NEI Nuclear Notes

While the U.S.-Japan CNO Summit has ended and the American delegation has returned home, we're still seeing reports come in from their time in Japan. The latest is this video diary from Peter Sena, President and Chief Nuclear Officer of First Energy . In this video vignette, Sena reflect on the lessons he learned after visiting Fukushima Daiichi and meeting face to face with TEPCO employees who are working to clean up the site: As always, please keep up to date with the latest content by following #CNOSummit on Twitter.

Maria Korsnick Constellation Energy Chief Nuclear Officer Maria Korsnick was in Japan last week touring the country’s nuclear facilities with a prominent group of U.S. chief nuclear officers.  This is the second in a series of travel logs that Maria recorded. You can read an earlier diary entry from Maria, here . Additional coverage of the CNO Summit is on Twitter at #CNOSummit . Earlier this week I toured Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini. The stations are only 7.5 miles apart but the contrast is remarkable. When approaching Daiichi, we were stopped at a village 12 miles from the station. The area was previously used as a training facility for Japan's soccer team, but today it serves as temporary housing for site workers and a plant access checkpoint. Each of us received a whole body count before boarding a bus to Daiichi. The view from the bus window will stay with me forever. It looked like a war zone. The earthquake and the force of the tsunami were evident ever...

Ed Halpin, SVP & CNO of PG&E Ed Halpin, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at PG&E , was in Japan this week with virtually all of his American colleagues as part of the U.S.-Japan CNO Summit. He shared this diary entry with us after reflecting on what he saw at Fukushima Daiichi earlier this week. Be sure to follow all the updates from Japan on Twitter using the #CNOSummit hash tag. As nuclear operators, we have earned a special trust from the communities we serve. My time here reaffirms my belief that the U.S. nuclear industry must always maintain its strong focus on safe operations, intensive training programs, effective peer-review processes, and the continued sharing of lessons-learned across the nation and throughout the world. The U.S. industry has always relied on redundant layers of safety in operating its facilities and is making exceptional gains in implementing a program known as " FLEX " to further enhance safety in the face of ex...

The past two days in Japan, U.S. chief nuclear officers have toured Fukushima Daini and Daiichi, and with respect to the latter, left the experience appreciably changed. We've made a point each day of inviting the CNOs to the very back of our tour bus and asking them to share their experiences on camera with us. It's true that every CNO we spoke with identified the Daiichi visit as life-altering, but no reaction seemed better representative of the CNOs than that of Jeff Forbes , Executive Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer for Entergy Nuclear . Just watch. Please remember to follow our updates on Twitter using the #CNOSummit hash tag.

Maria Korsnick Maria Korsnick is Chief Nuclear Offiicer (CNO) of Constellation Energy . In the aftermath of Fukushima, Maria appeared in a series of videos for NEI explaining exactly what changes the industry was effecting in the wake of Fukushima .  She's in Japan this week as part of a delegation of American CNOs touring the country’s nuclear facilities as part of the U.S.-Japan CNO Summit. This is the first in a series of travel logs that Maria recorded to share her experiences. Please remember to follow our updates on Twitter using the #CNOSummit hash tag. As I boarded the plane for Japan, I wondered what it was going to be like to experience our business in a completely different culture. Once I arrived, it didn’t take long to generate some first impressions. My hosts were welcoming and polite, surroundings were neat and orderly and properties were well-cared for. It’s abundantly clear that the Japanese people take pride in their surroundings. Japan has only one-thi...

The following post was sent to us via email by John Keeley, who is travelling with a delegation of American chief nuclear officers in Japan this week. You can follow John's observations on Twitter by following @nei_media and the #CNOSummit hash tag. In summer, in morning or early afternoon, when a traveler moves by air many thousands of miles from east to west, he never quite escapes the bright sun of day. My communicator colleagues here in Japan all noted the difficulty we had securing substantive rest on our flights over the Pacific during this novel journey. We were ever chasing the sun, they said. The American chief nuclear officers we're following with our cameras and electronica this week have been, ever since their arrival here, in perpetual motion in pursuit of safety lessons. In making the unprecedented and extraordinary commitment to "put eyes on the problem" created by the 3/11 Fukushima tragedy, our CNOs, it occurs to me, are following a global commit...

From Power Engineering International : The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of Japan has decided to approve Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) plan to reactivate one of its seven nuclear power reactors at its plant in Niigata Prefecture, which has been shut down since a devastating earthquake in July 2007. The No. 7 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant of the electricity utility, known as TEPCO, may restart commercial power generation by summer when power demand typically peaks if the local authorities of Niigata Prefecture, the city of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa village give the green light, TEPCO says. ... To date, TEPCO has spent a total of some 30 billion yen [more than $300 million] to improve the quake resistance of the No. 6 and 7 reactors. The remaining five reactors are still undergoing inspection. Good luck on the restart!

Click here for the summary and here (PDF) for the complete report. From the summary: Earthquake damage to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station on 16 July appears to be limited and less than expected, according to an IAEA expert report released today and submitted to the Japanese authorities. Although it appears that the earthquake of 16 July 2007 significantly exceeded the level of the seismic input taken into account in the design of the plant, the installation behaved in a safe manner, during and after the earthquake. In particular, the automatic shutdown of the reactors of Units 3, 4 and 7, which were at full power, and of the reactor of Unit 2, which was in the start up state, were performed successfully. According to the report's findings, this is probably due to the conservatisms introduced at different stages of the design process, the so-called 'design safety margins'. "The combined effects of these conservatisms were apparently sufficient to compensa...

from Bloomberg : Damage to a nuclear power station run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. from a July 16 earthquake ``appears less than expected,'' the International Atomic Energy Agency said after a three-day examination. A team of inspectors ``has concluded that plant safety features performed as required during the earthquake,'' the IAEA, as the United Nations nuclear watchdog is known, said in an Aug. 14 statement on its Web site. ``Damage from the earthquake appears to be limited to those sections of the plant that would not affect the reactor or systems related to reactor safety.'' [...] Six IAEA experts, led by Philippe Jamet, director of the agency's installation nuclear safety division, visited the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear station, the world's biggest, from Aug. 6 to Aug. 9. The team's report will be released ``within a few days,'' according to the statement. ``The team conducted a three-day physical examination covering the complex of se...

From the Australian Broadcasting Company : The head of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts has indicated that it could be a year before a Niigata Prefecture nuclear power plant, damaged by the July 16 earthquake, can resume operations. Speaking to reporters in Tokyo after a four-day inspection of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station, Philippe Jamet, director of the IAEA's Nuclear Installation Safety Division, said the process of restarting the plant could take ''months or a year". "[It is] not something you can do very fast. It was a very big earthquake,'' he said. Japanese nuclear experts have said it would take at least a year to put the plant back into operation, but it was the first time that a third-party body such as the IAEA has expressed such a forecast. Asked whether a report the IAEA will issue about damage to the plant would contain negative news for Japan, Mr Jamet said, ''I'm not too worried".

In the immediate aftermath of last month's earthquake in Japan that led to the shutdown of the Kashiwazaki - Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant , it was hard to find reliable English language sources of information. Now, thanks to our friends at the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum ( JAIF ), we have a comprehensive list of Web sites and sources you can rely on. JAIF English home page Kashiwazaki - Kariwa NPS and Niigata Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake consolidates useful links to correct information. Japan Nuclear Technology Institute ( JANTI ) English home page Report on the impact of the Niigata - Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake on the Kashiwazaki - Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Tokyo Electric Power Company's English home page Press Releases section provides first-hand information on the updated plant status and impact of the earthquake. Nuclear Safety Commission The NSC views on, and future actions to take for, the impacts due to the Niigata -ken Chuetsu - oki Earthquake in 2007 ( PD...

Our friend NNadir weighs in once again .

Details from Reuters .

Let me make something clear at the outset: All over the world, the nuclear industry takes the events in Japan very seriously. With that in mind, here's some proper perspective from We Support Lee on just how much radioactive material was released from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant this week: According to news sources , the leak of radiation at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan was 90,000 Becquerels , which is one billionth of the legal limit for radioactivity release. 90,000 Bq (Becquerels) means 90,000 disintegrations per second. [...] How much is 90,000 Bq in the medical world? Medical patients regularly receive 240 million Becquerels during treatments for hyperthyroidism. That's 2667 times what was released into the Sea of Japan. These patients, some of whom are probably at a clinic in your town right now, watch tv, walk around, sit, talk, read, and disintegrate 131I at 2667 times the rate that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant...

Click here for the latest press release from Japan.

We all make mistakes, but this one from The Daily Green about the fire at the nuclear power plant in Japan just about takes the cake: The earthquake caused a fire in a transistor, led to the leak of water with low radioactivity, and prompted the automatic shutdown of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. reactors. No rest for the weary.

As you might imagine, I've been monitoring a lot of stories from around the Web about the situation in Japan. And as you might surmise, while an incident like this is always a cause for concern, it's not a cause for hysteria -- unless of course we're talking about the usual suspects. One of the more egregious examples out there right now has to be this diary over at Daily Kos that mixes just enough truth with anti-nuke talking points to drum up all the fear and hysteria you might need. But then again, even in the wake of the over the top analysis, there are a number of readers who are digging in and fighting back. Here are a few samples: First, allow me to qualify my post by saying that I find the parent diary to be a fairly obnoxious throwback to the type of thinking from the 1970s that bought us another 30 years worth of CO2-spewing coal power, and the fact that it rocketed to the top of the recommended list speaks to Kossack's relative lack of detached analysis on...

As you might imagine, I've spent a lot of time over the past few days monitoring news coming out of Japan about the earthquake and its effects on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Plant. Like a lot of folks, I use the Drudge Report to point me to breaking news sources -- which is why I sat up straight when I saw the following headline: 'REACTOR ISN'T IN GOOD SHAPE': Company Says Radioactive Leak Was Bigger... But, as Headless Blogger has pointed out, when you follow the link in question, the quote that Drudge highlighted isn't anywhere to be seen in the story . Never mind the fact that there are seven reactors at the plant, not just one. I think this might be a good time to point out that in the immediate aftermath of an incident like this one, facts often get trampled by hysteria. While I've been a fan of Drudge for a very long time -- going back to the days when he was syndicated over at Wired -- it's important to remember that he wants as many click-th...

The following report comes from our friends at NucNet : There was no environmental impact as a result of yesterday’s automatic shut-down of three units at Japan’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant following an earthquake. The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) today confirmed for NucNet that units 3, 4 and 7 of the plant, in Niigata prefecture in the west of the country, shut down safely. The plant’s other units – Kashiwazaki Kariwa-1, -2, -5 and -6 – were already shut down at the time of the earthquake for periodic inspections. At unit 6, about 1.2 cubic metres of water leaked from a system draining water to the sea, but the level of radioactivity was within the permissible limit. Inside the reactor building, a total of 1.5 litres of radioactive aqueous liquids were spilled. At unit 3, a fire broke out in a main transformer in the non-nuclear part of the plant and was extinguished within two hours. A JAIF spokesman said: “The cloud of black smoke that was filmed by television c...