ABC News Intern Update

Inside NRC (subscription required) a publication of the Platts Group, has added a bevy of new details regarding the attempted investigation by ABC News interns at virtually every test and research reactor in the U.S.

Originally, we had heard that the interns were preparing a story for ABC's 20/20, but according to Inside NRC, the piece on test reactors is part of a larger ABC News series called, "Loose Nukes on Main Street: The New Terror Threat," that was scheduled to begin September 6, and run across multiple ABC News properties including Good Morning America, Nightline and its evening news program.

No word yet on whether they were planning a segment on The View.

Some of the most illuminating details of the story came from Earl Holland, director of research communications at Ohio State University. Because university officials are regarded as public officials under Ohio law Holland said, the interns violated state law because, "it is illegal for a person to use deception in interacting with a public official." Inside NRC reported that no charges had been filed.

Later, when one of the interns called Holland to attempt to see if his answers were consistent with what she had been told during her visit to the reactor, he had a surprise for her:

But at one point during the conversation, he said he told her that her question had been answered by the reactor staff during her June 22 visit. "There was a pregnant pause for about 15 or 20 seconds" before she acknowledged that she had been at the site, he said.

Holland said he responded, "You were wearing a denim skirt and a red top and you have dark brown hair, and you said this, and you said that, and here's the license number of your car."

Apparently, the keystone cops-like investigation has been the subject of conversation for a number of weeks inside the test reactor community. And as we reported on Friday, ABC News has delayed the airing of the series until October to make room for coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

More later, as it develops.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy Environment Energy Politics Technology Economics ABC News

Comments

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog