NEI Nuclear Notes

You can tell right away that this report from the World Uranium Symposium in Quebec City is not very friendly toward nuclear energy, but I have to hand it to redoubtable attendee Arnie Gundersen for coming up with the least apropos simile ever: The nuclear industry is gamely trying to rebrand nuclear power as the solution to climate change, but, as former nuclear industry executive Arnie Gundersen quipped at the symposium, "Trying to solve global warming by building reactors is like trying to solve global hunger by serving caviar." Gundersen means that nuclear energy is as expensive in its way as caviar. But caviar is also a deluxe food product. That works better. Caviar may be a poor choice for solving world hunger because its output is relatively sparse. That’s what makes it deluxe. The deluxe nature of nuclear energy is that, once you spend the (admittedly lush) sum to build a reactor, you have inexpensive, emission-free energy for 60 or more years that is f...

Tom Kauffman The following is a guest post written by NEI's Tom Kauffman. Though Tom works in NEI's media relations shop, he also spent 23 years working at  Three Mile Island , seven of those as a licensed reactor operator. Former NRC Chairman Dale Klein  was justified in criticizing an anti-nuclear panel’s comparison  of the potential of an accident at nuclear energy facilities in New York and Massachusetts with the 2011 accident at Fukushima Daiichi . “Comparing the accident at Fukushima Daiichi to a hypothetical accident at Indian Point or Pilgrim is intellectually dishonest and resembles the classic fear mongering intended to create unnecessary anxiety," Klein said. "Comparing the US nuclear power plants to those that have not added new safety systems and procedures is simply wrong.” As the former Chairman points out, the U.S. and Japanese nuclear industries have very different approaches to nuclear safety. The differences developed over several decades ...

Tom Kauffman The following is a guest post written by NEI's Tom Kauffman. Tom works in NEI's media relations shop and spent 23 years working at  Three Mile Island , seven of those as a licensed reactor operator. This week in New York and Boston, anti-nuclear activists have scheduled panel discussions designed to scare the public into pressuring politicians into shuttering local nuclear power plants. The members of the panel are: former NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko; Peter Bradford, former NRC commissioner; and  anti-nuke extremist Arnie Gundersen, an engineer who never lets science or facts get in his way. So what can you expect to hear from this trio? We figure it's more or less a combination of the three following assertions: 1) The nuclear accident in Japan can happen here. 2) All U.S. nuclear energy facilities are unsafe. 3) All U.S. reactors should be permanently shut down. On the other hand, there are some facts they are sure to ignore: Not one person ...

For a number of weeks, we've been paying close attention to our colleagues at Southern California Edison (SCE) as they work to resolve a problem with the steam generators at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station or SONGS. Unit #2 and #3 at SONGS have been out of service for several weeks ever since leaks were detected in the steam generators of both units. In a press briefing earlier this week, SCE's CNO delivered some good news, and said that there's a 50% chance that one or both of the plant's reactors will be back in operation by the Summer . The thing to remember here is that SCE and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission won't allow the plant's two reactors to restart until both parties are convinced that it is safe to do so. For real time updates from SCE, please visit SONGSCommunity.com . A number of outside observers, most notably Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates , have been commenting on the situation as well, with Gundersen publishing...

Nuclear consultants Fairewinds Associates and anti-nuclear activists Friends of the Earth are at it again with a new “report” that seeks to create concern, with little to no substance, over steam generator tube leaks at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) . The report, “ Steam Generator Failures at San Onofre ,” claims that without a thorough root cause analysis of why the plant’s recently installed steam generator tubes have become worn, that: “…radioactive releases might be significantly larger than those that occurred after the January 2012 tube leak. Such an accident would cause implementation of the California emergency evacuation plan and closing of the San Clemente beach and Interstate I-5, potentially for an extended period of time.” Fairewinds’ opinion misleads the general public to believe that the plant already released a large amount of radiation, which in fact, it has not. In a February 17 press release , Southern California Edison (SCE) clarified: ...

It's been a full week since we first raised some questions about a claim made by Arnie Gundersen about soil samples he took in Japan recently. Gundersen claims the lab results he obtained indicated that the soil would be classified as radioactive waste here in the U.S. -- a statement that was reported by the Associated Press in a subsequent story . We had our doubts about the story, so NEI decided to do some investigating of its own. 24 hours later, we sent an email to the AP asking questions about how they went about reporting the story. We wanted to know how they were able to verify Gundersen's claims without working with a radiation protection professional who could properly interpret the data. We wanted to know why the story lacked any specifics about the lab results that Gundersen provided to the AP. We were also concerned that the AP identified Gundersen as a "nuclear consultant" when in fact he has long track record as an anti-nuclear activist and is current...

It's been about 24 hours since we sent our last note to the Associated Press concerning claims that Arnie Gundersen has made about some soil samples he took in Japan recently -- soil samples that he says would have been classified as radioactive waste here in the U.S. While we've yet to get a response from the AP, we're going to open an additional avenue in our inquiry to get to the bottom of this story. Here's a note I sent to Arnie Gundersen at Fairewinds Associates a few minutes ago. Dear Mr. Gundersen, For the past week or so, many of us here at NEI have had serious questions concerning claims you made to the Associated Press about the soil samples you took in Tokyo. In order for us to resolve these questions, we'd like to ask you to provide us with a complete copy of the results of the test results you've been referencing. We'd also like to obtain contact information for the laboratory that you used, in order that we may be able to ask some follow up ...

Our readers will recall that last week we forwarded a note to some editors at the Associated Press concerning some irregularities I identified in a story that ran earlier in the week that contained a claim from anti-nuclear activist Arnie Gundersen that soil samples he took in Tokyo would be classified as low level radioactive waste in the U.S. Late on Friday afternoon we received a one line answer from Cara Rubinsky, the AP's New England Editor: "We have reviewed your concerns and obtained a copy of the report from the lab that did the testing. We do not believe a correction is warranted." Considering the details we shared in our message to the AP, the response seemed less than adequate. Here's the latest note I shared this morning with Rubinsky, AP Editor Evan Berland and reporter Dave Gram. Hi Cara, Please forgive me if I find your response to be insufficient, and hardly in the spirit or the letter of your organization's own published standards. In fact, your...

By now I'm sure most of you have seen the AP story that ran earlier this week that quoted Arnie Gundersen saying that soil samples he took in Tokyo would be classified as low level radioactive waste in the U.S. Yesterday, I published a short blog post on the subject after speaking with NEI's Chief Health Physicist, Ralph Andersen. After discussing the situation further with our media relations staff, we decided to take our case directly to the AP. The following note was sent to AP Editors Karen Testa and Evan Berland in Philadelphia this afternoon. We'll provide updates once we hear back from them. Dear Ms. Testa: I am writing to you in reference to an unbylined Associated Press story that appeared in a number of newspapers earlier this week with the headline, " Vt. consultant Gundersen: Tokyo soil is N-waste ." The claim made in this article by Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates that soil collected in Japan could be classified as radioactive w...