The Other Vermont Yankee Lawsuit: Reactor Operators Sue For Property Rights

Everyone expected Judge Murtha to rule on the main Vermont Yankee lawsuit by the end of the year in 2011. This lawsuit was brought by Entergy against Shumlin et al in their capacities as officials of the State of Vermont. Entergy claims that the state cannot force Vermont Yankee to close, since the NRC has extended its license.

The main lawsuit is complicated, and I have blogged about the overlapping issues, including state pre-emption of nuclear safety regulations. For this lawsuit, you can also connect to all the filed documents on the Vermont Attorney General's web site.

On this suit, newspapers reported last year that "a ruling is expected by the end of the year." I don't know where they obtained this information. I cannot find a quote from Judge Murtha saying that he would rule in that time-frame. 2011 is over, and the ruling didn't happen.

The Operator Lawsuit

However, the Entergy lawsuit is not the only Vermont Yankee case in front of Judge Murtha right now. In June, several licensed reactor operators brought suit against the state. They claimed that the state has denied them their jobs and taken their property without due process. The state wanted their case dismissed, of course. In December, the reactor operators asked Judge Murtha not to dismiss their case. The Brattleboro Reformer has a reasonably complete article on the operators' request to Judge Murtha.

Basically, the state claims that the operators have no legally protected right to their jobs, so their lawsuit should be dismissed. The operators claim that the state is attempting to shut down Vermont Yankee without a legally-valid reason, and therefore, it is inflicting harm on the operators without due process. Much of the argument depends on interpretation of various due-process clauses in the Constitution. For example, the Fifth Amendment includes the words: No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...

Due process is a knotty concept in the legal world. If you read either the Wikipedia article on due process, or the Brattleboro Reformer on the operators' request to Judge Murtha, I can guarantee that your head will swim.

I'm not a lawyer, and we're not going there.

The German Experience

As far as I can tell, the operator's claims are very similar to the claims that Vattenfall, the big Swedish utility, is making in a lawsuit against Germany. Vattenfall owns several nuclear plants in Germany. As Spiegal On-Line reported in November: Nuclear Phase-Out Faces Billion-Euro Lawsuit.

From Vattenfall's point of view, the German government's decision to abandon nuclear power has destroyed the value of its assets....

The fact that Vattenfall is a Swedish company will help it in German courts, according to the Spiegel article.

According to Handelsblatt, Vattenfall has an advantage in seeking compensation because the company has its headquarters abroad. As a Swedish company, Vattenfall can invoke investment rules under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which protect foreign investors in signatory nations from interference in property rights.

Last time Vattenfall challenged the German government, they settled out of court. Sounds likeVattenfall knows how to get compensated when the German government acts arbitrarily toward its power plants.

(By the way, nothing in the law seems to operate on time. The Spiegel article says that the Vattenfall lawsuit suit would be filed by Christmas. It wasn't. Newspapers said Judge Murtha would rule on Vermont Yankee by January 1. He didn't.)

A General Concept: Due Process

Following the individual twists and turns of due process is difficult, but the concept is easy. The government cannot deprive individuals or companies of their property without due process of law.

Civilized countries have tax laws in place (due process). Uncivilized areas have thugs who show up at the door and ask for "protection money." The thugs require arbitrary amounts, deriving people of their property according to the whim of the thugs.

Governments aren't supposed to do that. They aren't supposed to take your property or forbid you to operate your business, just because they feel like it. When governments act like thugs, they get themselves sued. The Magna Carta in Britain started the trend toward limiting the powers of government. Here and in Germany, recent lawsuits are forcing governments to acknowledge that their citizens also have rights.

I am no lawyer, so I can't even begin to predict how the current lawsuits will turn out. However, the principal is clear and straightforward. Even a government can't seize property or close down a business without due process.

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John of England signs the Magna Carta, from Wikipedia

85th Carnival Of Nuclear Energy Bloggers: Right Here at Yes Vermont Yankee!

Looking to the Future: World-Wide

The 85th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is being hosted by Yes Vermont Yankee. The Carnival is right here, right now. When I signed up to host the Carnival, I promised to post it this weekend. However, I wasn't sure whether I would post it this year or next year.

In a small burst of ambition, I'm putting the Carnival in place in 2011.

Fearless Predictions: Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat offers his annual "fearless predictions" for the global nuclear energy industry in 2012. His post, Predictions, Speculations and Raw Random Ideas for 2012, starts with a description of the future for Japan (of course). Until 2011, Japan and France were two stalwarts of the nuclear field. Now they face new challenges. China and India will move ahead, and the U.K. maintains progress for its new build.

The two big new deals in 2012 are the Czech Republic's Temelin project for up to five new reactors worth $28 billion and an expected tender by Saudi Arabia for up to 16 new reactors worth $112 billion.

New Directions: While she wouldn't quite characterize it as a New Year's projection, Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk considers New Directions in her post. She speculates that the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident in Japan may increase the pressure to continue the development of advanced reactor technologies, including some of the SMR designs, that hold the promise of being more robust in the event of a "Fukushima-type" accident. This would be any scenario that can lead to a prolonged loss of cooling water or backup power. However, she cautions people to heed the words of Admiral Rickover, who famously enumerated the differences between a "paper reactor" and a real reactor.

Moving Forward in the U.S. Margie Jepson blogs at Nuclear Clean Air Energy as part of Entergy's Nuclear Clean Air Energy education initiative. In The 2011 Year: So Long! Jepson looks back at the Year of Fukushima. Then she looks forward to the ways that 2012 will expand many of the excellent trends of 2011 in this country. Reactors are being built, capacity uprates have been granted by the NRC, and the uranium enrichment facility (planned for eastern Idaho) now has an NRC license.

Nuclear Plants to Fight Climate Change: At Canadian Energy Issues, Steve Aplin writes Extreme heat, electrical load, and political stability: the connection and the solution. 2011 was a year of record extreme weather in North America. The extreme episodes were fueled by the higher temperatures in the earth’s atmosphere, which gave extra energy to the heat waves and wind storms that ravaged the continent. It is an alarming trend. One upshot is that there will be huge demand for electricity for summer air conditioning. Aplin argues that this demand must be met by CO2-free nuclear plants, not by CO2-belching natural gas-fired ones.

By the way, I like the energy tracker on Aplin's blog, displaying real-time electricity data for Ontario. I include a screen shot of the tracker. Double-click to enlarge the graphic.

Fusion Power Moves Closer: Brian Wang of Next Big Future truly looks to the future with a blog post on how fusion power moves closer, due to results from a lab in Germany. A gamma ray laser and a Bose-Einstein Condensate could help make it happen.

Fire Put Out: Wang also reports on a Russian submarine which caught fire. The fire was successfully extinguished. (To me, this is the scariest story of the bunch. The Russians do say the ICBM's were not on the ship at the time of the fire.)

Students are the Future: What questions do young people have about nuclear power? Recently, Howard Shaffer and Meredith Angwin had opportunities to hear their questions. Meredith Angwin discusses the questions as well as the answers, and the implications for nuclear education. The post, Young People and Nuclear Power, is at ANS Nuclear Cafe.

Fukushima Update and Japanese Nuclear Future: For many people within the nuclear industry and outside of it, 2011 will be remembered as the Year of Fukushima. Will Davis of Atomic Power Review posts Fukushima Tepco Update for December 28. This post provides a set of updates on situations relative to Fukushima Daiichi: An announcement by Fukushima Prefecture with wide implications; a report by TEPCO on core, pressure vessel, and containment damage; and TEPCO's announcement of an attempt to "scope" No. 2 containment. In this post, Davis has provided his own illustrations to explain the information from TEPCO. I believe his excellent use of graphics is one of the reasons that Atomic Power Review is so widely read.

Scientists Punch Holes in the Linear Non Threshold Theory. Leading researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, including a leading cancer researcher, designed an innovative experiment in which they could see cells repairing themselves after irradiation. As you might expect (but they showed) repair was much quicker and better after low doses of radiation. Another hole in the LNT theory. I blogged about it in the controversial post Will a Little Bit of Radiation Hurt You? Berkeley Scientist Break the Hold of Linear Non Threshold Reasoning.

Here's to a great 2012, for the Nuclear Industry and for the entire world!

To all my friends, and to everyone who reads this blog:

Have a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!

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Update: Happy New Year! On this morning of January 1, 2012, I also want to say "Happy Birthday to Yes Vermont Yankee." I started this blog as a New Year's resolution on January 1, 2010.

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Photo from Wikipedia of New Years fireworks in London

Will Vermont Yankee be Replaced by Unicorns? Pictures of the Rally, and a Critique of the Vermont Energy Plan

The Rally

Thank you to Kay Trudell for the photos of the rally in support of Vermont Yankee this October! We just put an entire album of pictures on the Save Vermont Yankee Facebook page. These four pix are just a sample.

I couldn't resist putting in a picture of Howard Shaffer carrying a great sign

The Energy Plan for Unicorns

There's a new Vermont Energy Plan. It says that we are going to use 90% renewable energy by 2050. It says that we don't need Vermont Yankee, but we do need a new natural gas pipeline. That's the plan.

John McClaughry of Ethan Allen Institute has a great critique of the energy plan today at Vermont Tiger. McClaughry's title tells where Vermont's energy supply is heading: Unicorn Power for Vermont! Read it. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll laugh and cry, both at the same time. (Full disclosure: The Energy Education Project that I direct is part of the Ethan Allen Institute. John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute.)

New Blog on the Blog Roll: ScienceWonk and Radiation Risks

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is a non-profit group that is dedicated to providing rigorous, objective, evidence-based analysis and practical policy recommendations on national and international security issues connected to applied science and technology. It was founded in 1945 by many of the scientists who built the first atomic bombs.

Looking at their website, I see that FAS is mainly concerned with national security, and also with science education and basic science. In other words, FAS and I would might have never crossed paths. However, Cheryl Rofer of Nuclear Diner recommended a new FAS blog, ScienceWonk, to nuclear bloggers like myself. I have just added it to the blog roll.

ScienceWonk is written by Dr. Y, a certified health physicist with 30 years experience in nuclear power and related fields, including planning for radiological emergencies. Dr. Y writes about radiation risks and other risks. For example, one post is called Putting Radiation Risk in Perspective. This post includes a link to the irradiated gemstone scare stories of a few years ago. Another post about airport screening safety includes a discussion of low-dose effects. Here's a fine quote:

Science is a field that makes predictions that can be tested and falsified – any putative risk from exposure to 100 mrem is far too small to be detected via epidemiological studies of the affected populations and the hypothesis that this harm is taking place cannot be tested and cannot be falsified. As such, until our epidemiological tools improve, such speculations are intriguing but may not be scientific because of this lack of falsifiability – they represent a belief or even a philosophy rather than a scientific position.

I hope you will enjoy ScienceWonk.

Oh yes, and visit Nuclear Diner, too! It includes a discussion forum and a blog. Nuclear Diner is open to people in favor of nuclear power and those opposed to it. Cheryl Rofer is one of the founders of Nuclear Diner, and she's also the one who told me about the ScienceWonk blog.

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Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat, was done with the technique of pointillism. If you look at the dots, you see dots. You have to step back from the canvas to see the big picture. Dr. Y used it as an illustration in one of the ScienceWonk posts.

A Tale of Two Classrooms: Talking about Nuclear Energy at UVM and at a High School

At ANS Nuclear Cafe this morning, I have a post: Young People and Nuclear Power.

Recently, Howard Shaffer and I attended a film about nuclear energy at the University of Vermont. I blogged about the film and panel discussion.

However, we also visited a charter high school in Massachusetts. This was a very different experience. The senior class at the high school has been engaged in an intense cross-disciplinary study of nuclear energy and Vermont Yankee issues. We spoke to the entire senior class.

The high school students who had studied nuclear power asked very knowledgeable questions, and some were interested in careers in nuclear energy. At the University of Vermont, few of the college students at the film knew much about nuclear power. Many of the college student questions were anti-nuclear position statements disguised as questions. ("Why hasn't the NRC ever turned down a license extension application?")

The ANS blog post is the story of only two classroom events, but examples are often more interesting than general statements. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

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Picture of historical building at University of Vermont, Billings Library, from Wikipedia

Woodblock print of Thetford Academy (oldest secondary school in Vermont) from Wikipedia.

Christmas Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers at Atomic Power Review

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays and happy celebrations!

The 84th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Atomic Power Review. Thank you to Will Davis for keeping the Carnival going in the middle of the holiday season.

I have to start with a direct link to a poem in the Carnival, from ANS Nuclear Cafe. A Priori wrote The Wait for the License. It starts:

‘Twas the wait for the license,

When all through the site,

Not a module was fitted,

No matter how light.

Work orders were logged

On the systems and boards

For the moment when workers

Would show up in hordes.

The owners and contractors

Eagerly waited

To pour some concrete

That is safety-related.

And I in my trailer,

Hearing no bosses’ words,

Had flipped out my smart phone

To play Angry Birds.

Hard to top that one! Well, on to the prose....

Jim Hopf at ANS News and Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk discuss Jaczko and the NRC, and Dan Yurman describes the progress on recent Areva projects. The Enrichment facility in Idaho is on hold, but the EPR reactors in China are doing well, taking far less time than the first reactor of that type, which is being built in Finland. It's the end of the year, so Gail Marcus and Jeff Madison of Cool Hand Nuke do a retrospective on 60 years of nuclear power, while Brian Wang of Next Big Future includes a roundup of nuclear news. Want also reviews the status of SMR reactor proposals, and even covers fusion and coal news.

Yes Vermont Yankee submitted a post about materials resources for nuclear education for high school students. From Atomic Power Review, Will Davis adds more resources to the High School list. It is in the spirit of the holidays to consider young people, and it is in the spirit of nuclear energy to consider nuclear education.

Once again, Will Davis starts his carnival with a tease picture from the nuclear archives "Guess this!" I couldn't guess, but may you can. Hint. It's a reactor...

Have happy, safe and joyful holidays! Have some fun at the Christmas Carnival!

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About the picture. It reminded me of someone I knew well in high school, and of a situation that scared me half to death.

In high school, a fellow student invited me to come to her house for their traditional Christmas Eve party. Her parents were refugees from Vienna, fleeing Hitler. I knew this. What I didn't know was the German, Austrian, Danish (etc) custom of lighting the Christmas tree with real candles. As they got out the long tapers and started lighting the candles. I was terrified. At the end, it was okay. I mean, the house didn't burn down, which is my criteria for "lighting candles on the Christmas tree was okay." I wouldn't do it myself, and not just because I mostly celebrate Hanukkah!

I urge you to have safe and enjoyable holidays. Remember-- LED lights are quite attractive. They come in many colors, unlike candles. Much preferable, IMHO.

Photo from Wikipedia of a Danish Christmas tree with candles.

Will a Little Bit of Radiation Hurt You? Berkeley Scientists Break the Hold of Linear Non Threshold Reasoning.

Berkeley Scientists Watch Cells Repairing Themselves after Exposure to Low-Level Radiation

Lawrence Berkeley laboratory scientists recently announced results of innovative radiation experiments. The scientists watched cells repairing themselves after being exposed to low-level radiation. Here's the press release: New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation: Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Evidence Suggesting Risk May Not Be Proportional to Dose at Low Dose Levels

Here's a quote from the press release:

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.”

Mina Bissell is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and is known throughout the world for her breast cancer research. Her awards include being elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and further honors from the Curie Institute in France and the American Cancer Society. She has so many awards that Portugal has named an award FOR her: the Mina J Bissell award to a scientist who has transformed our perception of a topic.

Though the techniques were innovative, and the scientists very distinguished, these recent low-level radiation results are not actually surprising. From common sense, we would expect that a body could heal itself well from several low-dose radiation exposures, while having a harder time healing from a single high dose exposure. After all, we expect ourselves to heal after any number of skinned knees, but that says nothing about our ability to heal from stab wounds.

Why Is This A Big Deal? Well, The Official Theory of Radiation is Response is Strictly Linear

In other words, the official theory of radiation response is that a couple of skinned knees is the same as a stabbing.

Risks from low levels of radiation are generally assessed with the Linear No Threshold (LNT) theory. This theory states that the risks of cancer are in direct proportion to the amount of exposure, even for very small exposures. This methodology of risk assessment is supported by a series of reports called the BEIR reports: Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. BEIR I through BEIR VII have been issued under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. I include a link to the BEIR VII summary document from the National Academy.

Despite this heritage, the BEIR reports are controversial. For one thing, the assumption that there is no threshold for radiation damage is impossible to prove in a world where everyone is exposed to background radiation. For another thing, the linearity of damage at low levels always struck many scientists as unlikely. In general, small amounts of toxins are handled well by organisms, while large amounts can kill. The relationship between zero effect and lethal dose is not generally linear.

Or, as one of my friends put it: BEIR says that if 100 aspirins taken at once is lethal, and 100 men each take one aspirin apiece--one of those men is going to die. That would be a linear response to low dosage aspirin consumption.

Actually, BEIR VII waffles a bit at low dosages. Here's a quote from the summary:

There are two competing hypotheses to the linear no-threshold model. One is that low doses of radiation are more harmful than a linear, no-threshold model of effects would suggest. BEIR VII finds that the radiation health effects research, taken as a whole, does not support this hypothesis. The other hypothesis suggests that risks are smaller than predicted by the linear no-threshold model are nonexistent (sic), or that low doses of radiation may even be beneficial. The report concludes that the preponderance of information indicates that there will be some risk, even at low doses, although the risk is small.

Note that the report does not actually claim that the risks are linear at low doses, but merely that there is some risk though the risk is small.

If you would like to think about some painful consequences of LNT, I encourage you to listen to this podcast about Fukushima or read my blog post about it. Rod Adams invited me and Cal Abel to be on a podcast to discuss the very real question of when Fukushima evacuees could go home. I especially encourage you to read the comments on both the podcast and the blog post.

Following LNT Would Lead to Really Weird Cancer Therapies

"When all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done."

I have always followed the policy of attempting to look at what people do, rather than what they say. People still get dental x-rays. People move to Denver, where background radiation is high. More people move to Denver than move to the Mississippi delta, despite the low background radiation in Mississippi. But let's look at a stronger example.

Let's look at radiation therapy for cancer. Many people undergo radiation treatmentS. The plural is important.

Radiation oncologists know that the healthy flesh heals after a treatment, so treatments are spaced out: six weeks of three times a week, two months of twice a week, etc. I remember one man in my writing group who moved to Boston for two months to be treated. Why did he have to do this? Why didn't he just visit Boston, get one massive treatment, and come home to Vermont? Because, even at high doses, the body heals between treatments. There is a repair mechanism, as there is for everything else our body encounters.

Giving radiation therapy in one dose would hugely damage the surrounding tissues, compared to giving the same amount in smaller doses over a long time. Even at the relatively high doses of radiotherapy, response to one dose versus response to many doses is not linear. Wade Allison has an excellent description of the planning behind radiation therapy in his book, Radiation and Reason.

LNT and Small Doses

From low-level radiation exposure research at Berkeley to the standard methodologies of radiation oncology specialists to Fukushima...it seems to me that it is time to stop using LNT as the gold standard for assessing risk.

LNT is wrong and therefore will lead to incorrect results. Even BEIR doesn't really defend it, and yet it is the de facto law of the land.

A major tip of the hat to Rod Adams of Atomic Insights blog, for his post Lawrence Berkeley National Lab announces breakthrough study of low radiation dose effects

Aspirin Graphic from Wikimedia

Photo of Mina Bissell from her website.

Geiger Counter graphic from Wikimedia.