reactor to restart went back into operation in 2007.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
2021 shutdown advised for Germany nuclear power, insiders say
Monster&Critics: 2021 shutdown advised for Germany nuclear power, insiders say
Berlin - A panel of advisers urged Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday to shut down all of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants by 2021, sources in Berlin said as the group wrapped up its report.
Merkel appointed the panel, which includes bishops, academics and businessmen, to redraft energy policy after Germans reacted with shock to the March 11 failure of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. Tens of thousands of Germans demonstrated against nuclear power Saturday as Merkel's final decision loomed.
'A decade is enough,' said a summary copy of the 17 panelists' draft final report, obtained by the German Press Agency dpa. Insiders said the finding was confirmed as the group ended their meeting.
Merkel was set to meet with key supporters on Sunday evening at her Berlin office to settle the issue, which has dominated the political agenda for weeks.
The parties in Merkel's ruling centre-right coalition suffered losses at state polls on March 27 and concluded they were unelectable if they did not adapt to the public mood. Merkel says she is seeking a bipartisan policy to shift the issue out of the political arena.
Huge spending will be needed on gas-powered plants, wind turbines and a new power grid to replace the nuclear reactors, which supplied 22 per cent of the country's electricity until recently.
Previously, Merkel's policy was to allow nuclear power as an 'interim' technology until about 2036.
Insiders said the panel, which also includes a chief executive and a trade unionist, confirmed its earlier draft summary. The findings are to be presented at a televised community meeting on Monday, panelists said.
Klaus Toepfer, a former executive director of the UN Environment Programme who co-chaired the panel, told reporters he was annoyed the media was focusing on just the final closedown date.
His co-chairman Matthias Kleiner said: 'The real question is, what does Germany's energy future look like?'
The panel, termed the ethics commission by Merkel, was tasked with assessing the moral implications of nuclear power.
A separate panel, of scientists and engineers, was told to assess the risks, and concluded that all 17 plants, none of which is on a sea coast, were generally safe, provided they were not hit by a large hijacked airliner.
Merkel's government is expected to follow the ethics panel's negative view. The leaked draft shows the report proposes tax incentives to rural communities to win greater acceptance for wind turbines and power pylons being erected on their skylines.
The anti-nuclear movement said it mustered 160,000 demonstrators in 21 German towns to noisily demand an early closedown date for nuclear. The biggest, in Berlin, attracted 20,000 to 25,000 protesters, according to police and the activists.
Berlin - A panel of advisers urged Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday to shut down all of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants by 2021, sources in Berlin said as the group wrapped up its report.
Merkel appointed the panel, which includes bishops, academics and businessmen, to redraft energy policy after Germans reacted with shock to the March 11 failure of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. Tens of thousands of Germans demonstrated against nuclear power Saturday as Merkel's final decision loomed.
'A decade is enough,' said a summary copy of the 17 panelists' draft final report, obtained by the German Press Agency dpa. Insiders said the finding was confirmed as the group ended their meeting.
Merkel was set to meet with key supporters on Sunday evening at her Berlin office to settle the issue, which has dominated the political agenda for weeks.
The parties in Merkel's ruling centre-right coalition suffered losses at state polls on March 27 and concluded they were unelectable if they did not adapt to the public mood. Merkel says she is seeking a bipartisan policy to shift the issue out of the political arena.
Huge spending will be needed on gas-powered plants, wind turbines and a new power grid to replace the nuclear reactors, which supplied 22 per cent of the country's electricity until recently.
Previously, Merkel's policy was to allow nuclear power as an 'interim' technology until about 2036.
Insiders said the panel, which also includes a chief executive and a trade unionist, confirmed its earlier draft summary. The findings are to be presented at a televised community meeting on Monday, panelists said.
Klaus Toepfer, a former executive director of the UN Environment Programme who co-chaired the panel, told reporters he was annoyed the media was focusing on just the final closedown date.
His co-chairman Matthias Kleiner said: 'The real question is, what does Germany's energy future look like?'
The panel, termed the ethics commission by Merkel, was tasked with assessing the moral implications of nuclear power.
A separate panel, of scientists and engineers, was told to assess the risks, and concluded that all 17 plants, none of which is on a sea coast, were generally safe, provided they were not hit by a large hijacked airliner.
Merkel's government is expected to follow the ethics panel's negative view. The leaked draft shows the report proposes tax incentives to rural communities to win greater acceptance for wind turbines and power pylons being erected on their skylines.
The anti-nuclear movement said it mustered 160,000 demonstrators in 21 German towns to noisily demand an early closedown date for nuclear. The biggest, in Berlin, attracted 20,000 to 25,000 protesters, according to police and the activists.
G-8 leaders call for stronger nuclear regulation, fiscal caution
Asahi.com: G-8 leaders call for stronger nuclear regulation, fiscal caution
Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations called for a larger role for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in ensuring nuclear safety in the aftermath of the crisis at Japan's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
A final communique issued on May 27 at the conclusion of the G-8 summit in Deauville, France, pledged solidarity with Japan as it rebuilds following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. The statement paid respect to those who died in the disaster and the courage of those who survived.
But the leaders also warned that a Japanese economy weakened by the disaster was a risk factor for the global economy and called on Japan to show fiscal responsibility in its efforts to fund its rebuilding process.
A bill to the government from reconstruction that could eventually reach 10 trillion yen ($122 billion) is seen as a major risk for the financial markets.
During the G-8 summit, Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged that Japan would not withhold information about the Fukushima accident from the international community.
"It is the responsibility of Japan to share with the international community our experience following the Fukushima accident," he said. "We will provide the international community with all information related to the accident with the maximum possible transparency."
He suggested five measures to improve nuclear plant safety, including stronger IAEA guidelines and increasing the coverage of treaties related to nuclear safety.
The G-8 leaders' declaration included several of Kan's proposals, calling for more international conferences on nuclear safety and for emerging economies to sign up to international agreements.
Discussions on strengthening regulations are expected at a ministerial-level meeting of the IAEA to be held in Vienna from June 20.
The evaluation of the safety of existing nuclear plants as well as the standards of construction for new nuclear plants built in emerging economies are expected to be on the agenda.
But putting together international guidelines that would attract support beyond the richest nations may require compromise. Emerging economies are likely to argue that they cannot afford the newer, more expensive nuclear equipment that very strict regulation might require. Countries in areas where there are frequent earthquakes may also oppose tighter regulation in that area.
Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, the U.S. deputy national adviser for strategic communications, told a May 26 news conference in Deauville held by White House officials that confusion in the supply chain in the wake of the quake and tsunami was an extremely important issue for the global economy.
The failure of parts deliveries from Japan forced auto factories in the United States to temporarily suspend production. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said those stoppages had demonstrated just how closely the two economies were interconnected.
At the May 26 G-8 session, Kan sought to allay concerns, explaining the efforts being made to get industrial production back on its feet.
He said, "We view the rebuilding process after the disasters as an important opportunity to resuscitate Japan, and we will make every effort in that area."
The G-8 declaration also pointed to the risks to the global economy from rising petroleum and food prices.
Monetary easing policies pursued by various governments after the financial crisis of 2008 helped to fuel increases and the effects of the large fiscal expenditures following that crisis are still being played out. The worsening of Japan's fiscal condition after the March 11 disaster is seen as a further risk factor.
A high-ranking official of an international organization said, "What experts are concerned about is the risk to the global economy from the advanced economies."
Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations called for a larger role for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in ensuring nuclear safety in the aftermath of the crisis at Japan's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
A final communique issued on May 27 at the conclusion of the G-8 summit in Deauville, France, pledged solidarity with Japan as it rebuilds following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. The statement paid respect to those who died in the disaster and the courage of those who survived.
But the leaders also warned that a Japanese economy weakened by the disaster was a risk factor for the global economy and called on Japan to show fiscal responsibility in its efforts to fund its rebuilding process.
A bill to the government from reconstruction that could eventually reach 10 trillion yen ($122 billion) is seen as a major risk for the financial markets.
During the G-8 summit, Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged that Japan would not withhold information about the Fukushima accident from the international community.
"It is the responsibility of Japan to share with the international community our experience following the Fukushima accident," he said. "We will provide the international community with all information related to the accident with the maximum possible transparency."
He suggested five measures to improve nuclear plant safety, including stronger IAEA guidelines and increasing the coverage of treaties related to nuclear safety.
The G-8 leaders' declaration included several of Kan's proposals, calling for more international conferences on nuclear safety and for emerging economies to sign up to international agreements.
Discussions on strengthening regulations are expected at a ministerial-level meeting of the IAEA to be held in Vienna from June 20.
The evaluation of the safety of existing nuclear plants as well as the standards of construction for new nuclear plants built in emerging economies are expected to be on the agenda.
But putting together international guidelines that would attract support beyond the richest nations may require compromise. Emerging economies are likely to argue that they cannot afford the newer, more expensive nuclear equipment that very strict regulation might require. Countries in areas where there are frequent earthquakes may also oppose tighter regulation in that area.
Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, the U.S. deputy national adviser for strategic communications, told a May 26 news conference in Deauville held by White House officials that confusion in the supply chain in the wake of the quake and tsunami was an extremely important issue for the global economy.
The failure of parts deliveries from Japan forced auto factories in the United States to temporarily suspend production. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said those stoppages had demonstrated just how closely the two economies were interconnected.
At the May 26 G-8 session, Kan sought to allay concerns, explaining the efforts being made to get industrial production back on its feet.
He said, "We view the rebuilding process after the disasters as an important opportunity to resuscitate Japan, and we will make every effort in that area."
The G-8 declaration also pointed to the risks to the global economy from rising petroleum and food prices.
Monetary easing policies pursued by various governments after the financial crisis of 2008 helped to fuel increases and the effects of the large fiscal expenditures following that crisis are still being played out. The worsening of Japan's fiscal condition after the March 11 disaster is seen as a further risk factor.
A high-ranking official of an international organization said, "What experts are concerned about is the risk to the global economy from the advanced economies."
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Report: 'Unacceptable threat' from spent-fuel pools at US nuclear power plants
Christian Science Monitor: Report: 'Unacceptable threat' from spent-fuel pools at US nuclear power plants
A spent-fuel pool fire at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant made headlines after March’s earthquake and tsunami – but the threat may be worse in America.
Spent nuclear fuel stored in water-filled pools at many nuclear reactor sites in the US far surpasses in volume and radioactivity the threat posed by such material at Fukushima, according to a new study.. The huge hazard could be largely eliminated by moving older materials from the pools into dry cask storage, it said.
“Unprotected and crowded spent nuclear fuel pools pose an unacceptable threat to the public,” said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar for nuclear policy at the nonpartisan Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), as well as a former Department of Energy official in the Clinton Administration, in a statement.
“Dry cask storage is a much safer alternative to pools. Some people say they are too expensive, but considering the extreme risks, the cost of doing nothing is incalculable,” he added.
A new report from the IPS, "Spent Nuclear Fuel Pools in the US: Reducing the Deadly Risks of Storage", written by Dr. Alvarez, details for the first time how much radioactivity is contained in spent nuclear fuel at all individual reactor sites in the United States – and the threat they pose.
Today, some 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at reactor sites around the country, 75 percent of it in US spent-fuel pools, according to data from the Nuclear Energy Institute cited in the report. The other 25 percent is in dry cask storage. Each pool contains spent-fuel rods that give off about 1 million rems of radiation per hour at a distance of one foot – a fatal dose in seconds, the report says. The radiation is kept in check by tons of water continually flowing around the rod assemblages.
Some 30 million such rods are stored in spent-fuel pools at 51 sites around the country that "contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet," the study said. The rods are usually kept in tightly-packed racks submerged in pool water, which requires a steady flow of electricity to keep from overheating. If water drains from a spent-fuel pool, it can lead to a catastrophic fire that emits dangerous radioactive elements like Cesium 137.
Spent-fuel pools: A public threat?
Typically, spent-fuel pools are rectangular, about 40 to 50 feet deep, and made of reinforced concrete walls four to five feet thick, with stainless steel liners. Those without liners may crack or corrode more often, the report says.
The National Academy of Sciences in 2004 cited the pools as vulnerable to terrorist attack and fires. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said the pools are safe, the Fukushima reactors' core meltdowns and spent-fuel pool fire prompted a new study of the possible impact of an earthquake or electrical blackout on US sites.
Spent-fuel pools need electricity to pump water to cool the fuel rods, as well as to maintain a high water level to prevent radiation from escaping. At present, however, there is no federal requirement for back-up power supplies for spent-fuel pools, to ensure the circulation of water continues in a blackout situation, the report notes.
Dangerous spent fuel pool reactor sites listed in the report include:
Two reactors at Indian Point – about 25 miles from New York City – have spent fuel in their pools containing about three times more radioactivity than the combined total of all four spent-fuel pools at the damaged Fukushima reactors. A spent-fuel fire could cause $461 billion in damage and thousands of deaths from disease, the report says.
At Diablo Canyon, near Los Angeles, nuclear reactors have material with about 2.7 times more radioactivity in their spent-fuel pools than Fukushima’s combined total.
Similarly, reactors at Turkey Point, about 65 miles from Miami, have material with 2.5 times more radioactivity than Fukushima’s combined total.
The venerable Vermont Yankee reactor, which is involved in a battle to win a new re-licensing that would let it operate another 20 years, has a design similar to the Fukushima plant. It holds seven percent more total radioactivity than the four Daiichi reactors combined – and nearly three times the amount of spent fuel that was stored in at Fukushima’s Unit 4 reactor, which caught fire.
The alternative: Yucca Mountain and dry cask storage
With the Yucca Mountain site closed by President Obama, there is no long-term storage available – a problem now being studied by a presidential blue-ribbon commission. But any long-term storage solution could take decades.
In the meantime, the study suggests an interim solution would be to remove spent fuel older than five years – now cool enough to be removed from water – and place it in above-ground "dry casks" that would use passive air cooling. That project would require 10 years and cost of $3 billion to $7 billion, the report acknowledges. But while the expense would "add a marginal increase to the retail price of nuclear-generated electricity of between 0.4 to 0.8 percent," the report says, it would make the reactor sites safer
A spent-fuel pool fire at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant made headlines after March’s earthquake and tsunami – but the threat may be worse in America.
Spent nuclear fuel stored in water-filled pools at many nuclear reactor sites in the US far surpasses in volume and radioactivity the threat posed by such material at Fukushima, according to a new study.. The huge hazard could be largely eliminated by moving older materials from the pools into dry cask storage, it said.
“Unprotected and crowded spent nuclear fuel pools pose an unacceptable threat to the public,” said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar for nuclear policy at the nonpartisan Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), as well as a former Department of Energy official in the Clinton Administration, in a statement.
“Dry cask storage is a much safer alternative to pools. Some people say they are too expensive, but considering the extreme risks, the cost of doing nothing is incalculable,” he added.
A new report from the IPS, "Spent Nuclear Fuel Pools in the US: Reducing the Deadly Risks of Storage", written by Dr. Alvarez, details for the first time how much radioactivity is contained in spent nuclear fuel at all individual reactor sites in the United States – and the threat they pose.
Today, some 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at reactor sites around the country, 75 percent of it in US spent-fuel pools, according to data from the Nuclear Energy Institute cited in the report. The other 25 percent is in dry cask storage. Each pool contains spent-fuel rods that give off about 1 million rems of radiation per hour at a distance of one foot – a fatal dose in seconds, the report says. The radiation is kept in check by tons of water continually flowing around the rod assemblages.
Some 30 million such rods are stored in spent-fuel pools at 51 sites around the country that "contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet," the study said. The rods are usually kept in tightly-packed racks submerged in pool water, which requires a steady flow of electricity to keep from overheating. If water drains from a spent-fuel pool, it can lead to a catastrophic fire that emits dangerous radioactive elements like Cesium 137.
Spent-fuel pools: A public threat?
Typically, spent-fuel pools are rectangular, about 40 to 50 feet deep, and made of reinforced concrete walls four to five feet thick, with stainless steel liners. Those without liners may crack or corrode more often, the report says.
The National Academy of Sciences in 2004 cited the pools as vulnerable to terrorist attack and fires. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said the pools are safe, the Fukushima reactors' core meltdowns and spent-fuel pool fire prompted a new study of the possible impact of an earthquake or electrical blackout on US sites.
Spent-fuel pools need electricity to pump water to cool the fuel rods, as well as to maintain a high water level to prevent radiation from escaping. At present, however, there is no federal requirement for back-up power supplies for spent-fuel pools, to ensure the circulation of water continues in a blackout situation, the report notes.
Dangerous spent fuel pool reactor sites listed in the report include:
Two reactors at Indian Point – about 25 miles from New York City – have spent fuel in their pools containing about three times more radioactivity than the combined total of all four spent-fuel pools at the damaged Fukushima reactors. A spent-fuel fire could cause $461 billion in damage and thousands of deaths from disease, the report says.
At Diablo Canyon, near Los Angeles, nuclear reactors have material with about 2.7 times more radioactivity in their spent-fuel pools than Fukushima’s combined total.
Similarly, reactors at Turkey Point, about 65 miles from Miami, have material with 2.5 times more radioactivity than Fukushima’s combined total.
The venerable Vermont Yankee reactor, which is involved in a battle to win a new re-licensing that would let it operate another 20 years, has a design similar to the Fukushima plant. It holds seven percent more total radioactivity than the four Daiichi reactors combined – and nearly three times the amount of spent fuel that was stored in at Fukushima’s Unit 4 reactor, which caught fire.
The alternative: Yucca Mountain and dry cask storage
With the Yucca Mountain site closed by President Obama, there is no long-term storage available – a problem now being studied by a presidential blue-ribbon commission. But any long-term storage solution could take decades.
In the meantime, the study suggests an interim solution would be to remove spent fuel older than five years – now cool enough to be removed from water – and place it in above-ground "dry casks" that would use passive air cooling. That project would require 10 years and cost of $3 billion to $7 billion, the report acknowledges. But while the expense would "add a marginal increase to the retail price of nuclear-generated electricity of between 0.4 to 0.8 percent," the report says, it would make the reactor sites safer
Nuclear Watchdog Details Concerns In Iran, Syria
NPR.com: Nuclear Watchdog Details Concerns In Iran, Syria
The International Atomic Energy Agency has released troubling new reports on the nuclear activities of Iran and Syria.
The Iran report indicates the production of enriched uranium there is increasing, and raises more questions about Iran's possible research into the military applications of nuclear technology.
In the Syria report, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has reached the conclusion that Syria was very likely building a clandestine nuclear reactor when Israel bombed the site in 2007.
Iran: Uranium Enrichment Increasing
Iran's production of low-enriched uranium is on the rise, and though the facility at Natanz is far from full capacity, it is producing more per month now than in the past.
Iran's enrichment activities were hampered by breakdowns and by a computer attack last year caused by what's come to be known as the Stuxnet worm.
But the IAEA report suggests Iran has surmounted those difficulties, says David Albright, director of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
"Iran's increase in its low-enriched uranium output by 30 percent since last summer shows ... that it's getting Natanz to work better, and shows that probably any leftover effect from Stuxnet has been reduced."
The IAEA report does confirm that Iran has not diverted any of its known uranium stocks from civilian to military uses.
The report focuses some attention on the gas centrifuges that are used to manufacture enriched uranium. Since Iran started its enrichment about four years ago, it has used only first-generation centrifuges obtained from Pakistan.
Centrifuge technology has improved since then, and Iranian leaders have boasted that they intend to install new, far more efficient centrifuges in the future. But the IAEA has found no actual evidence that Iran has installed the newer technology.
Open Questions About Weapons Development
There are also ongoing questions about research Iran has done on aspects of nuclear weapons technology. The agency has pressed Iran for years to clear up questions about its military nuclear research. Iran has left many unanswered.
One concerns experiments with a neutron generator and uranium deuteride — this is what might be called a trigger for a nuclear explosion. The agency believes Iranian scientists worked on this particular piece of technology for as many as four years, perhaps longer, says Albright.
"This particular piece is important because it doesn't have any other uses that really are legitimate or credible," Albright says. "And it also shows that Iran is working on fairly sophisticated components of a nuclear weapon. I mean there's a much simpler way to do it. If you want to perhaps do it more secretly, you may want to go this route of uranium deuteride neutron initiator."
The agency's report does not assert that Iran is currently engaged in this work — only that the agency suspects it did the work before and may have continued it in some capacity.
On Wednesday, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency said simply that the IAEA's questions are based on fabricated documents.
Syria Stalls IAEA Investigation
On Syria, the agency says it's reached the conclusion that a facility under construction there that was bombed by Israel more than three years ago was "very likely a nuclear reactor, similar to one in North Korea."
The IAEA has been stymied for several years in its investigation of this incident. Syria allowed one inspection of the site, after the rubble was removed. There are three other locations in Syria believed to be related to this site, but Syria has not permitted agency inspectors to visit those.
The investigation has reached a dead end, says Albright.
"The IAEA has been under pressure," he says. "They can't let this slide. It's bad for the credibility of the IAEA if Syria gets away with it."
State Department spokesman Mark Toner indicated the U.S. wants to see this discussed by the IAEA in an upcoming meeting of its board of governors.
"The attempt by Syria to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor site is obviously a matter of concern, and we fully expect that the IAEA board will address this issue when it meets, I believe, next week," Toner says.
There's an expectation that the U.S. will urge that Syria be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has released troubling new reports on the nuclear activities of Iran and Syria.
The Iran report indicates the production of enriched uranium there is increasing, and raises more questions about Iran's possible research into the military applications of nuclear technology.
In the Syria report, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has reached the conclusion that Syria was very likely building a clandestine nuclear reactor when Israel bombed the site in 2007.
Iran: Uranium Enrichment Increasing
Iran's production of low-enriched uranium is on the rise, and though the facility at Natanz is far from full capacity, it is producing more per month now than in the past.
Iran's enrichment activities were hampered by breakdowns and by a computer attack last year caused by what's come to be known as the Stuxnet worm.
But the IAEA report suggests Iran has surmounted those difficulties, says David Albright, director of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
"Iran's increase in its low-enriched uranium output by 30 percent since last summer shows ... that it's getting Natanz to work better, and shows that probably any leftover effect from Stuxnet has been reduced."
The IAEA report does confirm that Iran has not diverted any of its known uranium stocks from civilian to military uses.
The report focuses some attention on the gas centrifuges that are used to manufacture enriched uranium. Since Iran started its enrichment about four years ago, it has used only first-generation centrifuges obtained from Pakistan.
Centrifuge technology has improved since then, and Iranian leaders have boasted that they intend to install new, far more efficient centrifuges in the future. But the IAEA has found no actual evidence that Iran has installed the newer technology.
Open Questions About Weapons Development
There are also ongoing questions about research Iran has done on aspects of nuclear weapons technology. The agency has pressed Iran for years to clear up questions about its military nuclear research. Iran has left many unanswered.
One concerns experiments with a neutron generator and uranium deuteride — this is what might be called a trigger for a nuclear explosion. The agency believes Iranian scientists worked on this particular piece of technology for as many as four years, perhaps longer, says Albright.
"This particular piece is important because it doesn't have any other uses that really are legitimate or credible," Albright says. "And it also shows that Iran is working on fairly sophisticated components of a nuclear weapon. I mean there's a much simpler way to do it. If you want to perhaps do it more secretly, you may want to go this route of uranium deuteride neutron initiator."
The agency's report does not assert that Iran is currently engaged in this work — only that the agency suspects it did the work before and may have continued it in some capacity.
On Wednesday, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency said simply that the IAEA's questions are based on fabricated documents.
Syria Stalls IAEA Investigation
On Syria, the agency says it's reached the conclusion that a facility under construction there that was bombed by Israel more than three years ago was "very likely a nuclear reactor, similar to one in North Korea."
The IAEA has been stymied for several years in its investigation of this incident. Syria allowed one inspection of the site, after the rubble was removed. There are three other locations in Syria believed to be related to this site, but Syria has not permitted agency inspectors to visit those.
The investigation has reached a dead end, says Albright.
"The IAEA has been under pressure," he says. "They can't let this slide. It's bad for the credibility of the IAEA if Syria gets away with it."
State Department spokesman Mark Toner indicated the U.S. wants to see this discussed by the IAEA in an upcoming meeting of its board of governors.
"The attempt by Syria to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor site is obviously a matter of concern, and we fully expect that the IAEA board will address this issue when it meets, I believe, next week," Toner says.
There's an expectation that the U.S. will urge that Syria be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Nuclear power safety: Latest on Japan crisis fuels new concern in US
Christian Science Monitor: Nuclear power safety: Latest on Japan crisis fuels new concern in US
As the nuclear plant crisis in Japan reveals more vulnerabilities in facility operation and design, calls are being renewed to change the way nuclear plants are evaluated and regulated in the United States.
Just a week ago, officials at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported that America's nuclear plants are safe, noting that some gaps had been addressed or were being addressed as a result of an initial safety review to apply lessons learned from the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Up to that point, the Fukushima facility had experienced an alarming string of crises: partial core meltdowns, station blackout, exhausted backup batteries, hydrogen explosions, fires in spent-fuel pools, failed cooling systems, and radioactive water and air released to the environment. In the US, 23 reactors have the same design as those at Fukushima. But NRC regulators assured the public last week that those reactors had been updated with special safety equipment. "Hardened vents" on the reactors would prevent a hydrogen buildup and explosion, they noted.
Meltdown 101: A brief glossary of nuclear terms
Since then, however, the news from Fukushima has gotten worse. On Sunday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the uranium fuel core in its No.1 unit had melted completely – a worse condition than previously believed – and apparently seared a hole in the reactor vessel. Core meltdowns at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors also are more serious than earlier believed.
Then, on Tuesday, The New York Times reported that the Fukushima reactors had the same hardened emergency vents that NRC officials had said made similar plants in the US safe from hydrogen explosions. The newspaper also reported, in a separate story, that the NRC had been warned years ago that the vents were subject to failure in a crisis.
On Thursday, critics pounced.
The antinuclear group Beyond Nuclear charged that, while some US Mark I reactors possess the same venting systems that failed in Japan's crippled plant, the NRC knows that other Mark I reactor operators may not have installed – or may even have uninstalled – those venting systems. (NRC officials insist all such reactors are equipped with the vents.) If the venting systems at Fukushima Daiichi had worked as designed, they would have prevented damage to containment from the hydrogen explosions, it said.
"The NRC left the retrofit of this experimental venting system to the voluntary discretion of the US reactor operators,” said Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight at Beyond Nuclear, in a statement. “Now that this experimental containment vent is demonstrated to have failed at Fukushima, we need to know who installed it at US plants, who didn’t, and the justification for the continued operation of these deeply flawed and dangerous reactors."
Other nuclear watchdogs say tougher US scrutiny of nuclear power is needed at every level – from approval of reactor designs, to licensing of operators, to relicensing of older reactors, to letting nuclear reactors operate at higher outputs.
"We need to suspend licensing and relicensing, and suspend reactor certification decisions,” Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. "Not the processes involved – but the decisionmaking itself – should stop because we don't know whether we're making decisions that are consistent with safety."
Beyond Nuclear wants the NRC to hold a public meeting in each emergency planning zone for reactors with a design like the one at Fukushima. The NRC should "revoke all prior approvals for the installation of the vent and instead require operators to submit a license amendment request with full public hearing rights,” said Mr. Gunter.
For its part, the NRC is conducting a 90-day review in which lessons learned from the Fukushima crisis will be factored into safety regulations for US plants. It is now more than 30 days into that review. In addition, the commission is conducting a longer review to incorporate more far-reaching changes. It has also reaffirmed the capability of the hardened vent system.
"Every US Mark I [boiling water reactor] has a hardened vent," writes Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman in an e-mail interview. "The NRC continues to conclude the hardened vents at US BWRs can carry out their intended purpose of maintaining containment integrity, therefore the plants can continue operating safely with the hardened vents that exist today."
As to the overall safety of US nuclear plants, the NRC "continues to conclude that US plants are meeting regulations to ensure safe reactor operation and to protect the public if an accident were to occur at a reactor or a spent fuel pool," Mr. Burnell writes. "The NRC’s licensing processes carefully examine well-supported technical information to come to scientifically and legally defensible conclusions regarding both new and existing reactors."
Others, however, say the problem is not that the NRC is unable to identify problems, but that it often simply does not follow through on addressing known problems.
"They've identified the right issues for the most part, but it's not clear that they're planning to apply anything but band-aids," says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist and expert on reactor safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group. "In most cases they tend to underplay the potential for severe accidents – and as a result those regulations don't cover severe accidents in a serious way."
One example: NRC's approval of a buildup of spent-fuel rods in pools. The Fukushima crisis has now demonstrated the vulnerabilities of that practice, but US reactors of the same design have generally been found to have less, not more, emergency battery power to cool reactors during power outages. Most such reactors also have much larger loads of spent fuel in their cooling pools than did their counterparts at Fukushima.
"It's important that the NRC also be taking a harder look at its own decisionmaking over the last decade or so ... on the issue of spent-fuel pool [storage] and dry-cask storage," said Peter Bradford, a former NRC commissioner.
As the nuclear plant crisis in Japan reveals more vulnerabilities in facility operation and design, calls are being renewed to change the way nuclear plants are evaluated and regulated in the United States.
Just a week ago, officials at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported that America's nuclear plants are safe, noting that some gaps had been addressed or were being addressed as a result of an initial safety review to apply lessons learned from the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Up to that point, the Fukushima facility had experienced an alarming string of crises: partial core meltdowns, station blackout, exhausted backup batteries, hydrogen explosions, fires in spent-fuel pools, failed cooling systems, and radioactive water and air released to the environment. In the US, 23 reactors have the same design as those at Fukushima. But NRC regulators assured the public last week that those reactors had been updated with special safety equipment. "Hardened vents" on the reactors would prevent a hydrogen buildup and explosion, they noted.
Meltdown 101: A brief glossary of nuclear terms
Since then, however, the news from Fukushima has gotten worse. On Sunday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the uranium fuel core in its No.1 unit had melted completely – a worse condition than previously believed – and apparently seared a hole in the reactor vessel. Core meltdowns at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors also are more serious than earlier believed.
Then, on Tuesday, The New York Times reported that the Fukushima reactors had the same hardened emergency vents that NRC officials had said made similar plants in the US safe from hydrogen explosions. The newspaper also reported, in a separate story, that the NRC had been warned years ago that the vents were subject to failure in a crisis.
On Thursday, critics pounced.
The antinuclear group Beyond Nuclear charged that, while some US Mark I reactors possess the same venting systems that failed in Japan's crippled plant, the NRC knows that other Mark I reactor operators may not have installed – or may even have uninstalled – those venting systems. (NRC officials insist all such reactors are equipped with the vents.) If the venting systems at Fukushima Daiichi had worked as designed, they would have prevented damage to containment from the hydrogen explosions, it said.
"The NRC left the retrofit of this experimental venting system to the voluntary discretion of the US reactor operators,” said Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight at Beyond Nuclear, in a statement. “Now that this experimental containment vent is demonstrated to have failed at Fukushima, we need to know who installed it at US plants, who didn’t, and the justification for the continued operation of these deeply flawed and dangerous reactors."
Other nuclear watchdogs say tougher US scrutiny of nuclear power is needed at every level – from approval of reactor designs, to licensing of operators, to relicensing of older reactors, to letting nuclear reactors operate at higher outputs.
"We need to suspend licensing and relicensing, and suspend reactor certification decisions,” Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. "Not the processes involved – but the decisionmaking itself – should stop because we don't know whether we're making decisions that are consistent with safety."
Beyond Nuclear wants the NRC to hold a public meeting in each emergency planning zone for reactors with a design like the one at Fukushima. The NRC should "revoke all prior approvals for the installation of the vent and instead require operators to submit a license amendment request with full public hearing rights,” said Mr. Gunter.
For its part, the NRC is conducting a 90-day review in which lessons learned from the Fukushima crisis will be factored into safety regulations for US plants. It is now more than 30 days into that review. In addition, the commission is conducting a longer review to incorporate more far-reaching changes. It has also reaffirmed the capability of the hardened vent system.
"Every US Mark I [boiling water reactor] has a hardened vent," writes Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman in an e-mail interview. "The NRC continues to conclude the hardened vents at US BWRs can carry out their intended purpose of maintaining containment integrity, therefore the plants can continue operating safely with the hardened vents that exist today."
As to the overall safety of US nuclear plants, the NRC "continues to conclude that US plants are meeting regulations to ensure safe reactor operation and to protect the public if an accident were to occur at a reactor or a spent fuel pool," Mr. Burnell writes. "The NRC’s licensing processes carefully examine well-supported technical information to come to scientifically and legally defensible conclusions regarding both new and existing reactors."
Others, however, say the problem is not that the NRC is unable to identify problems, but that it often simply does not follow through on addressing known problems.
"They've identified the right issues for the most part, but it's not clear that they're planning to apply anything but band-aids," says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist and expert on reactor safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group. "In most cases they tend to underplay the potential for severe accidents – and as a result those regulations don't cover severe accidents in a serious way."
One example: NRC's approval of a buildup of spent-fuel rods in pools. The Fukushima crisis has now demonstrated the vulnerabilities of that practice, but US reactors of the same design have generally been found to have less, not more, emergency battery power to cool reactors during power outages. Most such reactors also have much larger loads of spent fuel in their cooling pools than did their counterparts at Fukushima.
"It's important that the NRC also be taking a harder look at its own decisionmaking over the last decade or so ... on the issue of spent-fuel pool [storage] and dry-cask storage," said Peter Bradford, a former NRC commissioner.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Maggie Gyllenhaal to Play Marie Curie at World Science Festival, 6/1
BroadwayWorld.com: Maggie Gyllenhaal to Play Marie Curie at World Science Festival, 6/1
Award-winning screen and stage actress Maggie Gyllenhaal steps into the role of history's most famous woman scientist for a special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, a new play by actor/writer Alan Alda. Gyllenhaal replaces the previously announced Meryl Streep, who had to bow out due to a sudden and unforeseen scheduling conflict. Through a spokesperson, Streep says she regrets the conflict and that she is "very disappointed to miss this important and inspiring event."
Gyllenhaal joins the all-star cast of Radiance, which also includes Amy Adams, Bill Camp, Allison Janney, David Morse, Liev Schreiber and Brent Sexton. Directed by acclaimed actor/director Bob Balaban, the special reading anchors the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration on June 1 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
Radiance tells the emotional story of one of the most accomplished and revered scientists in history. It explores the intellectual passions of the physicist/chemist most famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity, as well as her tumultuous private life marked by a strong determination to pursue both love and knowledge.
Gyllenhaal most recently was seen on stage in Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company in New York. Her other stage credits include Uncle Vanya at CSC, Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at BAM and the Mark Taper Forum, and Patrick Marber's award-winning Closer at the Mark Taper Forum and Berkeley Repertory. Her film credits include Crazy Heart (Academy Award nomination), Secretary (Golden Globe and Spirit Award nominations), The Dark Knight, Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction, World Trade Center, Happy Endings, Sherrybaby (Golden Globe nomination), and more. She will be seen in the upcoming film Hysteria. Gyllenhaal is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied literature.
The Opening Night Gala Celebration kicks off the fourth annual World Science Festival, which has grown into one of the nation's most anticipated science happenings - 50 programs over five days that bring together great minds in science and the arts to make science exciting and accessible to everyone.
This special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration is produced in collaboration with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The 2011 World Science Festival Gala Celebration Co-Chairs are Jim and Marilyn Simons, and Ann Ziff.
TICKETS
Tickets to the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration are on sale now. Visit www.worldsciencefestival.com/gala, call 646-200-8817 or email gala@worldsciencefest.org.
ABOUT WSF
The World Science Festival is an annual celebration of science that brings together great minds in its mission to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival is a production of the Science Festival Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in New York City.
The World Science Festival has been made possible with the generous support of its Founding Benefactors - the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
The World Science Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its major sponsors, Ann Ziff, Con Edison and The Kavli Prize, its media partners, ABC News, Scientific American, The Week, Time Warner Cable, National Geographic, WNYC Radio, WABC-TV and Time Out New York Kids, and its university partners New York University, The City University of New York, Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, The New School and The Cooper Union.
To learn more about the World Science Festival, visit www.worldsciencefestival.com, or follow the World Science Festival on Facebook and Twitter.
Tickets and information on all 2011 World Science Festival programs is available at www.worldsciencefestival.com.
Award-winning screen and stage actress Maggie Gyllenhaal steps into the role of history's most famous woman scientist for a special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, a new play by actor/writer Alan Alda. Gyllenhaal replaces the previously announced Meryl Streep, who had to bow out due to a sudden and unforeseen scheduling conflict. Through a spokesperson, Streep says she regrets the conflict and that she is "very disappointed to miss this important and inspiring event."
Gyllenhaal joins the all-star cast of Radiance, which also includes Amy Adams, Bill Camp, Allison Janney, David Morse, Liev Schreiber and Brent Sexton. Directed by acclaimed actor/director Bob Balaban, the special reading anchors the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration on June 1 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
Radiance tells the emotional story of one of the most accomplished and revered scientists in history. It explores the intellectual passions of the physicist/chemist most famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity, as well as her tumultuous private life marked by a strong determination to pursue both love and knowledge.
Gyllenhaal most recently was seen on stage in Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company in New York. Her other stage credits include Uncle Vanya at CSC, Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at BAM and the Mark Taper Forum, and Patrick Marber's award-winning Closer at the Mark Taper Forum and Berkeley Repertory. Her film credits include Crazy Heart (Academy Award nomination), Secretary (Golden Globe and Spirit Award nominations), The Dark Knight, Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction, World Trade Center, Happy Endings, Sherrybaby (Golden Globe nomination), and more. She will be seen in the upcoming film Hysteria. Gyllenhaal is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied literature.
The Opening Night Gala Celebration kicks off the fourth annual World Science Festival, which has grown into one of the nation's most anticipated science happenings - 50 programs over five days that bring together great minds in science and the arts to make science exciting and accessible to everyone.
This special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration is produced in collaboration with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The 2011 World Science Festival Gala Celebration Co-Chairs are Jim and Marilyn Simons, and Ann Ziff.
TICKETS
Tickets to the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration are on sale now. Visit www.worldsciencefestival.com/gala, call 646-200-8817 or email gala@worldsciencefest.org.
ABOUT WSF
The World Science Festival is an annual celebration of science that brings together great minds in its mission to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival is a production of the Science Festival Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in New York City.
The World Science Festival has been made possible with the generous support of its Founding Benefactors - the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
The World Science Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its major sponsors, Ann Ziff, Con Edison and The Kavli Prize, its media partners, ABC News, Scientific American, The Week, Time Warner Cable, National Geographic, WNYC Radio, WABC-TV and Time Out New York Kids, and its university partners New York University, The City University of New York, Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, The New School and The Cooper Union.
To learn more about the World Science Festival, visit www.worldsciencefestival.com, or follow the World Science Festival on Facebook and Twitter.
Tickets and information on all 2011 World Science Festival programs is available at www.worldsciencefestival.com.
SC regulators hold hearing on nuclear request
Bloomsberg Business Week: SC regulators hold hearing on nuclear request
South Carolina regulators heard testimony from the public Monday as they consider whether Duke Energy Corp. should continue to spend money to keep its nuclear options open.
Members of the Public Service Commission adjourned the hearing to review a proposed settlement among the company, regulators and several other parties in the case. The hearing will resume Tuesday morning.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based power company wants to continue spending money on the licensing process for a proposed site in Cherokee County even though the company has not yet decided to build another nuclear plant in South Carolina.
Duke Energy already operates five reactors at two sites in South Carolina -- the Catawba Nuclear Station in York County and the Oconee Nuclear Station in Oconee County.
The settlement reached by the company, the state Office of Regulatory Staff, the South Carolina Energy Users Committee and the Coastal Conservation League would reduce planned expenditures to $120 million from $229 million that the company initially requested.
The Public Service Commission is reviewing the settlement and will rule on the request later.
Office of Regulatory Staff executive director Dukes Scott said the request would have no immediate impact on rates.
Duke Energy spokesman Jason Walls said regulatory approval of the spending means that regulators think it is a good idea to keep its nuclear options open. It does not guarantee that the company will be able to recoup the costs in a rate case down the road.
Duke Energy also is seeking approval for the same expenditures from North Carolina utility regulators, who have recommended the same $120 million as a cap for spending from January 1, 2011, through June 30, 2012. About two-thirds of the cost would be allocated to Duke's North Carolina operations, according to filings with the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
Those filings also indicate that Duke's estimate for when it would need the power generated by the proposed Cherokee County plant has now moved to 2021 and beyond because of reduced power demand during the recession and uncertainty over how effective energy efficiency programs will be.
The one opponent to Duke Energy's request who has not signed on to the South Carolina settlement is Tom Clements, Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends Of The Earth. Clements wants Duke and other utilities to pursue energy efficiency and conservation programs before they are allowed to build new nuclear generation plants.
South Carolina regulators have approved the construction of two nuclear reactors by South Carolina Electric & Gas and state-owned utility Santee Cooper. Because of declining electricity demand, Santee Cooper is selling off some of its portion of the new plant, which still needs approval from federal regulators.
In the proposed settlement with South Carolina regulators, Duke Energy agrees to negotiate with Santee Cooper and SCE&G about buying an interest in their reactors planned for Jenkinsville near Columbia rather than building its own plant.
South Carolina regulators heard testimony from the public Monday as they consider whether Duke Energy Corp. should continue to spend money to keep its nuclear options open.
Members of the Public Service Commission adjourned the hearing to review a proposed settlement among the company, regulators and several other parties in the case. The hearing will resume Tuesday morning.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based power company wants to continue spending money on the licensing process for a proposed site in Cherokee County even though the company has not yet decided to build another nuclear plant in South Carolina.
Duke Energy already operates five reactors at two sites in South Carolina -- the Catawba Nuclear Station in York County and the Oconee Nuclear Station in Oconee County.
The settlement reached by the company, the state Office of Regulatory Staff, the South Carolina Energy Users Committee and the Coastal Conservation League would reduce planned expenditures to $120 million from $229 million that the company initially requested.
The Public Service Commission is reviewing the settlement and will rule on the request later.
Office of Regulatory Staff executive director Dukes Scott said the request would have no immediate impact on rates.
Duke Energy spokesman Jason Walls said regulatory approval of the spending means that regulators think it is a good idea to keep its nuclear options open. It does not guarantee that the company will be able to recoup the costs in a rate case down the road.
Duke Energy also is seeking approval for the same expenditures from North Carolina utility regulators, who have recommended the same $120 million as a cap for spending from January 1, 2011, through June 30, 2012. About two-thirds of the cost would be allocated to Duke's North Carolina operations, according to filings with the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
Those filings also indicate that Duke's estimate for when it would need the power generated by the proposed Cherokee County plant has now moved to 2021 and beyond because of reduced power demand during the recession and uncertainty over how effective energy efficiency programs will be.
The one opponent to Duke Energy's request who has not signed on to the South Carolina settlement is Tom Clements, Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends Of The Earth. Clements wants Duke and other utilities to pursue energy efficiency and conservation programs before they are allowed to build new nuclear generation plants.
South Carolina regulators have approved the construction of two nuclear reactors by South Carolina Electric & Gas and state-owned utility Santee Cooper. Because of declining electricity demand, Santee Cooper is selling off some of its portion of the new plant, which still needs approval from federal regulators.
In the proposed settlement with South Carolina regulators, Duke Energy agrees to negotiate with Santee Cooper and SCE&G about buying an interest in their reactors planned for Jenkinsville near Columbia rather than building its own plant.
New nuclear plants on track
The Independent UK Politics: New nuclear plants on track
Chris Huhne today signalled that plans for new nuclear plants in the UK were on track, after a report into the Fukushima disaster found "no need to curtail" the use of reactors in Britain.
Following the interim report on the lessons that could be learned from the nuclear crisis in Japan, the Energy Secretary said he "could see no reason" why the Government's plans for a new generation of reactors could not go ahead.
But environmental groups warned it was too early to draw conclusions from Fukushima, which was badly damaged by the massive earthquake and tsunami in March, and accused Mr Huhne of rushing to judgment on the safety of reactors in UK.
In the Commons today, Mr Huhne told MPs that safety in the industry remained the coalition's "number one priority", admitting the Government's policy had been delayed by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
The Government is planning a new suite of nuclear reactors on existing sites to maintain electricity supplies and cut greenhouse gas emissions as an old generation of power stations are shut down.
Following the Japanese earthquake, Mr Huhne commissioned nuclear chief inspector Mike Weightman to examine the implications for the UK and the lessons that could be learned from Fukushima.
In initial findings published today, Dr Weightman ruled out the need for the UK to curtail the operation of nuclear power stations in light of the situation in Japan.
Dr Weightman said the possibility of similar natural events, which saw a magnitude 9 earthquake and 14-metre tsunami batter the Japanese coast, were not "credible" in the UK.
He also said existing and planned nuclear power stations in this country were of a different design to those at Fukushima, which were rocked by explosions and damage to the reactors after the tsunami shut down power to the plants, knocking out their cooling facilities.
And flooding risks were unlikely to prevent construction of new nuclear power stations at potential development sites in the UK, all of which are on the coast, he said.
Dr Weightman said there was no need to change the current strategy for siting new nuclear power plants.
But he said lessons could still be learned from the nuclear accident in Japan.
The interim report recommended 25 areas for review by the Government, industry and regulators, to determine if there are any measures which could improve safety in the UK nuclear industry.
The areas flagged for review in the report included considering the dependency of nuclear power plants on infrastructure such as electricity supplies off-site and the loss of power over a long period of time, the layout of sites, flooding and sea level protection and emergency response plans.
The report found no "gaps in scope or depth" in the safety assessment measures for nuclear facilities in the UK, or any "significant weaknesses" in the UK nuclear licensing regime.
It also said there would be considerable scope for lessons about human behaviour in severe accidents that would be useful for enhancing contingency plans and training in the UK for such events.
Dr Weightman said: "The extreme natural events that preceded the accident at Fukushima - the magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent huge tsunami - are not credible in the UK.
"We are 1,000 miles from the nearest fault line and we have safeguards in place that protect against even very remote hazards.
"Our operating and proposed future reactor designs and technology are different to the type at the Fukushima plant.
"But we are not complacent."
Mr Huhne said he would consider all 26 recommendations made by Dr Mike Weightman, whose final report will be made in September.
He told MPs: "My officials will review carefully the interim report but from my discussions with Dr Weightman I see no reason why we should not proceed with our current policy, namely that nuclear can be part of the future energy mix as it is today providing that there is no public subsidy."
But Dr Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace warned that the review had essentially said the industry should "go away and think about" safety, which he said many people would regard as complacent and would not inspire confidence in Britain's nuclear regulators.
"Even as the struggle to control Fukushima reactors continues, it appears Huhne has rushed to judgment on safety of reactors to keep the timetable for new nuclear power on track," he added.
Friends of the Earth's head of energy, Mike Childs, said it was too early to draw conclusions from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear accident, and that the UK does not need to gamble with nuclear power to supply its electricity needs.
However industry and unions welcomed the report's findings.
The union Unite, which represents 40,000 workers in energy and utilities, called on the Government to "get on with the job" of creating the right environment for low-carbon energy power, including commissioning the first new build nuclear power station for a generation at Hinkley Point.
Chris Huhne today signalled that plans for new nuclear plants in the UK were on track, after a report into the Fukushima disaster found "no need to curtail" the use of reactors in Britain.
Following the interim report on the lessons that could be learned from the nuclear crisis in Japan, the Energy Secretary said he "could see no reason" why the Government's plans for a new generation of reactors could not go ahead.
But environmental groups warned it was too early to draw conclusions from Fukushima, which was badly damaged by the massive earthquake and tsunami in March, and accused Mr Huhne of rushing to judgment on the safety of reactors in UK.
In the Commons today, Mr Huhne told MPs that safety in the industry remained the coalition's "number one priority", admitting the Government's policy had been delayed by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
The Government is planning a new suite of nuclear reactors on existing sites to maintain electricity supplies and cut greenhouse gas emissions as an old generation of power stations are shut down.
Following the Japanese earthquake, Mr Huhne commissioned nuclear chief inspector Mike Weightman to examine the implications for the UK and the lessons that could be learned from Fukushima.
In initial findings published today, Dr Weightman ruled out the need for the UK to curtail the operation of nuclear power stations in light of the situation in Japan.
Dr Weightman said the possibility of similar natural events, which saw a magnitude 9 earthquake and 14-metre tsunami batter the Japanese coast, were not "credible" in the UK.
He also said existing and planned nuclear power stations in this country were of a different design to those at Fukushima, which were rocked by explosions and damage to the reactors after the tsunami shut down power to the plants, knocking out their cooling facilities.
And flooding risks were unlikely to prevent construction of new nuclear power stations at potential development sites in the UK, all of which are on the coast, he said.
Dr Weightman said there was no need to change the current strategy for siting new nuclear power plants.
But he said lessons could still be learned from the nuclear accident in Japan.
The interim report recommended 25 areas for review by the Government, industry and regulators, to determine if there are any measures which could improve safety in the UK nuclear industry.
The areas flagged for review in the report included considering the dependency of nuclear power plants on infrastructure such as electricity supplies off-site and the loss of power over a long period of time, the layout of sites, flooding and sea level protection and emergency response plans.
The report found no "gaps in scope or depth" in the safety assessment measures for nuclear facilities in the UK, or any "significant weaknesses" in the UK nuclear licensing regime.
It also said there would be considerable scope for lessons about human behaviour in severe accidents that would be useful for enhancing contingency plans and training in the UK for such events.
Dr Weightman said: "The extreme natural events that preceded the accident at Fukushima - the magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent huge tsunami - are not credible in the UK.
"We are 1,000 miles from the nearest fault line and we have safeguards in place that protect against even very remote hazards.
"Our operating and proposed future reactor designs and technology are different to the type at the Fukushima plant.
"But we are not complacent."
Mr Huhne said he would consider all 26 recommendations made by Dr Mike Weightman, whose final report will be made in September.
He told MPs: "My officials will review carefully the interim report but from my discussions with Dr Weightman I see no reason why we should not proceed with our current policy, namely that nuclear can be part of the future energy mix as it is today providing that there is no public subsidy."
But Dr Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace warned that the review had essentially said the industry should "go away and think about" safety, which he said many people would regard as complacent and would not inspire confidence in Britain's nuclear regulators.
"Even as the struggle to control Fukushima reactors continues, it appears Huhne has rushed to judgment on safety of reactors to keep the timetable for new nuclear power on track," he added.
Friends of the Earth's head of energy, Mike Childs, said it was too early to draw conclusions from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear accident, and that the UK does not need to gamble with nuclear power to supply its electricity needs.
However industry and unions welcomed the report's findings.
The union Unite, which represents 40,000 workers in energy and utilities, called on the Government to "get on with the job" of creating the right environment for low-carbon energy power, including commissioning the first new build nuclear power station for a generation at Hinkley Point.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Fukushima Disaster Deepens U.S. Turmoil Over Nuclear Waste Storage
New York Times Energy & Environment: Fukushima Disaster Deepens U.S. Turmoil Over Nuclear Waste Storage
Japan's nuclear disaster and the abandoned Yucca Mountain repository are combining to create a more complex puzzle for U.S. policymakers wrestling with the future of nuclear power in the United States.
On Friday, a Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) of experts appointed by the Obama administration presented subcommittee reports calling for the "expedited" creation of one or more consolidated interim sites for storing spent fuel from commercial U.S. reactors. More than 70,000 tons of spent fuel with varying levels of remaining radioactivity are currently in "wet" or "dry" storage at the reactor sites, with nowhere else to go.
The subcommittee also recommended that the United States develop one or more permanent underground repositories for spent fuel in place of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository that has been shelved by the Obama administration. Both interim and permanent sites should only be located where local communities welcome them, and not imposed on a location, as Yucca Mountain was in Nevada, commissioners said. A new federal agency should be created to manage both interim and permanent site development, commissioners said.
A consolidated interim storage facility could take 20 years to locate, fund, license and build, according to the Government Accountability Office. A future permanent repository is even further in the future, the GAO said.
That leaves spent fuel storage at reactor sites as the only current option, if Yucca Mountain remains off the table. This could be the preferable path, according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and members of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study panel led by BRC member Ernest Moniz. Under this scenario, a decade or two of directed research on new reactor and fuel designs could lead to more efficient fuel cycles that would reduce the ultimate amount of spent fuel requiring storage.
Commission member Richard Meserve, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, noted Friday that spent fuel may turn out to be either a waste or a resource, if safe and effective reprocessing strategies emerge. Interim storage "helps preserve the option of going in either direction depending on what we learn."
Republicans see a political favor to Reid
That possibility has not quieted Republican critics who say the decision to shelve the Yucca Mountain project was a purely political favor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Revisiting the administration decision was not placed on the BRC's agenda.
The NRC has concluded that spent fuel is safe either stored "wet" in cooling pools or "dry" inside steel containers encased in concrete or steel casks. Fuel assemblies must be stored first in pools for up to five years until they are cool enough to be kept in passive dry cask storage.
A BRC subcommittee concluded: "There do not appear to be unmanageable safety or security risks associated with current methods of storage at existing sites. However, rigorous efforts will be needed to ensure this continues to be the case."
But the catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan has seeded doubts about the safety of on-site spent fuel storage, said commission Co-chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman and co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "The American people are deeply concerned about the safety of nuclear plant operations in this country. ... I don't think you have forever to answer that question," he told Lawrence Kokajko, acting deputy director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, who represented the NRC at the commission session Friday.
Lessons of Fukushima remain unknown
More than two months after the start of the Fukushima crisis, critical details of what happened to the spent fuel held in elevated water pools in reactor buildings remain a mystery to U.S. regulators and the Blue Ribbon Commission members. Technicians had to wait several years after the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island before it was safe enough to directly assess the damage to the reactor. Crews at the Fukushima plant are in a daily struggle to control damaged reactors, and there is no guarantee that the accident details will become clear by the time the commission is planning to publish its draft final report, in July.
One such detail surrounds the spent fuel pool at reactor 4. At the peak of the crisis on March 16, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko told Congress that the unit's cooling water might be gone or nearly gone, threatening a fuel fire and major radioactivity release. Based on that threat, he recommended that U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the plant evacuate. Japanese officials challenged the report.
Jennifer Uhle, deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, told the BRC there were differing understandings of what had happened. Japanese authorities have concluded that the fuel was not exposed and that any damage in the pool was due to mechanical causes, she said.
"We don't really have the final answer," she said.
But the BRC staff reported this month that "recent video taken inside the Unit 4 pool shows that the fuel is in intact and largely or completely undamaged condition."
If one or more centralized sites were created for dry cask storage, the first priority should be moving the spent fuel from nine decommissioned nuclear plants, so that the sites can be reclaimed for other uses, BRC members said.
A follow-up issue for the BRC is whether the transfer of fuel from wet to dry storage should be accelerated, which could create a larger volume of dry casks for central storage. An interim storage facility could be located away from earthquake zones or flood-prone areas, possibly reducing the risk of radiation release from a severe natural disaster. The dry cask storage unit at Fukushima, which was located farther from the ocean than the reactors, escaped damage and has not released radiation, according to the U.S. experts.
'Not a complicated problem'?
Commission member Allison Macfarlane, a George Mason University professor, criticized utilities' practice of packing spent fuel assemblies more densely inside the fuel pools, which can increase the risk of radioactive releases from a fuel fire if cooling water is lost. "Why not get ahead of the curve and go back to a low-density rack?" she asked Kokajko.
"That certainly comes into consideration," he said.
"This is not a complicated problem. The only sticking point is the price tag," she responded.
The GAO reported last year that dry cask storage costs about $30 million to $60 million per reactor, with expenses increasing as more fuel is shifted from pools to casks. Some reactor owners employ dry casks to relieve crowding in their fuel pools. Others have not shifted any fuel to the dry option.
In another two decades, many of the first U.S. commercial reactors will be coming to the end of an extended 60-year license term. It far from settled whether they could qualify for a new relicensing for another 20 years, or whether their owners would choose that course, experts say. That could mean that a growing line of reactors will be headed for decommissioning and more reactor sites will be closed with only their legacy of spent fuel containers, expanding the case for centralized storage, Meserve said.
The NRC's Kokajko added an ironic historical footnote to the commission's Friday meeting with an observation about the General Electric Mark I reactors at Fukushima, whose spent fuel pools are located at the top of the reactor building, exposed to the hydrogen explosions that blasted the units. The pools are located at ground level in other reactor designs.
The Mark I pools weren't meant for long-term storage, he said. They were positioned high up to make it easier to move spent fuel from the reactor to the cooling pool and then out, "so the government could take it."
Japan's nuclear disaster and the abandoned Yucca Mountain repository are combining to create a more complex puzzle for U.S. policymakers wrestling with the future of nuclear power in the United States.
On Friday, a Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) of experts appointed by the Obama administration presented subcommittee reports calling for the "expedited" creation of one or more consolidated interim sites for storing spent fuel from commercial U.S. reactors. More than 70,000 tons of spent fuel with varying levels of remaining radioactivity are currently in "wet" or "dry" storage at the reactor sites, with nowhere else to go.
The subcommittee also recommended that the United States develop one or more permanent underground repositories for spent fuel in place of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository that has been shelved by the Obama administration. Both interim and permanent sites should only be located where local communities welcome them, and not imposed on a location, as Yucca Mountain was in Nevada, commissioners said. A new federal agency should be created to manage both interim and permanent site development, commissioners said.
A consolidated interim storage facility could take 20 years to locate, fund, license and build, according to the Government Accountability Office. A future permanent repository is even further in the future, the GAO said.
That leaves spent fuel storage at reactor sites as the only current option, if Yucca Mountain remains off the table. This could be the preferable path, according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and members of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study panel led by BRC member Ernest Moniz. Under this scenario, a decade or two of directed research on new reactor and fuel designs could lead to more efficient fuel cycles that would reduce the ultimate amount of spent fuel requiring storage.
Commission member Richard Meserve, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, noted Friday that spent fuel may turn out to be either a waste or a resource, if safe and effective reprocessing strategies emerge. Interim storage "helps preserve the option of going in either direction depending on what we learn."
Republicans see a political favor to Reid
That possibility has not quieted Republican critics who say the decision to shelve the Yucca Mountain project was a purely political favor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Revisiting the administration decision was not placed on the BRC's agenda.
The NRC has concluded that spent fuel is safe either stored "wet" in cooling pools or "dry" inside steel containers encased in concrete or steel casks. Fuel assemblies must be stored first in pools for up to five years until they are cool enough to be kept in passive dry cask storage.
A BRC subcommittee concluded: "There do not appear to be unmanageable safety or security risks associated with current methods of storage at existing sites. However, rigorous efforts will be needed to ensure this continues to be the case."
But the catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan has seeded doubts about the safety of on-site spent fuel storage, said commission Co-chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman and co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "The American people are deeply concerned about the safety of nuclear plant operations in this country. ... I don't think you have forever to answer that question," he told Lawrence Kokajko, acting deputy director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, who represented the NRC at the commission session Friday.
Lessons of Fukushima remain unknown
More than two months after the start of the Fukushima crisis, critical details of what happened to the spent fuel held in elevated water pools in reactor buildings remain a mystery to U.S. regulators and the Blue Ribbon Commission members. Technicians had to wait several years after the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island before it was safe enough to directly assess the damage to the reactor. Crews at the Fukushima plant are in a daily struggle to control damaged reactors, and there is no guarantee that the accident details will become clear by the time the commission is planning to publish its draft final report, in July.
One such detail surrounds the spent fuel pool at reactor 4. At the peak of the crisis on March 16, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko told Congress that the unit's cooling water might be gone or nearly gone, threatening a fuel fire and major radioactivity release. Based on that threat, he recommended that U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the plant evacuate. Japanese officials challenged the report.
Jennifer Uhle, deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, told the BRC there were differing understandings of what had happened. Japanese authorities have concluded that the fuel was not exposed and that any damage in the pool was due to mechanical causes, she said.
"We don't really have the final answer," she said.
But the BRC staff reported this month that "recent video taken inside the Unit 4 pool shows that the fuel is in intact and largely or completely undamaged condition."
If one or more centralized sites were created for dry cask storage, the first priority should be moving the spent fuel from nine decommissioned nuclear plants, so that the sites can be reclaimed for other uses, BRC members said.
A follow-up issue for the BRC is whether the transfer of fuel from wet to dry storage should be accelerated, which could create a larger volume of dry casks for central storage. An interim storage facility could be located away from earthquake zones or flood-prone areas, possibly reducing the risk of radiation release from a severe natural disaster. The dry cask storage unit at Fukushima, which was located farther from the ocean than the reactors, escaped damage and has not released radiation, according to the U.S. experts.
'Not a complicated problem'?
Commission member Allison Macfarlane, a George Mason University professor, criticized utilities' practice of packing spent fuel assemblies more densely inside the fuel pools, which can increase the risk of radioactive releases from a fuel fire if cooling water is lost. "Why not get ahead of the curve and go back to a low-density rack?" she asked Kokajko.
"That certainly comes into consideration," he said.
"This is not a complicated problem. The only sticking point is the price tag," she responded.
The GAO reported last year that dry cask storage costs about $30 million to $60 million per reactor, with expenses increasing as more fuel is shifted from pools to casks. Some reactor owners employ dry casks to relieve crowding in their fuel pools. Others have not shifted any fuel to the dry option.
In another two decades, many of the first U.S. commercial reactors will be coming to the end of an extended 60-year license term. It far from settled whether they could qualify for a new relicensing for another 20 years, or whether their owners would choose that course, experts say. That could mean that a growing line of reactors will be headed for decommissioning and more reactor sites will be closed with only their legacy of spent fuel containers, expanding the case for centralized storage, Meserve said.
The NRC's Kokajko added an ironic historical footnote to the commission's Friday meeting with an observation about the General Electric Mark I reactors at Fukushima, whose spent fuel pools are located at the top of the reactor building, exposed to the hydrogen explosions that blasted the units. The pools are located at ground level in other reactor designs.
The Mark I pools weren't meant for long-term storage, he said. They were positioned high up to make it easier to move spent fuel from the reactor to the cooling pool and then out, "so the government could take it."
NRC to inspect Entergy Mass. Pilgrim reactor
Reuters: NRC to inspect Entergy Mass. Pilgrim reactor
NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday it sent a special inspection team to the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts after the unit shut on May 10 as it was exiting a refueling and maintenance outage. The 685-megawatt unit shut by April 18 for planned refueling and maintenance. The reactor, which is owned and operated by Entergy Corp (ETR.N) of New Orleans, exited the outage on May 12 when it synchronized with the power grid.
It was operating at 14 percent on May 14 when operators shut the reactor because of indications of differential pressure between the drywell and torus, which are both in the containment.
A spokeswoman for Entergy said the shutdown on May 14 had nothing to do with the shutdown on May 10. She could not say when the unit would return to service but said the latest May 14 shutdown caused no damage to the plant and no harm to the workers, public or environment. The NRC said its three-member team will, among other things, review plant operator performance and decision-making, the effectiveness of Entergy's response to the event and corrective actions taken by the company to date.
"There were no immediate safety implications associated with the unplanned shutdown," NRC Region I Administrator Bill Dean said in a release. "Nevertheless, we want to gain a better understanding of exactly why the shutdown occurred, what role human performance issues may have played in the event and the steps being taken by the company to learn from this event and prevent it from happening again in the future," Dean said. The Entergy spokeswoman said the company was conducting its own rood cause analysis into the May 10 event, which she called a possible human error event, and would work with NRC to provide whatever information the NRC team requests.
During start-up of the Pilgrim unit on May 10, plant operators were withdrawing control rods to increase the rate of fissioning of the nuclear fuel and add heat to the reactor.
While this was taking place, the NRC said operators identified a higher-than-expected heat-up rate. In trying to better manage the rate, the NRC said the operators made several manipulations of the controls to first halt the heat-up and then to re-establish a more reasonable rate. In doing this, the operators did not properly manage the evolution, which resulted in an automatic reactor shutdown, with all control rods being inserted. The NRC said the shutdown was safely carried out, with all equipment operating as expected.
NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday it sent a special inspection team to the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts after the unit shut on May 10 as it was exiting a refueling and maintenance outage. The 685-megawatt unit shut by April 18 for planned refueling and maintenance. The reactor, which is owned and operated by Entergy Corp (ETR.N) of New Orleans, exited the outage on May 12 when it synchronized with the power grid.
It was operating at 14 percent on May 14 when operators shut the reactor because of indications of differential pressure between the drywell and torus, which are both in the containment.
A spokeswoman for Entergy said the shutdown on May 14 had nothing to do with the shutdown on May 10. She could not say when the unit would return to service but said the latest May 14 shutdown caused no damage to the plant and no harm to the workers, public or environment. The NRC said its three-member team will, among other things, review plant operator performance and decision-making, the effectiveness of Entergy's response to the event and corrective actions taken by the company to date.
"There were no immediate safety implications associated with the unplanned shutdown," NRC Region I Administrator Bill Dean said in a release. "Nevertheless, we want to gain a better understanding of exactly why the shutdown occurred, what role human performance issues may have played in the event and the steps being taken by the company to learn from this event and prevent it from happening again in the future," Dean said. The Entergy spokeswoman said the company was conducting its own rood cause analysis into the May 10 event, which she called a possible human error event, and would work with NRC to provide whatever information the NRC team requests.
During start-up of the Pilgrim unit on May 10, plant operators were withdrawing control rods to increase the rate of fissioning of the nuclear fuel and add heat to the reactor.
While this was taking place, the NRC said operators identified a higher-than-expected heat-up rate. In trying to better manage the rate, the NRC said the operators made several manipulations of the controls to first halt the heat-up and then to re-establish a more reasonable rate. In doing this, the operators did not properly manage the evolution, which resulted in an automatic reactor shutdown, with all control rods being inserted. The NRC said the shutdown was safely carried out, with all equipment operating as expected.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Missing posts
I think blogger.com, the platform that hosts this blog, was hacked yesterday, as it was down for most of last night and this morning, and now I see posts for the last two days are missing.
Supposedly these posts will be restored. If they aren't by tommorrow, I'll try to reconstruct them!
Supposedly these posts will be restored. If they aren't by tommorrow, I'll try to reconstruct them!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Obama’s Nuclear-Waste Panel May Weigh Decades of Storage
Bloomberg Business Week: Obama’s Nuclear-Waste Panel May Weigh Decades of Storage
By Kim Chipman and Brian Wingfield
By Kim Chipman and Brian Wingfield
(Updates with comment from Energy Department in 17th paragraph.)
May 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s panel on nuclear waste may recommend that spent fuel be removed from power plants and put into storage for decades until it can be sent to a permanent site, two commission members said.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future may suggest that an interim storage plan be developed along with one or more permanent sites that could hold more than 100,000 metric tons of radioactive waste for millenniums, according to the members, who requested anonymity because the possible recommendations haven’t been made public.
Obama ordered the Energy Department to create the 15-member commission last year after he rejected plans for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Demands for a solution that would start moving spent fuel from cooling ponds at power plants have grown since radioactivity was released from such ponds at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami.
“We are sitting here with tens of thousands of pounds of high-grade nuclear waste that we have to do something about,” Chuck Hagel, a commission member and former Republican senator from Nebraska, said in an interview. “We will get there. A central repository is one of the most legitimate options out there.”
Hagel, who is co-chairman of the commission’s subcommittee on disposal of nuclear waste, declined to comment on what the panel may recommend.
May 13 Meeting
The commission’s three subcommittees will present reports at a May 13 meeting in Washington. The findings will be discussed and considered for inclusion in the recommendations to the Obama administration, said John Kotek, commission spokesman. He declined to comment on the subcommittee’s reports.
The panel is headed by former Representative Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, and Brent Scowcroft, a former adviser to Republican presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush. It faces a deadline to produce final recommendations by Jan. 29.
About 65,000 tons of nuclear waste has been generated in the U.S. during the past 40 years, according to the Washington- based Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group. Of that, 78 percent remains in cooling pools at power plants, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Energy Department has been liable for the costs of accepting and disposing of spent nuclear fuel since 1998, when a central repository was supposed to open, according to legislation.
$956 Million Paid
Utilities have sued to recover some of their storage costs, and the government has paid out $956 million in settlements and judgments to date, said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Michael Hertz, who testified before the Blue Ribbon Commission in February.
The proposal for interim storage may be an attempt to “get the government out from underneath the lawsuits and paying the nuclear industry hand-over-fist” for on-site storage, said Jim Riccio, a nuclear-power analyst in Washington with Greenpeace, an environmental group opposed to nuclear power.
Obama’s rejection of the plan for a nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain may delay the opening of such a site by at least 20 years, the Government Accountability Office said in a report, citing unnamed government officials.
The study from Congress’s investigative arm was released yesterday by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican.
Upton is among lawmakers critical of Obama’s decision to scrap the Yucca Mountain Project, which was opposed by Nevada officials led by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
‘Alarming’ Decision
“It’s alarming for this administration to discard 30 years of research and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, not for technical or safety reasons, but rather to satisfy temporary political calculations,” Upton said in a statement yesterday.
The Energy Department strongly disagreed with the GAO’s findings, including the “assumption that the Yucca Mountain repository would have opened in 2020,” the auditors said.
“The department has acted responsibly in carrying out the Yucca Mountain Project shutdown and will continue to do so in pursuing new options with the guidance of the Blue Ribbon Commission,” Katinka Podmaniczky, a department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
“The Yucca project produced years of continued acrimony, dispute, and uncertainty,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a Feb. 11 letter to the Blue Ribbon Commission.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Analysis: Japan LNG reliance grows with latest nuclear setback
Reuters: Analysis: Japan LNG reliance grows with latest nuclear setback
(Reuters) - Japan's move to shut another nuclear power plant will boost imports of LNG from Qatar and Australia to fire gas-based plants to make up for the loss, exacerbating rising dependence on imported gas in the wake of the massive earthquake in March.
The nation's third-largest utility Chubu Electric Power Co said on Monday it was shutting its 3,617 megawatt Hamaoka plant, which accounts for about 7 percent of Japan's nuclear power capacity. The shutdown will land it with a gas and oil import bill of around $2.8 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan called for the shutdown until increased safeguards would allow the plant to better withstand the type of tsunami which in March triggered the worst atomic crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima Daichi plant.
Combined, Japan's nuclear shutdowns could increase LNG demand from the world's largest importer by as much as 15 percent from the 70 million tonnes it imported in 2010.
"We expect another 10 million tonnes of LNG demand from Japan over the next five years as a result of Hamaoka and Fukushima being shut," said Neil Beveridge, a senior oil and gas analyst at brokerage Sanford C Bernstein & Co in Hong Kong.
"Qatar is already supplying 4 million tonnes and Japanese companies will be looking to secure more long-term contracts with them. In the longer term, supplies could also come from Australia."
Chubu said on Monday that it would need to purchase 3.2 million tonnes of LNG and around 24,500 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to fire the plants needed to compensate for the loss of the nuclear power.
At today's prices, the gas imports would cost around $1.9 billion, and the oil around $900 million.
The UK gas market edged up on Monday on concern the imports would divert spot cargoes away from Britain. Investment bank Societe Generale lifted its forecast for UK summer gas prices after news of the shutdown.
The increased demand for LNG would eat into the supply glut that has weighed on global gas fundamentals for years but was unlikely to absorb it all, analysts said. Qatar boosted its capacity late last year and still has gas available, analysts said.
Koki Ota, senior economist at Sumitomo Shoji Research Institute in Tokyo, said Qatar is estimated to have about 27 million tonnes of LNG in 2011 that is not bound under longer-term contracts and therefore can be supplied to the spot market.
"Qatar has sufficient LNG supply to absorb additional demand from Japan, so a sharp jump in the global LNG price is unlikely even if Chubu is to entirely rely on LNG as an alternative source of energy if its plants are shut," he said.
The reasons for the Chubu shutdown could also mean that other plants already shutdown as a precaution after the March earthquake and tsunami may stay offline for longer, SG said in a report on Monday.
"We have become even more pessimistic regarding the possible reopening of nuclear plants that were shutdown and now believe they could stay offline until end 2013," SG said.
Increased demand for alternative sources of clean energy such as gas could encourage developers to move ahead on projects to produce LNG.
Australia has around A$200 billion in projects either under development or on the drawing board and increased long-term demand from Japan could facilitate development of more of those projects than would otherwise have gone ahead.
QATAR
Chubu Electric Power's Chairman Toshio Mita flew to Qatar over the weekend to seek help for additional LNG supplies, meeting with Qatargas Chief Executive Khalid al-Thani and Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed Saleh al-Sada.
Qatar's response was positive, Mita told reporters in Japan on Monday on his return, but he gave no further details.
"I explained the current situation and that (it)... could continue for two to three years. They said they will give their utmost cooperation, so my mission has been achieved to some extent," Mita said. Chubu is the largest Japanese customer of Qatargas.
Qatargas will supply more than 60 extra cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), or 4 million tonnes, to Japan over next 12 months, the company had said in April. [ID:nLDE73F046] That was before the Chubu shutdown, and was to compensate for the crippled Fukushima Daichi plant.
Qatar was the fourth-largest supplier of LNG to Japan, accounting for 7.631 million tonnes or about 11 percent of Japanese imports in 2010.
Top LNG exporter Qatar recently raised capacity to ship 77 million tonnes of the fuel annually.
There has not been any additional requirement for low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) from Japan despite the shutdown of yet another nuclear plant, traders said.
Demand for power-generation fuels such as low-sulphur waxy residues (LSWR) and low-sulphur crudes from Indonesia as well as Sudan's Nile blend, has been poor since the March 11 earthquake.
CHUBU
The shutdown of the plant is likely to compound the power shortages expected this summer, SG said.
According tothe Federation of Electric Power Companies data as of fiscal 2009/10, Chubu had 11 thermal power plants with a total capacity of 23,900 MW. Of the total, capacity for gas thermal power was 14,710 MW; 5,090 MW for oil-fired and 4,100 MW was coal-fired.
Five of the 11 thermal plants with capacity of 1,844 MW are either in maintenance or mothballed. Restarting those would cover about half the capacity lost at Hamaoka.
Chubu has a relatively low reliance on nuclear power compared to its peers. In 2010/11, nuclear power accounted for 15 percent of Chubu's total electricity generated, while gas thermal power held a 46 percent share and oil-fired power held a 3 percent share. Coal thermal power had a 26 percent share.
(Reuters) - Japan's move to shut another nuclear power plant will boost imports of LNG from Qatar and Australia to fire gas-based plants to make up for the loss, exacerbating rising dependence on imported gas in the wake of the massive earthquake in March.
The nation's third-largest utility Chubu Electric Power Co said on Monday it was shutting its 3,617 megawatt Hamaoka plant, which accounts for about 7 percent of Japan's nuclear power capacity. The shutdown will land it with a gas and oil import bill of around $2.8 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan called for the shutdown until increased safeguards would allow the plant to better withstand the type of tsunami which in March triggered the worst atomic crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima Daichi plant.
Combined, Japan's nuclear shutdowns could increase LNG demand from the world's largest importer by as much as 15 percent from the 70 million tonnes it imported in 2010.
"We expect another 10 million tonnes of LNG demand from Japan over the next five years as a result of Hamaoka and Fukushima being shut," said Neil Beveridge, a senior oil and gas analyst at brokerage Sanford C Bernstein & Co in Hong Kong.
"Qatar is already supplying 4 million tonnes and Japanese companies will be looking to secure more long-term contracts with them. In the longer term, supplies could also come from Australia."
Chubu said on Monday that it would need to purchase 3.2 million tonnes of LNG and around 24,500 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to fire the plants needed to compensate for the loss of the nuclear power.
At today's prices, the gas imports would cost around $1.9 billion, and the oil around $900 million.
The UK gas market edged up on Monday on concern the imports would divert spot cargoes away from Britain. Investment bank Societe Generale lifted its forecast for UK summer gas prices after news of the shutdown.
The increased demand for LNG would eat into the supply glut that has weighed on global gas fundamentals for years but was unlikely to absorb it all, analysts said. Qatar boosted its capacity late last year and still has gas available, analysts said.
Koki Ota, senior economist at Sumitomo Shoji Research Institute in Tokyo, said Qatar is estimated to have about 27 million tonnes of LNG in 2011 that is not bound under longer-term contracts and therefore can be supplied to the spot market.
"Qatar has sufficient LNG supply to absorb additional demand from Japan, so a sharp jump in the global LNG price is unlikely even if Chubu is to entirely rely on LNG as an alternative source of energy if its plants are shut," he said.
The reasons for the Chubu shutdown could also mean that other plants already shutdown as a precaution after the March earthquake and tsunami may stay offline for longer, SG said in a report on Monday.
"We have become even more pessimistic regarding the possible reopening of nuclear plants that were shutdown and now believe they could stay offline until end 2013," SG said.
Increased demand for alternative sources of clean energy such as gas could encourage developers to move ahead on projects to produce LNG.
Australia has around A$200 billion in projects either under development or on the drawing board and increased long-term demand from Japan could facilitate development of more of those projects than would otherwise have gone ahead.
QATAR
Chubu Electric Power's Chairman Toshio Mita flew to Qatar over the weekend to seek help for additional LNG supplies, meeting with Qatargas Chief Executive Khalid al-Thani and Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed Saleh al-Sada.
Qatar's response was positive, Mita told reporters in Japan on Monday on his return, but he gave no further details.
"I explained the current situation and that (it)... could continue for two to three years. They said they will give their utmost cooperation, so my mission has been achieved to some extent," Mita said. Chubu is the largest Japanese customer of Qatargas.
Qatargas will supply more than 60 extra cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), or 4 million tonnes, to Japan over next 12 months, the company had said in April. [ID:nLDE73F046] That was before the Chubu shutdown, and was to compensate for the crippled Fukushima Daichi plant.
Qatar was the fourth-largest supplier of LNG to Japan, accounting for 7.631 million tonnes or about 11 percent of Japanese imports in 2010.
Top LNG exporter Qatar recently raised capacity to ship 77 million tonnes of the fuel annually.
There has not been any additional requirement for low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) from Japan despite the shutdown of yet another nuclear plant, traders said.
Demand for power-generation fuels such as low-sulphur waxy residues (LSWR) and low-sulphur crudes from Indonesia as well as Sudan's Nile blend, has been poor since the March 11 earthquake.
CHUBU
The shutdown of the plant is likely to compound the power shortages expected this summer, SG said.
According tothe Federation of Electric Power Companies data as of fiscal 2009/10, Chubu had 11 thermal power plants with a total capacity of 23,900 MW. Of the total, capacity for gas thermal power was 14,710 MW; 5,090 MW for oil-fired and 4,100 MW was coal-fired.
Five of the 11 thermal plants with capacity of 1,844 MW are either in maintenance or mothballed. Restarting those would cover about half the capacity lost at Hamaoka.
Chubu has a relatively low reliance on nuclear power compared to its peers. In 2010/11, nuclear power accounted for 15 percent of Chubu's total electricity generated, while gas thermal power held a 46 percent share and oil-fired power held a 3 percent share. Coal thermal power had a 26 percent share.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Great Physicists: James Joule
James Prescott Joule FRS (24 December 1818 – 11 October 1889) was an English physicist and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). This led to the theory of conservation of energy, which led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named after him. He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop the absolute scale of temperature, made observations on magnetostriction, and found the relationship between the current through a resistance and the heat dissipated, now called Joule's law.
The son of Jerry Joule (1784–1858), a wealthy brewer, James Prescott Joule was born in the house adjoining the Joule Brewery in New Bailey Street, Salford 24th December 1818. James was tutored at the family home 'Broomhill', Pendlebury, near Salford, until 1834 when he was sent with his elder brother Benjamin, to study with John Dalton at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. The pair only received two years' education in arithmetic and geometry before Dalton was forced to retire owing to a stroke.
However, Dalton's influence made a lasting impression as did that of his associates, chemist William Henry and Manchester engineers Peter Ewart and Eaton Hodgkinson. Joule was subsequently tutored by John Davies. Fascinated by electricity, he and his brother experimented by giving electric shocks to each other and to the family's servants.
Joule became a manager of the brewery and took an active role until the sale of the business in 1854. Science was a hobby but he soon started to investigate the feasibility of replacing the brewery's steam engines with the newly invented electric motor. In 1838, his first scientific papers on electricity were contributed to Annals of Electricity, the scientific journal founded and operated by Davies's colleague William Sturgeon.
He formulated Joule's laws in 1840 and hoped to impress the Royal Society but found, not for the last time, that he was perceived as a mere provincial dilettante. When Sturgeon moved to Manchester in 1840, Joule and he became the nucleus of a circle of the city's intellectuals. The pair shared similar sympathies that science and theology could and should be integrated. Joule went on to lecture at Sturgeon's Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science.
He went on to realise that burning a pound of coal in a steam engine produced five times as much duty as a pound of zinc consumed in a Grove cell, an early electric battery. Joule's common standard of "economical duty" was the ability to raise one pound by a height of one foot, the foot-pound.
Joule was influenced by the thinking of Franz Aepinus and tried to explain the phenomena of electricity and magnetism in terms of atoms surrounded by a "calorific ether in a state of vibration".
However, Joule's interest diverted from the narrow financial question to that of how much work could be extracted from a given source, leading him to speculate about the convertibility of energy. In 1843 he published results of experiments showing that the heating effect he had quantified in 1841 was due to generation of heat in the conductor and not its transfer from another part of the equipment. This was a direct challenge to the caloric theory which held that heat could neither be created nor destroyed. Caloric theory had dominated thinking in the science of heat since it was introduced by Antoine Lavoisier in 1783.
Lavoisier's prestige and the practical success of Sadi Carnot's caloric theory of the heat engine since 1824 ensured that the young Joule, working outside either academia or the engineering profession, had a difficult road ahead. Supporters of the caloric theory readily pointed to the symmetry of the Peltier-Seebeck effect to claim that heat and current were convertible, at least approximately, by a reversible process.
The mechanical equivalent of heat
Joule wrote in his 1845 paper:
... the mechanical power exerted in turning a magneto-electric machine is converted into the heat evolved by the passage of the currents of induction through its coils; and, on the other hand, that the motive power of the electro-magnetic engine is obtained at the expense of the heat due to the chemical reactions of the battery by which it is worked.
Joule here adopts the language of vis viva (energy), possibly because Hodgkinson had read a review of Ewart's On the measure of moving force to the Literary and Philosophical Society in April 1844.
Further experiments and measurements by Joule led him to estimate the mechanical equivalent of heat as 838 ft·lbf of work to raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. He announced his results at a meeting of the chemical section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Cork in 1843 and was met by silence.
Joule was undaunted and started to seek a purely mechanical demonstration of the conversion of work into heat. By forcing water through a perforated cylinder, he was able to measure the slight viscous heating of the fluid. He obtained a mechanical equivalent of 770 ft·lbf/Btu (4.14 J/cal). The fact that the values obtained both by electrical and purely mechanical means were in agreement to at least one order of magnitude was, to Joule, compelling evidence of the reality of the convertibility of work into heat.
Joule now tried a third route. He measured the heat generated against the work done in compressing a gas. He obtained a mechanical equivalent of 823 ft·lbf/Btu (4.43 J/cal). In many ways, this experiment offered the easiest target for Joule's critics but Joule disposed of the anticipated objections by clever experimentation. However, his paper was rejected by the Royal Society and he had to be content with publishing in the Philosophical Magazine. In the paper he was forthright in his rejection of the caloric reasoning of Carnot and Émile Clapeyron, but his theological motivations also became evident:
I conceive that this theory ... is opposed to the recognised principles of philosophy because it leads to the conclusion that vis viva may be destroyed by an improper disposition of the apparatus: Thus Mr Clapeyron draws the inference that 'the temperature of the fire being 1000°C to 2000°C higher than that of the boiler there is an enormous loss of vis viva in the passage of the heat from the furnace to the boiler.' Believing that the power to destroy belongs to the Creator alone I affirm ... that any theory which, when carried out, demands the annihilation of force, is necessarily erroneous.
In 1845, Joule read his paper On the mechanical equivalent of heat to the British Association meeting in Cambridge. In this work, he reported his best-known experiment, involving the use of a falling weight to spin a paddle-wheel in an insulated barrel of water, whose increased temperature he measured. He now estimated a mechanical equivalent of 819 ft·lbf/Btu (4.41 J/cal).
In 1850, Joule published a refined measurement of 772.692 ft·lbf/Btu (4.159 J/cal), closer to twentieth century estimates.
Reception and priority
Much of the initial resistance to Joule's work stemmed from its dependence upon extremely precise measurements. He claimed to be able to measure temperatures to within 1/200 of a degree Fahrenheit. Such precision was certainly uncommon in contemporary experimental physics but his doubters may have neglected his experience in the art of brewing and his access to its practical technologies. He was also ably supported by scientific instrument-maker John Benjamin Dancer.
However, in Germany, Hermann Helmholtz became aware both of Joule's work and the similar 1842 work of Julius Robert von Mayer. Though both men had been neglected since their respective publications, Helmholtz's definitive 1847 declaration of the conservation of energy credited them both.
Also in 1847, another of Joule's presentations at the British Association in Oxford was attended by George Gabriel Stokes, Michael Faraday, and the precocious and maverick William Thomson, later to become Lord Kelvin, who had just been appointed professor of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Stokes was "inclined to be a Joulite" and Faraday was "much struck with it" though he harboured doubts. Thomson was intrigued but skeptical.
Unanticipated, Thomson and Joule met later that year in Chamonix. Joule married Amelia Grimes on 18 August and the couple went on honeymoon. Marital enthusiasm notwithstanding, Joule and Thomson arranged to attempt an experiment a few days later to measure the temperature difference between the top and bottom of the Cascade de Sallanches waterfall, though this subsequently proved impractical.
Though Thomson felt that Joule's results demanded theoretical explanation, he retreated into a spirited defense of the Carnot-Clapeyron school. In his 1848 account of absolute temperature, Thomson wrote that "the conversion of heat (or caloric) into mechanical effect is probably impossible, certainly undiscovered" - but a footnote signaled his first doubts about the caloric theory, referring to Joule's "very remarkable discoveries".
Surprisingly, Thomson did not send Joule a copy of his paper but when Joule eventually read it he wrote to Thomson on 6 October, claiming that his studies had demonstrated conversion of heat into work but that he was planning further experiments. Thomson replied on the 27th, revealing that he was planning his own experiments and hoping for a reconciliation of their two views. Though Thomson conducted no new experiments, over the next two years he became increasingly dissatisfied with Carnot's theory and convinced of Joule's. In his 1851 paper, Thomson was willing to go no further than a compromise and declared "the whole theory of the motive power of heat is founded on ... two ... propositions, due respectively to Joule, and to Carnot and Clausius".
As soon as Joule read the paper he wrote to Thomson with his comments and questions. Thus began a fruitful, though largely epistolary, collaboration between the two men, Joule conducting experiments, Thomson analysing the results and suggesting further experiments. The collaboration lasted from 1852 to 1856, its discoveries including the Joule-Thomson effect, and the published results did much to bring about general acceptance of Joule's work and the kinetic theory.
Kinetic theory
James Prescott JouleKinetics is the science of motion. Joule was a pupil of Dalton and it is no surprise that he had learned a firm belief in the atomic theory, even though there were many scientists of his time who were still skeptical. He had also been one of the few people receptive to the neglected work of John Herapath on the kinetic theory of gases. He was further profoundly influenced by Peter Ewart's 1813 paper On the measure of moving force.
Joule perceived the relationship between his discoveries and the kinetic theory of heat. His laboratory notebooks reveal that he believed heat to be a form of rotational, rather than translational motion.
Joule could not resist finding antecedents of his views in Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) and Sir Humphry Davy. Though such views are justified, Joule went on to estimate a value for the mechanical equivalent of heat of 1034 foot-pound from Rumford's publications. Some modern writers have criticised this approach on the grounds that Rumford's experiments in no way represented systematic quantitative measurements. In one of his personal notes, Joule contends that Mayer's measurement was no more accurate than Rumford's, perhaps in the hope that Mayer had not anticipated his own work. Joule is attributed with explaining the Green Flash phenomenon in a letter to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1869.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Great Physicists: Julius Robert von Mayer
From Wikipedia
Julius Robert von Mayer (November 25, 1814 – March 20, 1878) was a German physician and physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics. He is best known for enunciating in 1841 one of the original statements of the conservation of energy or what is now known as one of the first versions of the first law of thermodynamics, namely:
"Energy can be neither created nor destroyed"
During 1842, Mayer described the vital chemical process now referred to as oxidation as the primary source of energy for any living creature. His achievements were overlooked and priority for the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat was attributed to James Joule in the following year. He also proposed that plants convert light into chemical energy.
Early life
Von Mayer was born on November 25, 1814 in Heilbronn, Württemberg (Baden-Württemberg, modern day Germany), the son of a pharmacist. He grew up in Heilbronn. After completing his Abitur, he studied medicine at the University of Tübingen, where he was a member of the Corps Guestphalia, a German Student Corps. During 1838 he attained his doctorate as well as passing the Staatsexamen. After a stay in Paris (1839/40) he left as a ship's physician on a Dutch three-mast sailing ship for a journey to Jakarta.
Although he had hardly been interested before this journey in physical phenomena, his observation that storm-whipped waves are warmer than the calm sea started him thinking about the laws of nature, in particular about the physical phenomenon of warmth and the question: whether the directly developed heat alone or whether the sum of the amounts of heat developed in direct and indirect ways contributes to the temperature. After his return during February 1841 Mayer dedicated began efforts to solve of this problem.
During 1841 he settled in Heilbronn and married.
Development of ideas
Even as a young child, Mayer showed an intense interest with various mechanical mechanisms. He was a young man who performed various experiments of the physical and chemical variety. In fact, one of his favorite hobbies was creating various types of electrical devices and air pumps. It was obvious that he was intelligent. Hence, Mayer attended Eberhard-Karls University in May 1832. He studied medicine during his time there.
During 1837, he and some of his friends were arrested for wearing the colors of a forbidden organization. The consequences for this arrest included a one year expulsion from the college and a brief period of incarceration. This diversion sent Mayer traveling to Switzerland, France, and the Dutch East Indies. Mayer drew some additional interest in mathematics and engineering from his friend Carl Baur through private tutoring. During 1841, Mayer returned to Heilbronn to practice medicine, but physics became his new passion.
During June 1841, he completed his first scientific paper entitled "On the Quantitative and Qualitative Determination of Forces". It was largely ignored by other professionals in the area. Then, Mayer became interested in the area of heat and its motion. He presented a value in numerical terms for the mechanical equivalent of heat. He also was the first person to describe the vital chemical process now referred to as oxidation as the primary source of energy for any living creature.
During 1848 he calculated that in the absence of a source of energy the Sun would cool down in only 5000 years, and he suggested that the impact of meteorites kept it hot.
Since he was not taken seriously at the time, his achievements were overlooked and credit was given to James Joule. Mayer almost committed suicide after he discovered this fact. He spent some time in mental institutions to recover from this and the loss of some of his children. Several of his papers were published due to the advanced nature of the physics and chemistry.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1859 by the philosophical faculty at the University of Tübingen. His overlooked work was revived in 1862 by fellow physicist John Tyndall in a lecture at the London Royal Institution. In July 1867, Mayer published "Die Mechanik der Warme." This publication dealt with the mechanics of heat and its motion. In November 1867, Mayer was awarded personal nobility (von Mayer) which is the German equivalent of a British knighthood. Julius Robert von Mayer died from tuberculosis on March 20, 1878 in Germany.
Mayer's place in the history of physics
Mayer was the first person to state the law of the conservation of energy, one of the most fundamental tenets of modern day physics. The law of the conservation of energy states that the total mechanical energy of a system remains constant in any isolated system of objects that interact with each other only by way of forces that are conservative.
Mayer's first attempt at stating the conservation of energy was a paper he sent to Johann Christian Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik, in which he postulated a conservation of force (Erhaltungssatz der Kraft). However, owing to Mayer's lack of advanced training in physics, it contained some fundamental mistakes and was not published. Mayer continued to pursue the idea steadfastly and argued with the Tübingen physics professor Johann Gottlieb Nörremberg, who rejected his hypothesis. Nörremberg did, however, give Mayer a number of valuable suggestions on how the idea could be examined experimentally; for example, if kinetic energy transforms into heat energy, water should be warmed by vibration.
Mayer not only performed this demonstration, but determined also the quantitative factor of the transformation, calculating the mechanical equivalent of heat. The result of his investigations was published 1842 in the May edition of Justus von Liebig's Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie.
Later life
Mayer was aware of the importance of his discovery, but his inability to express himself scientifically led to degrading speculation and resistance from the scientific establishment. Contemporary physicists rejected his principle of conservation of energy, and even acclaimed physicists Hermann von Helmholtz and James Prescott Joule viewed his ideas with hostility. The former doubted Mayer's qualifications in physical questions, and a bitter dispute over priority developed with the latter.
In 1848 two of his children died rapidly in succession, and Mayer's mental health deteriorated. He attempted suicide on May 18, 1850 and was committed to a mental institution. After he was released, he was a broken man and only timidly re-entered public life in 1860. However, in the meantime, his scientific fame had grown and he received a late appreciation of his achievement, although perhaps at a stage where he was no longer able to enjoy it.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Great Physicists: Nicholas Sadi Carnot
Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1 June 1796 – 24 August 1832) was a French physicist and military engineer who, in his 1824 Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, gave the first successful theoretical account of heat engines, now known as the Carnot cycle, thereby laying the foundations of the second law of thermodynamics. He is often described as the "Father of thermodynamics", being responsible for such concepts as Carnot efficiency, Carnot theorem, Carnot heat engine, and others.
Life
Born in Paris, Sadi Carnot was the first son of the eminent military leader and geometer, Lazare Nicholas Marguerite Carnot, elder brother of Hippolyte Carnot, and uncle of Marie François Sadi Carnot (President of the French Republic (1887-1894), son of Hippolyte Carnot). His father named him for the Persian poet Sadi of Shiraz (Carnot 1960, p. xi), and he was always known by this third given name.
From age 16 (1812), he lived in Paris and attended the École polytechnique where he and his contemporaries, Claude-Louis Navier and Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, were taught by professors such as Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, Siméon Denis Poisson and André-Marie Ampère. After graduation, he became an officer in the French army before committing himself to scientific research, becoming the most celebrated of Fourier's contemporaries who were interested in the theory of heat. Since 1814, he served in the military. Following the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, his father went into exile. He later obtained permanent leave of absence from the French army. Subsequently, he spent time to write his book.
Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
Background
The historical context in which Carnot worked was that there had been almost no scientific study of the steam engine, and yet the engine was actually pretty far along in its development. It had risen to a widely recognized economic and industrial importance. Newcomen had invented the first piston-operated steam engine over a century before, in 1712. Some 50 years after that, Watt made his celebrated improvements which greatly increased the efficiency and practicality of the engine. Compound engines (engines with more than one stage of expansion) had already been invented.
There was even a crude form of internal-combustion engine, with which Carnot was familiar and which he described in some detail in his book. (Carnot 1960, p. 56)
Amazing progress on the practical side had been made, so at least some intuitive understanding of the engine's workings existed. The scientific basis of its operation, however, was almost nonexistent even after all this time. In 1824 the principle of conservation of energy was still immature and controversial, and an exact formulation of the first law of thermodynamics was still more than a decade away. The mechanical equivalent of heat was not identified for another two decades. The prevalent theory of heat was the caloric theory, which regarded heat as a sort of weightless, invisible fluid that flowed when out of equilibrium.
Engineers in Carnot's time had tried various mechanical means, such as high pressure steam, or the use of some fluid other than steam, to improve the efficiency of their engines. In these early stages of engine development, the efficiency of a typical engine -- the useful work it was able to perform when a given quantity of fuel such as a lump of coal was burnt -- was a mere 3%.
The Carnot cycle
Carnot sought to answer two questions about the operation of heat engines: "Is the work available from a heat source potentially unbounded?" and "Can heat engines in principle be improved by replacing the steam with some other working fluid or gas?" He attempted to answer these in a memoir, published as a popular work in 1824 when he was only 28 years old. It was entitled Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu ("Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire").
The book was plainly intended to cover a rather wide range of topics about heat engines in a rather popular fashion. Equations were kept to a minimum and called for little more than simple algebra and arithmetic, except occasionally in the footnotes, where he indulged in a few arguments involving a little calculus. He discussed the relative merits of air and steam as working fluids, the merits of various aspects of steam engine design, and even threw in some ideas of his own on possible practical improvements. But the most important part of the book was devoted to a quite abstract presentation of an idealized engine that could be used to understand and clarify the fundamental principles that are of general applicability to all heat engines, independent of the particular design choices that might be made.
Perhaps the most important contribution Carnot made to thermodynamics was his abstraction of the essential features of the steam engine as it was known in his day into a more general, idealized heat engine. This resulted in a model thermodynamic system upon which exact calculations could be made, and avoided the complications introduced by many of the crude features of the contemporary steam engine. By idealizing the engine, he could arrive at clear, indisputable answers to his original two questions.
He showed that the efficiency of this idealized engine is a function only of the two temperatures of the reservoirs between which it operates. He did not, however, give the exact form of the function, which was later shown to be (T1−T2)⁄T1, where T1 is the absolute temperature of the hotter reservoir. (Note: This equation probably came from Kelvin.) No thermal engine operating any other cycle can be more efficient, given the same operating temperatures.
He saw very clearly, intuitively, that he could give very definite answers to the two questions set before the reader. The Carnot cycle is the most efficient possible engine, not only because of the (trivial) absence of friction and other incidental wasteful processes; the main reason is that it assumes no conduction of heat between parts of the engine at different temperatures. He knew that conduction of heat between bodies at different temperatures is a wasteful, irreversible process and must be eliminated if the heat engine is to have the maximum efficiency.
Regarding the second point, he also was quite certain that the maximum efficiency attainable did not depend upon the exact nature of the working fluid. He stated this for emphasis as a general proposition: "The motive power of heat is independent of the agents employed to realize it; its quantity is fixed solely by the temperatures of the bodies between which the transfer of caloric takes place." For his "motive power of heat", we would today say "the efficiency of a reversible heat engine," and rather than "transfer of caloric" we would say "the reversible transfer of heat." He knew intuitively that his engine would have the maximum efficiency, but was unable to state what that efficiency would be.
Lazare Carnot, his fatherHe concluded:
The production of motive power is therefore due in steam engines not to actual consumption of caloric but to its transportation from a warm body to a cold body.
—Carnot 1960, p. 7
and
In the fall of caloric, motive power evidently increases with the difference of temperature between the warm and cold bodies, but we do not know whether it is proportional to this difference.
—Carnot 1960, p. 15
Towards the second law
In his ideal model, the heat of caloric converted into work could be reinstated by reversing the motion of the cycle, a concept subsequently known as thermodynamic reversibility. Carnot however further postulated that some caloric is lost, not being converted to mechanical work. Hence no real heat engine could realise the Carnot cycle's reversibility and was condemned to be less efficient.
Though formulated in terms of caloric, rather than entropy, this was an early insight into the second law of thermodynamics.
Reception and later life
Carnot’s book apparently received very little attention from his contemporaries at first. The only citation within a few years after his publication was a review of it in a periodical “Revue Encyclopédique,“ which was a journal that covered a wide range of topics in literature. The work only began to have a real impact when modernised by Émile Clapeyron, in 1834 and then further elaborated upon by Clausius and Kelvin, who together derived from it the notion of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics.
Death
Carnot died in a cholera epidemic when he was only 36 in 1832. Because of the concern of cholera, many of his belongings and writings were buried together with him after his death. Thus only a handful of his scientific writings survived besides his book.
After the publication of his book in 1824, it quickly went out of print and for some time was very difficult to obtain. For example, Kelvin had great difficulty in getting a copy of Carnot's book. An English translation of it by R. H. Thurston in 1890 has been reprinted in recent decades by Dover and by Peter Smith, most recently by Dover in 2005. Some of his posthumous manuscripts have also been translated into English.
Carnot published his book in the days of steam engines. His theory explained why steam engines using superheated steam were better because of the higher temperature of the hot reservoir involved. Carnot's theory did not help to improve the efficiency of steam engines in the beginning; his theory only helped to explain why one existing practice was better. It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that Carnot's idea -- that a heat engine can be made more efficient if the temperature of its hot reservoir is increased -- was put into practice by, for example, Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913), who was fascinated by Carnot's theory and designed an engine (diesel engine) in which the temperature of the hot reservoir is much higher than that of a steam engine, resulting in an engine which is more efficient than a steam engine. Thus, though it took time, Carnot's book eventually had a real impact on the design of practical engines.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Trouble With Physics, by Lee Smolin
The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next, by Lee Smoln
Houghton Mifflin, 2006
355 pages, plus acknowledgments, notes and index. No photos
Library: 530.14 SMO
Description
In this illuminating book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that fundamental physics-the search for the laws of nature-is losing its way. Ambitious ideas about extra dimensions, exotic particles, multiple universes, and strings have captured the public's imagination - and the imagination of experts.
But these ideas have not been tested experimentally, and some, like string theory, seem to offer no possibility of being tested. Yet these speculations dominate the field, attracting the best talent and much of the funding and creating a climate in which emerging physicists are often penalized for pursuing other avenues.
As Smolin points out, the situation threatens to impede the very progress of science. With clarity, passion and authority, Smolin offers an unblinking assessment of the troubles that face modern physics - and an encouraging view of where the search for the next big idea may lead.
Table of contents
Introduvtion
Part I: The Unfinished Revolution
1. The Five Great Problems in Theoretical Physics
2. The Beauty Myth
3. The World as Geometry
4. Unification Becomes a Science
5. From Unification to Superunification
6. Quantum Gravity: The Fork in the Road
Part II: A Brief History of String Theory
7. Preparing for a REvolution
8. The First Superstring Revolution
9. Revolution Number Two
10. A Theory of Anything
11. The Anthropic Solution
12. What String Theory Explains
Part III: Beyond String Theory
13. Surprises from the Real World
14. Building on Einstein
15. Physics After String Theory
Part IV: Learning From Experience
16. How do you Fight Sociology?
17. What is Science
18. Seers and Craftspeople
19. How Science Really Works
20. What We Can Do For Science
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Monday, May 2, 2011
What Will the N.R.C. Learn From Fukushima?
The New York Times: Environment: What Will the N.R.C. Learn From Fukushima?
The trait that doomed the Fukushima reactors might not be so obvious, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a mostly skeptical audience at a forum organized by an anti-nuclear group on Monday.
Since an earthquake and tsunami set off the disaster in Japan on March 11, many people have focused on inadequate earthquake preparedness and the design of the reactors’ containment structures as likely factors that undid the plant.
But the chairman of the regulatory commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said at a lunch-hour meeting arranged by Public Citizen that “right now, I would say we’re not primarily focused on seismic events.” Vulnerability to flooding might be the more appropriate lesson, he said, but it will take time to figure out even that.
He said that Japan’s situation would be “an interesting challenge for us for many years.” The commission’s response will be “systematic and methodical’’ rather than immediate because the first task is to figure out what equipment or procedures in American reactors should be changed, he added.
Responding to a question about what should be done about 23 reactors in the United States that have the same containment design as the Fukushima models, built by General Electric, Mr. Jaczko said that the type of containment might not in fact be the biggest factor.
Both General Electric and American companies that operate G.E. reactors have tried intermittently to make the same point as Mr. Jaczko.
The Tennessee Valley Authority took reporters on a tour of its Browns Ferry reactors near Athens, Ala., soon after the Fukushima accident and guided them up three flights of stairs to reach the switchgear that controls the operation of pumps and valves around the plant. Although both Fukushima and Browns Ferry have G.E. Mark I containments, Fukushima’s switchgear was on the ground floor and was destroyed.
That’s one reason why the reactors’ main cooling systems still could not be operated even after workers completed a new connection to the electric grid at the plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission examines plants for both the prospect of internal flooding – produced by a pipe break or a leak – and external flooding, Mr. Jaczko said. Last year the commission issued a report on the Fort Calhoun reactor on the Missouri River in Omaha that said it was not adequately prepared for an external flood. A follow-up inspection is scheduled for later this year.
The Fukushima accident is likely to “affect all of the plants, regardless of their age or their pedigree,’’ and that includes plants that have not yet been built, he said.
Others have said that a likely follow-up to Fukushima would be to move some spent fuel out of the fuel pools at American reactors, which are loaded far more heavily than the pools at Fukushima were.
An obvious alternative is loading fuel into steel capsules and then filling the capsules with inert gas, sealing them and lowering them into small concrete silos, the so-called arrangement called dry cask solution. The casks have no moving parts; air circulating around the outside of the capsule carries off the heat.
But Mr. Jaczko would not go so far as to commit himself to that approach. “No matter how you store spent fuel, each approach to dealing with it is going to have different strengths and weaknesses,’’ he said.
The commission staff is about 20 days into a 90-day study, but that is not the end point; the staff will soon commence a six-month study in greater depth, he said.
In testimony on Capitol Hill and other public statements, Mr. Jaczko has avoided criticizing his Japanese counterparts. But on Monday he said that “if we had a similar type of event in the U.S., we certainly would like to be providing a lot more information to the public.’’
The trait that doomed the Fukushima reactors might not be so obvious, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a mostly skeptical audience at a forum organized by an anti-nuclear group on Monday.
Since an earthquake and tsunami set off the disaster in Japan on March 11, many people have focused on inadequate earthquake preparedness and the design of the reactors’ containment structures as likely factors that undid the plant.
But the chairman of the regulatory commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said at a lunch-hour meeting arranged by Public Citizen that “right now, I would say we’re not primarily focused on seismic events.” Vulnerability to flooding might be the more appropriate lesson, he said, but it will take time to figure out even that.
He said that Japan’s situation would be “an interesting challenge for us for many years.” The commission’s response will be “systematic and methodical’’ rather than immediate because the first task is to figure out what equipment or procedures in American reactors should be changed, he added.
Responding to a question about what should be done about 23 reactors in the United States that have the same containment design as the Fukushima models, built by General Electric, Mr. Jaczko said that the type of containment might not in fact be the biggest factor.
Both General Electric and American companies that operate G.E. reactors have tried intermittently to make the same point as Mr. Jaczko.
The Tennessee Valley Authority took reporters on a tour of its Browns Ferry reactors near Athens, Ala., soon after the Fukushima accident and guided them up three flights of stairs to reach the switchgear that controls the operation of pumps and valves around the plant. Although both Fukushima and Browns Ferry have G.E. Mark I containments, Fukushima’s switchgear was on the ground floor and was destroyed.
That’s one reason why the reactors’ main cooling systems still could not be operated even after workers completed a new connection to the electric grid at the plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission examines plants for both the prospect of internal flooding – produced by a pipe break or a leak – and external flooding, Mr. Jaczko said. Last year the commission issued a report on the Fort Calhoun reactor on the Missouri River in Omaha that said it was not adequately prepared for an external flood. A follow-up inspection is scheduled for later this year.
The Fukushima accident is likely to “affect all of the plants, regardless of their age or their pedigree,’’ and that includes plants that have not yet been built, he said.
Others have said that a likely follow-up to Fukushima would be to move some spent fuel out of the fuel pools at American reactors, which are loaded far more heavily than the pools at Fukushima were.
An obvious alternative is loading fuel into steel capsules and then filling the capsules with inert gas, sealing them and lowering them into small concrete silos, the so-called arrangement called dry cask solution. The casks have no moving parts; air circulating around the outside of the capsule carries off the heat.
But Mr. Jaczko would not go so far as to commit himself to that approach. “No matter how you store spent fuel, each approach to dealing with it is going to have different strengths and weaknesses,’’ he said.
The commission staff is about 20 days into a 90-day study, but that is not the end point; the staff will soon commence a six-month study in greater depth, he said.
In testimony on Capitol Hill and other public statements, Mr. Jaczko has avoided criticizing his Japanese counterparts. But on Monday he said that “if we had a similar type of event in the U.S., we certainly would like to be providing a lot more information to the public.’’
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