Rep. Dennis Kucinich: If You Lived Downwind From This Power Plant, Would You Be Concerned?

[kristopher]

Kucinich takes on the system allowing continued operation of Toledo's deteriorating Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant, which has a history of near catastrophic failure.

If You Lived Downwind From This Power Plant, Would You Be Concerned?
Rep. Dennis Kucinich

If an airline pilot failed an annual exam, and the Federal Aviation Administration simply lowered its standards to allow that pilot to continue to fly, would you board the flight? If a surgeon failed a licensing exam, and the medical board simply lowered its standards and allowed the surgeon to continue to practice, would you look for another doctor?

...

A year ago, The Associated Press conducted an in-depth analysis of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's treatment of age-related deterioration at nuclear power plants. The AP concluded that the NRC "work(ed) closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them."

The AP examined "tens of thousands of pages of government and industry studies... along with test results, inspection reports and regulatory policy statements...over four decades." Those records "show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the rules. Studies are conducted by the industry and government, and all agree that existing standards are 'unnecessarily conservative.' Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance."

Several nuclear engineers and former regulators "call the approach 'sharpening the pencil' or 'pencil engineering' -- the fudging of calculations and assumptions to yield answers that enable plants with deteriorating conditions to remain in compliance."

Pencil engineering is exactly ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-dennis-kucinich/if-you-lived-down-wind-fr_b_1679618.html










Hole in reactor head was located in area not subject to regular inspections. It was found by chance when, during regular inspection, the advanced state of deterioration around the control rod resulted in it moving when it was bumped by an inspector dismantling some test equipment. After peeling off all of the mechanical apparatus on the top of the reactor head associated with the operation of the control rod they found this football sized hole that was within 3/8 inch of fully penetrating the reactor head.

All NRC file photos can be seen here:
http://s259.photobucket.com/albums/hh285/taos-eddy/Energy/Davis%20Besse%20Photos/


Full story and related articles
Union of Concerned Scientists
Davis Besse - Reactor with a hole in its head
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/acfnx8tzc.pdf

Scapegoating Davis Besse by NRC
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/federal-agency-scapegoating-0141.html

Retrospective on Davis Besse
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/davis-besse-retrospective.html


Nuclear Regulatory Commission accounts
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.html

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation/overview.html


Bathtub curve


http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue21/hottopics21.htm

[freshwest]

1. Are their any activists doing anything about it? People are remarkably uninformed.

[kristopher]

3. They are trying to.

Reccing posts like this can help.

[bananas]

6. Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear Committee

http://ohiosierraclub.org/all-committees/conservation-committee/energy-committee/nuclear/

http://ohiosierraclub.org/category/nuclear/

http://www.facebook.com/nonuclear.ohiosierraclub

[freshwest]

7. Actually, I'm only speaking of demonstrations.

[bananas]

8. Environmental coalition bolsters case against Davis-Besse's cracked concrete containment

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/7/17/environmental-coalition-bolsters-case-against-davis-besses-c.html

Environmental coalition bolsters case against Davis-Besse's cracked concrete containment

The environmental coalition battling against the 20 year license extension proposed at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo, Ohio has filed a supplement to its cracked concrete containment contention. ...

<snip>

The intervening groups, including Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio, is represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge.

<snip>

Update on July 17, 2012 by admin

U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, photo at left) has written an op-ed, published at Huffington Post, entitled "If You Lived Downwind from this Power Plant, Would You Be Concerned?" ...

<snip>

Websites:

Beyond Nuclear
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/

Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario
http://www.citizensenvironmentalliance.org/

Don't Waste Michigan
http://dwmi.homestead.com/

Green Party of Ohio
http://www.ohiogreens.org/

[freshwest]

9. Thank you, but that's overkill. I didn't say ALL Americans are uninformed, or that no one opposes it

I was hoping to see a little direct action taken, Occupy style but those groups don't do those.

Scientific facts are not appreciated by the Governor there, obviously.

I'm off this thread any may delete my comment if I'm being misunderstood, I don't need this today.

[bananas]

10. please don't delete your comments

I was googling and composing post #8 and didn't see your post #7.
Beyond nuclear did have some small protests.
There have also been some concerts by Bonnie Raitt and others.

[freshwest]

12. We're cool bananas. Glad to hear Bonnie Raitte still on it. Anyway, that provides a kick.

[madokie]

2. We worked our asses off stopping one from being built upwind from us here

back in the 70s.
All I know for sure is one of the mathematicians who worked on the Manhattan Project was deathly afraid of the coming, at the time, use of nuclear energy to provide the nation its electrical power. I remember listening to him talk to my Dad about those fears back when I was just a toddler of 5 and 6 years old. I can honestly say I've been against nuclear energy my whole life. Nothing I've seen in the last 64 years has changed that one iota.

[freshwest]

4. Myself, too, from Seabrook and points west to Diablo. We only delayed them. What I wondered was if

Similiar actions of civil disobediance were going to be engaged in to prevent this continuing to operate there. There is no reference to that. I suspect most of those living nearby have discounted the possibility of harm.

I've been against nuclear power since we had to do the tables on half-lifes in public school in the sixties. This is the result of the MIC and corporations getting in bed with the regulators and allowing this illogical stuff that keeps the taxpayers on the recieving end of all the mess in the long run and enriches a few cronies.

A major part of myself and my fellows in opposing the proliferation of nuke power plants was the level of supervision that could never be sustained without creating a security state as never before seen. People seem to have just adopted the hear no evil, see no evil and have even decided to make sure no one says any evil against this. The death rate can be buried in other statistics and written off to other causes.

I don't even know if younger people were ever informed in school on what happened long-term in Japan and Chernobyl. The knowledge is harder to find for the casual person, and of course the media is owned by the MIC and won't draw attention to it. I believe a great number of people don't even know what a nuclear power plant looks like, how it operates or the history of discharges. There used to be EPA sites you could see all the pollution stats in your zip code.

[madokie]

5. We stopped ours in its tracks as construction had already started

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Fox_Nuclear_Power_Plant

We have this lady to thank for stopping Blackfox
http://www.carriedickersonfoundation.com/

The MIC was in bed with the nuclear industry from the start as they wanted the nuclear bomb and the power plants was a step in achieving that end. We the people were sold a pig in a poke so to say.

[freshwest]

11. Inside the city limits. Wow, that was outrageous. Most we fought were in the countryside.

We were going up against locals who wanted temporary construction jobs, which is why the companies favored those areas. One was cancelled, after we proved how many leaks there were. We held some back for years. Now VT tried to not recharter one, but have been over ruled by the NRC.. Or whoever these crooks are. Found a list after going to your link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canceled_nuclear_plants_in_the_United_States

Good work there. Many of us were arrested, but none of us were locals in those locales. And it still goes on. Because the MIC is bigger than governments