Ace Hoffman's Nuclear Failures Reports

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood...

cc: Beth Parke, Executive Director, SEJ

October 8th, 2009

Dear Readers,

The Society of Environmental Journalists is holding its annual meeting this week, in Madison, Wisconsin.

James Rogers, Chairman, President and CEO of Duke Energy Corporation, which owns more than half a dozen nuclear power reactors, will be speaking tomorrow morning (10/9/2009) in "Capital Ballroom B"under the topic: "BIG THINK: Energy Policy in a New Economy." The panel presentation is supposed to discuss how to "set the world on a new, greener path."So what's HE doing there?!?

Another member of the panel will be a smart-grid enthusiast, Katherine Hamilton, president of the GridWise Alliance, which supports something I support, namely a smarter and greatly expanded electrical energy grid. But the Alliance works with: "the Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, Midwest Research Institute and other organizations to lobby Congress and statehouses, including Maryland, on various clean energy policies and funding." MRI? Fine, but both the UCS and the NRDC are troubling allies. (The UCS is often referred to in this newsletter as the UUCS ("Union of UnConcerned Scientists" because of statement such as this: "While nuclear waste can be stored safely for the short term (in on-site concrete casks)..." (May, 2009 UCS factsheet.) That's not showing much concern! And the NRDC helps build wildlife "sanctuaries"around nuclear power plants, and that makes them happy. 'Nuff said 'bout them, too.) Hamilton worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, "to put into place several programs mandated in the Energy Policy Act of 1992, including federal energy audit and water conservation programs."So basically, she stays away from worrying about nuclear power.

Another panelist is Abrahm Lustgarten, Energy Reporter, ProPublica, former staff writer and contributor for Fortune, who received his masters in journalism from Columbia in 2003, and wrote a book about China with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which supports public radio (PBS), which is the mouthpiece of the government for most things they talk about, and gets most of its money from the government (right now, PBS is getting a grant from NASA and announcing it daily (a VERY pro-nuclear government agency, which has launched dozens of plutonium-238-laden rockets and several small reactors, and some of these "toys"have failed, causing worldwide plutonium dispersals!)). Lustgarten does not appear to be an expert on the dangers of nuclear energy and is also hardly a counterbalance to Rogers.

The final panelist, Brian Czech, is a "certified wildlife biologist" who "applies his training and experience to economic issues, especially macroeconomic policy. He has 20 years of experience in federal, state, and tribal governments with duties ranging from firefighting to managing elk herds to developing national conservation policies. Czech is also a visiting professor at Virginia Tech University, where he teaches ecological economics and endangered species policy. A prolific author, Czech wrote the book Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train, which calls for an end to "reckless economic growth." So basically, he stays away from worrying about nuclear power, too? So it appears. But he's probably plenty worried about "climate change" and "global warming," which nuclear power could be considered a source of, not a solution for, but Rogers will claim otherwise, because "they" always do. And it sounds like everyone on the panel will let him.

The moderator, Lisa Palmer, is an award-winning science writer and guess what? I can't find anything negative she has ever had to say about nuclear power!

Will questions from the audience make this event memorable? Palmer can ensure that doesn't happen, by, for example, letting each of these panelists make long-winded statements about how damaging global warming is to plant and animal species all over the world, and how badly BOTH expanded nuclear power AND most (but not all) green energy solutions need a better energy grid to be viable options (but not the same grid: The renewable one is more distributed, and thus, much more resilient).

It does not appear that anyone on the panel will be qualified, or interested in, grilling The Big Guy (Rogers, he's everywhere these days, he must have a fast jet at his disposal, I hope someone will ask him how he got there) about what HE knows about how tritium damages a fetus. Nothing, he's an executive, not a doctor, he'll say. You know it as well as I do.

No one on the panel will be asking Rogers what he expects to do with the nuclear waste his reactors have already created. It's well over ten million pounds of nuclear waste -- all his! He's been saying, "Yucca Mountain" for years (as have them all), but what does he say now? Reprocessing? That's even yuckier that "Yuckie" Mountain!

No one will ask what he expects to do with the waste from the new nuclear reactors he wants the government to build for him. That's us, folks, the common taxpayer, who will pay for his nukes (and his waste)! (And not to mention, his ratepayers, too, will pay particularly dearly for these things.) And that's after the government finishes paying billions of dollars to foreign-owned companies with American names (such as "Westinghouse" and "GE") to cover the costs of designing the new nuclear reactors.

If they only allow a few questions, it will surely be quite a whitewash. And, of course, with Palmer moderating the questions from the audience, there's no reason to expect the truth to be exposed even if they allow a thousand questions (in the 75 minutes allotted to this important topic).

It's unlikely that Mr. Rogers will be asked what he thinks will be the total number of Curies his reactors will release into the environment over their lifetime, and the total number of deaths he thinks these releases will cause. (Not including accidents he doesn't think have happened, let alone, accidents he doesn't think WILL happen.)

It's unlikely that the rate hikes that are inevitable if Duke continues to be a nuclear-focused company will be realistically expressed.

It's extremely unlikely the circular cracks in the flanges (they call them "nozzles"for some reason, but let's pray they never BECOME "nozzles") at the Oconee reactor (owned by Duke) will be discussed. These cracks went nearly all the way around some of the control-rod flanges (they call them "nozzles"but God forbid...). IF the cracks had gone just the least little bit further around it could have -- would have -- resulted in a MELTDOWN. Oops, Mr. Rogers, there goes the neighborhood! And the state it's in, with it (South Carolina)!

So-called "super-alloys" aren't so super. Numerous parts, from steam generators to pipes, pumps, valves, and the reactor vessels themselves, are falling apart sooner than expected and in worse ways than expected. Indeed, this is the most likely cause for catastrophe in the nuclear industry these days (but hardly the only one). And just about ANY qualified person in the nuclear industry -- even Mr. Rogers -- will probably admit to you (once he believes you know a thing or two about the industry) that yes, "materials" is their biggest worry -- "these days." (They're such optimists!)

It is a shame to see a sham at the SEJ annual meeting, but I think that's what the environmental journalists in the audience should expect. In reality, nuclear topics should fill the agenda this year at the SEJ meeting. And real experts should be speaking, not just industry blowhards and their sycophants, so that the journalists can learn more about the topics they plan to write about, instead of just learning what the party line is, as if that's news.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA (images added 2025)

Society of People Who Call Themselves Environmental Journalists, 2009 agenda:
http://www.sej.org/initiatives/sej-annual-conferences/AC2009-agenda

From NIRS: Dems caving on nukes in climate bill? Act Now!

ACT NOW! E-MAIL/FAX YOUR SENATORS

ACT OCTOBER 15! CALL YOUR SENATORS ON NATIONAL DON'T NUKE THE CLIMATE CALL-IN DAY

Your actions are more important than ever, as the push for more nuclear power subsidies in the Senate climate bill intensifies.

October 8, 2009

Dear Friends,

Now that the Kerry-Boxer climate bill has been introduced, the nuclear industry is intensifying its efforts to turn the bill into a multi-billion dollar giveaway for new reactor construction, dirty and dangerous radioactive waste schemes like reprocessing, further "streamlining" reactor licensing proceedings, and the whole industry Christmas wish-list.

Leading the charge are Senators like John McCain (R-AZ) who has already said he will "never, never, never" vote for the bill; Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who has been making speech after speech calling for 100 new reactors in the U.S. by 2020 even while admitting he won't vote for a climate bill; and now Lindsay Graham (R-SC) who says golly gee, if they'll just put a lot of money for nuclear power and offshore oil drilling in the bill, maybe they'll get some more votes...

Yeah, right... Expanding oil drilling isn't exactly the best way to reduce carbon emissions--and neither is nuclear power or "clean coal,"another pet cause of these Senators who won't vote for a climate bill in any case. What they're really trying to do is lard the bill with so much taxpayer giveaways to their favorite dirty energy interests that no one should vote for it.

Unfortunately, some of the bill's backers are listening to the nuclear lobby. Read this article posted on the NY Times website yesterday.

No matter where you stand on the climate bill itself, and our constituency seems fairly evenly divided between "against it," "for it, with reservations" and "wait and see what's in the final bill," we can all agree that the bill must not become a multi-billion dollar bail-out for the nuclear power industry.

Please send a letter to your Senators today. You can send an e-mail, fax, or both.

Please plan to call both of your Senators on National Don't Nuke the Climate Call-In Day, Thursday, October 15. It doesn't matter where they may stand on the issue--they need to hear your voice. Let's keep those phones ringing from dawn til midnight on October 15! Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

Please forward this Alert as widely as possible. Print it out and take it to meetings, post it at neighborhood food co-ops and other progressive venues, please do everything possible to spread the word. Organize protests at your Senators' district offices. Write letters-to-the-editor: Senate offices read them!

The backroom deals are being made now. It's never been more important for us all to take every action possible.

*Again: please send a letter to your Senators today.

*Please call your Senators on October 15, and start now to organize your friends, neighbors and colleagues to join you. Plan call-in gatherings at your house, a local pub or restaurant, a park--wherever it's easy for people to join you.

*Please forward this Alert and do everything possible to reach out to people who may not be on this list.

*If you haven't donated recently, please make a small contribution now and help us expand our outreach during this critical period. Faxes are more effective than e-mails, but we do have to pay for them; your contribution will also help us pay for the thousands of faxes that we hope everyone will send!

Together, we can stop this nuclear madness and build the nuclear-free, carbon-free energy future our planet and our people need.

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

www.nirs.org

nirsnet@nirs.org

Dodging bullets:

The location of this morning's earthquake off California was not more than about 45 miles out to sea from San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, where about five million pounds of high-level radioactive used reactor cores (aka "Spent Fuel") is currently being stored and about 500 more pounds are being created every day the reactors are running. Right now, one of the "SONGS" reactors is undergoing multi-billion-dollar repairs and is closed. It should be PERMANENTLY SHUT, not "fixed" (patched up with toilet-paper and spit, wrapped up with bailing-wire and coat-hanger wire, duct-taped, and turned on again).

A really cool interactive live map of earthquake activity (thanks to Dr. Carol Rosin for finding this!):
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

From:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxhGnOv1Z19F4ACtyN7PXeO4qOIAD9B6OTGO0

Small undersea quake occurs off California coast

(AP) 10 hours ago

AVALON, Calif. A magnitude-3.8 undersea earthquake has struck near the Channel Islands off the southern tip of San Clemente Island.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the tremor occurred at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday about 31 miles southeast of San Clemente Island and 43 miles south of Avalon.

The USGS Web site reported that very light shaking was felt in some Orange County communities, including Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, but police there said they received no calls about the quake.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

AVALON, Calif. (AP) A magnitude-3.7 undersea earthquake has struck near the Channel Islands off the southern tip of San Clemente Island.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the tremor occurred at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday about 31 miles southeast of San Clemente Island and 43 miles south of Avalon.

Information about the author of this newsletter:

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner, The Animated Software Company

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Talley followup: The many financial-failure tsunamis of nuclear power

October 7th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Last week, practically the entire Pacific Rim was under several earthquake-generated tsunami warnings and watches. Thousands are confirmed dead in Indonesia, Samoa, and American Samoa; thousands more are still missing. In some places, waters roared a mile or more inland. These events have demonstrated: "that the early-warning systems are not fail-safe and education is as important as technology, seismologists and disaster management experts say." (Kathy Marks, Sydney, ABCNews.go.com, October 3, 2009)

Seismologists, geologists, and other experts say our coastal nuclear reactors are NOT properly protected (and can't be) against reasonably foreseeable -- even expected -- tsunamis. The "sea wall" at San Onofre, for example, is only about 30 to 35 feet tall; waves at high tide already lap the bottom. Some of the waves from the Banda Ache tsunami in 2004 were 50 to 60 feet high! Only dumb luck protects us. Two weeks after the event, an eyewitness to the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami wrote:

"The best way to describe this - because we grew up with the images and we all know what it looked like - is that Banda Ache looks like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. It's totally destroyed. The buildings have been flattened for miles and entire communities -- probably something like a hundred thousand people -- have been swept out to sea." (Chris Rainier, National Geographic, January 11, 2005.)

Real tsunamis aside, a financial crisis is often called a tsunami as well. The nuclear industry is in the midst of a financial crisis, as are we all. In a brief email exchange with Wall Street Journal journalist Ian Talley (whose article was discussed in my previous report (September 29, 2009)), Talley clarified how the Department of Energy's nuclear loan guarantees could be used:

>"$18.5 billion in loan guarantees can leverage loans far in excess of that value."

He added that the maximum amount of "LG" is 80% of the cost of a nuke.

The basic concept is that someone other than the federal government will loan the extra billion (if the lowest of the two ridiculously low industry estimates Talley gave of $5 billion is correct) or the extra $4 billion (if my estimate of $20 billion for a new nuke started today is correct).

Either way, it isn't easy to get loans for a billion dollars these days, even if someone knows a gung-ho pro-nuclear government has provided an additional $4 billion to throw away on the risky venture.

So one question is: By proposing doubling the amount of money available for loan guarantees, is Secretary of Energy Chu expecting to start more than the 4-5 nukes the original $18.5 billion was for? Or is he just upping the ante for those first few, because he realizes they'll actually cost a lot more than he thought? Talley didn't know. Chu didn't say.

From the utilities' standpoint, the biggest stumbling block for new nuclear construction at the moment appears to be spent-fuel-related. With Yucca Mountain not technically on the horizon (though not "killed" altogether, by any means), the government isn't willing to make the dumb deal it made back in the 1980s, when it promised to take all the used reactor cores away and magically make them disappear.

Needless to say, it wasn't a dumb deal for the utilities and they ALL -- every one that is operating today -- signed on. The government would take the highly radioactive -- and pyrophoric -- used nuclear reactor cores and manage their long-term care. That's "long-term" as in: Longer than the United States has existed as a country, times a thousand.

It hasn't worked out that way. The government hasn't taken the waste, and you can blame politics all you want, but the real reason it hasn't worked out is the physics make it impossible for a "safe" repository to exist. Someone will ALWAYS have a legitimate gripe against ANY plan. It's the nature of ionizing radiation that it will break down any container made of any material, as it irradiates the container. Microbes won't "eat" radiation away for us. Each little atomic breakdown has all the strength, per alpha particle, beta particle, or gamma ray, of the alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays of a nuclear bomb. A nuclear decay is an unstoppable force. Its direction cannot be predicted or controlled. It has an average energy level within a statistically-definable range of probable values, according to various laws of sub-atomic particle physics. The precise moment of any particular decay is also unpredictable.

No place on earth is safe to hold the waste. No place can be guaranteed not to have ANY of the following, to start a long list: Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, jet crashes, terrorists, sloppy construction, or poor design. If all else goes well, any location could still be hit by an asteroid. Why doom the whole earth for one small asteroid?

And then there are the transportation problems. The last DOE solution I saw had about 98 wheels and was just a drawing. It looked like a lumbering terrorist's target to me. They don't really know what they are going to do.

No country has ever "solved" its nuclear waste problem. France grinds stuff up, releases much of it directly into the North Sea, and stores the rest with no idea of what to do with it. (A tiny fraction is reused, so they call the whole thing "recycling".) Here in American we just let it sit in scores of deadly sites all over the country.

And the dry storage casks are deteriorating as we speak. Shoddy welds, shoddy alloys, unrealistic expectations...

Meanwhile, the government is already being sued by about a dozen nuclear power companies, asking for permission to stop putting money into the used-reactor-core-storage fund, and to get back some of what they've already put in! The rest are watching closely, like a pack of vultures.

New nuclear power plant loan guarantees don't come with promises to take the spent fuel. And THAT's the real financial hang-up for new nuclear construction in America.

But the nuclear industry is working HARD to get around that with help from -- seriously! -- French espionage, infiltration, subversiveness, and other covert and overt actions. That's right: The French intend to get American suckers (that's you and me, folks, the American taxpayer) to pay French-government owned and/or managed firms (EdF and/or AREVA) to build and operate expensive NEW reprocessing plants here in America! And open new (and old) uranium mines, new milling operations, and so on. They use agent-provocateurs, subliminal messages in their advertisements, covert lobbying and funding of politicians... and in other countries where these two "corporations" do business, they behave even more illegally!

Reprocessing would theoretically "solve" the fuel problem for the utilities, including slowly eating into their current backlog of millions of pounds of commercial nuclear power-plant high-level radioactive waste. but "theoretically" is one thing, and realistically is another.

What reprocessing really would do is cost another hundred (or two hundred) billion dollars and pollute the entire planet, killing people and causing health effects as if we are all expendable, as long as no one can prove for certain where any particular cancer, leukemia, heart disease, birth defect, etc. came from. And burn enormous quantities of fossil fuels in the process, causing thousands more deaths.

Reprocessing of nuclear waste is chemical-intensive, too. But it's the only thing that could possibly allow a dying industry to keep going. The current fleet of operating plants is running out of options for waste storage. None of the plant's owners want to have to shut down for lack of storage space, but it might happen. As long as someone will take the waste from you later, operating a nuclear power plant is a "great" way to make money -- like stealing candy from a baby (and giving them cyanide to play with in return).

Aside from the waste problem, new nuclear construction almost suffered from an insurance problem. Instead, the Price-Anderson Act was extended a few years ago in one of the most notorious pieces of midnight legislation to come out of the Bush years (and that's saying a lot). If Price-Anderson had not been extended, that too would have stopped new nuclear construction because the Act prevents citizens from seeking damages against the utility in the event of an accident. No Price-Anderson would have meant no new nukes. And the old ones would have shut down, too. But now, although both Price and Anderson are long gone, the Price-Anderson Act has been renewed and you still can't get insurance for your home against a nuclear accident anywhere in the world. (Some form of Price-Anderson has been copied in every country which has operating nuclear programs.)

In addition to the waste problem and the insurance problem -- the former unsolvable and the latter solved by government fraud -- there are still the costs and delays of construction.

Offshore wind power, solar power, energy conservation and other solutions can be brought online virtually immediately -- by the time a permit for a new nuclear power plant is granted, especially a new design, you could have thousands of megawatts of renewable energy up and running.

And the new nuclear power plant, which may well cost close to -- or more than -- $20 billion dollars if construction started today -- will have faulty parts, faulty welds, faulty pipes, faulty concrete, faulty wiring, faulty instructions, workers sleeping on the job, fire crews not knowing what to do when there's a fire, exploding transformers, leaky steam generators, and thousands of other problems. These are the day-to-day facts of life at ANY large facility (but these examples are taken strictly from Nuclear Regulatory Commission records). Most large industrial facilities won't kill millions of people if and when they fail. Most industries are not running on the edge of a mega-catastrophe 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as nuclear power does.

Every nuclear construction project now involves hundreds of companies in dozens of countries, each with their own level of oversight for worker safety and for quality of their output. Each has different ethics about what "quality" means, and what the punishments are for shipping shoddy work half-way around the world where its shoddiness won't be discovered for decades, until the part fails at a critical moment, causing a meltdown, and all the evidence is destroyed.

Fraud has always been rampant in nuclear construction and operation, and continues with the new international trade agreements, where even so-called "American" companies such as GE and Westinghouse are really just fronts for, in those cases, Japanese corporations, and where both EdF and AREVA claim in America that they are as American as apple pie, just because the heads of the American divisions are American.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA (images added 2025)
www.acehoffman.org

Cancer and nuclear power:

(In the superb article linked to below, the reporter outlines many of the enormously complicated cost issues related to new nuclear construction. The article also quotes the notorious Victor Dricks of the NRC making the outlandish claim that airplanes simply cannot destroy nuclear power plants, calling it "impossible." The entire nuclear community should demand Dricks' permanent ouster from the NRC! He is unqualified, pretentious, arrogant, irrational, and on a personal basis, attempts to intimidate the activists both physically and through enforcing arbitrary rules on who can place documents where, or at all. Arbitrary, except the utility can always place anything they want on the NRC's table, and the NRC will ensure that material is handed out. That's Victor Dricks, and the NRC's, idea of free speech. -- Ace)

A clip from:
http://www.sacurrent.com/news/story.asp?id=70567

Risky Business
Part Two In a Series: What CPS won't tell you about nuclear power
San Antonio Currant September 30th, 2009

by Greg Harman

..."For more than a year, the city has been drifting, in multi-million-dollar installments, into a second helping of nuclear power from the South Texas Project nuclear facility outside Bay City.

"On one level, the city's obsession with the bottom line $5.2-billion for our share of two new nuclear-power reactors makes sense. It was, after all, runaway costs and construction failures that undermined Wall Street's willingness to invest in the hugely expensive projects, resulting in a decades-long freeze on domestic nuclear power plants. Today, with 17 proposed nuclear projects jockeying for crucial federal loans through the U.S. Department of Energy, Moody's Investors Service is warning that utilities that pursue new plants face heightened financial risks and may expose their customers to 'future rate shocks.'

"For the last hour, the talk has idled at intersecting concerns over whether Toshiba can deliver two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors to STP on time and on budget; whether renewable energy sources could become cost competitive with nuclear by 2020, when San Antonio will really need the extra electricity; if CPS Energy's price estimates for alternative energy sources, such as natural gas and efficiency, are even close to accurate.

"'Nuclear has risks,' confesses CPS Energy's Co-CEO Steve Bartley, 'cost risks, waste risks, health-and-safety possible risks. … Our goal is to evaluate the risks as best we can, understand what they are, and plan a mitigation strategy.'

"While the Congressional Budget Office wrote in 2003 that 'well above 50 percent' of federal nuclear-power loan recipients will default because of 'technical risks' and high construction costs, Bartley tells the audience that CPS had its proposal screened by Fitch Ratings and were told the utility should be able to maintain a Double-A credit rating through the life of the reactors. "

"Preventing Future Deaths" - a Coroner acts:

From: "Richard Bramhall" <bramhall@llrc.org>
To: "info llrc" <info@llrc.org>
Subject: "Preventing Future Deaths" - a Coroner acts
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 13:23:20 +0100

"Preventing Future Deaths" - a Coroner acts

Following the 10th September '09 verdict on the death of Stuart Dyson, Robin Balmain, a Coroner in the Black Country Coroner's District in Smethwick, UK, has written to the Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth MP.

The Jury in the inquest into Mr. Dyson's death found that he had been exposed to Uranium during his service in Iraq during 1991, and that the Uranium caused or contributed to the colon cancer which finally killed him in 2007 at the age of 39.

The expert witness at the inquest was Professor Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, who presented evidence of the inadequacy of the radiation risk model advised by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. The Ministry of Defence failed to send either legal or scientific representatives.

Mr. Balmain writes that "action should be taken" since the use of Uranium weapons creates "an obvious risk to service personnel" which "equally applies to civilians in areas of conflict."

For over a decade the Low Level Radiation Campaign has stated that use of Uranium weapons is contrary to international law because of their indiscriminate effects.

Rule 43 of the Coroners Rules 2008 states:

"Where the evidence gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk [that] other deaths will occur, or will continue to exist, in the future and in the coroner's opinion action should be taken to … eliminate or reduce the risk of death … the Coroner may report … to a person who the Coroner believes may have the power to take such action."

Rule 43A requires Bob Ainsworth to reply to Mr Balmain within 56 days.

Mr Balmain's letter is at http://www.nonuclear.se/dyson_coronor_rule43_20090918

Report on verdict at www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/dysonverdict.htm including full copies of written submissions from Professor Busby and MoD.

Newsletter author contact information:

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
Carlsbad, California USA

Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Talley-ho!

Date: September 29th, 2009

To: "Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires" <ian.talley@dowjones.com>

Mr. Talley,

In your recent article (shown below) on the future nuclear power in America, you said that $18.5 billion would be enough federal loan guarantee money for "4-5 [nuclear power] plants." Later in the article you claimed that a new nuclear power plant is estimated to cost $5 to $8 billion.

Those are artificially-low estimates. Even just sticking purely to the cost of financing new construction, securing land and licenses, etc., a new nuke plant is liable to cost upwards of triple your low estimate and double your high one if started today. And none of these new plants would have spades in the ground today or next week, or even probably next year. (Thank goodness.)

Have you read what the new PM of Japan wants to do to the U.S.? Basically it's this: Cut us off. Stop loaning us money (stop letting us use them as a military base, stop doing what we ask, etc. etc..). There goes a few trillion in "economic recovery" over the next few years right there!

But perhaps more importantly from your perspective at the moment: Where do you think most of the parts for a new nuclear plant are going to be built? That's right: Japan! So expect to pay double, and then double that again, in the next few years. So $15 - $16 billion is probably low, too. And calling nuclear power a "domestic industry" is a shell game.

(The idea is that we'll just piece the plants together after they get delivered here in large sections. The industry wants the new plants to be modular. Most of the final assembly work will probably be done with foreign workers here on visas! And don't forget all the Reactor Pressure Vessels that have been installed backwards over the years, and all the other construction problems that have delayed deployment, reduced safety, and increased costs -- even with so-called high-quality American labor.)

To claim that $18.5 billion in loan guarantees is enough for 4-5 plants is misleading at best, and, at worst, shows bias in favor of starting new nuclear power plant construction even if we have to lie about what the total costs will be.

Even at $15-$16 billion, or $20 billion for that matter, it's still a lie about the costs. Because nowhere in the "cost" of construction of a new nuclear power plant are the true costs to society: Not just the cancers, leukemias, heart diseases, birth defects, and other ailments that will occur to workers at the plants and/or their families, the communities around the plants, and even to people in Timbuktu, but also costs like: New enrichment plants, new uranium mines, new transport systems, and new "dry storage casks" for the spent fuel if we don't build new reprocessing plants. And if we do, the reprocessing plants will need waste storage facilities and permits to pollute the planet with radioactive carcinogens. Reprocessing wouldn't help at all.

As to a permanent repository: It's proven impossible to find one that can be guaranteed to be safe, economical, or wanted, anywhere. A 20-year-old government panel -- really just a revolving door of nuclear researchers whose entire careers were probably financed by government nuke-related grants -- recently simply gave up. Instead, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board decided to "refocus" their efforts on reprocessing and temporary on-site storage. That's called abdication of responsibility, or more simply: Criminal negligence.

Of course, I've just touched on the problems. I haven't mentioned proliferation, or terrorism dangers, or clean alternatives, or about a thousand other issues. Instead, I'll ask you (and your editors) to please read my book The Code Killers, available for free download at my web site:

www.acehoffman.org

I'll be happy to send you (and your editors) a bound, printed (and autographed) free copy upon request. I've distributed over a thousand bound copies, mostly to activists. Several hundred have gone to political figures, and several dozen have also been sent to members of the press. Additionally, hundreds more people have viewed the book online. Here's the comment of one Health Physicist at San Onofre, who recently BOUGHT a copy of the book, having seen a copy in the HP instructors' area of the plant: "You obviously know your stuff." He also said plant management specifically forbids HP instructors from using the book in their employee training classes. Big surprise there, but you needn't be as biased as Southern California Edison's management. In fact, you needn't be biased at all.

I suggest you especially look at: "Steps in the Nuclear Process" (page 12), "What's Worse than a Meltdown" (page 15), "What Else Can (and does) Go Wrong?" (page 16), "How Far Does Radiation Spread?" (page 17), "Nuclear Waste: Your Gift to Tomorrow (page 18), "At Least I'm Insured, Right? (wrong! page 19) and the three pages on the health effects of radiation (pages 20-22). And see Stanley Thompson's comment on page 13, which will never be refuted.

Upon consideration of all these problems, even $20 billion -- a figure I pulled from thin air a few minutes ago, but without a pro-nuclear bias -- would be an artificially-low-balled estimate of the true cost of a new nuclear power plant.

After all, on accident WILL cost over a trillion dollars and probably shut the industry down -- the whole industry -- at least for a while. Or at least it will shut down all the remaining PWRs if it's a PWR that blows its top (such as Davis-Besse's nearly did in 2002) or the BWRs if it's a BWR that melts down for some reason -- perhaps because its overcrowded Spent Fuel Pool catches fire and falls on the reactor and its vital accessories, such as cooling pipes and control pathways.

This is not impossible, just beyond the NRC's Design Basis for what can go wrong. But if a 747 pancakes down onto the SPF of a typical BWR, what do YOU think is going to happen? And if you think that would not constitute an eminent catastrophe, where in the world are you going to find an UNBIASED engineer who will agree with you? What the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says is that 747s can't crash into NPPs via terrorist acts because the TSA and the Pentagon are charged with preventing such a thing, and it is assumed (by the NRC) that they'll do their job. And the NRC also assumes that sane pilots wouldn't do a thing like that.

Of course they wouldn't! Not on purpose, that is. But engines fall off. Control surfaces have separated in midair. Both bird strikes and hail have caused broken windshields and loss of power. Control hydraulics and electronics have all failed, as well as the logic boards and software programs of the modern computers.

Plunging, uncontrolled dives can result from loss of control of an aircraft. A separation of laminates caused American Airlines Flight 587 to dive into the Bronx shortly after takeoff from JFK on November 12, 2001. Pilot error was blamed due to excessive pedal input after encountering wake turbulence, which stressed the rudder beyond its "design limit." But had the laminate not separated, the excessive attempt to keep the passengers comfortable rather than let the plane be tossed around a little wouldn't have cracked the rudder, rendering it useless and dooming the plane.

There was some speculation that luckier pilots might still have been able to bring the craft home using the remaining controls, such as using left/right engine thrust to replicate rudder movement. We can't all be lucky, but we can assume one isn't given control of an Airbus A300-600 without having proven some talent for handling an aircraft.

And everyone who steps into an airplane knows that it's better to be lucky with a bad pilot at the controls than unlucky with a good one.

We can't rely on luck when millions of lives are at stake, even if we need to rely on a bit of it to get a few hundred of us from hither to yon in a tin can at 37,000 feet and 600 miles per hour these days (since far eco-friendlier and safer terrestrial vacuum-tube transport systems haven't been implemented yet, although they were invented and tested long, long ago). To get us to accept nuclear power, we were all promised that talent, skill, a safety-conscious work environment, backup systems, and constant vigilance would remove "luck" from the equation. But any student of the nuclear industry knows that in the end, it's been dumb luck that's protected us. And dumb luck always runs out eventually.

An Airbus A300-600 has a maximum take-off weight of over 375,000 lbs, and a maximum fuel capacity of 18,000 gallons. Even if you subtract the weight of one engine, that's going to make a huge mess if it crashes uncontrollably into a nuclear power plant. And if you want to believe there will be no significant damage, you'll want to also assume the engine itself also plunged uncontrollably but safely somewhere, though in reality, the turbine shafts are the most dangerous part of the aircraft for those under it when it falls out of the sky.

A four-engined Boeing 747-8 weighs about 975,000 pounds, holding more than three times the fuel of the Airbus twin-engined jet. There's lots of things flying around up there that can hurt us.

I hope that next time you write about Secretary of Energy Steven "I love nuclear power" Chu's attempts to use his position and power to help refinance and thus restart the failing and fraudulent pro-nuclear "renaissance" and keep that murderous business firmly entrenched on its pathway to hell, you will consider the alternative viewpoints, and the many scientists and common citizens who hold them.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

From: Know No Nukes by Philip D. Lusk:

Nuclear Loan Guarantees Should Be Doubled -US Energy Secretary
Dow Jones & Company, Inc. - Sep 25

Federal loan guarantees for new nuclear power plant construction
should be at least doubled to allow construction of four to five additional
plants, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said late Thursday.

If Congress were to approve this, companies such as Duke Energy Corp.
(DUK) and Progress Energy Inc. (PGN) could be among the beneficiaries of the
new loan guarantees.

Chu, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, said additional nuclear
power plant loan guarantees would help rejuvenate a domestic industry and
cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Although companies have submitted 18 new nuclear power plant license
applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy
only has authority for $18.5 billion, enough for four to five plants.

"If you really want to restart the American nuclear energy industry in
a serious way...we [need to] send signals to the industry that the U.S. is
serious about investing in nuclear power plants," Chu said on the sidelines
of a conference here.

Chu didn't say when he would formally propose such an expansion.

Republicans have urged construction of 100 new nuclear power plants.
While not going that far, Chu said "there's real interest out there [for]
another four to five or more, we could easily do."

"It's part of how we're going to get to the carbon reductions we need
in order to avoid the worst of climate change," Chu said.

Earlier this year, the DOE narrowed the list of proposed new nuclear
power plants it's considering for the limited loan guarantees, pointing to
the ones farthest along in the license application process.

New reactors at Southern Co.'s (SO) Vogtle plant in Georgia, SCANA
Corp.'s ( SCG) Summer plant in South Carolina, Constellation Energy Group
Inc.'s (CEG) Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland and NRG Energy Inc.'s (NRG)
South Texas plant are among the projects still in the running for federal
loan backing. Constellation is developing the Calvert Cliffs reactors as
part of UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture between Constellation and
Electricite de France SA (EDF.FR).

"We definitely welcome it unconditionally," said Mitchell Singer, a
spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "We've said for a long time now
the loan guarantee program is remarkably unfunded."

Under the loan guarantee program, the government promises to assume
the companies' debt obligations if they default on loans for the nuclear
projects. Given rising construction costs exacerbated by a growing supply
crunch for qualified engineers and specialized nuclear power plant parts,
industry officials say new projects are unlikely to be able to move forward
without government assistance.

Pressing for new nuclear power may help the administration win over a
handful of Republican Senators needed to help pass a landmark climate bill
into law. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for example, supports a cap on
emissions in principle, but said government support for nuclear power is
essential for him to consider backing a bill that would cut greenhouse
gases.

The Energy Secretary said the loan guarantees would help revitalize a
U.S.- based nuclear industry, given that most of the major companies that
build reactors are now owned by international companies.

"It's also an American leadership issue," the Secretary said. "We were
the pioneers in the nuclear industry...We are no longer the world leaders,"
he said.

Several companies, such as Exelon Corp. (EXC), have suspended their
reactor license applications, citing difficult market conditions, including
the dearth of loan guarantees and unresolved long-term waste liabilities.

New nuclear power plants are estimated to cost $5 billion to $8
billion to build. With such high upfront capital expenditures compared to
the firms' market capitalization, financing is extremely difficult.

Marshall Murphy, Exelon's director of nuclear communications, said
additional loan guarantees would be encouraging. "It would certainly
make...it one factor that would be trending positively."

Other companies that have applied include a joint venture between TXU
Corp. ( TXU) and Energy Futures Holdings Corp., Dominion Resources Inc. (D)
and PPL Corp. (PPL).

Earlier this week, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Gregory Jaczko said on the sidelines of a Platts Energy briefing that the
agency was revising its license application schedule. Several applications
would likely be delayed because more technical work from the companies was
required, he said. Jaczko declined to elaborate.

-By Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires; (202) ... ....;
ian.talley@dowjones.com

Quotes collected by Ace Hoffman:

"Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details." -- Paul Brians (author; quote is from: Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction)

"When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -- Sinclair Lewis (first American Nobel Prize winner in Literature, 2.7.1885 - 1.10.1951)

"There is no such thing as a pro-nuclear environmentalist." -- Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa, 1992)

"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." -- Sun Tzu (Chinese general b.500 BC)

"The most intolerable reactor of all may be one which comes successfully to the end of its planned life having produced mountains of radioactive waste for which there is no disposal safe from earthquake damage or sabotage." -- A. Stanley Thompson (a pioneer nuclear physicist who later realized the whole situation)

"Any dose is an overdose." -- Dr. John W. Gofman (another pioneer nuclear physicist who saw the light (9.21.1918 - 8.15.2007))

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery." -- Octavia Butler (science fiction writer, 7.22.1947 - 2.24.2006)

"If you want real welfare reform, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

If you want to reduce poverty, you focus on a good education, good healthcare, and a good job.

If you want a stable middle class, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

If you want to have citizens who can participate in democracy, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

And if you want to end the violence, you could build a million new prisons and you could fill them up, but you never end this cycle of violence unless you invest in the health and the skill and the intellect and the character of our children. You focus on a good education, good health care and a good job.

And other than that, I don't feel strongly about anything."

-- Paul Wellstone (US Senator, D-Minnesota, 7.21.1944 - 10.25.2002)

"There are no warlike peoples - just warlike leaders." -- Ralph Bunche (8.7.1903 - 12.9.1971)

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Please send this to everyone you know!" -- Ace Hoffman (original collector of the above quotes, January, 2008)

Important Pages

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood...

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Talley followup: The many financial-failure tsunamis of nuclear power

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Talley-ho!