ANO accident and Ted Rockwell death: Update and Links

On Sunday, I wrote a short blog post about the fatal accident at ANO 1, and the death of Ted Rockwell, nuclear pioneer.  Here's an update.

ANO 1

Will Davis wrote an excellent update on the ANO 1 accident.  It is at his blog, Atomic Power Review,  and I hope he will be writing more updates in the future.   The first sentence of his post reads: As of this morning, there has been exceedingly little new information released about Sunday's industrial accident at ANO Generating Station.  So true!  His post also ends with a list of unanswered questions.

I am going to add one more question to Davis list: why no pictures?  There are pictures available somewhere. I have seen people on twitter refer to pictures, but no pictures have been released to the public.  Some pictures may be gory and should not be generally released, out of sympathy to the people who suffered.  But in other accidents have the same constraints of good taste and empathy, and they release some pictures.  This accident was tragic: there is no reason to also make it mysterious.

UPDATE: A comment sent me a link to a picture of the accident. http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/17159/

NRC and OSHA are investigating.  Davis posts includes a time-line of events and links to many press releases, from Entergy, NRC, and OSHA. I also recommend this article from Power Engineering Magazine: Entergy Confirms Death During Refueling. It provides context, including comments on other accidents.

Ted Rockwell

Ted Rockwell, a pioneer of nuclear energy and a tireless crusader for it, passed away quietly in his sleep on Sunday, jus a few months before his 91st birthday.  I simply cannot do a better job of eulogizing him than Rod Adams did today at ANS Nuclear Cafe: Ted Rockwell, Atomic Pioneer and Tireless Campaigner for Facts.

I also recommend Rockwell's site:
Learning About Energy http://www.learningaboutenergy.com/
with the provocative sub-heading: "Much of What You Know Simply Isn't So."

The site also has links to several of his books.  I recommend his book The Rickover Effect.  I close with a short clip from Rod Adams; Ted Rockwell speaking about Small Modular Reactors in 2009.

Save a Millirem, and the Carnival

Carnival #145 is up at Atomic Power Review.  Will Davis starts with his usual teaser picture from his amazing archives. Then the Carnival begins, and it is lots of fun. Nuclear in space, old films about the "romance of radium" for medical treatment, a critique of the State of the Union speech (guess which type of energy was invisible, unnamed, etc), and an update on the Diary of a Nuclear Tourist from Suzy Hobbs Baker in Europe.  Come, read, enjoy!

Also, in honor of the refueling, I include a favorite video.

Drum roll!  Outage being planned!

Time to Save A Millirem!

Enjoy it all!

128th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers and Atomic Power Review

The 128th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up today at Atomic Power Review.  Will Davis gets into the spirit of the Carnival with a guessing game: "What is this picture?"

Will, this picture was too hard for me.  I had NO clue.  You just have to make these pictures easier to guess.  I was reduced to trying to figure out the time frame by how people were dressed.  Men in hats?

However, I assure you  that even if you can't guess the picture, you will still enjoy the Carnival! It contains news about Japan, Vermont, new builds, the Waste Confidence Ruling at NRC, Canadian reactors, nuclear market competitiveness, nuclear good news, and a historical perspective on the Material Test Reactor at Idaho National Labs.

This Carnival is a feast of information and commentary, and you won't want to miss it.

And if you were able to guess the picture at the top of the Carnival, please tell me.

The Court Decision on Spent Fuel and Vermont Yankee

The Court Decision and the Local Reaction

Dry Cask illustration from NRC

In March of this year, Vermont and other petitioners brought suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  Their suit claimed that NRC rulemaking on spent fuel storage was insufficient. On Friday, June 8 the Federal Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the petitioners.  According to the court, the NRC rules on spent fuel storage will have to be revised. You can read the court's decision here.

Some of the local reactions have been unrealistically optimistic that this ruling means Vermont Yankee is doomed. There's a spirit of: "We told you so and now Vermont Yankee won't be able to operate any more!"  A recent Vermont Digger article was titled: Federal ruling could give state officials basis for denying Entergy license to operate Vermont Yankee. Meanwhile, in a Vermont Public Radio article, Nuclear Waste Ruling Could Strengthen VT Court Case, Vermont Attorney General Sorrell said that the lack of long-term storage was an economic risk to Vermont, and the Vermont Public Service Board can look at economic issues. A direct quote from Sorrell:

"Here you've got under what was the NRC decision, 20 years of relicensing, and then the ability to store spent fuels on the Vermont Yankee site for another 60 years," he said. "So 80 years out of spent nuclear fuels being stored there, 60 of those supposedly after Vermont Yankee is no longer operating. And is that good for the state economy?"

(Note.  I find this remark completely illogical in terms of economic consequences, so don't ask me to explain it.  I quoted it, and that's all I can do.)

The Real Court Decision
The Vermont Yankee opponents are wrong about the consequences of this decision.  They are loud (as usual) but they are wrong.

In my view, there are three facets to the court decision, none of which have any immediate consequences to any operating power plant. They may have economic consequences in the future, but these consequences are unpredictable.

The background is this.  In 2010, the NRC ruled that spent fuel could be stored on site for sixty years after a plant was closed or until a permanent repository was available. Regarding this action, the court said:

Centralized fuel pool
(pool for many reactors)
Areva

• The rule-making for fuel storage on site is a major federal action, and therefore must have either an environmental impact statement or an official finding of "no environmental impact."
• In 2010, NRC extended of spent fuel storage on-site from thirty to sixty years after a plant has closed.  The court ruled that this NRC time extension was not justified nor sufficient.  The NRC must address the possibility that no permanent repository will ever be available, and do an environmental impact assessment of that possibility.
• The NRC can do the type of rule-making it usually does for general issues, and does not have to address the storage at each plant on a case-by-case basis.

All these factors are as applicable for any other plant as they are for Vermont Yankee. None of them challenge the NRC's role in assessing radiological risk from nuclear plants.  In other words, nothing in this ruling allows the state to take any kind of pre-emptive action about radiological safety.

The NRC also has the right to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court.

The NRC has work to do. 
No matter how many commentators say that the Vermont Public Service Board  should be influenced by this decision, the decision is completely about NRC rule-making. It defers to the NRC for further rule-making.  This decision does not give the state of Vermont any right  to pre-empt federal regulation of radiological safety. It does not require that Vermont Yankee fuel storage be assessed as a separate case.

(Another note.  I'm not a lawyer. Still, I thought this decision was pretty clear, so I feel reasonably confident in what I wrote.)

Spent fuel shipment canister
Areva

Pressuring Congress?

Maybe this ruling is about pressuring Congress for a spent fuel storage facility. You might look at Will Davis Atomic Power Review post on the ruling.  He starts by repeating the introductory statement (from the ruling)

This is another in the growing line of cases involving the federal government’s failure to establish a permanent repository for civilian nuclear waste.

In other words, you can look at the ruling as a set-back for the NRC.  Or you can look at the ruling as a boost, provided by the courts, for  opening a spent-fuel repository.

More Resources:

Two excellent articles on the subject are Federal Court Throws Cold Water on Nuclear Waste Ruling at EnergyBiz, and Court Forces a Rethinking of Nuclear Fuel Storage at the New York Times.  My local paper, the Valley News, has a clearly-written op-ed with the history of the NRC's rulings on spent fuel storage: Confidence Game: Court Rightly Challenges the NRC.

San Onofre Steam Generators: My Post at Atomic Power Review

Introducing my post, San Onofre and Steam Generator Design at Atomic Power Review.

History

An excellent post by Dan Yurman, Debunking Some Nuclear Nonsense, introduced me to the controversies about the new steam generators at San Onofre.  The steam generators are newly installed, and having unexpected problems.  His post also introduced me to Arnie Gundersen's critiques of the San Onofre steam generators, how they were made, how they were designed, etc.  These critiques were  funded by Friends of the Earth.

I try to stick to energy issues in my own region, the Northeast, but this situation got under my skin.  You see, I actually know a great deal about steam generators and their issues.  I was a project manager in the Steam Generator Owner's Group at EPRI.  When I left EPRI to start my own company, I had contracts to help utilities with steam generator chemistry decisions. My contracts were in the U.S. and abroad. My expertise was in demand.

So, of course I fired off a geeky letter to the ANS mailing list about steam generators.  Will Davis of Atomic Power Review asked me to de-geek the letter a bit. He said he would put it on his blog, Atomic Power Review.

My post is up at Atomic Power review today.  I'm proud of it, and I very pleased that Will Davis encouraged me to write it.  It's getting a lot of hits...

Update: I was going to put in a series of links to other SG articles, but the NEI blog post today has done it for me.  A Reader's Guide to the San Onofre Steam Generator Situation.  Great guide to SG posts by Barq, Davis, Yurman, and people at Southern California Edison.  Thanks for the comprehensive guide to steam generator issues at SONGS.

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Graphic of steam generator support plates courtesy of AREVA.