Nuclear Reactor Pool Fire/Huge Risks in U.S. According to Unpublicized NRC Study

[kristopher]

Petition by these groups filed with NRC

Nuclear Reactor Pool Fire/Huge Risks in U.S. – 4.1 Million Displaced, 10,000 Square Miles Uninhabitable If Disaster Happens, According to Unpublicized NRC Study

34 GROUPS: REACTOR LICENSING SHOULD BE SUSPENDED UNTIL NRC ADDRESSES NEW FINDINGS ON NUCLEAR REACTOR POOL FIRE RISKS, COSTS

New NRC Study Shows Even a Small Reactor Pool Fire Could Displace 4.1 Million People; Make More than 9,000 Square Miles Uninhabitable.

In addition to the NRC’s new data on risks, the groups also pointed out that the Commission has concluded spent reactor fuel could be transferred out of high-density storage fuels (where the fire risk is the greatest) in a cost-effective manner.

The groups pointed to the findings of an unpublicized NRC study of spent fuel storage at Peach Bottom, a reactor in Pennsylvania. This investigation showed that if even a small fraction of the inventory of a Peach Bottom reactor pool were released to the environment in a severe spent fuel pool accident, an average area of 9,400 square miles (24,300 square kilometers) would be rendered uninhabitable for decades, displacing as many as 4.1 million people.

As the groups point out in their petition, the NRC has never before acknowledged such dire pool fire risks in its reactor licensing decisions. The information undermines the NRC’s conclusion in prior environmental studies for reactor licensing and re-licensing that the impacts of spent fuel storage during reactor operation are insignificant.

[...]

The NRC has concluded that the “safety” benefit of reducing the density of spent fuel in storage pools would not be great enough to justify an order requiring all operating reactor licensees to thin out their pools. But the NRC focused on the risk of cancer, which is only one effect of a pool fire. The groups contend that NRC must protect not only public health and safety but the environment as well. The environment includes a host of broader values, such as ecological health and socioeconomic well-being. The Fukushima accident illustrates the fact that land contamination and dislocation of people can have enormous effects on society and the environment, regardless of the number of deaths or cancers.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/mlf5yby

PDF of full petition here:
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/fuelstoragepetition21314.pdf

[madokie]

1. Just stop and give this some thought for a moment

We have 100 of these still in operation, may even be a couple more I'm not sure
Talk about playing with fire.
The thing is we didn't have to find ourselves in this precarious position if not for having been sold a pig in a poke, so to say

In most cases death comes after much time has lapsed so its hard to tell just how many deaths can be attributed to the use of nuclear energy up to now

[kristopher]

14. Yes, they love to hide behind the difficulty in tracking nuclear related cancer related fatalities

Depending on the nuclear village for information on risk is like depending on the fossil fuel industry and their "science" for understanding climate change.

Read post 26 this thread for the way they lowball the risk of serious accidents.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112759049

[madokie]

15. Without a doubt

All it takes to realize the dangers of nuclear energy is to look at the size of the exclusion zones of both Chernobyl and Fukushima. Fukushima would be a lot and I mean a lot bigger if not that it is sited where the prevailing winds are blowing out to sea. The jury is still out on that one as it is anyway. Its a long way from over. I doubt anyone alive today will see this to the end.
If nuclear energy was safe then why is there even a need for an exclusion zone ever? To me how much further does this debate of whether nuclear energy is safe need to go. How many times do we have to be slapped in the face before we get it? Its stupid to not be transitioning away from it as it is already.

Pripyat Russia could be one of our cities

[indie9197]

2. Am not pro-nuke but if we had Yucca Mtn

things could be a lot safer. Lots of plants now have dry cask storage for spent fuel where the fuel is basically sitting in a parking lot outside. I have not heard of the scenario where a spent fuel pool catches on fire.

[kristopher]

3. The solution to *this* problem would be to move the SNF to dry storage

You might like to read the filing
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/fuelstoragepetition21314.pdf

Here's a snip:

 In the Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer Proceeding, the NRC Staff found that if even a small fraction of the inventory of a Peach Bottom reactor pool were released to the environment in a severe spent fuel pool accident, an average area of 9,400 square miles (24,300 square kilometers) would be rendered uninhabitable, and that 4.1 million people would be displaced over the long-term.5 This information is “new” because no EIS for reactor licensing, GEIS for reactor re-licensing, or EA for standardized design certification has specified the size of the area that could be contaminated or the number of people who could be displaced for an extended period of time by a high-density spent fuel pool fire. The information is “significant” because it undermines the NRC’s conclusion in environmental studies for reactor licensing and re-licensing that the impacts of spent fuel storage during reactor operation are insignificant. Such widespread contamination and long-term displacement of people could have enormous socioeconomic impacts, as witnessed by the effects of the Fukushima accident, where “land contamination has disrupted the lives of a large number of Japanese citizens.”6

 In the Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer Proceeding, the NRC Staff conducted a series of cost-benefit analyses comparing the costs and safety benefits of expediting the transfer of spent fuel from high-density pool storage to dry storage. These cost-benefit analyses included “sensitivity studies” showing that the safety benefits of reducing the inventory of high-density storage pools, combined with dry storage, outweigh the costs.7 The Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer Proceeding thus shows for the first time that – even when only health-and-safety-related benefits are considered rather than broader environmental benefits -- a combination of reduced-density pool storage and dry storage constitutes a reasonable alternative for mitigating the risks of high-density pool storage of spent fuel.8 In other words, the Staff has acknowledged for the first time that the potential consequences of a pool fire are severe enough to warrant mitigation, regardless of the low probability estimated by the NRC for such an accident. No EIS for reactor licensing, GEIS for reactor re-licensing, or EA for reactor design certification has acknowledged that mitigation of pool fires is warranted or weighed the costs and environmental benefits of such mitigation measures.

 In the Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer Proceeding, the NRC concluded for the first time that the likelihood of spent fuel pool fires could be affected by reactor accidents.9 Although the NRC did not evaluate the issue in the Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer Proceeding due to resource limitations,10 it undertook a study of the phenomenon in a Level 3 probabilistic risk assessment (“PRA”) for Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Units 1 and 2,” which is now an “ongoing project.”11 At the Commission briefing on January 6, 2014, the NRC Staff confirmed that it is “already doing the analysis for spent fuel pool.”12 While the PRA is not finished, the NRC has planned it in such a way that important results will be available before the final product is completed.13 No EIS for reactor licensing, GEIS for reactor re-licensing, or EA for reactor design certification has identified or evaluated the contribution of reactor accidents to the risk of spent fuel pool fires. The NRC should consider any new information that has been generated by the PRA regarding the effect of reactor accidents on pool fire risks.

[indie9197]

5. I scanned the article, do not understand legaleze so much

Obviously a lot of money invested in that 40 page (insert legal term).
I think a more effective method of shutting down nuclear power plants would be to spread the truth that no insurance company will cover a person who loses health, life, or property as a result of a nuclear accident.

[Altair_IV]

9. That's not a truth; it's a falsehood

spread the truth that no insurance company will cover a person who loses health, life, or property as a result of a nuclear accident.

The above statement is *not* true; it's propaganda, it is a falsehood. Commercial insurance companies like American Nuclear Insurers *do* insure nuclear power plants:

http://www.nuclearinsurance.com/

American Nuclear Insurers (ANI) is a joint underwriting association created by some of the largest insurance companies in the United States. Our purpose is to pool the financial assets pledged by our member companies to provide the significant amount of property and liability insurance required for nuclear power plants and related facilities throughout the world.

Altair_IV

[kristopher]

13. No, it is the truth

Just because they have insurance doesn't mean they have Enough insurance. With current liability limits there is nearly nothing left over for covering damages to and losses suffered by off site victims.

[Altair_IV]

16. Reading Comprehension Problem?

The original statement was *not* whether they had enough insurance, which is a debatable topic. The original statement was that there was *no* insurance from a commercial insurers and that is a falsehood. Sorry, you don't get to take the original false statement and then morph it into something else by adding additional conditions so that it becomes true, and then claim that I was wrong.

Altair_IV

[kristopher]

22. A consortium of nuclear companies that self insure doesn't really qualify as "commercial insurer"...

...unless you are straining at gnats; a favorite hobby of yours, we know.

From the view of the public, they are not covered and there is no policy they can buy that will cover them - which is what I believe indie9197 was saying.

In an attempt to deploy one of your canned misdirections, YOU were the one that brought up the self insurance scam the nuclear industry is using to avoid paying market rates for the actual amount of insurance they would need to cover the losses from accidents that might result from their technology.

This analysis is extremely conservative as it uses the $100B in damages from earlier studies instead of the $250B and rising figure we see with Fukushima - and remember the high density population areas were spared by a fortunate wind that blew to sea instead of inland.

Although the probability of a large nuclear accident within the United States is considered quite low, that risk is not zero. Further, the damages from even a moderate accident are potentially so enormous that they would likely bankrupt the firm involved. Costs resulting from a large release of radiation from a damaged nuclear reactor or spent-fuel pool at a U.S. facility could exceed $100 billion (Beyea, Lyman, and von Hippel 2004, cited in Lochbaum 2007).
Moreover, risks in the nuclear power indus- try are systemic. An accident in one place has ripple effects throughout the industry, given that many reactors rely on the same technologies, were built by the same contractors, or employ similar defenses (in the case of a terrorist attack). Even when systems and technologies are not overlap- ping, an accident anywhere raises public concern everywhere, and reactor oversight (and associated regulatory and remediation compliance costs) are likely to rise.

One economic response to this problem would be to include the price of risk of the entire nuclear fuel cycle into insurance contracts or other methods of syndicating risk, and let prices rise where they may. If insurance coverage were not available or only available at very high costs, innovative risk- management tools such as risk pooling (as is done under Price-Anderson) or catastrophe bonds could be developed. If even these tools proved to be inadequate or too expensive, markets would be directed toward alternative and less expensive ways to meet the demand for energy services.

Unfortunately, the political response to the problem of high risk in the nuclear industry has followed the opposite path. The statutory caps on the level of private accident insurance that the industry is required to carry under the Price- Anderson Act essentially dampen the impact of risk on the price of nuclear power, and they weaken the political and economic incentives to increase the level of private insurance coverage.

NUCLEAR POWER:Still Not Viable without Subsidies
Doug Koplow pg 77-78
Earth Track, Inc 2011

[FBaggins]

23. ANI is not "nuclear companies that self insure"

From the view of the public, they are not covered and there is no policy they can buy that will cover them

Bull. You don't speak for "the public"... and the people who do represent the public (by wide majorities in both parties) say that they are covered.

the actual amount of insurance they would need

Again... a fiction entirely of your imagination. You've never had a response for the simple reality that no individual or business carries insurance sufficient to cover an absolute worst case.

[kristopher]

24. That is exactly what the major accident coverage is - and they don't pay "premiums"

6.1.2. Mandated Liability Coverage Is Small Relative to Potential Damages
Price-Anderson mandates two tiers of coverage for nuclear reactors. The first is a conventional liability insurance policy that provides $375 million in primary coverage per reactor. As of 2008 (with somewhat lower coverage levels than now in
effect), the average annual premium for a single-unit reactor site was $400,000; the premiums for a second or third reactor at the same site are discounted to reflect a sharing of limits (NRC 2008a). While coverage has increased incrementally over time, these increases are small: on an inflation-adjusted basis, coverage is less than 10 percent higher than the $60 million in primary insurance required under the original act 50 years ago. The lack of useful actuarial data may have justified lower-than-appropriate limits in the 1950s. However, improved data since that time, as well as the greater sophistication of insurance underwriting, should result in primary insurance policies that are substantially larger than today’s Price-Anderson requirements.
A second tier of coverage under Price-Anderson involves retrospective premiums paid into a common pool by every reactor if any reactor in the country experiences an accident with damages exceeding the primary insurance cap. The retrospective premiums have a gross value of $111.9 million available for damages, with an optional 5 percent surcharge available for legal costs only (bringing the combined total to $117.5 million) (ANI 2010, Holt 2010). Retrospective premium payments are capped at $17.5 million per year per reactor and thus can take seven years or more to be paid in full. Some additional coverage is available via the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act: if the president declares a nuclear accident an emergency or major disaster, disaster relief could flow to first responders. Stafford Act funds would also come from taxpayers, and thus would be subsidies as well.

Koplow pg 79-80

"The lack of useful actuarial data may have justified lower-than-appropriate limits in the 1950s. However, improved data since that time, as well as the greater sophistication of insurance underwriting, should result in primary insurance policies that are substantially larger than today’s Price-Anderson requirements."

" Retrospective premium payments are capped at $17.5 million per year per reactor and thus can take seven years or more to be paid in full."

50 years after it received help getting started in the form of the Price Anderson Act, you wants to continue to subsidize the nuclear industry by allowing it to shift the cost of risks associated with its operation onto the backs of the public.

Why is that right?

Well, according to you its right because the airline industry has managed to hang onto a similar form of risk shifting. That doesn't justify the special treatment for the nuclear industry since two "wrongs" do not equal one "right". The airlines serve a social useful function but in fact the rail system as a viable alternative suffers greatly from a deck stacked against it. removing liability limits on airlines might make a difference, but the worst case scenarios for airlines are so vastly less expensive than those that could be expected with a nuclear accident, that I don't think it would actually make much of a competitive difference to rail.

That isn't the case for the alternatives to nuclear however. Just like with fossil fuels, one of the primary advantages of renewable technologies are their very low level of negative externalities. It isn't hard to understand why we want coal to accept it's externalized cost into its pricing structure, so why would it be any more difficult to thing that nuclear should meet the same standard?

We don't need nuclear; all you are doing with your antirenewable pronuclear crusade is slowing the transition away from carbon. There are reasons Roger Ailes and others like him embrace nuclear power, and your continued zeal to ignore those reasons belies all you say about your positive motives.

[kristopher]

27. "James Hansen" is not "the scientific community"

He is one scientist speaking outside of his field of expertise. What is extremely ironic is that he is giving voice to an opinion that is as much a minority among energy systems experts as climate deniers are in climate science.

Not only do we not need nuclear power, nuclear power actually acts to slow the transition away from fossil fuels.

[kristopher]

32. Being "pronuclear" is not the same as proving nuclear is needed

Provide an analysis that shows the need for nuclear power and then we might have something to discuss.
You can't because there are none. All discussions of nuclear power as part of a global warming solution start with an assumption of need; NONE provide evidence of need.

Renewables on the other hand, have a mountain of evidence showing their ability to function as a stand alone distributed system that is superior to centralized thermal. They deploy far more rapidly than nuclear and in the long term they are less expensive, safer, cleaner and more reliable than nuclear and coal/ccs.

Show the science if you have it.

[kristopher]

36. I said show the science if you have it - apparently you don't have it.

Specific citation in any standard format will do fine.

We'll wait.

[kristopher]

40. No, by any standard that is not better.

But hey, Roger Ailes and all the climate denying non-libertarian Republicans in Congress think you're right. The libertarians think nuclear is too expensive and want to stick with coal.

That constitutes nuclear power's most influential constituency.

[kristopher]

42. A citation for the claims you've made, please.

You assert that nuclear is needed yet can show nothing to support that statement except specious appeals to illegitimate authority.

If you can't provide some evidence in the literature to support your contention then it is clear you have no evidence and that your claims to "science" are as empty as the rest of your rhetoric.

[kristopher]

44. You said you were going by NAS work from 1992 - start there.

You made the claim and then referred to specific, published work you said you were citing; and yet now you can't provide a Proper Citation that allows others to verify the accuracy of your claim.

If you can't do that you're not much of a "scientist", are you? I mean, that is first year undergrad level.

[kristopher]

46. So you don't have a 1992 reference as you claimed.

And neither of those references support your claim that we need nuclear.

It would seem that your claims to being "a scientist" similarly lack credibility.

[kristopher]

48. You said you have a reference and clearly you don't.

Whether it is on the web or not is irrelevant to you ability to provide a Proper Citation.

You do have enough education to know what its called when you deliberately make false statements, don't you?

[caraher]

59. Did you actually read the POPA report?

Because they seem fairly sanguine about renewables penetrations up top 30%:

lthough small penetrations of renewable generation on the grid can be smoothly integrated, accommodating more than approximately 30% electricity generation from these renewable sources will require new approaches to extending and operating the grid.

(from the Introduction, p. 6 [p.8 of the .pdf])

I wonder which laws of physics forgot when the following folks approved that?

George Crabtree (Argonne National Laboratory)
Jim Misewich (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Ron Ambrosio (IBM)
Kathryn Clay (Auto Alliance)
Paul DeMartini (Southern California Edison)
Revis James (Electric Power Research Institute)
Mark Lauby (North American Electric Reliability Corporation)
Vivek Mohta (Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources)
John Moura (North American Electric Reliability Corporation)
Peter Sauer (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
Francis Slakey (American Physical Society)
Jodi Lieberman (American Physical Society)
Humayun Tai (McKinsey and Co.)

[caraher]

57. "We don't need citations, statistical studies, and what not. "

You do if you want to publish your physics! Otherwise you're not doing physics but, at best, scientific masturbation.

I defy you to point to single article in the primary physics research literature, published within the last century, that includes no citations.

The fact is that this alleged 20% cap is about a complex technological system, and while yes, the law of conservation of energy must be satisfied, you have in now way established in any of your incarnations that the 20% figure is a hard cap imposed by physics. Everyone would agree that there is some limit, somewhere, to the ability of something like our current power distribution system to function essentially in the way that it generally does, to the fraction of the power renewables could supply without causing trouble. But you can't suss that limit out of back-of-the-envelope calculations with any substantial precision.

I've been through the reports cited by this and previous alter egos and the way they talk about "20%" is very broad and implies not that 20% is an absolute hard-and-fast upper limit, but rather that under 20% penetration the variability issue isn't a serious reason not to expand further. The real significance is that as one exceeds 20% it becomes important to proceed carefully... but as everyone here knows, in the US we're so far below that level that those challenges should not affect near-term planning.

In any event, the need to improve the grid is not limited to variability associated with wind and solar. Consider, for instance, a report from Oak Ridge a few years ago, "Nuclear Generating Stations and Transmission Grid Reliability"

Twenty-eight new nuclear plants are now being considered for license application according the to the NRC. Some of these may be completed as early as 2014, while it can easily take ten years or more to design, permit, and build new transmission lines. Presently, operating margins are being eroded on the transmission system because of the connection of new generation, higher flows, and the delay in building new transmission. The connection of these new nuclear plants to the grid will present a significant problem to grid reliability unless design improvements are made to enable them to regulate voltage and frequency as conventional generators do.

Of course, it turns out that particular threat to grid reliability did not emerge... but my real point is that one could just as easily concoct a claim that the "laws of physics" preclude adding many more nuclear plants because of grid reliability concerns as the claim that 20% represents some impenetrable barrier to renewables. Closer to the truth would be that we're going to need to manage decarbonization of our electricity system carefully, regardless of the favored technologies.

[madokie]

49. Nuclear power plants are not good at load following

the frequency doesn't change, the voltage on the other hand do as a need for more or less energy is needed. Either you don't know what you're talking about or you're lying to us. Not just this time but all through your screeds both as pamW and now as Altair_IV I find this to be true. Its the same pattern you two have. FYI
The frequency is controlled by the rotational speed of the generator which must always remain the same, (60 HZ) the voltage is controlled by voltage control circuits which changes the voltage both electrically and by controlling the amount of steam fed to the turbine, as the line voltage dictates. Another one of your 'do not fully understand' fallacies. If the frequency of one plant could change it wouldn't be long until that plant will self destruct.
You don't speed up or slow down an AC generator to regulate voltage output, not with an AC system anyway. With a dc system yes you can

Nuclear power plants

Nuclear (and coal) power plants may take many hours, if not days, to achieve a steady state power output. In general it is not economical for large thermal installations such as nuclear power plants to practice load following

You might want to read this page to get a feel for how all this works Altair_IV because right now you don't seem to fully understand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant

[FBaggins]

51. That's not quite true.

It isn't that they can't... it's that there isn't any need to and it's less efficient - so few of them do it. Baseload plants tend to run as close to 100% capacity as they can. In the case of nuclear power, there would be no savings by "throttling down", so why do it?

But it isn't as if they can't do it. The French do it all the time because nuclear represents too large a proportion of their generation and electrification means that small temperature changes can mean large swings in demand. And... quite obviously... if reactors on naval vessels couldn't vary their output flexibly... the ships would have a tough time operating... wouldn't they?

Newer designs (particularly the upcoming SMRs) are even better at load following.

[madokie]

53. You don't change the rotational speed of an AC generator to regulate the voltage output

the HZ yes but not the voltage.
The statement was that Nuclear or coal are not good at being used as load following due to their large mass. Cut it back to throttle the output down and the cooling system has to go into overtime trying to lower the temperature down to the new normal. So it is not normally done. Thats the statement. If the heat is not being used as it was designed it has to dump the excess load, hense the cooling system in overtime. Two ways to get rid of the heat, use it to power a turbine or send it to the cooling system.

Oh BTW I seen what you did there

[FBaggins]

58. So?

The statement was that Nuclear or coal are not good at being used as load following due to their large mass.

Only because there isn't any need for them to be good at that - but that really isn't a function of nuclear power so much it is in how we choose to use it. Coal is similarly poor at load following, but the Germans have been doing it anyway because it's so much cheaper.

Cut it back to throttle the output down and the cooling system has to go into overtime trying to lower the temperature down to the new normal. So it is not normally done.

The cooling system already handles 2/3 of the heat that's produced... it isn't all that hard to handle fluctuations. It "isn't normally done" not because it can't be done (as pointed out by examples where it is done), but there's no savingsto be gained (in fact it likely costs more) so it only needs to occur when nuclear power capacity exceeds your baseload demand. That's not the case in most countries.

Oh BTW I seen what you did there

I'm afraid you'll have to clue me in. I must have missed the secret handshake.

[madokie]

62. I didn't say it couldn't be done

Nuclear power plants are not good for load following as I stated, yes it can be done but isn't for reason I stated. simple as that

[FBaggins]

65. You can't dodge the context of your comment

You didn't just decide out of thin air to discuss load following... you were replying to someone else's claims on the matter... clearly trying to correct them.

You were wrong.

[madokie]

67. I corrected them too so where was I wrong

I'm not dodging shit



Again will you jump in Altair_IV grave as fast as you come to his or her defense. Not really sure which he or her as the last iteration she claimed to be a she, this time he claims to be a he. Obviously both the same person. Two different people don't have the same writing style as these two do

I don't suffer fools gladly mr Fbaggins

[kristopher]

34. You know who is on your side? Roger Ailes et al.

Why is that the hard core climate deniers like Ailes and most of the (nonLibertarian ) climate denying Republicans in Congress are all staunch advocates of nuclear power?

Why is that?

[kristopher]

28. No, that's just your habit of twisting things to suit yourself

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112764786#post27

[kristopher]

33. Not at all.

When you are misquoted and your work is misrepresented by charlatans it is perfectly appropriate to point to the original text.

Additionally, it is routine for scientific papers to include reference to the researcher's past findings. You really aren't very well informed on this topic, are you?

[madokie]

55. We're not talking about automobile insurance here

you are though to try to divert the thread but no one else is

[madokie]

64. Find someone else to pick nits with

I'm not interested in your games

I would say that most 16 year olds knows the answer so why bother with it here like its an all telling question.

I won't quantify your stupidity with an answer


stupidity= 1. the state, quality, or fact of being stupid.

[madokie]

50. Remember at first she was saying she was a Physicist

Apparently up thread s/he is implying that s/he is a scientist now, 'it takes on to know one' statement

My head is starting to spin with all the bullpucky coming from one Altair_IV

[FBaggins]

52. Physicists aren't scientists now?

That's news to me.

Physics is the science. All other hard sciences are offshoots from the truth.

[madokie]

54. What ever

Not what I said

[FBaggins]

56. It isn't?

It sure read as if you thought there was a conflict between someone claiming to be a physicist and later claiming to be a scientist.

[FBaggins]

18. Nothing left over?

Left over after what?

Are you seriously pretending that (in the event of a serious meltdown), the owner of the plant would receive ~$13Billion to compensate for the the loss of the plant... and the public would pick up victims' costs?

[Altair_IV]

20. Confusion

FBaggins,

I think kristopher is "confused" about the concept of "liability insurance". Evidently, kristopher thinks that liability insurance will pay the insured for losses that the insured sustained, rather than losses to third parties for which the insured is found liable.

In another thread, I asked kristopher whether his automobile liability insurance would pay to replace the cost of his car if it was "totalled" in a traffic accident for which he was responsible. Evidently, kristopher is having trouble answering that simple every day question, because he has dodged it, and not come up with a simple "yes" or "no" answer. It's even an "open book" test; if he is having trouble, he can always ask the agent of his automobile insurance carrier to help answer that question; but I guess the question is just too difficult.

Altair_IV

[kristopher]

12. The filing to the NRC (the PDF) asks them to make changes in how they license reactors

Since Fukushima it has become clear that storing a lot of spent fuel in those on-site pools can be dangerous. Believe it or not, the NRC never considered that as a factor in whether to license or relicense a plant.

request the NRC to consider, in all pending and future reactor licensing and re-licensing decisions, new and significant information bearing on the environmental impacts of high-density pool storage in reactor pools and alternatives for avoiding or mitigating those impacts.

They say this "new and significant information" was part of the NRC's study of what happened at Fukushima and that it has never been considered in licensing before. They can know this because all of the documents involve are matters of public record.

The NRC Staff generated this new and significant information during its post-Fukushima proceeding to consider whether it should order operating reactor licensees to expedite the transfer of spent fuel from high-density pool storage to dry storage.

No previous Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) for initial reactor licensing, Generic Environmental Impact Statement (“GEIS”) for re-licensing of operating reactors, or Environmental Assessment (“EA”) for certification of standardized reactor designs has considered this information.

The information they say is legally required to be considered consists of the items I posted in the OP.

[Altair_IV]

17. Whose fault is that?

Last edited Wed Feb 26, 2014, 10:51 AM - Edit history (1)

Since Fukushima it has become clear that storing a lot of spent fuel in those on-site pools can be dangerous. Believe it or not, the NRC never considered that as a factor in whether to license or relicense a plant.

As originally conceived, the spent fuel pools were a temporary storage for spent fuel that was hot enough to require active cooling. The spent fuel pools were *never* envisioned as a long term storage. The concept was that after cooling down, the spent fuel would be taken out of the pools and spirited away to a long term disposal site like Yucca Mountain.

However, who disrupted that plan? The antinuclear movement disrupted the plan. The antinuclear movement has been obstructing the long term storage facility Yucca Mountain for decades, leaving no place to store the fuel but in the pools. The antinuclear movement, like Mothers for Peace, have been against moving the spent fuel to dry casks so they can get the spent fuel pools to fill up; so no more spent fuel can be offloaded from the reactor, so the reactor can't be refueled, and hence has to shut down.

The rank hypocrisy of the antinuclear movement is manifest. They oppose the long term spent fuel storage plans, and then they whine and complain because spent fuel is still in the pools. The antinuclear movement obstructs the construction and licensing of plants causing costly delays, and then they whine and complain about nuclear costing too much.

It's nothing but rank hypocrisy to whine and complain about something that you are the *cause* of.

Altair_IV

[Altair_IV]

21. More misinformation from kristopher

They can know this because all of the documents involve are matters of public record.

Actually that's wrong; it is *not* all matter of public record. Evidently you didn't read my post #10 in this thread. There are things that the NRC considers that are *not* allowed into the public record. That was what the whole case with Mothers for Peace was about. The NRC considered information that was *not* a part of the public record and the Mothers for Peace wanted to see that information and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals *denied* their petition to see that information.

It is just *not accurate* to say that everything the NRC considers is part of the public record.

Perhaps researching the subject would result in less misinformation being promulgated. That's what true scholars do.

Altair_IV

[FBaggins]

19. The report says just the opposite.

In fact, the purpose of the report was to identify whether or not there would be a meaningful increase in safety if they moved older spent fuel from the pools into dry cask storage.

[madokie]

4. Not really

It never was meant as a solution, rather only as a distraction to the problem of what to do with the every growing mountain of nuclear waste.

[bananas]

6. There's so much waste, it will take decades to move it.

The waste won't magically teleport from the pools to the tunnels inside Yucca mountain (or wherever we decide to move it - incuding reprocessing plants).

To be moved safely by truck or train, the waste has to be put into sturdy shipping containers: dry casks.

Since the waste has to be put into dry casks anyway, there's no reason not to do it right away.

The nuclear power companies are just trying to defer costs by leaving them in the pools.

[Altair_IV]

10. The nuclear power companies are the ones that *want* to go to dry casks..

Last edited Mon Feb 24, 2014, 04:16 PM - Edit history (2)

The nuclear power companies are just trying to defer costs by leaving them in the pools.

It's not the nuclear power companies that are the ones against moving the waste from the pools to dry casks; it's the antinuclear movement.

The tactic is clear; the amount of spent fuel storage space in the pools is finite, they were only meant to be a cool-down facility and not a long term storage facility. If the antinuclear movement can prevent the nuclear power company from offloading fuel from the spent fuel pool to dry cask storage, then eventually the spent fuel pool will be full. When that happens, the nuclear power company can't transfer any fuel from the reactor to the pool because the pool is full. If the nuclear power company can't unload spent fuel from the reactor, they can't put any fresh fuel in, and the reactor will have to remain shutdown.

The spent fuel pool is a *choke* point; if the pool fills, then the nuclear power company can *not* operate the reactor; and that is exactly what the antinuclear movement is attempting to exploit.

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant and their local antinuclear group, the Mothers for Peace have recently been battling in the Courts over exactly this issue. The Mothers for Peace are the ones that want to block the use of dry casks at Diablo because they want the fuel pools to fill up and shutdown the reactors:

http://mothersforpeace.org/collections/radioactive-waste

http://mothersforpeace.org/collections/security-terrorism

The Mothers for Peace disputed the finding of the NRC that there was vanishingly small risk of a successful terrorist attack against the Diablo Canyon dry cask storage facility. In making that finding, the NRC relied on classified information. Mothers for Peace sought access to the classified information that the NRC used to determine that the risk was minimal. The Mothers for Peace said that all the information has to be in the environmental impact statement.

The NRC countered by pointing out that when Congress wrote the NEPA - the National Environmental Policy Act which mandates impact statements, Congress was aware that the impact statements might contain sensitive or restricted information. In that regard, the NEPA Act itself states that the release of sensitive information is to be done in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act. The FOIA contains 9 exclusions under which release of information under FOIA can be denied. The first exclusion is that classified information is excluded from disclosure under FOIA:

http://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-exemptions.pdf

In a stinging defeat for the antinuclear Mothers for Peace; the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the NRC:

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/02/15/08-75058.pdf

The NRC's refusal to grant SLOMFP a closed hearing and access to sensitive information was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law. Neither NEPA nor the AEA requires such a hearing, and the NRC did not abuse its discretion by concluding that holding one would present unacceptable security risks. Furthermore, in its SEA, the NRC considered the relevant factors and reasonably concluded that an EIS is not necessary.

PETITON DENIED

Further analysis courtesy of "The Recorder" at:

http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202482140812/San-Luis-Obispo-Mothers-for-Peace-v.-Nuclear-Regulatory-Commission;-United-States-of-America?slreturn=20140124151028

With the obstructionist intervention by the Mothers for Peace disposed of by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; PGECorp, the owner of Diablo Canyon is free to transfer fuel from the Diablo Canyon spent fuel pool to dry cask storage; and that operation has been underway for the last few years.

Altair_IV

[bananas]

7. There was a spent fuel pool fire at Fukushima

You wrote, "I have not heard of the scenario where a spent fuel pool catches on fire."

There's already been a spent fuel pool fire at Fukushima:

IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency

INCIDENT AND EMERGENCY CENTRE

Subject: Release of radioactivity from Unit 4 of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant

At 04:50 UTC on 15 March 2011 the IAEA was informed by the Japanese authorities that the spent
fuel storage pond at Unit 4 of the Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being
released directly into the atmosphere. Dose rates up to 400 millisievert per hour have been reported
at the site. There is the possibility that the fire has been caused by a hydrogen explosion.

The IAEA has contacted the World Meteorological Organization and has asked that the results of
atmospheric models be circulated to all Member States.

The IAEA will issue further information as soon as it becomes available.

Günther Winkler
Emergency Response Manager
15-March-2011 05:10 UTC
IAEA Incident and Emergency Centre

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/101675165 for sources.

[FBaggins]

8. No there wasn't.

At the time it was considered possible because they didn't know if the pool had been damaged. There was a hole in the outer building caused by the explosion at unit 3 that was at the level of the pool and they had no way to tell whether the pool was leaking. If it was... then it was possible that the fire in #4 was also in the pool.

Without a damaged pool, it wouldn't be possible for the fuel to bring the water to boiling, boil it off, and then catch fire in the time available (less than four days).

And we now know with certainty that the pool wasn't leaking.

[Altair_IV]

11. That's correct.

In fact, we now have *pictures* of the spent fuel pool and they show intact fuel assemblies that are underwater.

The "fire" was a hypothesis that has now been disproven; somewhat akin to the "hydrogen bubble" scare during the Three Mile Island accident which was later shown to be due to someone at the NRC using the wrong formula:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/peopleevents/pandeAMEX88.html

On Sunday afternoon, while Carter was still there, Victor Stello found the proof he needed. They discovered that Mattson and his team of consultants had been using the wrong formula to determine the risk posed by the hydrogen bubble. Stello concluded that "hydrogen under pressure will prevent water from breaking apart into hydrogen and oxygen because it will tend to suppress the creation of more hydrogen. Without free oxygen, there can be no explosion." Plant operators began hooking devices to the containment building in order to slowly burn away the hydrogen, thereby bleeding away the bubble.

Altair_IV