Wednesday Update

From the new NEI Japan site.

Plant Status

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has repaired faulty hoses and restarted the new cooling system for the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. The system resumed operations after the repair. The system, which on June 27 began circulating decontaminated water through reactors 1, 2 and 3, had developed leaks in pipes and hoses shortly after it was activated.
Work has started to build a giant polyester cover over reactor building 1 to contain the spread of radioactive materials. A crane that can lift up to 750 tons is at the Fukushima Daiichi site removing debris from the top of the building, which was damaged in a hydrogen explosion March 12. Later, the crane will be used to install the 175-foot-tall cover, which is expected to be complete by late September.
TEPCO has begun injecting inert nitrogen gas into the containment vessel of reactor 2 at Fukushima Daiichi to prevent the possibility of hydrogen ignition. Workers have been pumping nitrogen into the reactor 1 containment for several weeks. TEPCO is scheduled to begin injecting nitrogen into the reactor 3 containment by mid-July.

Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues

TEPCO has released the English translation of a timeline covering its responses to the earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi during the first five days after the accident.
The mayor of Genkai town in western Japan has said he will approve resumption of the nuclear energy facility there by early next month. Mayor Hideo Kishimoto and Banri Kaieda, minister of economy and industry, both said they believe the Genkai nuclear plant is prepared to ensure safety in the event of a serious accident including earthquakes and tsunamis.
Toshio Nishizawa became TEPCO’s president on Tuesday, taking over from Masataka Shimizu, who resigned last month. Nishizawa said he would do “everything he can to control the crisis” at Fukushima Daiichi.
TEPCO has won institutional shareholder backing to keep its reactors in service. Opponents failed to win enough support for a motion to decommission all reactors and stop building new ones. Chugoku Electric Power Co. shareholders voted to continue the utility's plans to build a second nuclear plant.

Media Highlights

Some 34,000 children in Kawamata, Fukushima prefecture, will receive dosimeters to measure their radiation exposure, CBC News reports.
The flooding at the Fort Calhoun nuclear energy facility in Nebraska “is not another Fukushima,” Gary Gates, president and CEO of the Omaha Public Power District, told CNN. Gates said water has not breached the buildings housing the reactor core and used fuel, and he’s confident it won't. The plant has been off-line for refueling since early April.

New Products

NEI’s new website provides up-to-date information on the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility and the U.S. nuclear industry’s response to events in Japan.

Upcoming Events

The task force reviewing U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission processes and regulations in light of the accident at Fukushima is expected to release its report on July 12. The task force will brief the commissioners on the report at a public meeting on July 19. The briefing will be webcast.

Making Clouds for a Living

Donell Banks works at Southern Nuclear’s Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 as a shift supervisor in Operations, but is in the process of transitioning to his newly appointed role as the daily work controls manager. He has been in the nuclear energy industry for about 11 years.

I love what I do because I have the unique opportunity to help shape the direction and influence the culture for the future of nuclear power in the United States. Every single day presents a new challenge, but I wouldn't have it any other way. As a shift supervisor, I was primarily responsible for managing the development of procedures and programs to support operation of the first new nuclear units in the United States in more than 30 years. As the daily work controls manager, I will be responsible for oversight of the execution and scheduling of daily work to ensure organizational readiness to operate the new units.

I envision a nuclear energy industry that leverages the technology of today to improve efficiency…

Why America Needs the MOX Facility

If Isaiah had been a nuclear engineer, he’d have loved this project. And the Trump Administration should too, despite the proposal to eliminate it in the FY 2018 budget.

The project is a massive factory near Aiken, S.C., that will take plutonium from the government’s arsenal and turn it into fuel for civilian power reactors. The plutonium, made by the United States during the Cold War in a competition with the Soviet Union, is now surplus, and the United States and the Russian Federation jointly agreed to reduce their stocks, to reduce the chance of its use in weapons. Over two thousand construction workers, technicians and engineers are at work to enable the transformation.

Carrying Isaiah’s “swords into plowshares” vision into the nuclear field did not originate with plutonium. In 1993, the United States and Russia began a 20-year program to take weapons-grade uranium out of the Russian inventory, dilute it to levels appropriate for civilian power plants, and then use it to produce…

Nuclear: Energy for All Political Seasons

The electoral college will soon confirm a surprise election result, Donald Trump. However, in the electricity world, there are fewer surprises – physics and economics will continue to apply, and Republicans and Democrats are going to find a lot to like about nuclear energy over the next four years.

In a Trump administration, the carbon conversation is going to be less prominent. But the nuclear value proposition is still there. We bring steady jobs to rural areas, including in the Rust Belt, which put Donald Trump in office. Nuclear plants keep the surrounding communities vibrant.

We hold down electricity costs for the whole economy. We provide energy diversity, reducing the risk of disruption. We are a critical part of America’s industrial infrastructure, and the importance of infrastructure is something that President-Elect Trump has stressed.

One of our infrastructure challenges is natural gas pipelines, which have gotten more congested as extremely low gas prices have pulled m…

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