March, 2011

The industry appreciates President Obama’s leadership during this difficult time for the people of Japan. Like the president, the industry recognizes that there is concern about the accident in Japan and is providing resources and expertise to help return the Fukushima plant to a safe condition. The...

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From NEI’s Japan Earthquake launch page : UPDATE AS OF 11:20 A.M. EDT, FRIDAY, MARCH 18: Reactors 1, 2 and 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are in stable condition, with workers continuing to provide seawater cooling into the reactors. Containment integrity is believed to be intact on reactors...

NEI has set up a new twitter feed to track information on Japan. The address is @NEIUPDATES. We’ve switched the Twitter feed in the right column over to it, so you can follow it from here or add it to your feed. By all means, retweet the new Twitter feed – and if you think of it, mention Nuclear Notes...

  At 7:00 a.m. Japanese Time (about 15 minutes ago). This comes from TEPCO’s web cam on the site. ...read more

From NEI’s Japan Earthquake launch page : UPDATE AS OF 5:40 P.M. EDT, MONDAY, MARCH 21: Japan’s NHK broadcasting network reported that Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were beyond the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s design standards. TEPCO believes the tsunami that...

Four folks have weighed in so far including NEI’s Marv Fertel: All U.S. electric companies that operate nuclear power plants are taking action now to verify their capability to maintain safety even in the face of severe adverse events. The industry is verifying that the emergency response capability...

NEI's Everett Redmond, Director of Nonproliferation and Fuel Cycle Policy, discusses spent fuel assembly. Visit NEI’s YouTube page for a lot of interesting videos about various subjects related to Fukushima Daiichi. ...read more

At present, it is not known what caused the water around Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 to show high radiation levels. The AP lists several possibilities – as have many news sources: The possible breach in Unit 3 might be a crack or a hole in the stainless steel chamber of the reactor core or in the spent...

The industry supports an integrated strategy for managing used nuclear fuel that includes interim storage, recycling and disposal. ...read more

National Public Radio has a short bit on the lessons learned from the Three Mile Island accident that happened this day back in 1979, here’s a snippet: “The most important changes were what were called human factors,” [former NRC historian Sam] Walker says. “That was the lesson that was most obvious...

From NucNet : Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has begun work to remove contaminated water that has accumulated in the turbine building basements at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. Workers have started to remove water from the unit...

From NEI’s Japan earthquake launch page: UPDATE AS OF 9:30 A.M. EDT, MARCH 27: Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers on Sunday were using pumps to remove highly contaminated water from the basement of the turbine building of reactors 1 and 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. TEPCO also was preparing...

The Pew poll has come out and found – surprise! – that events in Japan have raised opposition to nuclear energy. Now, we should note that Pew has always been one of the roughest polls on nuclear energy, much more so than the TV network polls or Gallup. I’m not enough of a poll hound to know why this...

While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gears up to take a close look at U.S. nuclear plants, it makes sense that newspapers play watchdog and pore over the records of plants in their vicinity. That’s what the Chicago Tribune and the Des Moines Register have done with plants in and near Iowa : The newspaper...

This happened last week : Angela Merkel's U-turn on nuclear energy became even more gear-crunching on Tuesday when she announced the temporary closure of seven of Germany's nuclear power stations. The chancellor said that reactors built before 1980 would be taken offline while an urgent review...

This is the most thorough account I’ve seen yet of what happened to the workers at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 who were contaminated with radiation. From Nucnet: JAIF also confirmed that three workers were contaminated when laying cables in the turbine hall of unit 3. The International Atomic Energy Agency...

From NEI’s Japan earthquake launch page: UPDATE AS OF 9:30 A.M., MARCH 26 Japanese scientists yesterday detected higher levels radioactive iodine in seawater at water outlets near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. “ Iodine 131 was detected at a level 1,250 times the national safety limit,” Hidehiko...

From Kyodo News : Handout photo shows the control room for the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Fukushima Prefecture on March 26, 2011. Tokyo Electric Power Co. restored lighting in the room the same day as part of efforts to bring the crippled plant under control. ...read...

Buyer Beware. From AARP : Japan's nuclear crisis has caused a different type of fallout on this side of the Pacific Ocean: Scammers eager to make money — or just create fear — by fueling unwarranted concerns that dangerous levels of radiation have spread in the winds to the United States. Already...

Reuters has up a slide show of scenes from earthquake ravaged Japan. We really ought to pause, even on this blog, and acknowledge that Fukushima Daiichi is not  all that requires our attention. Much of the country is in tatters. The rebuilding process will be a testament to the resilience of the...

From NEI’s Japan earthquake launch page: UPDATE AS OF 6 P.M. EDT, MARCH 26 At this time, sources such as the International Atomic Energy Agency , Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency have reported no new developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. NEI...

This is the kind of editorial that pops up more frequently, from the Lexington Herald-Leader (actually, an op-ed in this case): Should Kentucky reconsider nuclear power, which now provides 20 percent of this nation's electricity? Maybe so. We're in no position to ignore any source of energy....

Dr. David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University offers interesting comments at the New York Times today. It’s a meta story about a expert who has been asked by various media outlets to share his views . “People are very worried, which is not surprising,” he...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed rule today that could force companies to retrofit once-through cooling systems at thermoelectric power plants, including nuclear and coal-fired power plants, with cooling towers. This...