Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Associates: "Can Spent Fuel Pools Catch Fire?"

Fairewinds Associates Chief Engineer Arnie GundersenReproduced verbatim from the Fairewinds Associates website: "In this Fairewinds’ feature, Fairewinds Associates Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen [pictured, left] analyzes a US government national laboratory simulation video that shows nuclear spent fuel rods do catch fire when exposed to air. This simulation video proves Fairewinds’ assertions that nuclear fuel rods can catch fire when exposed to air, and Arnie discusses the ramifications of this phenomena if the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent fuel pool were to lose cooling water. 

The Sandia National Laboratories video in its entirety can be seen here."

As Arnie explains in the video, the U.S. has 23 operating (and 1 permanently closed, at Millstone Unit 1) General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, which hold significantly more irradiated nuclear fuel in their storage pools than does Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4. Beyond Nuclear has published a fact sheet on the risks of GE BWR Mark I high-level radioactive waste storage pool risks.

Beyond Nuclear cites NRC and industry for “lessons unlearned” at Fukushima

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study on the implications of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe for US reactor operations.  In fact, it is the NRC that should be coming under investigation as a “captured regulator” of this increasingly dangerous industry. .

The most important lesson of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe is that in the event of a severe accident, once fuel damage in the reactor core occurs there is a very high likelihood that the accident will proceed to catastrophic containment failure with widespread radioactive contamination to the environment.  Yet the NRC and the nuclear industry have explicitly disregarded this critical lesson in post-Fukushima Orders and industry actions.   Read the comments of Beyond Nuclear to the National Academy of Science newly formed study panel that regard dangerous half measures for venting the unreliable  Fukushima-designed GE  Mark I and Mark II Boiling Water Reactors here in the United States.

NRC has rubber-stamped license extensions and "power uprates" at 22 of 23 GE BWR Mark I reactors operating in the U.S.

Pat Birnie of the GE Shareholders Alliance has compiled U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) data on "power uprates" which the agency has approved at 22 of the 23 General Electric boiling water reactors of the Mark I design still operating across the U.S. (Nine Mile Point Unit 1 in NY is the only exception). Her chart is accessible here. The Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 which exploded and melted down beginning in March 2011 are also GE BWR Mark Is.

The single biggest power uprate, as a percentage of heat output (measured as Megawatts-thermal, or MWt), was a 20% "extended" type power uprate, granted in 2006 to Entergy Nuclear at its 34 year old (at the time) Vermont Yankee atomic reactor. This amounted to a 319 MWt power uprate (MWt must be divided by three to determine the Megawatts-electric, MWe, generated, due to the fact that 2/3rds of the heat generated by splitting atoms is lost as waste). The vibrational stresses caused by Vermont Yankee's power uprate led to the collapse of its cooling tower (see photo at left), and even contributed to a separate fiery explosion, when the increased pressure of flowing steam picked up loose metallic slag that had lain dormant for decades and slammed it into an operational transformer.

However, even bigger power uprates have been rubberstamped by NRC. The single biggest, at an individual Mark I reactor, was the 547 MWt of power uprates, granted in two installments (one a "Measurement Uncertainty Recapture" type uprate), at the Hope Creek, New Jersey Mark I. However, both Brunswick Mark Is, Units #1 and #2 in North Carolina, have each enjoyed a total of 487 MWt of power uprates, including a "stretch" type uprate, for a whopping 974 MWt of power uprates at the Brunswick nuclear power plant.

NRC gave the newly formed Exelon Nuclear Corporation (formed by the merger of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago and Philadelphia Electric Company, the first and second largest nuclear utilities in the U.S.) an early Christmas gift in 2001: a 17.8% power uprate at both of its Quad Cities 1 & 2 Mark Is, worth 446 MWt each; and a 17% power uprate, worth 430 MWt, at each of its Dresden 2 & 3 Mark Is. All four approvals took place on a single day, December 21, 2001. The combined power uprates at the four Mark I reactors netted Exelon 1,752 MWt of additional output.

While the nuclear utilities enjoy increased profits from the additional electricity sales associated with power uprates, the public downwind and downstream bears the risks of running these Mark Is harder and hotter than they were originally licensed or designed for. To make safety risks even worse, 22 of the 23 operating Mark Is have already received NRC rubberstamps for 20 year license extensions; Fermi 2 is the only exception, and it plans to apply for one in 2014. Pat Birnie has also compiled a listing of the 23 operating Mark Is in the U.S., including the reactor units' names, locations, expiration dates for their original 40 year licenses, and expiration dates for their NRC-authorized 20 year license extensions.

Pat Birnie has succeeded in getting an anti-nuclear shareholder resolution, written in the aftermath of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, onto the agenda of the General Electric annual shareholders meeting, to be held in downtown Detroit on April 25th.

Events still going throughout March and April

The latest and updated March Against Nuclear Madness calendar.

Three events in Taipei added

Here's today's March Against Nuclear Madness Calendar.

Don't forget to take pictures and video of your actions and events! Please post them to the March Against Nuclear Madness page on Facebook, or email photos or video links to linda@beyondnuclear.org. Thank you!