Governments Promote Nuclear Power While Trying to Eliminate Affordable Coal-fired Power Plants

Compared with nuclear power, coal is responsible for five times as many worker deaths from accidents, 470 times as many deaths due to air pollution among members of the public, and more than 1,000 times as many cases of serious illness, according to a study of the health effects of electricity generation in Europe. - Washington Post compares coal, oil and nuclear accidents and pollution per Terawatt hour, NextBigFuture.com, April 03, 2011

Governments Have Been Covering Up Nuclear Meltdowns for Fifty Years to Protect the Nuclear Power Industry

March 21, 2011

Washington's Blog - As a History Chanel special notes, a nuclear meltdown occurred at the world’s first commercial reactor only 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and only 7 miles from the community of Canoga Park and the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.

Specifically, in 1959, there was a meltdown of one-third of the nuclear reactors at the Santa Susana field laboratory operated by Rocketdyne, releasing—according to some scientists’ estimates - 240 times as much radiation as Three Mile Island.

But the Atomic Energy Commission lied and said only there was only 1 partially damaged rod, and no real problems. In fact, the AEC kept the meltdown a state secret for 20 years.

There were other major accidents at that reactor facility, which the AEC and Nuclear Regulatory Commission covered up as well. See this.

Two years earlier, a Russian government reactor at Kyshtm melted down in an accident which some claim was even worse than Chernobyl.

The Soviet government hid the accident, pretending that it was creating a new “nature reserve” to keep people out of the huge swath of contaminated land.

Journalist Anna Gyorgy alleges that the results of a freedom of information act request show that the CIA knew about the accident at the time, but kept it secret to prevent adverse consequences for the fledgling American nuclear industry.

1980s Studies and Hearings

In 1982, the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs received a secretreport received from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called “Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences 2″.

In that report and other reports by the NRC in the 1980s, it was estimated that there was a 50% chance of a nuclear meltdown within the next 20 years which would be so large that it would contaminate an area the size of the State of Pennsylvania, which would result in huge numbers of a fatalities, and which would cause damage in the hundreds of billions of dollars (in 1980s dollars).

Those reports were kept secret for decades.

Other Evidence

Well-known writer Alvin Toffler pointed out in Powershift (page 156):

At least thirty times between 1957 and 1985—more than once a year—the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, South Carolina, experienced what a scientist subsequently termed “reactor incidents of greatest significance.” These included widespread leakage of radioactivity and a meltdown of nuclear fuel. But not one of these was reported to local residents or to the public generally. Nor was action taken when the scientist submitted an internal memorandum about these “incidents.”

The story did not come to light until exposed in a Congressional hearing in 1988. The plant was operated by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for the U.S. government, and Du Pont was accused of covering up the facts. The company immediately issued a denial, pointing out that it had routinely reported the accidents to the Department of Energy.

At this point, the DoE, as it is known, accepted the blame for keeping the news secret.

And former soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on camera for a Discovery Network special (“The Battle of Chernobyl”) that the Soviets and Americans have each hidden a number of nuclear accidents from the public.

(17:02 into video)

Ongoing?

In light of the foregoing, the following quote from the San Jose Mercury News may not seem so far-fetched:

EPA officials, however, refused to answer questions or make staff members available to explain the exact location and number of monitors, or the levels of radiation, if any, being recorded at existing monitors in California. Margot Perez-Sullivan, a spokeswoman at the EPA’s regional headquarters in San Francisco, said the agency’s written statement would stand on its own.

Critics said the public needs more information.

“It’s disappointing,” said Bill Magavern, director of Sierra Club California. “I have a strong suspicion that EPA is being silenced by those in the federal government who don’t want anything to stand in the way of a nuclear power expansion in this country, heavily subsidized by taxpayer money.”

And see this and this.

NRC: Japan Nuke Crisis Does Not Warrant U.S. Changes

March 21, 2011

Associated Press – The nuclear crisis in Japan, while severe, appears to be stabilizing and does not warrant any immediate changes in U.S. nuclear plants, a top U.S. nuclear official said Monday.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's executive director for operations, Bill Borchardt, said officials have "a high degree of confidence" that operations at the 104 nuclear reactors in 31 states are safe. He said inspectors at each of the plants have redoubled efforts to guard against any safety breaches.

Borchardt gave NRC commissioners a detailed look at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plan, damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the U.S. response thus far.

Borchardt told commissioners that Units 1, 2 and 3 at the crippled Fukushima plant have some core damage, but that containment for those three reactors has not been breached.

"I would say optimistically that things appear to be on the verge of stabilizing," he said.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the troubled plant, has been able to bring offsite power onto the site from a nearby transmission line, Borchardt said, the first sign of progress at the plant in recent days. Water is being injected into the reactor vessels in Units 1, 2 and 3, and containment in all three units appears to be functional, he said.

The five-member commission was reviewing the Japanese crisis — it is the worst nuclear disaster in a quarter-century — and was set to approve a 90-day safety review of operations at U.S. nuclear plants to comply with a call last week by President Barack Obama.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said his agency has a responsibility to the American people to undertake "a systematic and methodical review of the safety of our own domestic nuclear facilities," in light of the Japanese disaster.

The nuclear plant's cooling systems were wrecked by the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11. Since then, conditions at the plant have been volatile; a plume of smoke rose from two reactor units Monday, prompting workers to evacuate.

As work at the plant continues, U.S. officials will look to see whether information from Japan can be applied in the United States to ensure U. S. reactors remain safe, Jaczko said.

But even some of his fellow commissioners had questions about the U.S. response.

Commissioner George Apostolakis wondered why the NRC did not close some older nuclear plants, as Germany did.

"Are we less prudent than the Germans?" Apostolakis asked.

Borchardt replied that officials "asked ourselves the question every single day, 'Should we take a regulatory action based upon the latest information?'" Each time, he said, the answer was no.

"I'm 100 percent confident in the review that we've done and we continue to do every single day that we have a sufficient basis to ... conclude that the U.S. plants continue to operate safely," he said.

Borchardt also defended the commission's recommendation that U.S. citizens stay at least 50 miles away from the troubled Fukushima plant. Current U.S. guidelines call for a 10-mile evacuation zone around all U.S. nuclear plants, and some critics have suggested that the NRC was imposing a stricter standard on Japan than on U.S. nuclear reactors.

Borchardt said the recommendation about Japan was made based on conditions at the plant — namely that there were degraded conditions in two spent-fuel pools at the site and likely damage to three of the reactor cores.

If the same conditions occurred in the United States, he added, "we would have done the same analysis and gone through the same thought process," and likely would have extended the evacuation zone and taken others steps to protect the public.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said U.S. officials acted appropriately in recommending the 50-mile evacuation zone for U.S. citizens in Japan.

"They acted cautiously based on the uncertainty of what the radiation exposures are at the plant," spokesman Steve Kerekes said.

NRC staff and other U.S. experts have been in Tokyo for more than a week conferring with Japanese government and industry officials on the disaster. A second wave of NRC employees is heading to Japan this week, in many cases replacing workers who are already there.

U.S. Agrees to Help Chile Go Nuclear, Despite Japan Disaster

Even as radiation leaked from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, the US and Chile signed a nuclear power cooperation agreement, days ahead of President Obama's visit Monday.

March 21, 2011

Christian Science Monitor - Among the "urgent events" that President Obama said he discussed Monday with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera was the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan that began March 11 when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami along the northeast coast.

While the crisis only appeared to be mentioned in passing during a press conference in Santiago during Mr. Obama's five-day regional tour, it has set off a firestorm of criticism against Mr. Piñera and caused a major rethink over energy policy here.

Yesterday, some 2,000 people marched through the capital to protest a new US-Chile nuclear power cooperation agreement signed Friday as radiation leaked from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant. The agreement promises cooperation in operating research reactors, handling civilian nuclear training and safety measures. It seemed a natural extension of Piñera's steady push for nuclear power to ensure electricity for Chile's world-leading copper industry.

But recent events appear to have caused Piñera to pivot.

Like Japan, Chile is seismic – its 9.5-magnitude quake in 1960 was the most powerful of the 20th century. And Chile's risk management culture is not as mature as Japan's. Now, this mineral-rich nation faces an energy dilemma: whether to choose earthquake-prone nuclear power plants or greenhouse gas-emitting coal-fired power plants.

Walking the fence

Ditching nuclear power would mark a sharp shift for Chile's government. Piñera said in an energy policy address in November that the country should build small nuclear plants like those found on nuclear submarines – an idea also promoted by the US Commerce Department. And last month, Energy Minister Laurence Golborne visited France and signed a nuclear cooperation agreement. The signing was announced with a press release, unlike the silence around Friday's closed-doors ceremony.

Then on Friday, Mr. Golborne said on Twitter:

"I've been clear. We don't have nuclear plants in Chile, there are no plans to build them, and there's a commitment not to make a decision during this government."

Former President Ricardo Lagos, who supported nuclear power while in office, told local newspaper La Tercera: "Today the conditions don't exist to think about nuclear power. A lot of time will pass before it can be reconsidered."

US hunts for nuclear markets

If it doesn't use nuclear energy, then how will Chile power its growing copper extraction industry? Coal.

Chile has already approved almost a dozen new coal-fired power plants to allow its metals industry to grow to meet world demand. The country approved in February a 2,400-megawatt plant for the coast, which if built will be the biggest coal-fired plant in South America.

But there's a heavy price to pay environmentally for that. Growth of coal and diesel-fired electricity to power copper mines and smelters was one of the reasons that copper produced more greenhouse gases per ton in 2008 than in 2004, according to the Chilean Copper Commission.

That, as well as the US's hunt for new markets for its nuclear technology, could keep Chile on a nuclear course.

In a November report, the US General Accounting Office called on the Commerce Department to identify new markets, saying the US has lost much of its share in the global nuclear marketplace.

"US exports of sensitive nuclear material such as natural and enriched uranium remained stable, while the US share of global exports for these materials decreased significantly, from 29 percent to 10 percent, from 1994 through 2008," the agency said.