Jeffrey Lewis is at a nuclear policy conference nicknamed “Nukestock” and reports:
We had an oddly bloodless discussion this morning of the unfolding events at Fukushima. One thing that struck me about the panel, with perhaps Mark Hibbs excepted, was the gap in perception between nuclear industry and the public at large. The panel seemed to view this as an unfortunate inconveneince for the coming nuclear renaissance. To me, at least, that seems like the captain of the Titanic wondering whether he’s still going to make his dinner reservations.
As usual, the Union of Concerned Scientists press conferences are interesting and informative. Here’s an interesting snippet where Dave Lochbaum answers a question about NRC studies of the danger of overheating spent fuel pools at US plants similar to Fukushima:
MR. LOCHBAUM: Yeah. I know they’ve looked at it, because the reason I’m at the Union of Concerned Scientists is a colleague and I found a problem with spent fuel pools in BWR Mark II containments like the ones in Japan. We pointed out that there was no way to cool them should power be lost. If you were unable to cool them, the things would overheat, melt down, and cause problems, just as exactly has happened in Japan.
The NRC looked at that. Initially, they didn’t look at it very well, because unfortunately, every other page was missing from the report we sent them, because I took it to Kinko’s, and they didn’t duplex it. So, the NRC, three months later, had determined that our concerns had no consequences, even though page 2, page 4, page 6 and so on was missing. So, that kind of gave us a clue as to how detailed they looked over those concerns.
They basically said the chances of that happening were so small that nobody really needed to do anything about it. We think they need to get a new Ouija board, because the events in Japan showed them how wrong that assessment was.
Lochbaum is testifying in the Senate today, and I think a little more attention is going to be paid to his concerns.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
But the science demands it!
JGabriel
mistermix @ Top:
Unfortunately, I suspect a large portion of that attention will come from Republicans (and possibly some pro-nuke Dems) attempting to belittle Lochbaum’s concerns, and smear him or otherwise denigrate his experience and credentials.
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cleek
why? decades of horrific oil spills and fires and wars haven’t dampened our enthusiasm for oil.
cathyx
We’ve gotten so used to this attitude about every potential disaster that exists today; wars, the safety of any job or product, prep for weather related disasters, and the reply is always the same. The chances of it happening are too remote to bother considering.
jo6pac
Yep, the computer model doesn’t show any problem at all but then again Mother Nature doesn’t give a shit about their computer model.
Yes cleek you are right and I read the other day there’s some crazy group that is going to drill down to the earths mantle. WTF we haven’t done enough damage already!
Mark B
Unfortunately, the story about the screwed up documentation sounds similar to what BP and Transocean were doing to satisfy paperwork requirements for their drilling operations. It seems like government regulatory agencies (NRA etc.) weren’t doing their jobs. I assume it’s because if they do, congress gets mad at them for impeding business and cuts their funding.
The whole job of disaster prevention is not real rewarding, because if you do your job really well, you get criticized for spending money on something that never happens. Which is kind of the point.
Brandon
I’ve gotta agree with Gabriel. He’ll be villified as an unserious DFH just like everyone else that was right about everything. There is no evidence to suggest anything but that outcome will happen. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a ‘serious’ politician that gets out in front of public opinion on this issue.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
You do? You’ve got a lot more faith in the Senate than I do.
Punchy
And I think you’re quite sadly mistaken.
Dave
I think you are exceedingly optimistic about that. Perhaps Democrats will give him more of their attention. But Republicans will only try to prove him wrong with their Bible-Based Knowledge Power, because nuclear power is AWESOME! And if you don’t think so, you obviously hate America.
Poopyman
Bottom line @ every comment prior to this: When politics and science collide, when has science ever come out the winner?
Nature, on the other hand (@jo6pac: )…
Lol
Are we back to thinking things are disastrous now? I thought doubting the integrity of a Japanese corporation was racist and proved I was simply taking the word of clueless western journalists who were ignoring how awesome things were because they’re also racist.
edmund dantes
Nature is full of winners. It has a whole graveyard of losers in its closet.
What’s the number, 98 or 99% of all animals are extinct? Nature will be fine. She’ll adjust. She’ll hurt for awhile, but somehow she always finds a way to win.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Poopyman:
One just has to see Congress overturning EPA findings because they want to enshrine climate denialism wholesale and cripple the EPA itself to see this in action.
jheartney
I think this is pretty much the case for the future of nuclear power. It was already fairly tenuous (bear in mind that if it weren’t for the existence of Yucca Mountain we’d have Senator Sharron Angle in the Senate today). The disaster at Fukushima, even if it doesn’t get any worse, flattens any Nuclear Renaissance for at least the next ten years. (And I’m dubious that it doesn’t get worse. I’d be betting on massive groundwater contamination and more explosive hijinks from the reactors and cooling pools, not to mention deaths and horrific long-term disease among the cleanup crew.)
I have no doubt that Republican tools will run interference in Congress and do their best to drown out knowledgeable scientific testimony. It won’t matter, though. Events in Japan are too obvious to cover up.
cathyx
@jheartney: I wish what you are saying would be true, but I have to say that in no way will it be.
Haven’t you seen the pattern by now? We had an unprecedented “accident” in the Gulf of Mexico that any sane country would put a halt to future oil drilling there, but more wells are being approved.
The Corporate States of America will continue abusing the environment and workers as planned.
tkogrumpy
@Mark B: This is absolutely on target. One of the things that our country has yet to come to terms with is that we are perhaps irredeemable corrupt in our bureaucracy, and this will eventually undo us just as it undid General Motors.In the sixties I did quality control for Boston Whaler, doing pass fail on every boat that left the factory. No one checked my work and I could have collected my ample salary simply by signing the paperwork, for about 18 months. then my ass would have been out in the street.Today it seems failure is the default desired result and the only way to keep your job.
Cermet
People, without massive government infusions of free cash, there is zero chance of nuclear power becoming big – what, two plants are being built but only because Obama offered huge federal guarantee’s? Lets see how much those monsters end up costing.
Gas (not the one refined from liquid oil) is cheap compared to most fuels and until that changes, nuke isn’t going anywhere. What needs to be done is upgrade (at 100% taxpayer/rate payer expense) all the plants to handle lost of coolant flow. Outside of that, this isn’t really an issue until we get one for ourselves – California earthquake, anyone? As the AO I heard yesterday, it would be no lost considering it was the left coast – nice people these fake news viewers.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Count me in the group that suspects you’re being overly optimistic about the Senate. But I appreciate your coverage of this issue nonetheless.
PeakVT
@jheartney: Economics is what will stop the “nuclear renaissance” if anything will.
dmbeaster
The real weakness of the nuclear industry is its absolute reliance on government subsidy in two important areas. One is the liability cap. It is doubtful that there would be a nuclear industry without it, since private enterprise would not undertake the risk. Talk about a classic example of privatize profits, socialize risk. The second is the responsibility for long term disposal of nuclear waste. If private industry knew that it was 100% responsible for this problem (and the liability for effing it up), the industry also would not survive.
Why it is touted as some sort of great solution to our energy problems is nuts. Its true costs are very high, and private enterprise undertakes it only because it is shielded from these true costs.
rickstersherpa
@Mark B: Bingo! You have hit the nail on the head in current oligarchy. If a regulatory activity starts enforcing a law or rule, the industry lobbiests run to their favorite congress critter with a set of speaking points about “job destroying regulation” (when in fact it lack of regulation that destroyed 8 million jobs during the Great Recession and destroyed tens of thousands of jobs, as well as kill 11 workers, last summer in the Gulf). Meanwhile, the idiot suits that run these industries are their own worse enemies. In the case of Nukes they want to spin and propgandize about this “safety” that they just won’t acknowledge that there are inherent risks and dangers they have to acknowledge, inform, and manage. For a great story about the cavalier way nukes were handled in the early part of the nuclear age see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1. But again, I cannot be completely anti-nuke because compared with coal, it is not near the killer or danger to the planet, because again the religious nature of this dispute means there is profoundly weak science being done on the subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects#Controversy_over_human_health_effects
Jamie
When I was a kid I took a environmental chemistry course. As part of the course we went to a local nuclear plant(near Pittsburgh). when we were at the plant, a group of Nuclear Engineers told us they were being and that an accident was inconceivable. At the time this seemed reasonable. Of course the next summer, 3 Mile Island had a partial meltdown, at the same time I was passing through the area for a college visit. After that I have been skeptical of the Nuclear industries PR. I’m not convinced they’ve changed to be as safe as they should be and we still don’t have a good place to put the waste developed at these plants.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
cathyx: The difference is that we already have a developed oil-based infrastructure, with massive sunk costs.
With nuclear the greatest capital investment is the plant itself. The economics of nuclear were already tenuous, rquiring massive subsidies and loan guarantees. Bad PR plus the focus on adding yet more redundancy and safety oversight just makes the hill that much steeper.
Villago Delenda Est
@edmund dantes:
This is true. We humans won’t be around to see that victory, but it’s true. Note that the fact that we won’t be around to see it is much of a comfort, really. No one will be able to tell these fuckheads that dismiss these concerns “I told you so”, which rather pisses me off.
jheartney
@cathyx:
Oil drilling is a different animal politically than nukes. Oil is visible, and stays out in the ocean somewhere. Radiation is is invisible and penetrates your house and gives your kid thyroid cancer.
Besides, the real problem is investors, who have a much harder gimlet sensibility. Oil companies make a healthy profit. Nuclear companies have been losing their shirts for years. Who wants to own TEPCO right now?
matryoshka
@Mark B: The same thing happened in the financial world. The ratings agencies, who should have been shitting their pants about the subprime mortgage bond market, were asleep at the wheel. No one could have foreseen that housing values would plummet!
Keithly
@Jamie:
Nuclear Engineers keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
Southern Beale
This happens all the time, though. We saw it with the TVA coal ash spill in Kingston, TN. We saw it with the BP oil spill. It’s “failure to anticipate” on steroids.
There are reasons this happens, which I wrote about in January 2009 after the coal ash spill.
It’s a flaw in our cost-benefit analysis way of doing things. We live in a world where our technology has become so advanced and complicated that we can’t possibly take into account all of the possible costs and outcomes, as so many of them are unknowable in the first place. Under our old technology the idea that devastating events were exceptional and rare might have been valid, but in today’s world they are the new “normal.” Anything that can go wrong will, we just have know way of knowing what can go wrong.
Calouste
Not that I disagree with the findings of Mr. Lochbaum, but how did he find out that he only send half the report? You’d assume that if he find out that something went wrong with the copying, he’d make another trip to Kinko’s before sending it off. And if he didn’t, well, no one read it to comment on it. I’m pretty sure that he found out they didn’t read it because they didn’t comment on some specifics in the report, but this sounds like a bit of an embelishment story to make it more readable for the rubes.
trollhattan
@Southern Beale:
This is a dandy bit of news, if accurate.
The article goes on to state the issue is at Unit 2, not the partly plutonium-fueled Unit 3. Hey, some good news!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/japan-lost-race-save-nuclear-reactor