Nuclear Facility dangers abound during severe Earth Changes

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/Nuclear-plant-in-Tai...

Nuclear plant in Taiwan catches fire

Nuclear plant in Taiwan catches fire
A loud noise was heard at midnight around the plant as the turbine released steam into the sky during the process, Taipower said. (Representative Photo)
BEIJING: Taiwan has shut down two reactors after a fire broke out at a nuclear power station in southern Taiwan shortly before midnight on Sunday.
The incident has caused no radioactive leak and no personnel have needed to be evacuated, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) said in a statement on its website. 

The fire began inside an auxiliary electrical transformer at the Third Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County, setting off an alarm at 11:58pm, Taipower said. It was put out by the plant's own firefighters within 17 minutes of its occurance, it said. 

A loud noise was heard at midnight around the plant as the turbine released steam into the sky during the process, Taipower said. 

Taipower said preliminary investigations suggest that it will take two weeks to get the second reactor operational again. The transformer, which was one of a number of devices supplying electricity to the plant, has been damaged due to short circuit. 

The accident is expected to affect China's ambitious plans that include launching eight new nuclear power plants this year besides granting approvals for another set of six new plants. The government aims to build capabilities for producing 30,000 megawatts by 2020. 

Chinese nuclear experts have argued that the country has the best safety standards in place after the government recently lifted the ban on new plants, which was imposed after Japan's Fukushima accident in 2011. 

Giving details of the accident, Taipower said that another reactor in the affected plant, the No. 1 reactor is unaffected. 

The second reactor, which has a electricity generating capacity of 951 megawatts, has been in operation since May 1985. 

Taiwan has three nuclear power plants in operation and another one under construction. There has been much public debate about whether the island should become a nuclear power-free society, particularly in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

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Egypt nuclear reactor in Cairo to begin June 21st and is already having problems, leaking radiocative materials.  Employees were forbidden to speak of the problems the facility is having.  It's a go.......... to open.views

www.watch.watch5.handleToggleDescription">

Uploaded by NibiruMagick2012 on Jun 6, 2011

The Anshas nuclear reactor, located on the outskirts of Cairo, has leaked ten cubic meters of radioactive water for the second time in a year, according to Samer Mekheimar, the former director of the Nuclear Research Center's atomic reactions department. Mekheimar submitted a note to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, saying the leakage took place on 25 May as a result of operating the reactor without taking into account safety precautions. He also said the Atomic Energy Agency kept the incident secret and threatened to fire the staff if they talked about it. "The fact that the reactor was by mere chance not operated the next day saved the area from environmental disaster," he wrote. "All ministries were changed after the revolution, except the Ministry of Electricity and Energy," he added. "It still kept the same minister and his deputies from the dissolved ruling party." Meanwhile, sources at the Nuclear Safety Authority said they were denied entry to the reactor to conduct an inspection. Director of the Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed al-Kolaly, said that levels of radiation inside the reactor are normal, and that the International Atomic Energy Agency has praised the reactor
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?edis=NC-20110606-3103...

Egypt nuclear reactor to begin operation this month
Saturday Jun 4, 2011 - 17:06
http://english.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=340633

Fort Calhoun, NE -- OPPD declares notification of unusual event at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station.
http://www.action3news.com/story/14850579/oppd-declares-notificatio...

Neb. nuke plant declares emergency due to flooding
http://www.klkntv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14848122

ZetaTalk: Nuclear Reactor Accidents


Written November 27, 2010

Perhaps that we can expect incidents at nuclear stations during the 7 of 10 events, i.e. in SE Asia on achievement of a 7/10, in the west and the north of the S America during its roll, during rupture of the New Madrid fault line, in the western Europe during a tsunami? I assume that earthquakes and tsunami can present some problems on nuclear pollution even before the pole shift. Any comments of the Zetas?

After the Chernobyl disasters it is understandable that mankind is nervous about the coming pole shift and the potential of nuclear disasters in their nearby power stations. We have encouraged all to contact the operators of these facilities, and advise them of the coming disasters, encouraging them to shut down the facilities at the first sign of major quakes and the like. We have explained that to a certain extent we, as benign aliens under the control of the Council of Worlds, can step in and remove the explosive potential from these power stations, as we have from nuclear bombs held by the US, by Russia, and by other nations. In a shutdown procedure, bolts that inhibit the nuclear reaction are dropped between the reactor rods, stopping the nuclear reaction cold. This is a simplistic explanation, as the power plant controls run on electricity which can surge or fail, thus interfering with a shutdown. Such electrical surges or failure, happening during a shutdown, has been associated with nuclear accidents at Chernobyl, and SL-1 for example. As the hosing from the magnetic tail of Planet X continues to waft over the Earth, such surge and brownout can be expected. We predict that many nuclear power plants will be shut down, permanently, during the Earth changes leading into the pole shift, due to a combination of earthquake threats or damage and electrical surge and brownout. The grid will, in any case, be down after the pole shift, so this is only an early loss. As to flooding of reactors during the Earth changes or the pole shift tides, other than interfering with the electrical controls, this does not create, in and of itself, a disaster. Water is used to cool the reactor rods. It is the absence of water, due to the pumps being inoperable, that is a problem.

All rights reserved: ZetaTalk@ZetaTalk.com

http://www.zetatalk.com/7of10/7of10-21.htm

ZetaTalk: Nuclear Call
written February 4, 2012


The issue of whether benign alien assistance will come during disasters, neutralizing nuclear facilities, comes up often, understandably. Those who currently live near nuclear facilities worry constantly about sudden earthquakes or operator neglect, which can cause a meltdown with consequent radiation pollution far and wide. Fukushima is the latest example. As the earthquakes are on the increase, and the 7 of 10 scenarios about to afflict those countries which have utilized nuclear power extensively, this concern will only increase.

The answer in these matters, which we have repeatedly explained, is first that the Element of Doubt must be maintained. This is an aspect of the gradual awakening of mankind to the alien presence that ensures that contactees will not be savaged by those in panic, fearing for their lives. In the past, the establishment - MJ12 composed of the CIA, military intelligence, and the very wealthy - withheld information on their preliminary contact with aliens. Where they claimed they were saving the public from panic, this move was self serving as they wanted alien technology for themselves, and also did not want to be knocked from their perch in the eyes of the public.

Rather than reassure the public about the alien presence, the old MJ12 deliberately moved to foster fear in the public. Hollywood has been enlisted to produce a stream of movies showing aliens landing to eat people, colonize the Earth, and infect and takeover human bodies and minds. The old MJ12 likewise harassed and monitored contactees, to control the plethora of books and videos being produced by enthusiastic contactees. The Element of Doubt at base is to protect the growing army of contactees, whom the establishment fears. What it their threat? That they challenge the legitimacy of the establishment to lead, creating a secret network, an information exchange taking place on space ships among contactees, which the establishment is powerless to stop.

Enter the nuclear power plant issue, which is a legitimate concern even among those in the establishment. As the pace of the Earth changes has picked up, our answers have moved from being vague in 2008, stressing that this is in the hands of man, to hinting by 2010 that the collective Call from many in the Service-to-Other would make a difference and that alien interference would be allowed, to admitting after Fukushima in 2011 that some interference had occurred.

Has the degree of concern from Service-to-Other souls on Earth, giving a collective Call on this matter, made a difference? Unquestionably. From the start of ZetaTalk we have stressed that matters such as a healing only take place as a result of a Service-to-Other call. Those who Call for themselves, out of self interest, are ignored. The collective Call out of concern for others, made by those in the Service-to-Other on Earth, have and will make a difference on the nuclear power plant issue.

http://www.zetatalk.com/index/zeta589.htm

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Comment by M. Difato on July 22, 2016 at 4:57pm

S. Korea shuts Wolsong No.1 nuclear reactor; five plants offline Fri Jul 22, 2016 http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4N1A81ZO
SEOUL, July 22 (Reuters) - South Korea's Wolsong No.1 nuclear power reactor shut down on Friday after its safety system detected a technical problem, the country's nuclear reactor operator said.

That puts the number of South Korean reactors offline at five out of a total of 25, including the Shin Kori No.3 reactor, which is in a test run, a spokeswoman at the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co Ltd (KHNP) said.

"We are looking into the exact cause of the shutdown," the spokeswoman said, adding it was not clear when the 679-megawatt Wolsong No.1 reactor would be restarted.

An official at power market operator Korea Power Exchange said the shutdown of the Wolsong No.1 reactor would not have an impact on the country's power supply. Nuclear power provides about a third of the South Korea's electricity.

The KHNP spokeswoman said there has been no radiation leak at Wolsong and the reactor's power generating station is in a stable condition. The Wolsong reactor is located in the city of Gyeongju, over 300 km (186 miles), southeast of the capital, Seoul.

Last week, South Korea's energy ministry said its power supply would be enough to meet peak summer demand thanks to an addition of new power plants.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, owned by state-run utility Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), operates the nuclear reactors in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on July 22, 2016 at 6:57am

https://agrdailynews.com/2016/07/21/serious-nuclear-accident-with-l...

Serious Nuclear Accident with leakage of nuclear fuel was recorded at Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant NPP

MP Andriy Artemenko (Radical Party) has said that on July 16 a serious accident with leakage of nuclear fuel was recorded at Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant (NPP

Source: RSOE – Emergency and Disaster Information Service

Lots of denials, nothing happened.http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/economic/358976.html

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on July 15, 2016 at 6:48pm

http://www.hungarianambiance.com/2016/07/hungary-shuts-down-nuclear...

Hungary shuts down nuclear plant reactor due to equipment malfunction

Thursday, July 14, 2016

A general view of the turbine hall of reactor unit number four of the Paks nuclear power plant in Paks © Laszlo Balogh / Reuters

Hungary has shut down a reactor at the Paks nuclear plant due to a malfunction in control equipment, according to national news agency MTI.

Operations were shut down in the first block of the plant.

The malfunction does not pose any safety threats and the security system was not enacted, according to the National Nuclear Energy Office (HAEA).

Once the error is detected and corrected, operations will resume under the official supervision of the HAEA. 

Anthony Smith, the nuclear plant's director of communications, said the reactor is expected to reconnect to the network as early as Friday at noon, MTI reported.

The remaining three units at the plant are continuing to operate as usual. 

It comes just one week after a separate generator malfunction forced the plant to scale back its output. 

The plant suffered a "serious incident" in 2003 due to the inadequate heating of fuel elements, causing a reactor to be out of service for a year. 

Located 5km (3.1 miles) from the city of Paks, central Hungary, and 100km (62 miles) from Budapest, the plant is the nation's only operating nuclear power station. Its four reactors produce more than 50 percent of the electrical power generated in the country.

Built in 1982, the plant was developed by Soviet designers.

and another:

http://www.4-traders.com/DUKE-ENERGY-CORP-11076385/news/Duke-Energy...

Duke Energy : Alert Issued at Brunswick Nuclear Plant; No Threat to Public

07/14/2016 | 05:07pm EDT

All units at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant are now fully functional after an alert was issued Tuesday night.

Officials declared the alert after a pump motor was damaged at theSouthport plant.

The cause of the damage has not been released but power was reduced to 70 percent because of the damage.

Officials say there was no impact to the health of the public or employees at the plant.

Duke Energy said the facility was the first nuclear power plant built inNorth Carolina. It began operation in 1975.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on July 14, 2016 at 12:27am

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/business/federal-lawfuit-filed-...

Federal lawfuit filed against FPL over nuclear plant discharges

Saying Florida regulators have failed to protect the state’s waters, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and Tropical Audubon Society have filed a federal lawsuit against Florida Power & Light Co. over alleged violations of the Clean Water Act related to contaminated water discharges from its Turkey Point Power Plant.

The plant near Homestead includes two nuclear reactors that are cooled by a canal system that is polluting the Biscayne Aquifer as well as the surface waters of Biscayne Bay, the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Miami states. The aquifer supplies drinking water to more than 3 million South Floridians as far north as Boca Raton.

“We feel it is imperative that we pull the trigger on this Clean Water Act lawsuit as a vote of no confidence about what is happening in the state,” SACE executive director Stephen Smith said Wednesday.

Calling the 2-mile-by-5 mile unlined cooling canal system an “open industrial sewer like nothing else in the world,” Smith said the remedies proposed in a June 20 consent order signed by FPL and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection won’t solve the problem and could worsen the situation.

Smith referred to the order as a “deal” that reads as though it were written by FPL for FPL.

FPL has been working with local and state agencies, scientists and other experts to improve the long-term health of the canal system and the groundwater, FPL spokeswoman Alys Daly said.

“The fact is this is the same lawsuit that SACE announced in March. It’s just another publicity stunt from an anti-utility group with a long history of spreading false information and pursuing wasteful legal action,” Daly said in an email.

On average about 600,000 pounds of salt seep from the canals into the groundwater every day and the salty plume has migrated underground at least 4 miles west, Smith said. Nitrogen, phosphorus, ammonia and radioactive tritium are among the pollutants being discharged.

“It’s failing as we speak,” Smith said. “This is not the best technology available for cooling water. Every other utility in the world has cooling towers.”

Alan Farago, conservation chair for Friends of the Everglades, which plans to join the lawsuit, said, “Friends of the Everglades has viewed the Turkey Point failure with alarm for many years.”

Laura Reynolds, a former Tropical Audubon director who now works as a SACE consultant, said the consent order issued last month was a recycled version of an earlier Miami-Dade County consent order.

“Any time you have a cleanup scenario, you have to stop the source. They haven’t even proposed that,” Reynolds said. “We are stepping in the regulators’ shoes and saying, ‘We can do better. We want to enforce the laws and protect the people and the environment.’ 

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on July 8, 2016 at 2:07am

http://www.powermag.com/expansion-joint-bellows-rupture-forces-d-c-...

Expansion Joint Bellows Rupture Forces D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant Offline

07/07/2016

Indiana Michigan Power—a subsidiary of American Electric Power (AEP)—reported that Unit 2 of its Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Mich., was forced offline on July 6 due to an expansion joint bellows rupture on the unit’s moisture separator reheater.

Although no one was in the area at the time and there were no injuries, an adjacent turbine building exterior wall was damaged when the roughly 48-inch-diameter bellows burst. The component is part of the plant’s secondary steam system, providing nonradioactive steam to the low-pressure turbine.

An Unusual Event, the lowest level alert on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) emergency response scale, was declared at 12:50 a.m. due to the unanticipated incident. The event was terminated at 2:07 a.m. The company said all appropriate notifications to local, state, and federal officials were made.

Unit 2 was shut down manually, with no impact to public health and safety. Unit 1 was not involved in the event and remains in operation at full power.

The NRC resident inspector for the site responded to the plant immediately after being notified. The site inspector and NRC Region III office are independently evaluating the company’s response to the situation and the plant’s assessment of what caused the rupture.

The two units at the D.C. Cook facility (Figure 1) have a combined capacity of 2,155 MW. Unit 1 began commercial operation in August 1975 and Unit 2 in July 1978.



1. D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant is a dual-unit facility located along Lake Michigan’s eastern shoreline. Courtesy: Indiana Michigan Power

Indiana Michigan Power said causal analysis and repair estimates are under development. AEP does not release return-to-service information for generation units, so no estimate was offered on how long the unit will be out of service for repairs.

Comment by M. Difato on July 7, 2016 at 8:45am

Shutdown triggered at Indian Point Reactor 2
July 6, 2016 http://westchester.news12.com/news/shutdown-triggered-at-indian-poi...

BUCHANAN - Safety systems triggered an automatic shutdown of Reactor 2 at the Indian Point nuclear power facility in Buchanan Wednesday morning, officials said.

Technicians were testing electrical systems designed to halt the reactor if needed around 9:30 a.m., they said,

but the shutdown wasn't intentional.

Officials also said there was no radioactivity released or any threat to the health or safety of the public or any employees. The automated response went smoothly.

But critics insisted afterward that the occurrence is evidence the nuclear plant should be closed permanently.

"This is the ninth unplanned shutdown in a year," said Cliff Weathers, a spokesman for Riverkeeper. "We did not have nine unplanned shutdowns 15 years ago. You didn't have that many seven years ago. This is happening because the plant is old and becoming more unreliable."

Reactor 2 will remain offline until technicians determine the cause of the shutdown.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on June 21, 2016 at 7:52pm

http://news.newsdirectory2.com/pump-on-grounds-of-the-nuclear-power...

Pump on grounds of the nuclear power plant Brokdorf in fire

June 21, 2016 11:41 am

A fire has broken out in the night of Tuesday on the grounds of the nuclear energy plant Brokdorf. A gasoline-powered mobile fire pump is outside – outdoors the management – catch fire, informed the Division of Energy accountable for nuclear security in Kiel and the operators, the power company Eon, in Hanover

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on June 19, 2016 at 7:19am

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/how-much-radiation...

How much radiation is OK in an emergency?

Posted: Saturday, June 18, 2016 11:00 pm | Updated: 11:11 pm, Sat Jun 18, 2016

New guidelines proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would significantly increase the amount of radiation that people can ingest in the days and years following a radiological accident — levels far higher than existing limits set by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.

Watchdog groups, academics and even some EPA officials worry the change could severely compromise public health.

The agency’s proposal, released in early June and open for public comment until July 25, suggests a two-tiered system to advise the public when water is too dangerous for consumption after a radiological release — an event ranging from an accident at a nuclear power plant, such as the 1979 reactor meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, to a roadside spill of Cold War-era transuranic waste from Los Alamos to a deliberate act of terrorism. The agency has capped the proposed limits at 500 millirems per year for people over 15, and no more than 100 millirems for younger children, the elderly, and pregnant or nursing women.

The new emergency guidelines are at least 25 times higher than the current guidelines, which cap public consumption of radiation at 4 millirems per year. Opponents of the proposal say it will allow radiation exposure equivalent to 250 chest X-rays each year without medical need or consent. Others, however, say the limits are conservative and far more restrictive than international standards.

The EPA says the limits won’t nullify those set under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but are only intended to help guide local communities and state and federal officials in the event of a disaster, citing the 2011 reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan following a massive tsunami caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake. Elevated radiation levels from the Fukushima disaster reached as far as Massachusetts.

The EPA proposal has significant ramifications for New Mexico, home to two nuclear weapons research laboratories and the nation’s only permanent underground repository for radioactive waste, all of which were built near underground aquifers.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is now required to monitor chemical and radiological levels in groundwater on a monthly basis to determine any changes that could compromise public health or the environment. This monitoring system may become more important as the lab’s role in maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile increases over the coming decades. This year, the lab restarted the work of building plutonium pits, or nuclear warhead triggers. Each softball-size pit can create a blast with the same force as the “fat man” atomic bomb that was dropped on the city of Nagasaki in 1945, killing tens of thousands of civilians and leaving a legacy of cancer and other health ailments for those who survived.

The National Nuclear Security Administration aims for production of at least 10 plutonium pits per year at Los Alamos by 2024 and expects that number to expand to between 50 and 80 pits per year by 2030.

Between the late 1950s and the 1980s, the bulk of this work was done in Hanford, Wash., and Rocky Flats, Colo., where it led to significant levels of radioactive contamination in the air, water and soil. Billions of dollars have been spent on cleanup work, with the efforts still unfinished. In mid-May, 15,000 homeowners living downwind of the Rocky Flats Plant received a combined $375 million settlement, after 26 years of litigation, for their health ramifications.

New Mexico’s highways pose concerns under the new EPA proposal because truck transportation of nuclear waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad will resume if the now-shuttered underground storage facility reopens, as planned, by the year’s end. When operations restart at the waste site, which has been closed since a radiation leak in February 2014, U.S. 62-180, Interstate 25, Interstate 40 and U.S. 285 would once again be used to transport nuclear waste to WIPP from Los Alamos, as well as from out-of-state defense sites.

In the first decade of the waste plant’s opening, at least 900 trucks carrying transuranic waste traveled those roads to reach the Carlsbad facility. The New Mexico Environment Department documented 29 accidents between 2002 and 2013, though none led to a spill.

Proposals by the U.S. Energy Department show the federal government also plans to store some foreign plutonium at WIPP, after the material has been processed at a facility in South Carolina.

Other hot spots in New Mexico include the vast nuclear weapons storage facility at Kirtland Air Force Base and the Annular Core Research Reactor Facility at Sandia National Laboratories, which processes radioactive materials.

Critics of the EPA proposal worry it would allow such facilities to delay cleanup of waste and contamination, which would lead to larger amounts of contamination in drinking water in the event of a radiological accident.

“The science of radioactivity continuously demonstrates that radiation is more dangerous than we knew before,” said Daniel Hirsch, director of the Environmental and Nuclear Policy program at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Despite this, he said, “The actions they are proposing are in the opposite direction, to relax the standards.”

The proposed doses are based on maximum radiation exposure over a one-year period, in contrast to a 70-year lifetime exposure calculation for the Safe Drinking Water Act, and are based on exposure to a single radioactive element, though it’s possible that several different types of harmful substances could be present in drinking water following an incident.

The new emergency guidelines would not apply to the immediate hours and days after a disaster but to the months and years it takes to fully clean up the contamination, leaving the public to consume and bathe in highly contaminated water without violating EPA standards, Hirsch said.

“Most of this is designed so officials could tell you, ‘Don’t worry,’ ” he said. “The authorities would want to reassure people, and tell you that the levels are a fraction [of the EPA limits], but the question is, are those levels offensive? If someone told you it is the level that would be the equivalent of 250 X-rays a year, you might not be so reassured.”

For some substances, the new limits are even higher. The cap for iodine-131 — small amounts of which have been found to degrade the thyroid gland — increases from 3 picocuries per liter to 10,350 pCi/L, and for strontium-90, which has been linked to leukemia, the EPA has proposed raising the cap from 8 pCi/L to 7,400 pCi/L, according to data compiled by Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer rights nonprofit.

When new standards were proposed by the EPA under the George W. Bush administration, experts at the agency expressed concern that they were dangerously high. The levels proposed under the Obama administration are even higher.

“There is nothing to prevent those levels from being the final cleanup achieved,” Susan Stahle, general counsel for the EPA, wrote in 2009 in an internal document acquired under the Freedom of Information Act by the Food and Water Watch, referring to the lower caps in the Bush administration proposal.

“The approach in this guidance is not confined to just short-term emergencies,” Stahle said, raising concerns that the proposal could “undermine” EPA Superfund cleanup objectives, “especially federal facility ones involving the DOE.”

She said the document could easily be used as a “legal weapon” by the Department of Energy and other agencies.

EPA employee Stuart Walker wrote in a 2007 memo to agency officials, “Concentrations are hundreds, even thousands of times higher than the MCLs [maximum contamination levels].”

Standards suggested at the time for radioactive isotopes tellurium 129 and 127 “may lead to sub-chronic [acute] effects following exposures of a day or a week … that is, vomiting, fever, etc.,” he said.

“The [Protective Action Guidelines] would allow the public to drink water at concentrations 200 times greater than EPA’s guidance for emergency removals,” he said, adding that the standards were even higher for some radionuclides.

Walker notes that exposure to radiation could extend to food, and shipments of contaminated produce “could greatly expand the population” affected by a radiological incident and could damage the agriculture industry in unaffected areas “if the public becomes alarmed that radioactive food is being shipped around the country.”

Hirsh said the more lax standards could be intended to benefit the nuclear industry, which could use them to postpone or avoid cleanup requirements. Relaxing regulations speaks to the desperation of the industry, he said.

The nuclear power industry, which for years has been lauded as the future of zero-emissions energy production, has seen 19 plants decommissioned in the past decade, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But Jerry Hiatt, a senior project manager and health physicist with the Nuclear Energy Institute, an organization that promotes nuclear energy, said the industry in no way seeks to shirk its safety obligations.

“There is no wiggle room when it comes to health and safety — we comply,” he said. “The folks around the plants are our neighbors.”

Hiatt said the EPA regulations are much more stringent than those set by the International Atomic Energy Agency and would protect the public from the greater hazards of drinking untreated or muddied water after a disaster. Bacteria and contaminants such as E. coli in untreated water would be far more toxic than the doses of radiation proposed by the EPA, he said.

“If the draft guidelines are published as is, I would see no issues with those limits,” Hiatt said. “They are lower than what the rest of the world would be going by.”

A 2013 reported compiled by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation examined the effects of the Fukushima disaster and found, a year after the event, that “to date, there have been no health effects attributed to radiation exposure observed among workers, the people with the highest radiation exposures.”

It said the dose the workforce was exposed to was between 10,000 and 679,000 millirems.

James Conca, a consultant for the Department of Energy and the EPA, writing about the U.N. report for Forbes in 2013, said it “concluded what we in nuclear science have been saying for decades — radiation doses less than about 10 rem [10,000 millirems] are no big deal.”

As of this year, at least 131 cases of thyroid cancer have been reported in people, predominantly children, present at the Fukushima disaster. The event forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate and more than 760,000 tons of water contaminated with radiation to leak into the soil and the ocean. Multibillion-dollar decommissioning work at the facility could take several more decades to complete.

“During the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident, the [EPA] had to develop drinking water guidance for U.S. citizens who might have been exposed to contamination from the incident,” Melissa Harrison, a spokeswoman with the EPA, told The New Mexican when asked about the timing of the latest proposal.

Despite this justification for the emergency guidelines, documents show attempts also were made years earlier to ease radiation limits in food and drinking water.

The EPA says the new guidelines are “not intended for long-term or everyday use,” but they do not put limits on how long a state could choose to apply them. The proposal only says that water systems should return to compliance with the Safe Water Drinking Act “as soon as practicable.”

The agency said the proposal is nonregulatory and is intended “to protect residents from experiencing the harmful effects from radiation in drinking water following an emergency.”

Allison Scott Majure, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico Environment Department, agreed that the EPA’s guidelines are considered “a point of reference for emergency response managers.”

Jennifer Talhelm, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said the senator is reviewing the proposal. So far, she said, his office hasn’t heard any criticisms of the plan. But Udall hopes the proposal will draw public input, she said.

“He certainly encourages experts and anyone with concerns to weigh in during the comment period to help the EPA write the best standards possible to protect public health,” she said.

Hirsh maintains that more lax standards and the open-ended nature of the EPA proposal are alarming.

“I know how dangerous radioactivity is,” he said, “so when I see these numbers, my eyes widen. To me, I started thinking about Nuremberg, and how ethically a government official can possibly do this.”

In the Nuremberg trials, which took place from 1945-49, teams from the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union prosecuted Nazi leaders for crimes committed by Germans during World War II. The litigation established guidelines for what constitutes a war crime and defined ethics principles for experimentation on humans.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on June 5, 2016 at 2:23am

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/database/index.php?pageid=event_summar...

Environment Pollution in USA on April 19 2016 06:35 PM (UTC)

Washington State, Hanford Nuclear Reservation incident labeled "catastrophic"

Base data

EDIS Number ED-20160419-52982-USA
Event type Environment Pollution
Date/Time April 19 2016 06:35 PM (UTC)
Last update May 03 2016 03:32 AM (UTC)
Cause of event
Damage level

Hight Damage level

Geographic information

Continent North-America
Country USA
County / State State of Washington
Area Hanford Nuclear Reservation
Settlement
Coordinate 46° 38.850,119° 35.917

Number of affected people / Humanities loss

Dead person(s) 0
Injured person(s) 3
Missing person(s) 0
Evacuated person(s) 0
Affected person(s) 20
Foreign people 0

Thousands of gallons of radioactive waste are estimated to have leaked at a Manhattan Project-era nuclear storage tank in Washington State over the weekend, triggering an alarm and causing one former worker to label it as "catastrophic."The expanded leak was first detected after an alarm went off at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on Sunday, and on Monday workers were preparing to pump the waste out of the troubled area, AP reported. They were also trying to determine why the leak became worse. It's unclear exactly how much waste spilled out, but estimates place the amount at somewhere between 3,000 and 3,500 gallons, according to the Tri-City Herald. "There is no indication of waste leaking into the environment or risk to the public at this time," the Washington Department of Ecology said in a statement. The problem occurred at the double-wall storage tank AY-102, which has actually been leaking since 2011. At the time, the leak was extremely small, and the waste would dry up almost right after spilling out between the inner and outer walls, leaving a salt-like substance behind. In March, the US Department of Energy began pumping what was left in the storage tank, which originally held some 800,000 gallons of waste. However, during this process - and after the alarms at Hanford went off - workers discovered that the leaked waste between the storage walls had reached a depth of 8.4 inches. Pumping work on the tank has been halted as officials reevaluate the situation and figure out how to get to the leaked radioactive waste.

It's possible that the leak was made worse when the pumping began, but that has not been confirmed. While the Department of Energy called the leak "anticipated" and the state Ecology Department said there was no danger to the public, the former Hanford worker who first discovered the leak had a different analysis. "This is catastrophic," Mike Geffre told King5 News. "This is probably the biggest event to ever happen in tank farm history. The double shell tanks were supposed to be the saviors of all saviors (to hold waste safely from people and the environment)." After Geffre first discovered the leak, the government contractor managing the tanks, Washington River Protection Solutions, did not acknowledge the problem until 2012. The state has been pushing the federal government to remove the remaining waste since then, but work didn't start on the project until last month. According to the state Ecology Department, there are roughly 20,000 gallons of waste left inside the AY-102 tank. "It makes me sad that they didn't believe me that there was a problem in 2011," said Geffre. "I wish they would have listened to me and reacted faster. Maybe none of this would be happening now. It's an example of a culture at Hanford of 'We don't have problems here. We're doing just fine.' Which is a total lie." Fortunately, there has been no indication that waste has made its way into a leak detection pit outside of the tank itself, the Seattle Times reported. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation was originally constructed in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. After decades of producing plutonium for weapons, including the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, millions of gallons of radioactive waste was generated by the time production stopped at the end of the Cold War. It is expected to cost billions of dollars to clean up the site over the course of decades.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on June 3, 2016 at 6:22am

https://tlarremore.wordpress.com/2016/06/02/nuclear-event-manual-re...

Nuclear Event – Manual Reactor Shutdown, Equipment Failure: Limerick Nuclear Power Plant, Pennsylvania

2016/06/02

North America – USA | State of Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Limerick Nuclear Plant
Location: 40°13’36.0″N 75°35’14.0″W
Present Operational Age: ~30 years
Event: RPS ACTUATION – CRITICAL

MANUAL REACTOR SCRAM DUE TO UNEXPECTED CORE FLOW CHANGE

“Limerick Unit 2 was manually scrammed from 100 [percent] power at 0900 [EDT] on 6/1/2016 in accordance with plant procedure OT-112 ‘Unexpected/Unexplained change in core flow’ when both 2A and 2B Recirculation Pump Adjustable Speed Drives (ASDs) tripped due to an electrical fault. The shutdown was normal and the plant is stable in Hot Shutdown with normal pressure control via the Main Steam Bypass valves to the Main Condenser and normal level control using Feedwater. The Manual RPS actuation is reportable under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(2).”

All rods inserted fully on manual scram and the plant is in a normal shutdown electrical line up. Unit 1 was not affected by this event.

The licensee plans to issue a press release.

The licensee notified local counties and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA).

The NRC Resident Inspector has been notified.

Source: NRC  Event Number: 51968

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