Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Contaminated Water Leaks Into Ocean Near Fukushima

December 7, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility, said about 40 gallons of water containing radioactive strontium drained into the ocean following a leak in desalination equipment. TEPCO said it is likely to have little effect on the environment.
More rice shipments have been banned from a district of Fukushima City after discovery of contamination. Inspections found radioactive cesium above the government-set safety limit in rice from the Watari district and blocked shipments from farms located there. Bans were previously imposed on another district of Fukushima City and two districts of Date City.
Fukushima Prefecture will spray radiation-absorbing agents onto farmland and scrape off the topsoil in an effort to remove low levels of contamination. Workers also will remove tree bark in orchards and clean the trees with jets of water.
The lower house of Japan’s legislature has voted approval for nuclear cooperation agreements with Jordan, Russia, Vietnam and South Korea. The legislation, which is expected to clear the upper house, would permit Japan to export nuclear energy facilities and transfer related technology.

Media Highlights

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility may have startled some in the U.S. industry, but no one in the industry was surprised the operator regained control of the reactors, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a meeting with the media on Tuesday. New York Times writer Matt Wald reports in the Green blog.
The cost of nuclear energy in Japan is predicted to double, including government subsidies, the Mainichi Daily News reports. That would put it on a par with other thermal energy sources.
A producer of milk powder in Japan has recalled product manufactured shortly after the nuclear accident after traces of radioactive cesium were detected, Bloomberg News reports. The level of cesium in the powdered milk, used in baby formula, is within government safety limits and would not result in health effects.

Upcoming Events

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and stakeholders will discuss the post-Fukushima task force recommendations on protection of equipment during an extreme event and adding equipment to accommodate a multi-unit event in a public meeting Dec. 8.

This is the last of the thrice weekly Fukushima Updates. A weekly edition will be published each Monday starting December 12. Of course, we’ll resume more frequent updates if events warrant.

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...

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