Southern’s `Monumental Accomplishment’ Tempered by Fukushima

From Bloomberg.com: Southern’s `Monumental Accomplishment’ Tempered by Fukushima The chief regulator’s dissent in a vote that approved the first U.S. permit in 34 years to build a nuclear reactor is fueling a debate over safety as the first anniversary of Japan’s nuclear disaster nears.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 yesterday to award Southern Co. (SO) of Atlanta a license to build two reactors at its Vogtle plant near Augusta, Georgia. The agency should have required the company to implement lessons from Japan’s nuclear crisis last year, said Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who opposed the license.

“Right now we know there are things that need to be fixed, things that need to be changed, or at least things that need to be analyzed,” Jaczko said yesterday in an interview at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. “For us to issue this license, and say ‘we’ll deal with them later,’ to me is kind of putting the cart before the horse.”

It has been less than a year after an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 caused meltdowns and radiation leaks at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501)’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. The industry has faced concerns about nuclear safety at least since a partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island plant in 1979, and the NRC’s authorization of Southern’s reactor may face a challenge in federal court from environmental groups.

“The chairman’s vote reflects the post-Fukushima reality that U.S. reactors are not designed to deal with a meltdown” and will need years’ worth of work “to make them less dangerous,” Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace USA, an anti-nuclear group, said in an e-mail.

Standardized Design
Southern will build the first U.S. reactors to use a standardized design, which it says will speed construction and reduce risks.

The agency’s vote is a “monumental accomplishment,” Thomas Fanning, Southern’s chairman and chief executive officer, said yesterday in a statement.

“Anything that we learn from Fukushima, I assure you we will bring to bear,” Fanning told reporters on a conference call yesterday. The NRC’s review of the planned reactors “has been thorough, it has been thoughtful and it is complete,” he said in an interview yesterday.

The NRC is weighing rules to improve safety at existing plants, and by March 9 it may direct owners to take steps to be better prepared for power failures.

Improving Safety
An agency task force in July recommended that the commission implement rules to improve safety at the 104 U.S. operating reactors, including reviews of seismic and flooding risks. An industry plan to place emergency pumps and generators at plants may speed the agency’s review of the proposed safety enhancements, Martin Virgilio, the NRC’s deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs, said at an NRC staff meeting with industry officials Jan. 13.

The agency should have required the Vogtle plant to adhere to all post-Fukushima regulations, such as a potential requirement to ensure that spent-fuel cooling pools have better monitoring equipment, Jaczko said. “I’m concerned that we will have challenges getting all of the Fukushima changes made” at the Vogtle plant, he said.

The NRC chairman said he will work to make sure the NRC’s Fukushima-related regulations are applied to Southern’s plant as the agency considers the rules, which he wants implemented by 2016.

Several environmental and consumer organizations said this week that they may file a lawsuit in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the NRC award of Southern’s reactor license.

Environmental Impact
They will ask the court to direct the NRC to complete another environmental impact statement to take into consideration lessons learned after Fukushima, said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of one of the groups, the Knoxville, Tennessee-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

“The only way the nuclear power is ever going to be successful is if you assure accidents like Fukushima don’t happen,” Smith said in a phone interview. “Cheerleading and the rush to move forward has overtaken safety,” he said.

The U.S. nuclear industry established its own safety- monitoring organization, the Atlanta-based Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, after a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island. Reactor owners have made technology upgrades at power plants, and plant owners spent more than $2 billion to bolster security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based industry group.

Commercial Facilities
“Probably the most robust commercial facilities on the planet are nuclear power plants,” Tony Pietrangelo, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer for the NEI, said in a Jan. 11 interview.

Nuclear accidents at U.S. plants would release less radiation than previously thought and would cause almost no immediate deaths, an NRC analysis issued on Feb. 1 determined.

Reactor designers are now implementing more “passive” engineering, which relies more on the laws of physics to improve safety, Eric Loewen, chief consulting engineer for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy in Wilmington, North Carolina, said in a phone interview.

“Usually the laws of physics are a little bit more reliable than making sure that somebody left a valve open or making sure that some automated system works,” he said.

Local Student Honored at White House

From 2 News: Local Student Honored at White House
Meet Taylor Wilson-- a Reno local who designed a nuclear reactor, is working on groundbreaking medical research, and got invited to the White House this week. And did I mention, he's 17 years old. Wilson is a senior at the Davidson Academy in Reno, and he describes himself as an applied nuclear physicist. And you won't believe everything he's done, all before his 18th birthday. "A lot of people say, 'Oh, you're just a kid. You can't have any experience in nuclear science.' And I say 'well, I've had about seven years of it." Seven years of experience, because Wilson started studying nuclear physics when he was just 10 years old. He moved here four years ago to attend the Davidson Academy, and now he has his very own lab at the University of Nevada. He showed us his nuclear fusion reactor, which he started building at age 12. It's the inspiration for his most recent invention: a scanning device that detects weapons grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Basically, it scans for nuclear weapons. This is technology that does already exist, made from rare materials, and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wilson said he can mass-produce his version for a couple hundred bucks each.

"Instead of using the rarest and most expensive substance on planet earth, it uses water," Wilson said, "which is the cheapest and most abundant."

And it's more sensitive than its predecessors. He wants to use it to catch terrorists, so he took it to the White House Science Fair this week to show President Obama.

"The first thing he said is 'Why haven't we hired this guy?'" Wilson said about meeting President Obama. "He told the science adviser to go hire me, and he came to me with a job offer."

And that's not the only job offer Wilson got at the White House. The Secret Service also gave him a pretty hard sell.

"They said three things: the pay is good, we get lots of travel, and we get all the girls," Wilson said, laughing, "and I thought that was hilarious, coming from these otherwise very proper Secret Service agents."

But it's not a calling Wilson takes lightly. He agrees with President Obama-- his research is important.

"What impresses me so much is not just how smart you are," President Obama said at the science fair. "It's the fact that you recognize you've got a responsibility to use your talents in service of something bigger than yourselves."

"I like solving problems," Wilson said. "That's what really has an impact on me, and has an impact on the world."

Wilson has applied to a handful of top-tier colleges, but he's not sure where he'll end up. He is also enjoying working on his newest project: developing better technology to diagnose and treat cancer.

Aprahamian named chair of APS nuclear physics division

From Notre Dame Department Physics: Aprahamian named chair of APS nuclear physics division

Ani Aprahamian, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Physics, has been elected chair of the American Physical Society's Division of Nuclear Physics. APS is the second-largest organization in the field, chartered “to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics.” It publishes a number of journals, conducts extensive education and outreach programs, and is active in public and governmental affairs. The Division of Nuclear Physics is composed of scientists and educators who study fundamental problems related to the nature of matter – the properties of nuclei and of their ultimate constituents, quarks and gluons.

Aprahamian's research interests lie in nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics. Her current work relates to the elements heavier than iron, whose origin remains a scientific enigma; they cannot be formed by the normal nuclear fusion process in stars. It is thought that a neutron-rich explosive environment in the emerging shock front of a supernova may be responsible for the enhancement of the heavy elements, but experimental confirmation requires laboratory production of elusive, highly unstable nuclei in cutting-edge facilities. One such will be the Facility for Rare Isotopes Beams (FRIB) under construction at Michigan State University, for which Aprahamian serves as a member of the science advisory committee.

In addition to the above professional roles, Aprahamian has been both director of Notre Dame's Nuclear Science Laboratory and a former chair of the Department of Physics at Notre Dame. She is also the vice-chair of the National Academies' decadal review of nuclear physics (NP2010) and the co-chair of the standing Nuclear Science Advisory Subcommittee on Isotopes (NSACI), as well as chair of the Scientific Council for the GANIL research center in France.

Fight for funding: Pool shrinking for MSU's FRIB facility, other science projects

From Lansing State Journal: Fight for funding: Pool shrinking for MSU's FRIB facility, other science projects Thomas Glasmacher's cellphone rang for the third time in half an hour. He excused himself and stepped into the hallway. "I think twice when I want his time," said Konrad Gelbke, still sitting in the small conference room at Michigan State University's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. "Normally, I expect people to be there when I want them. With Thomas, I say 'Do I really need him now?' because he's so busy." Gelbke is the cyclotron lab's director. Glasmacher is the person managing its most important project, the $615 million Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, which is 2 1/2 months away from its most important review by the U.S. Department of Energy, the review that will fix the cost, scope and schedule of the project and, if successful, allow MSU to go forward with construction. The scientists and engineers at FRIB have spent the past 1 1/2 years adding flesh to a conceptual design approved by the U.S. Department of Energy in September 2010, working out the technical conundrums of a machine powerful enough to create isotopes that don't exist outside the thermonuclear explosions in dying stars, fitting together the jigsaw of systems into a unified whole. But that work is now going on against a backdrop of concern for the project's future. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu spoke at a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club last month. Afterward, standing in a scrum of reporters, he was asked how FRIB would fare in next year's federal budget. His answer gave little reason for optimism. "If you look at all the things we're doing ... and you look at what we think we can afford in a budget projection given our deficit, we are saying 'Well, we have to be very careful, because we can't be starting six things and we can only afford four things,' " he said. The reaction was sharp and immediate: strongly worded statements from members of the state's congressional delegation, editorials in newspapers across the state, including this one, saying Michigan couldn't afford to lose its grip on a project that would bring so much in the way of jobs, money and scientific prestige.

Fire at Moscow nuclear institute, Russia says no risk

From Reuters: Fire at Moscow nuclear institute, Russia says no risk (Reuters) - There was no risk of a radiation leak after a fire broke out at a Moscow nuclear research centre housing a non-operational 60-year-old atomic reactor on Sunday, said officials, but Greenpeace Russia expressed serious concern about the incident. The fire broke out early on Sunday in a part of the Alikhanov Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics in southwestern Moscow that contains a research collider, institute officials said in a statement on its website. There were no radiation sources in the area of the collider, which had been shut off on December 25, and no danger of a radiation leak, the statement said. It said personnel were evacuated and nobody was hurt. Grey smoke rose above the institute, which is encircled by a wall, and an acrid smell filled the air. Some 30 emergency vehicles, including fire trucks and ambulances, stood inside and outside the main gate, witnesses said. Several phone calls to the institute went unanswered. The fire was in a basement area, said Sergei Vlasov, spokesman for the Moscow branch of the Emergencies Ministry. Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia's state nuclear agency Rosatom, said there were no open flames, only smoke that came from an area housing power cables and could not affect any nuclear materials at the institute. "This case poses no threat to fissile materials," said Novikov, adding firefighters were pumping foam into the affected area. He said the institute's heavy-water research reactor was no longer operational. SAFETY CONCERNS A Greenpeace Russia official said the incident was potentially very dangerous. "This is extremely dangerous ... this should not have happened at all, but as long as it did, it shows there has been a major failure in their operations," said Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia. "What we have here is a large amount of radioactive substance right in the centre of Moscow and even if a minor quantity leaks, it would pose a serious problem." Russian news agencies issued conflicting reports. Interfax cited a police source as saying fire brigades were denied access to the facility for "a long time" before being allowed in, but the institute said that was not the case. It said the fire had not been extinguished as of 4:20 p.m. (1320 GMT). State-run RIA reported earlier the fire had already been put out. Safety at Russia's nuclear facilities has been a concern since the deadly 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then a Soviet republic. The Soviet authorities did not announce that disaster for two days. A fire aboard a nuclear submarine in the north Russian port of Murmansk in December severely damaged the vessel, but authorities said radiation levels remained normal. Russia has suffered several accidents which observers say were the result of negligence and corruption, problems that have hindered modernization of the civilian and military infrastructure. The Moscow institute is named after its founder, Abram Alikhanov, one of the designers of the Soviet atom bomb, and houses the Soviet Union's first heavy water reactor, designed in the late 1940s as part of dictator Josef Stalin's program to develop nuclear arms, according to its website.

In Galileo’s hometown, Vatican promotes science

From the Washington Post: In Galileo’s hometown, Vatican promotes science VATICAN CITY — Nearly four centuries after the Roman Catholic Church branded Galileo Galilei a heretic for positing that the sun was the center of the universe, the Vatican is co-hosting a major science exhibition in his hometown. The Vatican is teaming with Italy’s main physics research center to host “Stories from Another World. The Universe Inside and Outside of Us,” in Pisa. The exhibit will illustrate the progress of knowledge of the physical universe, from prehistoric times to recent discoveries. The exhibit is organized by the Specola Vaticana — the Vatican-supported observatory — and Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics, together with Pisa University’s physics department. The exhibition aims to tell “the history of the universe, from the particles which make up the atoms in our bodies to distant galaxies,” the Rev. Jose Funes, director of the observatory, told reporters on Thursday (Feb. 2). It is aimed particularly at young people and great care has been taken “to make complex and difficult knowledge accessible, while at the same time avoiding the risk of superficiality.” Cosimo Bracci Torsi, president of the exhibit’s venue, the Palazzo Blu Foundation, stressed that the placement of the exhibit in Galileo’s hometown reflects the progress made between secular science and religion since Galileo was “first condemned then cleared up.” Galileo was condemned by the Vatican in 1633 for his astronomical theories and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest. The late Pope John Paul II apologized in 1992, saying the church was wrong to convict Galileo. Objects on display include rock fragments from the moon and Mars, and original copies of the books of Isaac Newton. The exhibition runs from March 10 to July 1.

Nuclear security takes its place in NSE’s curriculum

From MIT News: Nuclear security takes its place in NSE’s curriculum While virtually any scientific or engineering technology has the potential for misuse, nuclear technology is a special case, and security of materials and know-how has always been a priority in the nuclear community. In an age of rogue nations and violent sub-national organizations, the subject has even greater significance, and this is reflected in its important place in the curriculum of MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE). The attention to nuclear security is part of the department’s broader consideration of the interactions of nuclear technology with society as a whole. This is particularly important because fission reactors are emerging as the primary large-scale carbon-free energy generation method for the foreseeable future, notes Senior Research Scientist Richard Lanza. “If you’re going to have nuclear power, then you’re going to have to deal with the issues of proliferation and safeguards,” he explains. “This is a complex-systems problem, and the sort of problem MIT has addressed in the past, because we can bring together a lot of pieces.” From inside the Institute, these pieces include NSE faculty and members of other departments including physics, materials science and engineering and political science. Outside instructors hail from private companies and national laboratories, and government agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA; there is also collaboration on policy issues with Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In a major supplement to funding from the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, NSE recently received a $2.4 million award from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, under its Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). The Initiative is fostering development of a shared, five-course nuclear security curriculum at MIT, Pennsylvania State University and Texas A&M University; the materials will ultimately be promulgated to other universities.