NEI Nuclear Notes

One reporter we follow very closely is PBS science reporter Miles O'Brien. He's reported a number of stories on the nuclear industry in the wake of Fukushima, including a November 2011 Frontline documentary called " Nuclear Aftershocks ." As my colleague John Keeley noted in 2011, "O’Brien is a solid journo with a reputation for resisting the melodramatic and sensational in favor of substantive and balanced pieces." Needless to say we were shocked and concerned when O'Brien reported on his own website that a freak accident had resulted in doctors having to amputate his left forearm just above the elbow. Apparently, O'Brien is back in the U.S. and doing his level best to adjust to a new reality. The good news: despite the accident, O'Brien seems to be facing his disability with resolve, determination and even a little bit of humor . So I woke up to a new reality in the hospital. It’s been a challenging week dealing with the phantom pain, the...

Yesterday afternoon Miles O’Brien , correspondent for Tuesday night’s FRONTLINE piece “ Nuclear Aftershocks ,” and producer Jon Palfreman held a live chat with the public on reactions to the documentary and overall opinions as to what the future holds for nuclear energy in the United States. What did the public decide? Well, according to an unscientific poll taken from the audience during the chat—keep building more nuclear plants! Their opinions closely mirrored our October 2011 public opinion poll which found that 62 percent of respondents said they favor the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity in the United States. The chat’s audience also said that their opinions about nuclear power were not influenced by Tuesday night’s documentary: This survey result really only proves one thing—that people are generally distrustful of media reports, but interested enough in the subject matter to take part in an online chat at 1 o’clock on a Wednesday aftern...

The team at Frontline is hosting a live online chat today about last night's airing of "Nuclear Aftershocks" at 1:00 p.m. today. Some details: What’s the future of nuclear after Fukushima? Can the world’s faith in nuclear energy be restored? Or could another Fukishima-like disaster bring the nuclear age to an end? Is a nuclear plant near you at risk? Veteran science reporter Miles O’Brien and producer Jon Palfreman have been digging into these issues for the past year. We asked them to join us for a live chat to discuss these questions and take yours. Spencer Reiss, a contributing editor at WIRED who specializes in energy issues, will be our guest questioner. Click here to join the chat.

I've been perusing some of the comment strings over at Frontline since "Nuclear Aftershocks" aired last night, and I came across this comment from Neil Todreas , a professor at M.I.T who says he worked as a science advisor on last night's program. Todreas also served as co-chair of the Indian Point Independent Safety Evaluation Panel . To say that his comment is illuminating would be a serious understatement. Please note I've inserted some line breaks in the copy in order to enhance readability: The portion of the Frontline story which starts with the Fukushima accident is a worthwhile public service. However, as an initial scientific advisor to the team producing this show, I found the lack of accuracy and balance in the second half of the story covering the Indian Point reactor disturbing. The statement that that reactor lies "right on the faults" is not accurate, and the portrayal of the potential activity of the seismic faults by Professor Sykes is...

On tonight's program, we're hearing a lot about the Ramopo fault, but we're not hearing a lot from experts who disagree with Columbia University seismologist Lynn Sykes and his conclusions about earthquake risk around Indian Point Energy Center. But back in March 2011, the Journal News did ask those questions : But the U.S. Geological Survey — one of the nation's foremost research labs — said geologic evidence about the Ramapo Fault is "insufficient to demonstrate the existence of tectonic faulting or ... slip or deformation." It didn't even include the fault in calculations of earthquake hazards in 2008. Geology professor Alec Gates put it more succinctly: "The Ramapo Fault is dead," said Gates, chairman of Earth and environmental sciences at Rutgers University. "It was a big fault in the old days, but not anymore."... What differentiates this region from more earthquake-prone areas, experts say, is that it lies in the middle of the N...

We're just sitting down to watch Frontline and its "Nuclear Aftershocks" report. We'll be following the conversation on Twitter in real time on our main NEI feed (@N_E_I) beginning at 10:00 p.m. EST. You can follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag, #Frontline. Please join in. UPDATE : We've just finished watching the report, and you can take a look at what we tweeted by peeking at our timeline . Overall, Miles O'Brien and the Frontline team got some things right, especially when it came to the environmental and economic consequences of getting rid of nuclear energy on a global scale. On the other hand, there were portions of the report where significant omissions were made in terms of emergency preparedness, license renewal and the proven slow-moving character of nuclear incidents. As for next steps, I'm going home to watch the program one more time on my DVR to take some notes and then head to bed. Thanks to all our friends online who joined ...

For those of you who are watching the Frontline report, "Nuclear Aftershocks," we wanted to share with you a transcript of an interview that Frontline's Miles O'Brien conducted with Joe Pollock on December 1, 2011 (click here to download). At the time, Joe, who is now working here at NEI as a loaned employee, was working as Vice President of Operations for Indian Point Energy Center. The audio file the transcript was derived from comes in at just over one hour, so we clearly anticipate that not nearly everything that Joe said to O'Brien will be included in tonight's program. Still, we thought it could serve as a handy guide to some of the sausage making behind news reporting. Feel free to peruse it at your leisure.

Just picked up this clip from The Daily Courtland. In it, Frontline's Miles O'Brien repeats a common misconception about nuclear power plants : “The reality is, Indian Point’s technology is not cutting edge, it’s old,” correspondent Miles O’Brien says in the documentary. The documentary shows scenes of the Village of Buchanan, Mayor Sean Murray and inside Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants, discussing the relicensing of the 40-year-old plants. Again, I refer back to the transcript of the December 1, 2011 interview that O'Brien conducted with Joe Pollock, then Vice President of Operations with Indian Point Energy Center: MR. O’BRIEN: 60 years seems like a long time to run a plant. And I’ve even heard some people say, hey, maybe we can go 80 years with some of these plants. First of all, did you take a position on that yet? Or are you still – MR. POLLOCK: No, we have already – we’re working on 20 years. And when the plants were designed, they built for the 40 year life ...

Tonight, PBS will be airing a new episode of Frontline entitled, "Nuclear Aftershocks," a look at the world's reaction to the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. Here on the East Coast, the program will begin at 10:00 p.m. EST. As we noted at NEI Nuclear Notes last week, the nuclear industry cooperated extensively with Frontline on the broadcast , and over the past few days, we've been getting a better idea on the direction of the program. A good portion of the program deals with Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) and the question of whether or not the sort of incident that occurred in Japan could happen there. Chief among the questions posed by reporter Miles O'Brien is whether or not the area around IPEC could be evacuated in time in case of an accident. As it turns out, that's a question that's been recently addressed by NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko . As Bloomberg reported in Decmember : The New York City area may be safely evacuated in ...

My colleague, John Keeley, asked that I share the following note with our readers: On January 17, PBS’ "Frontline" program will air " Nuclear Aftershocks ," a documentary which purports to examine “the hazards and benefits of nuclear power.” Former CNN science reporter Miles O’Brien , with 30 years of journalism experience covering space, science and technology, leads the investigation and analysis for the program. O’Brien is a solid journo with a reputation for resisting the melodramatic and sensational in favor of substantive and balanced pieces. Would that we’d seen more of that among O’Brien’s broadcast peers covering Fukushima last spring. Still, there are focus points to the piece we already know about that cause concern. O’Brien – who has been tweeting about the production for a few weeks – and his documentary team visited Indian Point Energy Center ostensibly on the premise that what happened at Fukushima Diachii could potentially happen at the New York pl...