UCS charges NRC with "enabling unsafe and illegal operations" for non-enforcement of reactor coolant pressure boundary leakage

David Lochbaum (photo, left), the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), has written the five U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioners, and others at the agency responsible for enforcement of safety regulations. His letter is entitled "NRC's Enabling Unsafe and Illegal Operations." He criticizes the NRC for its routine "forgiveness" granted to nuclear utilities when safety-significant pressure boundary leakage occurs. Not only does NRC not revoke or suspend reactor operating licenses, it also does not issue fines, and often just treats the mishaps as non-cited violations, or as if no violation has even occurred. This is in direct contradiction of NRC safety regulations regarding such serious reactor risks.

Lochbaum describes a case of pressure boundary leakage at Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in southwest Michigan last summer. Whereas NRC regulations required reactor shutdown within six hours of discovery of the leakage, Entergy actually operated the reactor for a month. Despite dispatching a Special Inspection Team, NRC later reported "no findings of significance were identified." Lochbaum points out that NRC could fine Entergy $140,000 per day for the violation, or around $4 million all told, for this month-long pressure boundary leak. Yet NRC has fined Entergy not one penny.

Lochbaum included this near-miss in his annual report on nuclear safety at U.S. reactors. As he documents, Palisades has had three near-misses in two years, vying for the most of any reactor in the country.

Environmental coalition challenges "experimental" steam generator replacement at Davis-Besse

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, IncAn environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Ohio Sierra Club, has petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) for hearings to intervene against the planned steam generator replacement at FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shoreline just east of Toledo.

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge represents the coalition; Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc (photo, left) serves as the coalition's expert witness. Gundersen has identified 9 differences between the degraded old and replacement new steam generators, any one of which should have triggered an NRC license amendment proceeding.

The coalition contends that FENOC's shortcut on safety -- its circumvention of an NRC license amendment proceeding -- risks repeating the same sort of dangerous mistakes made at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern California. In January, 2012 a steam generator tube rupture at San Onofre released radioactivity to the environment, and led to the discovery of widespread tube degradation in replacement steam generators just a year or two old. San Onofre Units 2 and 3 remain shutdown, nearly a year and a half later. Friends of the Earth (FOE) recently won a favorable ruling by an NRC ASLB at San Onofre, granting FOE a license amendment intervention hearing. Arnie Gundersen also serves as FOE's expert witness in the San Onofre proceeding.

The coalition's intervention petition is posted here. 

Arnie Gundersen's expert testimony is posted here.

Arnie Gundersen's curriculum vitae is posted here.

The coalition has issued a press release.

Update on May 23, 2013 by admin

The Toledo Blade has reported on this story.

Lingering death for fast reactor as Monju suspended

"Japan’s nuclear watchdog will indefinitely suspend the use of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor over the operator’s disregard for safety that continued even after the Fukushima nuclear crisis raised concerns across the nation," writes Hideki Muroya in the Asahi Shimbun. "The Nuclear Regulation Authority's order will deal a further blow to Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling program, which has long been plagued by technical problems and scandals.

"In the latest case, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, operator of Monju, was found to have skipped inspections of nearly 10,000 pieces of equipment since 2010, including crucial devices in the safety and emergency systems at the plant, based in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.

"The company also violated its own safety regulations, according to the NRA.

"'Even when the reactor is offline, things stand in such a state,' an NRA official said after an on-site inspection of the reactor in February. “We cannot possibly approve a restart.” Read more. (Picture shows a still from video footage inside Monju during the 1995 sodium fire).

Write letters of support to nuclear resisters

The Nuclear Resisters are encouraging the anti-nuclear and anti-war community to write letters of support to imprisoned activists around the world, including Greg Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice and Michael Walli, currently imprisoned and awaiting sentencing for their breach of security at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. Please visit the Nuclear Resisters special webpage to write to imprisoned activists. Boertje-Obed, Rice and Walli will not be sentenced until mid-September. Even the Bush-appointed judge opined that "It is preposterous that Congress would pass a law that would not distinguish between peace protestors and terrorists." However, because the three were convicted of sabotage, which is considered under law as "an act of violence" against the United States, some thought the judge faced no other legal choice but to remand them in custody for now. Activists maintained a vigil outside the courthouse during the trial (Pictured. Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa).

NEW! Busting the pro-nuclear propaganda

In response to some of the myths about nuclear energy advanced in the documentary, Pandora's Promise - but in larger part in response to the pro-nuclear propaganda in circulation generally - Beyond Nuclear is today releasing: 

Pandora's False Promises: Busting the pro-nuclear propaganda.

This report, in the form of handy bullet points but fully referenced throughout, is designed to serve as a central source for many of the facts about nuclear power that are either ignored, obscured or mis-represented by the nuclear deniers.

The different sections cover, among many topics: climate change; the health impacts of Chernobyl and Fukushima; Germany's nuclear exit and France's dependence on it; the flaws and impracticabilities of the "new" reactor designs; and various misleading arguments made by the pro-nuclear propagandists, from base load energy to bananas.

In addition, we have published a two-page summary and a press release.

Please feel free to download, print and circulate these documents widely. Please also consider using these materials when the film is screened in your area.

If you would prefer us to send printed copies, we are happy to do so at cost. Simply send a request by email to: info@beyondnuclear. org. Or call: 301.270.2209.