Vermont Energy with Pat McDonald

Beyond the Sound Bite

Pat McDonald served many years in government in Vermont, appointed to leadership positions under both Democrat and Republican administrations.  She also represented her community as a legislator in the State House for four years.

Early this summer, MacDonald started a community access TV show "Vote for Vermont." The motto for the show is"Listening Beyond the Sound Bite."  You can read more about her show in this Times Argus article.

About two weeks ago, MacDonald interviewed me about energy issues in Vermont.  She always interviews her guests before the show is taped, to be sure she has strong, relevant questions.

This past Monday, I was on the show.  I embed it below. Because her questions were  so strong, the half-hour show flew by quickly.  I hope you will enjoy it!


Vermont Energy on "Vote for Vermont"

Opponents Claim That Vermont Yankee is More Dangerous Than Ever

The Claim: It's More Dangerous Than Ever

All the fuel has been removed from the Vermont Yankee reactor, and is now in the fuel pool. Please keep that in mind as you read the rest of this blog post.

Weather Update: I have heard that the opponent's meeting tonight in Brattleboro has been cancelled due to weather.

A Letter About the Increasing Danger

Fuel pool
Wikipedia

A recent letter in the Greenfield, MA, Recorder claimed that Vermont Yankee is Still a Public Safety Threat. The first sentence of her letter says: When Vermont Yankee nuclear plant shut down on Dec. 29, 2014, the threat to public safety did not end, in fact it may have increased

Ms. Kosterman is concerned with the spent fuel pool, the fact that Vermont Yankee is downsizing its staff, and the end of some types of planning and notification for the Emergency Planning Zone.  Of course, she mentions the terrible situation of the Fukushima spent fuel pools where...well, actually, nothing happened at the Fukushima fuel pools, but she doesn't mention that.

A quote from Kosterman's letter:

With Vermont Yankee downsizing its staff, is there enough security and oversight to protect citizens from terrorist threats? And, if we lose power due to severe weather or if the grid goes down for any reason, will the backup generators be sufficient to cool the spent fuel pool to ensure public safety? 

She recommends writing the NRC during the decommissioning comment period, and asking them to deny any request by Entergy that lowers the company's expenses for safety-related funding.

The State Says It Needs to Monitor the Fuel Pool

Well, yeah sure. That was a letter from a member of the local anti-nuclear campaign. Surely the state government takes a more realistic view?

Don't bet on it.

As I described in a recent post, the NRC allowed Vermont Yankee to downsize their data systems and staffing, now that the reactor is de-fueled. The state is officially worried about this.  An article by John Herrick in Vermont Digger quotes Chris Recchia, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, as follows:

(Recchia) said the state is evaluating an appeal to a decision by a federal panel that approved the elimination of the data system.
He said he has “deep concerns” about the safety of the plant without the state being able to monitor radiological conditions in the spent fuel pool..... Without the data management system, the state will not have real-time access to the conditions in the pool.

Apparently the state feels it needs and deserves real-time data on the fuel pool.


Gearing Up for the NRC Meeting 

On February 19, in Brattleboro, the NRC will hold a meeting on the Vermont Yankee decommissioning report. (I recommend the Entergy's VY Decommissioning web site for access to all reports.)   The opponents are gearing up for this meeting by hosting two preparatory meetings, one in Brattleboro on Monday February 9 (I have heard this meeting has been cancelled due to weather), and one in Montpelier on Wednesday February 11.

The opponents don't seem to know that the reactor is shut down.  A quote from the Montpelier meeting announcement:  With the slow motion Fukushima disaster highlighting the vulnerabilities of Mark 1 reactors, how will the state deal with the increased vulnerability of this aged reactor?

Hey guys....news flash!  The reactor doesn't have fuel in it!  The fuel has been removed!  The reactor is  no more vulnerable than any other large inert piece of metal.   Sigh. Sometimes, "respecting your opponents" can be uphill work.

With or without my respect, the opponents are getting ready to confront the NRC again.  Leslie Sullivan Sachs, a leader of an anti-nuclear campaign, wrote this letter to The Commons:  You Don't Need to be a Rocket Scientist. Her letter focuses on being heard at the February 19 NRC meeting on Vermont Yankee decommissioning.

Beyond the NRC Meeting: Gearing up for petitions and contentions

Another nuclear opponent, Clay Turnbull, wrote a comment on Sach's letter. Turnbull felt it was important to say that the February 19 NRC meeting will not be the last chance to take an important part in Vermont Yankee decommissioning.  Here's part of Turnbull's comment on the Sachs letter (I can't seem to link directly to the comment.)

Point of clarification: NRC will be holding a Public Meeting, not a Public Hearing. In a meeting there is no test of truthfulness. In a hearing everything NRC says in under oath and on the record. .....whenever NRC licensing actions involve nuclear reactors, as it the case at Entergy Vermont Yankee, an opportunity to file requests for a hearing and to file a petition to intervene comes with that licensing action. Each time Entergy requests a licence amendment or exemption from regulations is an opportunity for the public to challenge that action with all parties under oath....the public meeting on Feb 19...(should be seen) as the beginning, rather than the end, of opportunities to engage NRC... [Edited to add: The writer is a staff member of the New England Coalition, an antinuclear organization based in Brattleboro.]

Note: Howard Shaffer also has a comment on the Sachs letter.  His comment is excellent and worth reading.

Fear or money? My cynical impression on all of this

I don't think the anti-nuclear groups are equally afraid of a closed plant and an operating plant.  However, I do think they are afraid of losing their funding.  Because, after all, if you successfully "eliminate the danger" by closing the plant,  people may begin to direct their donations and their activism elsewhere.  To maintain funding, you have to say that the plant is still very dangerous.

If a plant being decommissioned is as dangerous as an operating plant, then the fear goes on.  And with  the fear (with any luck), maybe their donations will go on, too.

Decommissioning Meeting Wednesday Night in Brattleboro

The Meeting and the NRC

There's a meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizen Advisory Panel (NDCAP) on Wednesday night in Brattleboro. The meeting will start at 6 p.m. at the Quality Inn and Conference Center, on Vernon Road in Brattleboro. Here's a link to the agenda.
http://publicservice.vermont.gov/sites/psd/files/VY%20NDCAP%20Agenda%201-28-15%20Final.pdf

As you may note, this is an unusual meeting because a representative from NRC will be there. NDCAP itself will continue to have meetings forever, though the Rockies may crumble and Gibraltar may tumble...no, not that long.  Wrong song.

The meeting tomorrow night may well be an important meeting, because it is during the period when the NRC is taking comments on the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Plan, the Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, aka the PSDAR. And a representative from the NRC will be there, which is always quite a draw for the opponents.  (See my post on one of the NRC-sponsored meetings: The Politics of Intimidation.)

Update Note: I originally wrote that NDCAP would have "monthly" meetings forever.  Howard Shaffer corrected this.  He informed me that NDCAP has had monthly meetings recently, since so much is going on, but the group is only required to have four meetings a year.  So they will have meetings forever, but not monthly meetings.

Sources of Information, and What to Say

Vermont Yankee has an excellent web site on decommissioning, including links to the PSDAR. The Public Service Department also a good site, with links to presentations at NDCAP meetings.  And a big Hat's Off to Howard Shaffer, for his submission to NDCAP. There were two presentations to NDCAP by nuclear opponent groups, and Howard also has a presentation.  (See December 18 meeting notes.)

The bad news is you can spend a week reading pages and pages of information about this meeting. But, if you go to the meeting, you will only get probably two minutes to say anything at all. What might you say?

My advice would be to say that with the plant shut down, and all fuel in the pool, the emergency planning zone (EPZ) no longer needs to be in effect at the time when the NRC says it doesn't need to be in effect.  In other words, the EPZ can be shut down in early 2016.

EPZ Controversy

Well, it isn't a controversy.  All nuclear people (plant, NRC etc) agree that when the fuel has been in the fuel pool for about a year, it becomes too cool to start a fire.  At that point, the emergency planning zone no longer needs to be funded.  However, the opponents are eager to have all nuclear plants spend as much money as possible and keep the emergency planning and so forth in place forever.

Or at least, they think that the EPZ should be in place until Gibraltar tumbles and...wait.  Wrong song!  No, actually, it may be the right song.

The VY Decommissioning page includes an analysis of the public comments received by the Public Service Board about the PSDAR.  You will note that the majority of the comments:

• Request EPZ until all fuel is in dry casks
• Request EPZ until all spent fuel is offsite, maybe in Yucca Mountain
• Request EPZ expansion to fifty miles.

If you go to the meeting, explain perhaps that the fuel pool will not be a danger...just about the time when the NRC says it will not be a danger.  And that the EPZ can go away....just about the time that the NRC says it no longer needs to be funded!  These dates are calculations, not coincidence. 





Will I Be At the Meeting?

Probably not.  I have to admit that I have lost my taste for watching people walk up to the microphone and endlessly repeat that they are terrified about the fuel pool. The plant is not operating. They won, and I don't want to watch them anymore.  Also,  I have lost my taste for being intimidated, and the presence of someone from the NRC may lead the opponents to having more fun (so to speak) than a normal meeting.

However, Howard Shaffer said he may go, and I may go also.  Shaffer is a real trooper, filing testimony to partially balance the testimony of the opponents. I haven't decided about this meeting. Luckily, the blizzard didn't really blizzard here, the way it blizzarded in Massachusetts. So I could go, I guess.

A lot to think about.

On the Roof? Video about Vermont Yankee retirement

WCAX interviewed Howard Shaffer and Arnie Gundersen about Vermont Yankee's retirement.  Gundersen apparently does not know where the fuel pool is: he says that the fuel is stored "on the roof."  Really?  Last I looked, it was under the roof.

Shaffer is reasonable as usual.

Just a quick post to share this. I hope the video comes through.  If not, please follow the link.

http://www.wcax.com/story/27886195/vermont-yankees-long-road-to-retirement

  WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Emergency Planning and Fuel Pools: The Little Fire That Wasn't There

stairs at a lighthouse

The man on the stair

Yesterday, upon the stair, 

I met a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today.

I wish, I wish he'd go away.

The fire that wasn't there

In the early days after the tsunami, quite a few people looked at the explosion above Fukushima Daiichi Fuel Pool 4 and decided that the fuel pool must be burning.  Later, it became clear that the explosion was due to hydrogen generated in Unit 3, and that the fuel pool was fine. Well, mostly fine--it had debris from the roof that fell in on it.  At any rate, the fuel pool was not burning and it will not burn in the future. Currently fuel bundles are being removed from that pool.

However, the more strident nuclear opponents keep up the rhetoric that the Fuel Pool 4 has burned, is still burning, or is about to burn any moment. The opponents are noisy, but they are wrong.  Fuel Pool 4 is the little fire that isn't there.

Meanwhile, back in Vermont: Emergency Planning

Vermont Yankee will close later this year. When it shuts down, it will transfer fuel from the reactor to the fuel pool.  Then, after a period of about five to seven years, Vermont Yankee will transfer all the  fuel from the fuel pool into dry cask storage. In other words, for several years, the fuel pool will be in full operation.

Entergy has calculated that the danger of a fuel pool fire will be somewhere between highly-improbable and completely-impossible after the fuel has cooled in the pool for about a year. Therefore, Entergy has requested permission from the NRC  to stop funding the Emergency Planning Zone, starting fifteen months after reactor shutdown and fuel off-loading.

As you can imagine, the powers-that-be in Vermont are totally against the NRC allowing Entergy to stop funding the Emergency Planning Zone.  I think they believe in the scaremonger-version of the Unit 4 pool at Fukushima.  Governor Shumlin's appointee, Chris Recchia, is chair of the Vermont Department of Public Service. In Washington, Recchia testified about emergency planning. He said that “Vermont was not well served by NRC’s past decisions and current approach to decommissioning. We essentially negotiated with one hand tied behind our back."

Meanwhile, in Washington: Committee Meetings and Bills

Senator Sanders

Chris Recchia was in Washington to testify about before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  Senator Barbara Boxer of that committee did her best to get a witness from the NRC to say that the spent fuels at San Onofre were dangerous and the fuel should be moved to dry casks as soon as possible (maybe sooner).   But Washington has gone beyond mere committee meetings.

Senator Sanders, Boxer and Markey have introduced legislation to have nuclear plants consult with states within fifty miles of the plant before the plants can submit a decommissioning plan to the NRC.

Back to Vermont: Money

Vermont has often expressed its eagerness to have the plant fully decommissioned as soon as possible.  Our politicians get visibly upset at the idea of letting decommissioning funds grow over time.  However, it also seems to be anathema to them that the NRC will decide on the danger level of the fuel pool. The politicians want a major state seat at the table, deciding on danger levels according to their personal criteria.

Vice President Mike Twomey of Entergy tried to bring some reason to this process. He noted that keeping up the Emergency Planning Zone activities would cost about $20 million a year.  This money will come out the decommissioning fund. Taking this money from the fund in the early days would slow the growth of the fund, and therefore slow the beginning of full decommissioning.  In other words, the politicians cannot have their cake (continued funding for the emergency zone) and eat it too (quick decommissioning). As Twomey said, this funding is "not a free option."

Back to Vermont: Safety 

Volunteer firefighters in Georgia

This is all about politics, by the way, not safety.  If you ask first-responders from the Brattleboro area if the fuel pool is the most important of their concerns, they would say "no."  The trains running through southern Vermont carry all sorts of cargoes, including acid, poisonous industrial chemicals, flammable materials, etc.

Possible train wrecks are a major concern to local first responders.

I believe that first responders can always use more funding.  However, funding the Emergency Planning Zone isn't what they need, or what the people of Vermont need for safety.  It may be what some of our elected officials need for re-election, however.

 The Little Fire That Wasn't There

Vermont has to stop posturing about fuel pools, and look at the real problems the state is going to have. The state is especially going to have problems without Vermont Yankee funds (Clean Energy Development Fund, Lake Champlain clean-up, Emergency Planning Zone funding for first-responder equipment in southern Vermont) to bail them out.

The state has to let go of worrying about the man-who-isn't-there, and look at the problems that actually exist.

---------

UPDATE:  Description of the three bills being introduced by Boxer, Sanders and Markey. First bill requires EPZ planning to continue until fuel is moved to dry cask, second requires all fuel in dry casks within seven years of shutdown, and third gives local and state reps a "meaningful seat at the table" about decomm planning.  

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/41220?c=infrastructure_protection

Notes on the post itself:

Poem: Antigonish, 1899

Fuel Pool:

Oak Ridge Researchers Show Fukushima Unit 4 Fuel Pool Never a Danger: Rod Adams at Atomic Insights

History of the Unit Four Fuel Pool: Les Corrice at Hiroshima Syndrome

NRC Releases Spent Fuel Pool Study: Allison Dunne at WAMC

Fuel pools, with video of pool 4: At Yes Vermont Yankee

Howard Shaffer on used fuel: testimony at Vermont legislature: At Yes Vermont Yankee

Vermont Wants Emergency Planning to Continue

Senators review nuclear decommissioning: Pat Bradley at WAMC (This includes the Recchia quote about "one hand tied behind our back.")

Panel Questions Experts on Closed Reactor Risks: Matt Wald at New York Times (this includes the $20 million a year quote from Twomey)

State wants Entergy to continue emergency planning after shutdown: Tom Brown at Vermont Digger.

The Fuel Pools: Opponents Say the Darndest Things!

Attorney General Sorrell

My View of an Opponent Statement

Statement: We're gonna sue you if you use the wrong money to address our safety concerns!

Actual Statement: Attorney General Bill Sorrell said:

If Entergy elects to remove money from the fund, Sorrell said the state will take legal action.

"The fund" is the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund.   Here's the longer quote with Sorrell's statement. This quote is from John Herrick's report in Vermont Digger-- Special Report: Despite Recent Agreement, State and Entergy Remain at Odds Over Funding for Dismantling Vermont Yankee

Entergy wants to tap the fund to move some of the roughly 3,000 total fuel assemblies at the Vernon plant from its cooling pool and into dry cask storage, a process known as spent fuel management.
Meanwhile, the state wants the fund reserved to tear down the plant.
Ultimately, the state and Entergy “agreed to disagree” on the matter.
Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who helped to negotiate the agreement, said if Entergy taps the fund, the company could mothball the plant for 60 years, a process referred to as SAFSTOR — the worst-case scenario for Vermont officials.
If Entergy elects to remove money from the fund, Sorrell said the state will take legal action.
“The stakes are very significant,” Sorrell said in an interview. "Vermont is going to want a place — a legal opportunity to be heard on those requests in the future. So stay tuned."

Fuel Pool in France
Fuel assemblies
from many nuclear
plants
Courtesy AREVA

My Comment:

As you can see by the comment stream on the Herrick article, one of the great concerns of nuclear opponents is that spent fuel stored in fuel pools is very dangerous.  Look at Fukushima!  Oh...right, nothing happened to the fuel in the pools at Fukushima.  Well, anyhow...

Opponent comment streams have been steady on the subject that Entergy had better move that fuel quickly to save us all from danger.

But, as you can see, moving the fuel quickly is not the main goal of our state government.  No, if Entergy uses the decommissioning funds to move fuel quickly, the state will sue them.

Let's set aside the fact that decommissioning funds are usually used for fuel management. Let's set aside the fact that such fuel-moving costs may well be reimbursed by the federal government.

Dry Cask Storage
Courtesy NRC

Let's just look at the fact that the state government doesn't see moving fuel as a high priority, compared to keeping the money in the decommissioning fund in order to tear down buildings. The state is threatening to sue if Entergy doesn't use money from somewhere besides the decommissioning fund in order to perform certain decommissioning activities.

It would be moderately amusing to watch the state, once again, try to tell the NRC what to do about nuclear safety or use of decommissioning funds. These recent threats of lawsuits show that the state has not learned any lessons about pre-emption.

Furthermore,  it seems to me that punishing Entergy for running a power plant in this state is very important to Governor Shumlin. It seems more important to him to punish Entergy than to have Entergy take an action (move fuel to dry casks) which many of Shumlin's supporters believe would increase their safety.

So AG Sorrell is going sue if Entergy gets NRC permission to use the decomm fund to move fuel, and then moves it?  On what exact grounds is he going to sue?  Is he going to argue it right up to the Supreme Court?

Wow.  Opponents say the darndest things.

Post on Federal Hearing at ANS Nuclear Cafe (and more)

Graph from economic report
March 2010

State Turns Economic Facts Upside Down

Yesterday, ANS Nuclear Cafe published my blog post: In Federal Appeals Court, Vermont Presents Backwards Economic Arguments. In this post I go through the Appeals Court hearing, and especially Vermont's claims of why they say they want to shut down Vermont Yankee. With quotes and examples, I show that Vermont's arguments are..well...bogus.

Yes, "bogus" is the word I used in the post, and I think it's the right word.  Though I am fond of the word meretricious, which Google defines as: "Apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity: "meretricious souvenirs for the tourist trade".

Let's look at these meretricious arguments.

First Vermont claimed they were interested in economics, not safety, when the Senate took their famous vote.  I point out that they voted in February. They had ordered an economic report on Vermont Yankee, but it was due to be issued a few weeks after their vote.  They voted anyway, not willing to wait for their own economic report on Vermont Yankee, which was issued in March.  Pretty hard to claim the vote was all about economics, under these circumstances!

Second, I quote their lawyer, who basically says that the state wants Vermont Yankee shut down because the paid-off plant makes it hard for new plants to compete.  The state has an interest in keeping electricity prices high?  That's a new one.

Third, in a last-minute salvo, the state lawyer said the revenue sharing agreement with Vermont Yankee is worth $587 million dollars (to Vermont utilities), and that agreement ties the utilities to Vermont Yankee, and that's a bad thing.  Again, a amazing statement.  True. Entergy may have to pay half a billion dollars to Vermont utilities, allowing them to upgrade infrastructure and/or lower rates to their customers.  How is that any evidence that the state should shut the plant down?

I end my ANS post with a quote from Cheryl Hanna of Vermont Law School   Hanna concludes that if the state loses the case (and she thinks it probably will), it is not going to be because the state was "out-lawyered." It will be because the facts and the law are mostly on the side of Entergy.

Please read my post about the hearing. I worked quite hard on it. I am pleased that it was chosen as Best of the Blogs at Nuclear Townhall yesterday.

Guy Page's Guest Post is Now at Energy Collective

Monday, I posted a guest post by Guy Page about the importance of the nuclear plants to the economy of New England.  He based his post on a New England Council report on energy and economics.  I am proud to say that his post has been picked up by The Energy Collective, a prestigious and widely-read blog about energy issues.  It's getting some good comments there, too. I am happy to see an important post on an important topic get more readership!  Energy Policy is Key to Vermont's Future.

Fun with Fuel Pools

XKCD is a scientist, cartoonist, and essayist.  On Tuesdays, he has a feature called "What  If?  Answering your hypothetical questions with physics, every Tuesday"  Yesterday he addressed the question: "What if I took a swim in a typical spent fuel pool?"   Great fun with beach balls!

For the geeky, I also recommend his comics. I love the one about energy density of uranium versus other fuels: Log scales are for quitters who can't find enough paper to make their point properly. 

Fear and Facts about Nuclear Plants and Hurricanes

Hurricane Sandy from Wikipedia

The Fear 

As Hurricane Sandy approached landfall, there were plenty of things to fear.  In the media, some articles focused on the "26 nuclear plants in the path of the hurricane."

This number of plants came from Arnie Gundersen, as far as I can tell. On October 29, Russia Today (RT) headlined "Nuclear  plant alert as 26 facilities in Sandy's path."  RT quoted a Gundersen podcast as follows: “There’s 26 power plants in the East Coast that are in the area where sandy is like to hit, and hopefully as the storm track becomes better defined, the plants that are most subject to it — likely New Jersey and Pennsylvania — preventively shut down.."

Ever since Gundersen stated that a total of sixteen shad remain in the Connecticut River. I don't take Gundersen's numbers as accurate.  Whatever the number of plants, however, is it  dangerous that nuclear plants are in the path of a storm? Well, no.  But it is worth reporting about.

I am aware that nuclear plants have weathered innumerable hurricanes and typhoons. But still,  I don't blame the popular press for looking at "26 plants in the path of the Frankenstorm" as an item of news interest.  After all, Fukushima was caused by a once-in-a-thousand-years tsunami, and now the East Coast was being hit with a Frankenstorm, a perfect blend of hurricane and Nor'easter. Therefore, it was reasonable to report about the nuclear plants and their preparations for the hurricane.  For example, WAMC radio interviewed Vermont Yankee and NRC on storm preparation.

The Fear-Mongers

However, reporting on nuclear plants and their preparations is fairly dull stuff when you can get great soundbytes of impending doom. Here are some of Arnie Gundersen's comments, made on his own podcast, on Russia Today  (RT) and on Democracy Now.

 Gundersen at RT: “You’ll hear in the next two days, ‘we’ve shut down the plant,’” he says, “but what that means is they stopped the chain reaction. But what Fukushima taught us was that that doesn’t stop the decay heat...."As the plant operator, as the people running the plant, it’s a little bit of a nervous time to realize that you’re on your last fall-back,” he warns. 

Gundersen at Democracy Now, on October 29.  In this interview, Gundersen concentrated on the Oyster Creek plant, which was in the direct path of the hurricane. Oyster Creek temporarily declared an NRC-required "alert" because of high water at its intake structure.  The alert has long since been lifted.

Meanwhile, here's Gundersen about the plant: Oyster Creek is the same design, but even older than Fukushima Daiichi unit 1....there’s no backup power for the spent fuel pools. So, if Oyster Creek were to lose its offsite power — and, frankly, that’s really likely — there would be no way cool that nuclear fuel that’s in the fuel pool until they get the power reestablished. ... The most important lesson we can take out of the Fukushima Daiichi and climate change, and especially with Hurricane Sandy, is that we can’t expect to cool these fueling pools." 

I wanted to go word by word through these quotes, refuting them.  For one thing, the idea that we were taught about decay heat by Fukushima!  Well, maybe Gundersen just learned recently about decay heat -- if he forgot everything he learned in engineering school. Nuclear plant designers and engineers have always known about decay heat. Nuclear plants sized their diesels and other backup systems in accordance with requirements to handle decay heat.

Part of the logo of ANS Nuclear Cafe Blog

Spreading the Facts As You Might Expect Them to Be Spread

Luckily I didn't have to write a refutation.  William Davis, a man with real operating experience, went right through the accusations and refuted them all, at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Nuclear Cafe blog, in his post Spent Fuel Pool at Oyster Creek. Among other things, Davis describes the diesel-powered emergency cooling arrangements for the spent fuel pools. A careful and well-referenced post, by someone who didn't forget what he learned in naval reactor school.

Another source of information: the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) issued a press release that is also up on their blog: Nuclear Energy Facilities Prove Resilience During Hurricane Sandy. The NEI blog post has a complete list of plants and how they performed during the hurricane (they did fine). It also links to a more comprehensive report on hurricanes and nuclear plants.

Two excellent posts, with lots of information for laymen and reporters.

Preaching to the Choir

Gundersen made a lot of incorrect statements. ANS and NEI made a lot of correct, well-referenced statements.  However, they can both be accused of the same thing: preaching to the choir.

Who watches Democracy Now and follows Russia Today? Not many nuclear supporters, I suspect.

Who follows the ANS and NEI blogs? Not many nuclear opponents, I suspect.

Okay, so both sides were preaching to the choir.  The hurricane is over, and the power plants did well (as expected). The next question is: how did the mainstream press react to this dis-information and information about nuclear plants and hurricanes?

I think they did very well at separating facts from fiction, but that is another blog post for another day (probably tomorrow).

The Main Stream Press--a teaser

Encouraging you to tune in tomorrow (or maybe the next day) for a post on the mainstream press:

An older post from Margaret Harding on the Optimist's Conundrum: why it is so hard to report good news.

Jim Conca at Forbes: Don't Politicize Sandy: Hurricane Normal Problem for Nukes.

Fuel Pools

The video above was taken by a robot camera at the Unit 4 Fuel Pool at Fukushima in late April. At Fukushima Unit 4, there was no fuel in the core, and all the fuel had been off-loaded to the fuel pool. In the video, we can see that there is rubble on top of the fuel racks, but the racks themselves are in good order. Yesterday, the NRC announced that the spent fuel pool at Unit Four probably did not go dry. Today, Rod Adams of Atomic Insights has an excellent post on this subject, including videos and links to the NRC announcement.

Now, most of the nuclear commentators will focus on the Big Issues. Why did Jaczko think the fuel pools were dry? How did Jaczko's statements affect U. S./Japanese relationships? These are big questions.

I'll look at a smaller question which is relevent to Vermont Yankee. Did any of the Fukushima fuel pools go critical?

Fuel Pool Criticality: The Gundersen Version

On Monday, April 18, Arnie Gundersen said "it could be that the fuel pool had a self-sustaining chain reaction." (Unit 4 pool) However, as you can see in the video above, everything looks pretty darn orderly in the fuel pool, with the exception of the debris from the roof lying around. The racks and water look stable. This is not how things look after an un-controlled chain reaction.

On April 26, Arnie Gunderson suggests that the Unit 3 fuel pool went critical. He says that the nature of the Unit 3 explosion proves that the cause was not a hydrogen explosion. He says that a hydrogen explosion would only be a deflagration (burning) not a detonation (explosion) He suggests that a "prompt nuclear reaction" caused the dramatic detonation at Unit 3, because a hydrogen deflagration just "can't do it."

Fuel Pool Criticality: Nope

However, the existence of an explosion is not proof that fission took place. There were plenty of explosions before nuclear fission was even considered a scientific possibility. Nobel and dynamite and all that.

Also, though hydrogen usually burns (deflagrates) hydrogen can detonate, especially in a enclosed area, such as a reactor building. Turbulence around existing piping can also cause hydrogen to detonate. Gundersen's kindly-uncle description of detonation and deflagration is fine, but the idea that hydrogen "can't do it" (detonate) is incorrect.

Since nuclear opponents often believe that Gundersen is always right, I thought I would point out that in this case (as in many others) he was wrong. There is no evidence for criticality in any of the fuel pools.

There's a whole subculture of hydrogen explosions on Youtube. Here's a hydrogen and oxygen balloons. Detonating. Not deflagrating. Detonating.

Consensus at the Meeting

I attended an American Nuclear Society local meeting earlier this week. The general consensus was that the Unit 3 and Unit 4 explosions were hydrogen explosions, and the hydrogen was generated within the overheated reactor of Unit 3. Also, no criticalities (fission reactions) occurred in either fuel pool. Unit 3 and 4 share an off-gas venting stack, and the explosion in Unit 4 was probably from hydrogen that had migrated over from Unit 3 through the shared stack.

You understand that we don't know everything yet, so nobody is claiming anything for sure. Still, there were a lot of smart people in the room at the NRC meeting, and this was the consensus after an excellent presentation and a lot of questions.

Vermont Yankee opponents are sure to promote the idea that Fukushima proves that the Vermont Yankee fuel pool is a nuclear explosion just about to happen. They get confirmation on this belief from Gundersen's videos. It's time to point out that those videos are wrong.

• Hydrogen can, indeed, detonate.
• Fuel pools don't go critical.

That's just the way it is. The accident sequences are what you would expect. It is important to avoid hydrogen explosions, but hydrogen explosions are just hydrogen explosions. They don't turn fuel pools into nuclear bombs.

Updates: In a post today, Cheryl Rofer debunks the bogus Internet video on Unit 4 fuel pool which shows Cerenkov radiation (in black and white, no less!) as well as other absurdities.

That big explosion at Unit 3 could have been a deflagration or a detonation. It was certainly caused by hydrogen, not fission.

Manufacturing and Fuel Cycle in France: AREVA and Nuclear Communicators

A year ago this week, I was in France at an AREVA-sponsored trip for pro-nuclear bloggers. We saw the entire fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment, reprocessing, and waste vitrification. I was very glad to be invited to see these things with my own eyes.

The trip was inspiring. I began solid friendships with other pro-nuclear bloggers, and visited a country that embraces clean air, good food, and nuclear power. Here are some of the things I saw and learned on the trip.

Improved Manufacturing: Support Plates as Giant Jewelry

A PWR steam generator has tubes carrying water from the reactor: these tubes pass through support plates which hold them in place. The illustration above is a set of steam generator support plates, manufactured at AREVA's facility at Chalon.

Part of the time I worked in nuclear power, I was in the Steam Generator Owner's Group at EPRI. In those days, support plates were rather crude things built of relatively low-quality steel. The holes for the tubes were either "drilled" or "punched" and the quality control wasn't particularly good. These support plates caused problems for PWR reliability.

Now, steam generators are being replaced in many PWRs, and AREVA is building some of the new ones. Modern support plates are high quality steel, and each tube opening is carefully made, measured and polished. As one person on the trip described it: "These support plates are like huge pieces of jewelry." Yes. Precision jewelry.

We have not built new plants in this country, but the nuclear industry has made amazing progress in building new and better components for existing plants. I am glad I was able to see this.

Fuel Shipment: Porcupines Coming Down the Road

In America, we keep spent fuel in on-site fuel pools, and move it slowly into dry cask storage. In France, there's a huge central fuel pool at La Hague at the recycling facility (at left). The pool is in the facility where the spent fuel is processed into new fuel.

How does the used fuel got to that big facility? On my trip, I learned the simple answer: used fuel moves by road and by rail.

The used-fuel shipment containers are shown at the right. These containers are extremely sturdy, can be hit by locomotives without breaking, etc. The French hold used fuel at the reactor site for less than two years (usually). Therefore, French shipping containers carry fuel which is physically hot. The container looks a bit like a porcupine. Vanes stick out to promote cooling and heat transfer.

In this country, we tend to get tunnel vision. We think that fuel cannot possibly be moved until it has cooled in a local fuel pool for at least five years. When I went to France, I realized that is just a choice we have made. Fuel is moved much sooner in France, and very safely.

Meeting People and Friendship

I have to finish with a view of the group in front of the Melox facility which manufactures MOx fuel. To the left is our guide from Melox: then Steve Aplin (wearing shades) of Canadian Energy Issues: Jack Gamble of Nuclear Fissionary: Rod Adams (also wearing shades) of Atomic Insights: Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World: Jarret Adams of AREVA and the AREVA North America Next Energy blog, and me.

Friendship was the greatest gift of the trip.

Post Script about the Anniversary:

I keep a Levenger five-year journal. Among other things, that means I always know what I was doing on the same day last year. I find the five-year-journal's short format very informative. It helps me understand what I wanted, what I did, and how I succeeded or failed. It's also useful for figuring out when my favorite flowers are likely to bloom.

I used to do more elaborate journaling, but I never wanted to re-read the stuff I wrote. While the extensive writing helped me at some level, it didn't inform me as I moved forward in my life. In contrast, a five-year journal is more like a log book, and I thoroughly recommend having one. If you buy a five year journal, buy a good one, like the Levenger journal. After all, it has to last five years. (I get no money from Levenger from this endorsement!)

All illustrations on this post are courtesy of AREVA.

Update: Thanks for the link, Jarret! A Trip Down Memory Lane at the AREVA blog.

55th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs

Today I am hosting the 55th Carnival of Nuclear Energy, bloggers look at the world, including Saudi Arabia, Germany, and what kind of Lessons Learned are possible at this point from Fukushima. It's truly a feast of information!

Germany and the Czech Republic

At Idaho Samzdat, Dan Yurman describes Germany's Nuclear Energy Panic Attack.

Shortly after the extent of the damage to reactors at Fukushima became apparent, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced she was reversing her policy of keeping the nation’s oldest reactors open beyond 2022. A deal put in place by her predecessor called for the eventual closure of all 17 reactors by that date.

There is no middle ground in the nuclear debate in Germany. Anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany runs high with polls showing as much as 70% of the population says "no thank you" to nuclear power.

Some sentiment among Green Party members calls for a reduction in Germany's industrial economy and a return to a life style of "off the grid" villages in natural ecosystems. Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, the utility is moving ahead with its reactor projects, planning three to five new reactors. Perhaps Germans won't have to live "off the grid" after all. There's always "nuclear colonialism." If a neighbor country like the Czech Republic builds nuclear plants, there's nothing wrong with Germany buying the power, right? The map to the right shows a potential nuclear colony of Germany. Much more complete analysis in Yurman's post.

Fukushima Fuel Pools (Red Herrings)

In her blog post, Nuclear Power and the Witch Hunt, Margaret Harding shows that the spent fuel pools at Fukushima are a witch story. They didn’t burn, they did run out of water and caused problems for TEPCO, but we should not over-react in the need to “fix” a problem that isn’t there. There is risk that a fix could create other issues.

Harding's post includes a video of Unit 4 fuel pool, showing the pool intact, the fuel rods intact, the fuel racks intact, and debris in the water from the explosion at Unit 4. Harding is in touch with people in Japan who are figuring out what caused the explosion at that unit: clearly not the fuel pool. Harding notes that we may well have to rethink our fuel storage, but we should do it on the basis of facts, not witch hunts.

The NRC and Nuclear Power

In Nuclear Sanity and Nuclear Insanity, Will Davis of Atomic Power Review describes the evolution of nuclear thinking world-wide (Germany wants to shut down its nuclear plants, Saudi Arabia plans to build 16 nuclear plants) and in the United States. As he points out, we can expect 40 million tonnes more CO2 in the air each year if Germany closes down its nuclear plants. Davis describes the role that nuclear bloggers and others might take to change the NRC's position from insanity (we must PROVE we are doing EVERYTHING possible) to some level of sanity. His post is a call to action.

The Future of Energy in Europe and Arabia

In a series of posts at Next Big Future, Brian Wang describes Saudi Arabia building 16 nuclear reactors by 2030 and Lithuania building two. As usual, his well-referenced post is a pleasure to read.

Wang also notes that Desertec plans to build terrawatts of wind and solar power in North Africa. Desertec is a proposal to build terawatts of wind and solar power in North Africa, which is Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and other countries. This proposal would be to spend $600 billion or more to build wind farms and solar farms in the same politically unstable area where OPEC is now to provide about 17% of europe power needs by 2050. About 110% of the current world nuclear power generation. (2,940 TWh per year). The detailed financial and technical proposal is due in 2012. So currently it is a back of napkin proposal and they hope to progress to vaporware in 2012, all for a bad idea for Europe to fund a solar and wind OPEC by 2050.

Wang describes the consequences to Switzerland and Germany if they phase out nuclear power. Electricity costs will go up and Germany will depend more on coal and fossil fuel.

In another post, Wang points out that instant-phase-out of nuclear power in Germany is running into some snags. German Utility Eon is taking action to recover tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue that will result from the German decision to shut down nuclear prematurely.

That's the trouble when governments take unilateral action without due process. They get sued. Happens in Vermont and it happens in Germany.

• Due Process: it's what makes governments into governments, not tyrants.
• Lawsuits: they are what keep governments from becoming tyrants.

All in all, this Carnival is perfect for a summer evening's reading!

Retrospective

The 54th Blog Carnival was hosted at Idaho Samizdat last week. It includes good news about thorium reactors, discussions about the NRC, and an analysis of passive cooling for small modular reactors. Worth reading! (I had serious internet connection problems last week and was not able to blog or even email, most of the week.)

Map of Czech Republic from Wikimedia.

Anthracite Coal Image from Wikipedia.