U.S. Nuclear Agency Hid Concerns, Hailed Safety Record as Fukushima Melted

[bananas]

Source: NBC News

In the tense days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a concerted effort to play down the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis to America’s aging nuclear plants, according to thousands of internal emails reviewed by NBC News.

The emails, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show that the campaign to reassure the public about America’s nuclear industry came as the agency’s own experts were questioning U.S. safety standards and scrambling to determine whether new rules were needed to ensure that the meltdown occurring at the Japanese plant could not occur here.

<snip>

There are numerous examples in the emails of apparent misdirection or concealment in the initial weeks after the Japanese plant was devastated by a 9.0 earthquake and 50-foot tsunami that knocked out power and cooling systems at the six-reactor plant, eventually causing releases of radioactive material:

• Trying to distance the U.S. agency from the Japanese crisis, an NRC manager told staff to hide from reporters the presence of Japanese engineers in the NRC's operations center in Maryland.
  
  
• If asked whether the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on the California coast could withstand the same size tsunami that had hit Japan, spokespeople were told not to reveal that NRC scientists were still studying that question. As for whether Diablo could survive an earthquake of the same magnitude, "We're not so sure about, but again we are not talking about that," said one email.
  
  
• When skeptical news articles appeared, the NRC dissuaded news organizations from using the NRC's own data on earthquake risks at U.S. nuclear plants, including the Indian Point Energy Center near New York City.
  
  
• And when asked to help reporters explain what would happen during the worst-case scenario -- a nuclear meltdown -- the agency declined to address the questions.
  

As the third anniversary of Fukushima on Tuesday approaches, the emails pull back the curtain on the agency’s efforts to protect the industry it is supposed to regulate. The NRC officials didn't lie, but they didn't always tell the whole truth either. When someone asked about a topic that might reflect negatively on the industry, they changed the subject.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/u-s-nuclear-agency-hid-concerns-hailed-safety-record-fukushima-n48561

[Scuba]

1. There was a bunch of NRC disinformation posted right here on DU.

[chervilant]

2. And, there are a bunch

who've relentlessly adjured that nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest power available!

[stonecutter357]

3. I was almost Banned the last time i mentioned Fukushima.

[WillyT]

4. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[blackspade]

5. The NRC shill for the industry?

Who would have thunk it?

[Divernan]

6. Excellent links in this article re plants closest to YOU.

http://esrimedia.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=0c46cd1e8ee04cf693acd2790614a68a
This link allows you to get details on age and safety record of the 62 active nuclear plants, with 100 operating reactors, as of March, 2014.

Measure your distance to the nearest plant, via the Nuclear Proximity link. Are you within 10 miles? 50 miles? This map allows you to find all kinds of data to each and every plant. How old are they? When were they first licensed? Has the operating license been renewed? To what date? What is the reactor/vendor/type? What is the containment Type?
http://tmappsevents.esri.com/website/NuclearProximity/
Under Plant Information, click on the FEMA After Action Reports (Emergency Exercises).

In particular, note whether your home/place of employment is within 10 miles or 50 miles of the plant.

For me, I'm only 26 miles from the Beaver Valley plant in SW PA, i.e, well within the 50 mile evacuation area. This plant was first licensed in 1976, and it's license was renewed in 2009, good until 2036, at which time it will be SIXTY YEARS OLD. Meanwhile, since that license renewal in 2009, Big Fracking has come, big time to southwestern PA. We know that extensive fracking in other parts of the country, such as Texas, demonstrates a very high positive correlation between fracking and earth quakes. Oh, great! An aging and brittle reactor sitting in an earthquake zone. Earthquakes! Not just for California anymore!
The FEMA after action reports give a lot of information about safety concerns for each particular plant. A major concern is . . . . . . . wait for it . . . . .EARTHQUAKES!

Looking at the other side of the country, just to give an example, Southern California Edison announced a permanent shut down of the aging San Onofre plant on June 7, 2013. However the plant continues to have very deadly nuclear material - some 1632 metric toms of high-level nuclear waste, in the form of spent and new nuclear fuel. The plant is located approximately midway between Los Angeles and San Diego. The plant puts approximately 8.4 million Californians at risk, given the same 50 mile evacuation area recommended for Americans near the Fukushima disaster. A 10 mile radius is not reasonable given the stark realities of a full-scale accident such as happened at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
http://www.copswiki.org/Common/ShutSanOnofre

Earthquake Risk Area -- California lies along the "ring of fire" of the Pacific Rim, where extreme earthquakes are common. San Onofre was originally designed to withstand a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, and then upgraded to withstand 7.0. However, we now know that earthquakes 100x stronger are possible, such as the 9.0 earthquake in Japan off the Fukushima Daiichi reactor, and a 7.4 quake hit near Mexicali. The Lake Wohlford dam "could crumble" in a 7.5 quake and so is being rebuilt to withstand a stronger quake. Recently, a magnitude 3.9 quake occurred along the San Joaquin Hills Thrust Fault on April 23, 2012, with epicenter within 15 miles of the plant. This fault was discovered 13 years ago, AFTER the initial licensing of the San Onofre plant, and it runs along the coast, very near the exact location of these reactors.

Southern California Edison now proposes a $64 million seismic study to probe these recently discovered faults and somehow reassure everyone by saying the risks are not too great.

Tsumani Risk Area -- The 133 foot tsunami in Japan underscores the inadequacy of the 14 foot (over high tide) sea wall at San Onofre. Large sea waves can be caused by earthquakes, undersea landslides and even a random meteor strike. If any of these occurs, San Onofre could be disabled and enter uncontrolled meltdown.

[Divernan]

7. Big Nuclear operators technically incompetent; dodge regulations; alter safety logs for years!

More chilling info re California's San Onofre plant. Steam Generator Misdesign -- Four massive steam generators were replaced in a $670 million upgrade that was completed in 2010. In this project, SCE engineers worked to avoid NRC approval of the design changes to the steam generators. In the article written by the lead engineers on the project in Nuclear Engineering International which was published just before they started to fail, they said, "the major premise of the steam generator replacement project was that it would be implemented under the 10CFR50.59 rule, that is, without prior approval by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC)"

It is now abundantly clear that the number and magnitude of the changes to the steam generators exceeded the intent of the like-for-like criteria. We can now clearly see that the underlying agenda of SCE, was to "improve" the steam generators so they would generate more steam and turn new generating turbines to push the limits of the plant to produce more power. Furthermore, the steam generators are very large reactor components that comprise a large fraction of the active elements within the containment structure, and were not originally intended to be replaced. These factors should have been enough to force NRC and public review during the design process.

With this huge design mistake, how can we trust that the company can operate this plant safely? Humans always make mistakes, but even one mistake can be an irreversible disaster forcing many millions to evacuate.

Worst Safety-complaint Record -- workers at the plant have alerted NRC officials to more than 10x the national average of safety concerns. On April 20, a fire burned for 45 minutes and is still unexplained. Fire inspections that were supposed to be performed hourly were not done at all and logs knowingly altered for five years. The back up batteries, that need to be available within a single minute during an accident, were left disconnected for four years. A worker fell into the primary cooling pool at the plant on January 27, 2012, while trying to retrieve a flashlight, but the accident was "not technically a reportable incident under federal rules." http://www.copswiki.org/Common/ShutSanOnofre