Every Nuclear Waste Factory and Nuclear Waste Dump Should Be Surrounded by Wind Turbines...for protection!

Think about how the terrorists on 9-11 flew the large commercial airliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Horizontally. The fourth plane was undoubtedly supposed to make an attack on the Capital itself, but was nearly taken over by several heroic passengers, so the terrorists simply dove the plane into the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Thousands of suicidal Japanese kamikazi pilots during World War Two did it the same way: Diving only if they had to because the situation required it due to "ack-ack" (anti-aircraft fire coming up from the target area) or Allied fighters. Given a choice, it was always a horizontal attack on a ship.

Think about what kind of accuracy you would need to dive a commercial jetliner vertically into a reactor. You'd need practice to perform the maneuver, and you'd still need a good bit of luck to hit your mark, since you couldn't possibly practice in real life, with real wind and thermal conditions. Terrorists don't have the resources to rely on luck for their desired outcomes and must plan more carefully.

Because of these considerations, there is no BETTER way to protect nuclear waste factories (aka "reactors") or nuclear waste dumps (aka "Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations" or ISFSIs) from terrorist or even ACCIDENTAL airplane strikes...than surrounding the reactors or ISFSIs with...wind turbines! Who would have thunk it?

These wind turbines would have no effect on normal commercial flights, which are well above even the tallest wind turbine -- not that I have anything against tethered wind turbines that "float" in the upper atmosphere, which most certainly COULD be in the way of commercial airline traffic...except that traffic is all on preplanned routes, first of all, and second of all: We all need speedy cheap long-distance ground transportation.

Dedicated track national transportation systems are far safer per passenger mile than airplanes will ever be able to achieve, use far less energy, and you can't do any external damage (damage to other things) by hijacking a train -- especially an electric train that can be shut off remotely and might not even have a live operator on board! Have you ever tried to intimidate or threaten a machine?

By Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Why Change A Name? (re: Crane Clean Energy Center aka Three Mile Island)

Many years ago, after a mentally deranged and heavily drugged Congressman named Randall Cunningham (MY Congressman at the time) attempted to commit murder-suicide by smashing the car he was driving head-on into the one my wife and I were in, a friend noted that the assailant had five victories in his F4 Phantom jet while in Vietnam, and that I had thus beaten America's last "ace" pilot in a very deadly "game." (Shortly thereafter the San Diego County Supervisor was injured and the other person killed in a head-on collision.)

In his mind, Cunningham might have thought I was a North Vietnamese enemy pilot or something. (The full details of the event and the aftermath (such as it was) is available online under the title "Seven Seconds in San Marcos.")

After a friend pointed out that Cunningham had been an "ace," I changed my first name to "Ace" but I never thought about changing my last name. My father was a grunt under Patton in the Battle of the Bulge during WWII (he started in the Italian campaign, about six months before D-Day). After telling him the details, I had his permission to change my name, his wife's (my stepmother's) permission, my mother's permission and, of course my wife's permission as well. They all thought it was a reasonable thing to do under the circumstances.

There are far less reasonable circumstances someone might change a name, though. For example, in 1957 the nuclear reactor core caught fire at Britain’s Plutonium production facility, known as Windscale. It was one of the world's worst nuclear accidents ever. Despite massive ongoing cleanup efforts, Windscale is still contaminated, and continues to release radiation into environment.

But it is now known as Sellafield, to hide its horrible past.

There are now plans to rename Three Mile Island (TMI) as Crane Clean Energy Center, in at least as egregious an effort to whitewash America's own worst nuclear accident.

At the same time, they're trying to glorify a nuclear propagandist who made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars promoting nuclear power.

Chris Crane was chief nuclear officer and later CEO of Exelon, the former parent company of CONstellation Energy, which is attempting to restart TMI Unit 1, which as been closed "permanently" due to its poor economics. Crane was also the former chair of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).

What are these organizations?

INPO is a nuclear-industry association formed in the wake of the TMI accident that monitors and evaluates “appropriate safety standards … at nuclear facilities”. Put another way, INPO insures that serious problems are discussed within the industry itself, but NOT among regulators and the public. That includes "problems" such as how to deal with known leakage issues, known deterioration issues, and...known activists who are stirring up trouble about something, be it a simple name change or a serious safety issue they'd rather ignore (such as rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes spawning dozens of tornadoes, cheaper alternative energy sources and so on).

Similarly, NEI is the nuclear industry’s lobbying organization, and its home page unabashedly proclaims: “NEI and its members promote the benefits of nuclear power … and educate lawmakers on industry issues.”

After Chris Crane’s death in April 2024, his legacy of pushing nuclear power is being used as an excuse to rename TMI, the site of one of the biggest environmental disasters in American history.

The authors of an article published by PennLive.com (see link below) think CONstellation has a re-branding problem, when in reality the company is attempting to rewrite history. It’s a CON job. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency describes the partial meltdown of TMI Unit 2 on March 28, 1979 as “the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history.”

No wonder the company wants to change the name!

The TMI accident was an unmitigated disaster caused by poor design, shoddy workmanship, poor training, and poor communication. During the accident, problems suddenly developed from a stuck valve, which ultimately caused a meltdown that didn't have to happen.

The nuclear industry wants people to forget that only a few specifics of the 1979 TMI accident are unique. A different sequence of events could happen at any nuclear reactor, anywhere in the world, any time with similarly catastrophic (or even worse) results.

According a 2019 article in World Nuclear News (WNN), the reasons for closing TMI Unit 1 (the reactor CONstellation is planning to reopen) were: "… economic challenges and the failure of the market to recognize the environmental and resiliency benefits of nuclear generation." (WNN is published by the World Nuclear Association, a nuclear-industry organization with an avowed purpose of facilitating " … the growth of the nuclear sector".)

WNN’s assessment denies the fact that nuclear power offers no net environmental benefit. The nuclear fuel cycle produces massive amounts of carbon effluent and radioactive contamination in every community involved in mining, enriching, and manufacturing reactor fuel. In addition, the reactors are built using massive amounts of concrete (a very carbon-intensive material) and other materials, and constantly release radioactivity into the environment.

Most importantly, nobody has a solution to storing the highly toxic nuclear waste. Whatever is eventually done with the waste, will inevitably also be bad for the environment. The idea that there are ANY "environmental benefits" of nuclear generation is truly ludicrous.

Nor is nuclear power resilient, as shown by the accident which permanently closed TMI Unit 2 a few months after opening, as well as hundreds of other unplanned shutdowns at U.S. reactors lasting from days to years and costing from millions to billions of dollars.

It’s commonly assumed that the accident at TMI is responsible for convincing U.S. corporations to turn away from new investments in nuclear power, at least for a while. However, according to “Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change” by Doug Brugge and Aaron Datesman (copyright 2024), the economics of nuclear power, rather than fear of another accident may actually be responsible for the post-TMI slowdown in reactor orders. Brugge and Datesman suggest that "TMI simply gave the industry cover for its economic failure."

Whatever the reason for the downturn of nuclear power after the TMI accident, or for the recent efforts to revive the nuclear industry, we shouldn’t trust CONstellation to put safety ahead of profits. Nor should we trust the nuclear industry to do the impossible: Operate safely. Accidents will continue to happen, and when accidents happen to a nuclear reactor, radiation contaminates the environment. It's the basic definition of an accident at a nuclear facility.

The nuclear industry (both so-called commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons) has a long history of propaganda – and of covering up accidents rather than cleaning them up. Perhaps the most famous attempt at propaganda is the "Atoms for Peace" program from the 1950s, which spread nuclear reactors (and, inevitably, nuclear weapons) worldwide.

There are thousands of contenders for the title of "most flagrant failure to properly clean up a nuclear accident."

Nuclear energy is not clean, nor is it carbon-free or cheap. It will not solve climate change, and nobody knows how to safely handle and store the nuclear waste -- including the remains of TMI Unit 2. According to the NRC:" “ … the reactor fuel and core debris [from TMI Unit 2] was shipped to the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory." Shipping part of the waste elsewhere doesn’t answer the question of what to do with the waste; it just moves part of the problem from Pennsylvania to Idaho.

Changing the name of TMI is the same sort of shell-game as shipping the waste to a different location. It doesn’t solve anything, it just makes it easier for the nuclear industry, captured regulators, and hoodwinked reporters to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

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Advertisement run by Commonwealth Edison after the TMI accident:

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Link to PennLive.com article (subscription required for full text): (https://www.pennlive.com/news/2024/10/the-site-of-the-worst-nuclear-accident-in-us-history-is-poised-to-get-a-rebranding.html)

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Below are my [mostly] unedited notes from the NRC hearing, up until just after some of the "interested parties" were invited to make two-minute comments.

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How will the project help Pennsylvania's grid when all of the power is being sent to Microsoft?

The name change has already happened. Criminally. Not formally. They started using it anyway.

All timelines are tentative...

It was shut down for "economic reasons."

They then state they had "over 1,000 "mostly union" workers. (Apparently only 600 were "permanent" jobs). Renewables would higher more per dollar.

No mention of what the alternative energy options might be.

Spent fuel (about 1600 fuel assemblies in 46 casks) the ISFII is at the south end of the island, ready to pollute the entire river downstream.

CON man Liam O'Donoghue:

Reactor coolant removed but not from the reactor itself "for radiological reasons."

The main generators "look good."

A lot of parts were "opened to the atmosphere" so they're going to replace "the main transformers" which they've already ordered for delivery in 2025 / 2026.

When they shut down, they DID NOT expect to restart. Some systems were "abandoned."

The SGs were upgraded and the Alloy 690 they used is supposed to be better.

They tested all the SG tubes that were still available and they all seemed fine.

Some wear, as expected, was found in the SGs, but they felt it was normal wear.

NRC staffer Kerri Kavanagh wants to know who the contractors were for the SG replacement.

Liam has "over 30 years experience, most of that at TMI..." He says more than 100 people who worked there when the plant was running are still there and supposedly know the plant. They have monthly safety meetings and a strong safety culture, he says. And CONstellation has a large fleet to support them. Buried pipe "ISI", fire protection, etc.. they have experts in the company they can contact.

Peach Bottom upgrade was successful so there. CON can do anything. They did a refueling outage in 15 days (so they know how to rush jobs).

"For Three Mile Island excuse me Crane Clean Energy Center..."

"We know how we shut it down and we know how we can restart this."

"We have about eighty-eight system groups that we're evaluating for restarting."

They're walking around the systems and looking at them. "We want to get the plant back running, we want it to be safe..."

"We have an ISFSI now...that will need some changes..."

"Deficiencies due to abandonment...24 inch lines that were crushed...fuel oil tanks... polar crane...a list of things that have to be restored..."

NRC guy asks about abandoned projects that were scheduled to be repaired.

"We're looking at all that..."

NRC guy asks if they've looked at other reactor sites that have tried to restart... "Yes, we've looked at that...we've kept up with the industry...kept up with the fleet...we're absolutely reviewing it..."

One priority is "restoring" the reactor operators: finding, hiring, training... but they can hire back former employees, other people from the rest of CON...they've seen "a lot of interest" from former employees who want to come back, and lots of other CON employees want to come help, they say. Much of the "senior team" has been selected already...

"Indoctrination training...will be implemented throughout the organization..."

Restoration and training is being "done with INPO..."

Restoration of the simulator "is in progress and we're working to get it to certification condition...we're looking at May of next year..."

They invented the RQAP = Restoration Quality Assurance Program and they intend to submit the restoration plan to the NRC.

Mel Gray, NRC: "How to you benchmark your return-to-service process...?...You may have an aging management problem..."

"We have a process...we've been involved with EPRI...we are connected with Holtec and learning from their experience with the Palisades plant and incorporating that into our process..."

Yamir Diaz-Castillo: "What are your QA plans for transition to operation?"

"Our final QA plan will probably be submitted..."

"What you're submitting this month will be a bridging document...?" "Yes..."

...

Michael Norris (NRC) wants the emergency response plans to be turned in as soon as possible.

"We're aware..." "Okay, thank you."

"Decommissioning trust funds will NOT be used for restoration...(except for site restoration to a greenfield status)..." "We are continuing to use our trust fund money for spent fuel security costs..."

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NRC: "Will Microsoft be your only customer?"

"We're not in a position to knowledgeably answer those questions."

That and the comment about 2009 SG manufacturers are the only "actionable items" the CON men identified from the hearing thus far.

The union guy then "rest assured" them they'd be coming back happily and "committed to seeing this project through." He then said they need nuclear to reach "carbon free" status in Pennsylvania. He then talked about how much generation the state will lose, and claims it will stabilize the grid for "16 states" and enable moving to a "carbon neutral" future. And that they have "confidence" in CONstellation.

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The Nuclear Waste Administration Act (H.R.9786): Don't be fooled by its apparent purpose!

by Sharon and Ace Hoffman
October 17, 2024

Representative Mike Levin is sponsoring bill H.R.9786 - Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2024 (hereafter NWAA 2024). The bill seeks to create a new federal agency called the “Nuclear Waste Administration” (hereafter NWA).

NWAA 2024 is a blatant attempt to circumvent the rules forbidding interim storage of nuclear waste until a permanent repository is established. Note the terminology: “pending completion” in the following quote from SEC. 102. Purposes:

“… to provide for one or more Federal storage facilities for nuclear waste pending completion of a repository …”

Levin’s bill ignores the fact that nobody, anywhere in the world, has a viable solution to storing nuclear waste for the millennia it will remain dangerous to living things. The only reasonable approach we’ve heard is rolling stewardship as described by Dr. Gordon Edwards:

1. Stop making more waste.

2. Store the existing waste in retrievable storage.

3. Plan to retrieve and repackage the waste on a regular basis.

4. When in doubt, refer back to #1.

Dr. Edwards anticipates that waste would be repackaged approximately every 10-20 years, and points out that the goal is preemptive maintenance, not waiting for a leak to contaminate the environment.

Levin’s bill proposes an entirely new government structure to “plan” for nuclear waste disposal. His bill will make it easier to license new nuclear plants, extend the licenses of existing plants, and reopen plants that have been closed such as Palisades and Three Mile Island.

The proposed new agency greatly increases the number of people whose jobs depend on nuclear power’s continued existence. Instead of two agencies (the NRC and the DOE) we will have three. Instead of one politically appointed commission (the five NRC commissioners) we’ll have two (the NWA will have its own 5-person Nuclear Waste Oversight Board).

Instead of acknowledging that the first step is to stop making more nuclear waste, Levin is misleading his local constituents, who desperately want to remove San Onofre’s spent nuclear fuel from the dangerous location it is currently at, on the Pacific coast in an earthquake zone. Perhaps Levin’s bill will succeed in removing San Onofre’s spent fuel, but only at the cost of allowing the continued creation of more nuclear waste. This is not just selfish, it is short-sighted.

All of the current attempts at “consent-based” nuclear waste storage translate directly to “Not In My Backyard” (“NIMBY”). People have recognized that NIMBYism is an elitist attitude since at least the 1970s, and should see Levin’s bill for what it is. (Despite this fiasco, we are in Levin’s district and will continue to vote for him, because the alternative candidate is much worse.)

NWAA 2024 also muddies the water concerning when a site can begin accepting waste. Consider the following from SEC. 103. Definitions:

“The term “emergency delivery” means nuclear waste accepted by the Administrator for storage prior to the date provided in the contractual delivery commitment schedule [and] may include, at the discretion of the Administrator, nuclear waste that is required to be removed from a Department of Energy facility … to eliminate an imminent and serious threat to the health and safety of the public or the common defense and security.”

Apparently, the Administrator of the new NWA will have the power to store nuclear waste outside of the terms of a legally-binding contract. What does that mean for the communities where the waste would be stored? This definition seems to allow the NWA to unilaterally move nuclear waste, from a DOE facility for instance, to a proposed consent-based site before a contract has even been signed.

NWAA 2024 also includes the following attempt to redefine spent fuel in SEC. 104. Rule of construction:

“The use of the term “nuclear waste” in this Act to mean high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel does not mean (and shall not be construed to mean) that spent nuclear fuel is, or should be, classified as or otherwise considered to be “waste” or “radioactive waste” for purposes of this Act or any other law, including the Solid Waste Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.) (commonly known as the “Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976”).”

One possible interpretation of these verbal gymnastics is an attempt to reclassify spent fuel so that it does not have to meet the requirements for storing radioactive waste, which is ridiculous. A more likely and far more dangerous interpretation is that spent fuel has some “useful” purpose and therefore is not waste. This obviously is referring to Plutonium 238 for nuclear weapons.

Bad as Levin’s bill is, we did not expect to find a hidden agenda aimed at encouraging reprocessing of spent fuel. President Carter banned reprocessing of spent fuel from commercial reactors in 1977. Although, this ban has been rescinded, there are currently no commercial reprocessing sites in the United States.

Nobody should be deceived by distinctions the bill tries to make between interim and permanent storage. The fine print of NWAA 2024 includes clear indications that the prohibitions against creating interim storage before a permanent repository exists will disappear as described in SEC. 306. Repositories:

“In selecting sites for site characterization as a repository, the Administrator shall give preference and priority to sites determined to be suitable for co-location of a storage facility and a repository.”

Reopening the entire question of where to site a “permanent repository” basically resets the clock and allows the nuclear industry to continue producing waste by pretending that at some (unknown) date in the future, the government will provide a way to store that waste. This is exactly how the false promise of Yucca Mountain enabled the nuclear industry for decades. While Yucca Mountain was the supposed solution, one of the rules governing scientific studies was that no other site could be considered. Levin’s bill will make all sites (with the possible exception of Yucca Mountain) eligible again and every attempt will be made to have the waste end up on Indigenous land.

Another concern with NWAA 2024 is who gets to decide where to put the waste. The bill repeatedly references three groups the NWA Administrator will need on his or her side:

* The Governor of the State in which the site is located

* The governing body of the affected unit of general local government

* The governing body of any affected Indian Tribe

We should be particularly worried about governors being considered as decision-makers in this context. Giving any governor this much power subverts the state government and potentially lets a very small number of people decide something that will impact everybody (including people outside the state that is the potential waste site).

The definition of “the affected unit of general local government” is also vague at best. Could this mean the mayor of a small town? The board of county supervisors? A homeowners association? A group of neighbors in an unincorporated area? What is the minimum number of people who can “approve” a nuclear waste site under this legislation?

NWAA 20224 also further blurs the line between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The following text is a red-flag that so-called commercial nuclear waste will be co-located with Defense Department waste. From SEC. 309. Defense waste:

“The Secretary [of Energy] shall arrange for the Administrator [of the NWA] to dispose of defense waste in a repository developed under this Act; and may arrange for the Administrator to store defense waste in storage facilities developed under this Act pending disposal in a repository. … The arrangements shall be covered by a memorandum of agreement between the Secretary [of Energy] and the Administrator [of the NWA].”

In case anybody is under the impression that a nuclear waste repository will be available soon, or that a waste disposal site anywhere could not impact people everywhere, consider the following text from SEC. 310. Transportation:

“The Administrator shall provide financial and technical assistance to a State or Indian Tribe … at least 5 years before the anticipated date on which the transport of nuclear waste through the jurisdiction of the State or Indian Tribe is to begin. ... monetary grants and contributions in-kind to assist States and Indian Tribes through whose jurisdiction the Administrator plans to transport nuclear waste for the purpose of acquiring equipment for responding to a transportation incident involving nuclear waste.”

Just what does it mean to provide equipment and training in case of a “transportation incident”? The nuclear industry has long ignored the reality that transportation accidents are inevitable, and clean-up is virtually impossible. What kind of equipment or training would be useful when a nuclear waste transport vehicle is trapped in a fire like the one that occurred in a Baltimore tunnel in 2001? What type of transport casks could survive a collapse such as the one that occurred on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in 2007?

Even if the rest of Levin’s bill made sense, how long would it be before the first ounce of nuclear waste would be moved to a new site? Several decades seems like a very conservative estimate, and in the meantime, all the existing nuclear plants and new nuclear plants the government is determined to build will be producing more waste.

Mike Levin’s bill assumes that the Nuclear Waste Administration can do three things nobody else has done in the past 80 years: Find a place to safely store the waste, a technology to safely store the waste, and a way to safely move the waste (as specified in SEC. 504). Mission plan: “ ... operation of ... a storage facility not later than December 31, 2034; and a repository not later than December 31, 2060;”

NWAA 2024 mandates an operating interim storage facility in just over 10 years, and a permanent repository in less than 40 years. The initial date is obviously designed to convince people that nuclear power can play a role in meeting 2035 and 2050 climate-change milestones. The nuclear fuel cycle has no role in mitigating climate change. Furthermore, financial commitments to nuclear reduce available funding for clean energy technologies.

The bill’s timeline is unrealistic and ridiculous, but it’s also dangerous. The timeline enables the nuclear power and nuclear weapons industries to continue producing nuclear waste. It also lets the nuclear industry pretend there is a solution to an impossible problem and that the waste is a resource.

The very last section of NWAA 2024 tells us that Levin and his co-conspirators do not expect any limit to the production of nuclear waste. From SEC. 509. Application of volume limitation:

“The volume limitations described in the second and third sentences of section 114(d) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (42 U.S.C. 10134(d)) shall not apply to any repository to the extent that the consent agreement applicable to the repository provides for the disposal of a greater volume.”

The bill text is available here:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/9786/text/ih