Most Germans reject nuclear power as sustainable investment target - survey

Nuclear phase-out 
24 Aug 2021,
Edgar Meza

 

 

Clean Energy Wire / Reuters

An overwhelming majority of Germans see no place for nuclear power in sustainable investments, according to a survey conducted by research group Forsa on behalf of Berlin-based consumer protection organisation Finanzwende Recherche (Finance Transition Research). Sustainability standards that do not explicitly exclude nuclear power are not trusted in Germany, the organisation found. “The European Commission should take this knowledge into account when it presents details on the classification of sustainable investments in the autumn,” it states. The European Commission is currently working on a taxonomy, or classification system, for sustainable investments that specifies which economic activities can be considered sustainable and therefore also financed through “sustainable investments”. Conflicts between EU member states - France in particular advocates nuclear power – has kept the European Commission from making a decision on whether nuclear power should be defined as sustainable, Finanzwende Recherche points out.

The Commission last year began working to assess whether or not to include nuclear energy in the EU taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities and is expected to present details of the classification system in autumn. Finanzwende Recherche has sought to determine whether a sustainability standard for financial products that includes nuclear power would be credible in Germany. A representative group of over 1,000 adults took part in the telephone survey. Among its findings: 82 percent of respondents would not describe an investment in which money was also invested in nuclear power as a “sustainable investment”, while only 15 percent would consider such an investment to be sustainable.

While the EU hopes to provide financial market guidelines needed to achieve the bloc's ambitious climate targets, observers have said its sustainable finance strategy represents a “missed opportunity” in resolving the nuclear question. Nuclear power will be phased out entirely in Germany at the end of next year. While industry representatives and also some environmental groups advocate to consider extending the technology's lifetime in Germany in order to facilitate the transition from fossil fuels, both the government and also nuclear power companies have firmly rejected a revival. Markus Krebber, head of nuclear plant operator RWE, reiterated only this week that "we are not available" for keeping the plants open longer, news agency Reuters reported. Krebber instead called on the next government to get a grip on sluggish renewables expansion.

 

Nuclear exit to bring Germany “enormous difficulties” by increasing fossil power use - EDF head

Nuclear phase-out International

02 Aug 2021, 

Benjamin Wehrmann

 

 

Die Welt

Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power means that it must replace the energy source with climate-harmful coal and gas, the executive director of state-owned French energy company EDF has said in an interview published in Die Welt. Germany's nuclear exit would be "the most drastic" example of government-driven anti-nuclear policies that will cause the country "enormous difficulties" by increasing the need for carbon-based coal and gas, Cedric Lewandowski said. EDF had to offer abundant know-how for establishing a functioning nuclear industry that reduces reliance on fossil fuels by subsituting them with uranium, the company's CEO said. Nuclear power's CO2 emissions were comparable to that of wind power, while it had an advantage over renewables regarding the need for other raw materials, such as aluminium, copper or rare earths, he said. Lewandowski said the two major nuclear incidents that have occurred so far, in Chernobyl in the Soviet Union 1986 and in Fukushima in Japan in 2011, had happened due to human error and a natural disaster, respectively, and that operators had learned from them. "Generally speaking, security is a priority and constantly monitored in nuclear power," he argued. Regarding the problem of nuclear waste, Lewandowski said the nuclear power industry was trying to keep them to a minimum, while a large part could be recycled. "Without nuclear power, the will be no victory in the fight against climate change. However, this would also be impossible without a significant growth of renewable power," he said.

The French government in 2019 decided to reduce the share of nuclear power in the country from then 70 to 50 percent in 2035. Nuclear power has been losing relevance across the EU in recent years and the plants still running often are more than 40 years old. Besides concerns about nuclear safety, the question of how nuclear waste can be stored for thousands of years at minimum risk has remained unresolved. Germany will decommission its last nuclear plant at the end of 2022 and its last coal plant no later than 2038. The country plans to substitute its nuclear energy capacity with renewables and to a smaller extent with new gas plants for longer stretches with little wind or sunshine, which can eventually be used to burn 'green hydrogen' produced with renewable power. Strategic differences between France and Germany regarding the role of nuclear power and gas in the EU's future energy mix have recently become evident in the bloc's bid to find new standards for a climate-friendly financial sector.

Respected German intellectual pleads for nuclear

12 August 2021

In his column for Zeit online on 10 August, Theo Sommer, the respected editor-at-large at Die Zeit, said Germany still needs nuclear power. He asks: “Will the lights go out in Germany in 2023 because we are no longer producing enough electricity?” He says German electricity consumption is currently around 580TWh per year, while the Federal Economy Ministry estimates that demand will increase by 15% to 645 to 665TWh in 2030.

“This is at the lower end of the currently discussed needs estimates. But they all agree on one thing: the planned output will by no means be sufficient. The Federal Audit Office warns of a blackout in the course of the energy transition.” He points to the considerable gap between the target of 65% of our energy from renewables “and the percentage of electricity that appears to be actually achievable from renewable sources”.

He says there is a lack of replacement energy for two reasons:

the phase-out of nuclear energy and coal means secured power plant output is falling while the transition to electromobility, advancing digitalisation and the expansion of the hydrogen economy are increasing electricity consumption “to an extent that is still immeasurable today”.

In autumn 2010, the federal government extended the service life of Germany’s 17 operating nuclear power units but in the spring of 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel – “a politician terrified by the Fukushima disaster” - pushed through the immediate shutdown of the seven oldest plants and the gradual shutdown of all others by 2023. When the six currently active plants - Brokdorf, Grohnde, Gundremmingen, Emsland, Neckarwestheim and Isar - go offline in 2022, German electricity generation will fall by around 12%.

He describes Germany’s move away from nuclear power as “totally repugnant”. He notes that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports 28 new states wanting to embark on nuclear power programmes while worldwide 400 nuclear plants are in operation in 33 countries, with new ones are being built in 13 countries, including the UK, Finland and Slovakia. At the same time, Rolls-Royce is developing small reactors as are Argentine, Russia and China while US President Biden is also having the technology researched.

Sommer says: “The German nuclear industry, once among the world's leaders, can only suck its thumb. It only takes part in the ITER project, the long-term goal of which is the fusion reactor, but which will hardly be operational before the end of our century. In the next year, the question that will certainly arise is whether we really want or can comply with the phase-out dates for the last nuclear power plants.”

The question is urgent, because Germany is also phasing out coal with last German hard coal mines shut down in 2018 and lignite-based power generation set to end by 2038. He asks where should the replacement energy come from, especially since the demand is increasing rapidly. He points to the increasing electromobility, which will increase the demand for electricity enormously. “In Germany today there are one million electrically powered vehicles, by 2030 - when all new cars and trucks are to run without petrol or diesel - there will probably be 4.3 million. Added to this is the power-guzzling expansion of digitization and the equally power-guzzling transition to the hydrogen economy.”

It is an illusion that green energy could replace the failure of coal power. “This would require 10,000 additional wind turbines and huge areas. But not only is there insufficient space for a full supply from renewable energy, we also have too few hours of sunshine and too many lulls in the wind. In addition, only a fifth of the routes from north to south that should be ready by the end of the nuclear phase-out are finished - and the Greens are lying to themselves and us if they consider the expansion of networks and routes to be the solution.” 

He cites Christian Bruch from Siemens Energy, who says that phasing out nuclear and coal energy means losing 40% of Germany’s generation capacity. “That means: We need bridging technologies that lead us into a carbon-free future without economic and social disruptions. Such a bridging technology is the natural gas from the pipelines, through which hydrogen can one day also be transported - but also nuclear energy, whose main problem, the disposal of nuclear waste, may be more solvable in two or three decades than it is today.” He concludes: “Keeping the six nuclear power plants running for the time being would enable annual savings of 90 million tons of CO2 from 2023 onwards. That would be a concrete and immediately effective climate protection programme.”

INVESTIGATIONS

Unreported event at Hanford nuclear site that sickened workers 'smells like a cover-up,' advocates say

Workers reported smelling odors, resulting in symptoms such as dizziness and shortness of breath. The contractor denied a chronic problem, toxic vapors, is to blame.

Unreported event at Hanford nuclear site that sickened workers 'smells like a cover-up,' advocates say


Author: Susannah Frame
Published:  August 27, 2021

RICHLAND, Wash. — On June 18 of this year, 10 workers at the Hanford nuclear site in eastern Washington digging in what are known as the "tank farms," were overcome by strange odors. Nine of the workers sought medical treatment, including three who were transported to the hospital for an overnight stay and were given oxygen.

The KING 5 Investigators have found the event went unreported by the contractor involved - Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS).

According to WRPS documents obtained by KING 5, symptoms reported by workers included dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pain, headache, nausea, a metallic taste in the mouth, stomach issues, light headedness and cough.

Smelling unusual odors, followed by adverse medical conditions are hallmark signs of a chronic problem at the nuclear reservation: exposure to toxic vapors that vent from underground nuclear waste holding tanks.

WRPS is under a legal obligation to report vapor events on a publicly available website.

“I’m still amazed that not one piece of paper has been put out about this exposure, there’s been no announcement,” said Tom Carpenter, executive director of the advocacy group Hanford Challenge. “It’s getting to the point where this silence is very suspicious. It’s like: ‘What are you hiding?’”

The contractor said they did not post the event on their website because they’ve determined the worker's symptoms were not caused by vapors, but “most likely” by a malfunctioning gas-powered wheelbarrow.

“WRPS collected air samples from the small pieces of fuel-powered equipment used in the soil work. One piece of equipment, a small gasoline-powered wheelbarrow that was difficult to start and used during the June 18 event, was smoking when it started and high levels of volatile organic compound emissions were noted,” a WRPS spokesperson said.

Toxic vapor exposures have been a significant problem at Hanford since the 1980s when the operational mission went from producing plutonium, to clean up only.

Several government reports have identified that poisonous vapors, without warning, will vent from underground tanks. Hanford has 177 underground holding tanks that store the deadliest waste at the site.

Tanks in the tank farm near where the workers got ill in June contain contents including plutonium, the radioactive isotopes of americium and strontium 90, mercury, nickel, lead and cyanide.

In 2014 the KING 5 Investigators revealed a record number of vapor exposures in the tank farms. Approximately 56 workers fell ill with symptoms in the rash of exposures. After each incident, WRPS said their testing didn’t show chemicals of concern over regulatory limits. WRPS officials denied chemical vapors were to blame for the events.

That pattern wasn’t new. Expert reports detailed the same cycle happened at Hanford in the 80s and in the 90s: a slew of exposures, followed by denials by the tank farm contractor, and workers left sick and unable to work.

Many workers said they felt betrayed by the contractors over the years for not being honest about the dangers of vapors.

“Until they are in the field and until they smell what we smell and until they feel like we feel and until they get injured like we get injured, they don’t care,” said Mike Cain, a 47-year current Hanford employee who spent 25 of those years in the tank farms. “Everything that we described 30 years ago, 40 years ago, is still there. Yet they keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.”

RELATED: Report: Over 57% of Hanford workers exposed to hazards

After the string of exposures in 2014, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Hanford Challenge and Local 598 all filed lawsuits against WRPS and Hanford’s owner, the U.S. Department of Energy. The complaint accused the contractor and federal government of failing to protect workers from vapor exposures, that can cause adverse health effects including lung disease, nervous system damage and cancers of the liver, lung, blood and other organs. The lawsuit also alleged the Department of Energy had been well aware of the dangers for 25 years, yet “Energy did not fix the problem.”

A settlement agreement was reached in September 2018. Hanford officials agreed to improve health and safety conditions, install engineering to keep vapors out of the breathing space of workers. They also agreed to provide respiratory protections including supplied (fresh) air that is worn in tanks on the backs of workers, if needed.

In the June event, workers were not using supplied air. According to workers, the contractor had downgraded respiratory protection to respirators with cartridges. Respirators are lighter and more cost effective than supplied air.

“(That) never should have happened if they were wearing fresh air. Never should have happened,” Cain said.

“They’re not protecting workers. They have a long history of not doing so, of putting money and profits before workers health and safety which is ironic because they’re all about saying they want to protect health and safety. They’re not doing it,” Carpenter said.

A WRPS spokesperson said the company did not skimp on safety protocols in the June event.

“Respiratory controls at the TX Farm during the June 18, 2021 event complied with the tank farms vapors settlement agreement requirements… workers were wearing air-purifying respirators consistent with interim mandatory respiratory protections consistent with cartridge testing results,” the spokesperson said.

What is Hanford?

Hanford is the most contaminated worksite in America. Located near Richland in eastern, Wash., workers at the site produced plutonium for the country's nuclear weapons program for approximately four decades. Plutonium produced at Hanford fueled the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, that led to the end of WWII. Since the late 80s, Hanford has been a clean up site only.

The settlement agreement also makes it mandatory for WRPS to report events on its website that fall into the category of an “AOP-15.” On the WRPS website, an AOP 15 is described as an unidentified odor event: “When a worker reports an unexpected and unidentified odor in the tank farms, and reports medical symptoms potentially related to that smell.”

In the June event, WRPS did not characterize it as an AOP-15, therefore, company executives said they had no obligation to report it.

“Smells like a cover-up”

“This lack of information sharing and reporting smells like a cover-up. We do not want to see a return to downgraded worker protections that result in routine vapor exposures. The cycle of exposures must end at Hanford, and meaningful and long-lasting regulations should be enacted to assure that Hanford tank farm workers can conduct a cleanup without risking their own health and safety,” said Carpenter of Hanford Challenge in a press statement sent on Friday.

On Thursday, a WRPS executive told KING 5 that the company’s definition of an AOP-15 had changed in 2020. In an email to employees on Dec. 1, 2020, WRPS Executive Jeremy Hartley said that moving forward, an AOP-15 will occur when personal ammonia monitors worn by workers set off an alarm.

“Ammonia has been verified as a sentinel indicator of changing levels of other chemicals of potential concern. The procedure changes clarify and reinforce a disciplined conduct of operations by recognizing the administrative and engineering controls in place, relying on the ammonia monitors and verifying the conditions when an alarm set point is reached,” Hartley wrote.

Given this change, the WRPS spokesperson said they followed protocol by not reporting the event on the website.

“As this event did not involve an ammonia alarm, it is not classified as an AOP-15,” the spokesperson said.

Government scientists have concluded that ammonia does not have to be present for other chemicals of concern to release in concentrations that could harm human health. In 2004 the Department of Energy released a Hanford report concluding the potentially harmful gas, nitrous oxide, can be present without the presence of ammonia.

“Based on…characterization data (the contractor) CH2M HILL has incorrectly assumed that nitrous oxides are present only when ammonia is present,” report authors wrote. “…nitrous oxide vapors in tank headspaces can be present in (dangerous) concentrations, even in the absence of ammonia.”

Stakeholders such as Hanford Challenge and union safety representatives said they were unaware that WRPS had changed its AOP-15 definition.

A WRPS communications specialist said they are committed to the safety of workers.

“The health and safety of the workforce is always paramount,” the company official said.

New Brunswick

Diane Francis: Trudeau's multi-million dollar nuclear deal called out by non-proliferation experts

Scientists fear that the technology used to extract plutonium from spent fuel could be used to make nuclear bombs

Author of the article:Diane Francis

FINANCIAL POST
Publishing date:  August 13, 2021 

O

Ottawa has approved and subsidized a project in which a small reactor is run off "recycled" nuclear waste from New Brunswick’s closed Point Lepreau plant. 

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES

In May, the Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government over a deal he has approved and funded that critics say will undermine the goal of nuclear non-proliferation, according to an article published in the Hill Times and recently republished in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The article describes how prominent scientists are concerned about the Government of Canada approving a project, and subsidizing it to the tune of $50.5 million, that’s being developed by a startup called Moltex Energy.

Moltex Energy was selected by NB Power and the Government of New Brunswick to develop its new reactor technology and locate it at the Point Lepreau nuclear plant site by the early 2030s. Moltex is one of several companies that are promoting small, “next generation” nuclear reactors to replace fossil fuels in the production of electricity.

Moltex, a privately owned company that is based in the United Kingdom and has offices in Saint John, N.B., says it will “recycle nuclear waste” from New Brunswick’s closed Point Lepreau nuclear plant for use in its small-scale nuclear reactor. Federal funding and approval was announced on March 18 by Dominic LeBlanc, a New Brunswick MP who serves as minister of intergovernmental affairs.

The scientists dispute the claim that this is “recycling” and are concerned because the technology Moltex wants to use to extract plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons, from spent fuel could be used by other countries to make nuclear bombs. Decades ago, the U.S. and many of its allies, including Canada, took action to prevent this type of reprocessing from taking place.

“The idea is to use the plutonium as fuel for a new nuclear reactor, still in the design stage. If the project is successful, the entire package could be replicated and sold to other countries if the Government of Canada approves the sale,” reads the article.

On May 25, nine high-level American non-proliferation experts sent an open letter to Trudeau expressing concern that by “backing spent-fuel reprocessing and plutonium extraction, the Government of Canada will undermine the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime that Canada has done so much to strengthen.”

include senior White House appointees and other government advisers who worked under six U.S. presidents and who hold professorships at the Harvard Kennedy School, Princeton University and other eminent institutions.

The issue of nuclear proliferation dates back to 1974, when Canada got a black eye after India tested its first nuclear weapon using plutonium that was largely extracted using the CIRUS reactor, which was supplied by Canada for peaceful uses. Shortly after, other countries attempted to repurpose plutonium from reactors and were stopped — except for Pakistan, which, like India, succeeded in creating atomic weapons.

The Hill Times pointed out that, “To this day, South Korea is not allowed to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel on its own territory — a long-lasting political legacy of the 1974 Indian explosion and its aftermath — due to proliferation concerns.”

The letter to Trudeau concluded: “Before Canada makes any further commitments in support of reprocessing, we urge you to convene high-level reviews of both the non-proliferation and environmental implications of Moltex’s reprocessing proposal including international experts. We believe such reviews will find reprocessing to be counterproductive on both fronts.”

The scientists’ letter has not yet been answered by the government. However, Canadians deserve to be fully briefed on all this and its implications. They deserve to know who owns Moltex, what the risks are to non-proliferation and why taxpayers are sinking millions of dollars into a project that’s morally questionable and potentially hazardous.

Greens divided over taxpayer funding for small nuclear reactors

Too early to take a stand, N.B. candidates say as party splits on whether to urge feds to halt funding


Jacques Poitras · CBC News · Posted: Aug 24, 2021

Fredericton Green candidate Nicole O'Byrne says she's 'definitely of the mindset' that more study and more discussion are needed. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

The federal Green Party is torn on an issue that has brought New Brunswick Liberals and Progressive Conservatives together: taxpayer funding for the development of small modular nuclear reactors.

Party members were almost evenly split in a recent policy vote on whether Ottawa should fund companies such as ARC Canada and Moltex Energy, both based in Saint John.

The party's election candidate in New Brunswick Southwest, the riding that includes Point Lepreau nuclear generating station, said he believes Greens shouldn't rule out nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

"Basically it's because it's carbon-free," John Reist said. "It will reduce our dependency on coal and gas and gas-fired power."

Fredericton candidate Nicole O'Byrne also said it's too early to take a clear position on the issue.

"A lot of people think more study is needed and more discussion is needed, and I'm definitely of that mindset as well," she said.

John Reist, the Green Party candidate for New Brunswick Southwest, says Greens shouldn't rule out nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions. 

(Green Party of Canada)

Last November, the federal Greens called for the federal government to halt all investment in small modular reactors.

But in a policy vote held online this summer, 39.6 per cent of party members voted "red" to reject a resolution for "ceasing all federal funding for nuclear energy research," while 37.3 per cent of members voted "green" to endorse it.

Twenty-three per cent of the members chose a third option, a "yellow" vote, meaning they needed to know more about the issue before deciding.

Under party rules, a resolution must be accepted or rejected by 60 per cent of members or it is sent on to a plenary discussion at the next party convention, which is expected in November.

Opinion: SMR plan bolsters industry's future, but renewables could address energy issues now

Feds to put millions into small nuclear reactor development in New Brunswick

"You've got to base public policy … on evidence, not on ideology, and I think that part of the reason it was sent back for further discussion within the party is that a lot of people want to continue to have the discussion about where this is," O'Byrne said.

In the same policy process, more than 50 per cent of Greens supported a resolution to ban the reprocessing of nuclear waste, a key part of Moltex's technology.
SMRs 'right for the province,' energy minister says

The online Green policy votes wrapped up just before the federal election was called, and at a time when small modular reactor companies are benefiting from generous subsidies.

In February, the New Brunswick government announced $20 million in funding for ARC Canada. A month later, Ottawa committed $50.5 million to Moltex Energy.
Questions abound about N.B.'s embrace of small nuclear reactors

University of New Brunswick researcher Susan O'Donnell, a Green supporter of O'Byrne and an opponent of nuclear power, said the industry has been effective at marketing SMR technology to politicians.

"People are reading this stuff and they're believing it," O'Donnell said. "It's so relentless."

Natural Resources and Energy Development Minister Mike Holland said Monday that support for the small nuclear reactor industry transcends the traditional Liberal-Conservative partisan divide. (Radio-Canada file photo)

On Monday, provincial Energy Minister Mike Holland boasted at the official opening of ARC Canada's Saint John office that support for the industry transcends the traditional Liberal-Conservative partisan divide.

"We must move forward past our political allegiances and just do what's right for the province, and SMRs are right for the province," he said.
Calls for more evidence, more debate

But O'Donnell said that so far, there's no peer-reviewed scientific evidence that SMRs are viable and can be working in time to replace coal and other greenhouse gas-emitting energy and meet carbon reduction goals.

"They will not work within the time frame," she said.

Opponents also say safety and nuclear waste are concerns.

Reist said many Greens worldwide see nuclear power as a necessary alternative to fossil fuels and as a power source that can back up intermittent, less reliable renewable energy such as solar and wind.

"We need a debate," Reist said. "I know right now we're getting a lot of arguments about nuclear power and whether or not we should be using it. … We need facts.

"In the Green Party we should be having an open debate, with both sides, and talk about the issue, because we're just getting one side of the story."

O'Byrne said she has ardent anti-nuclear supporters but also a local party member who works at Point Lepreau and believes nuclear has a role to play if it's properly regulated.

"There are a lot of different views on nuclear and there's so much ideologically driven conversation when it comes to nuclear that I would prefer to see a lot more evidence come out about the viability of nuclear, and the oversight and government regulation that would need to be in place to look at it," she said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacques Poitras
Provincial Affairs reporter
Jacques Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. Raised in Moncton, he also produces the CBC political podcast Spin Reduxit.

 

Canada's nuclear reactors may not be fit for service

Joyce Nelson

August 11, 2021

On July 13, Bruce Power announced that two reactors at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario had violated its operating license.

It had "higher than anticipated readings" of hydrogen-equivalent concentration (Heq) in pressure tubes in two units. Pressure tubes must not exceed the allowable limit of 120 parts per million of Heq. Each pressure tube in a reactor contains 12 bundles of uranium, which are the basis for the nuclear reaction, but the pressure tubes also contain the coolant that keeps the fuel from overheating and triggering a meltdown. Pressure tubes with high levels of Heq can develop cracks and fractures, thereby compromising a reactor's safety.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

"In response to Bruce Power's contraventions, on July 13, the CNSC [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission] ordered the company, along with fellow CANDU [Canada Deuterium Uranium] operators Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and New Brunswick Power, to review the fitness for service of their pressure tubes and report back no later than the end of July."

Aging reactors

Many of Canada's aging CANDU reactors are older than their design-life for pressure tubes, which originally was designated as 210,000 effective full power hours (EFPH), or about 30 years.

When Hydro Quebec's Gentilly-2 CANDU reactor reached that limit, it closed the plant.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

"Thierry Vandal, chief executive at the time, testified before Quebec's national assembly that he considered 210,000 EFPH 'the extreme limit' beyond which his management team dared not go. 'I would no more operate Gentilly-2 beyond 210,000 hours than I would climb onto an airplane that does not have its permits and that does not meet the standards,' he said, according to a translated transcript."

Under industry pressure, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission subsequently raised the limit to 247,000 EFPH in 2014, and then to 295,000 EFPH in 2018.

In 2018, the CNSC extended OPG's license for its Pickering Nuclear Generating Station for 10 years. Rather than require that OPG replace aging pressure tubes, the regulator mandated more frequent inspections.

When asked how often pressure tubes are checked, retired nuclear scientist and radioactive chemistry expert Dr. Frank Greening answered by email:

"Pressure tubes are checked for their hydrogen/deuterium concentrations about every two years, but it's a little more complex than that. Each CANDU unit contains about 400 tubes and each tube is about six meters in length. This means it's next to impossible to check every tube at every location, so only about 10 tubes are checked at a time. In addition, corrosion and [hydrogen/deuterium] pickup are expected to be most significant at the hot, outlet end of each tube, so samples are usually restricted to this location."

As a result of such limited inspections, the industry relies on mathematical models to predict how long the untested tubes can safely remain in service. But this modeling is not necessarily accurate, as evidenced by the July 13 "higher than anticipated readings" at Kincardine.

Indeed, in March 2021, The Globe reported:

"Documents obtained under the federal Access to Information Act by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, and provided to The Globe, show that since 2017, CNSC staffers had grown increasingly concerned about unreliable data arising from OPG's inspections of pressure tubes…The whole method by which operators assessed fitness for service of pressure tubes had been called into question."

Another Fukushima?

It is somewhat disconcerting that, while discussing the pressure tube situation in Canada, three nuclear experts have made reference to the ongoing, 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

As The Globe reported in March:

"In a worse-case scenario, a ruptured tube could lead to a series of 'cascading failures not unlike what happened at Fukushima' says Sunil Nijhawan, a nuclear engineer and consultant who once worked for OPG and specializes in accident and safety assessments."

At Fukushima, the loss of coolant led to three reactor meltdowns.

In April, Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told the National Observer:

"Cooling the fuel is essential in nuclear power. If you don't cool the fuel even after shutdown, you can have a meltdown. That's what happened at Fukushima. I'm not saying every loss of coolant will lead to a meltdown, but that's the precipitating cause that could lead to a meltdown. So therefore the integrity of the piping is a prime concern."

The aging nuclear plant at Pickering is of special concern. Slated for closure in 2024, OPG has been lobbying the Doug Ford government to keep the plant open until 2025. Pickering reached its operational-life limit in about 2015, but the nuclear regulator has kept allowing it to remain in service.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance says a moratorium should be imposed until OPG can prove that the Pickering plant poses no risk to public safety. In 2018, the Clean Air Alliance commissioned a study by Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity.

As reported in April by the National Observer, Fairlie's report about the Pickering plant found that "a Fukushima-level accident" at Pickering "could cause approximately 26,000 cancers, require the evacuation of more than 150,000 homes and more than 650,000 people, and trigger a $125-billion loss in the value of single-family homes in the Greater Toronto Area."

How serious?

When asked about the seriousness of the pressure tube situation, Greening said a lot depends on the CNSC.

"I would definitely expect the CNSC to demand OPG and Bruce Power do a lot more sampling and analysis of selected tubes in each and every reactor they are operating. Then we will see how widespread this problem is.

"However, given the logistics of doing this, it would take months to complete all the necessary sampling, and each reactor would have be shut down for several weeks to do this. This would cost tens of millions of dollars and result in a serious loss of nuclear energy production. Then, of course, if many units are found to have [hydrogen/deuterium] concentrations well above 120 ppm in many of the examined tubes, the CNSC, and the whole of Canada's nuclear industry would be in a real pickle!"

As Greening explained: "In Canada, we have one reactor design -- the CANDU. If there is a design flaw discovered in one unit, then every operating unit is likely to have the same problem sooner or later."

So "if the CNSC does the right thing" by ordering the sampling and analysis of pressure tubes in all reactors, "it will cost millions."

However, Greening suspects that "the nuclear operators are probably going to say that the current limit of 120 ppm is far too restrictive and could be increased without jeopardizing plant safety."

The CNSC has catered to that argument before, raising the limit from 100 ppm to 120 ppm.

"Believe it or not, our wonderful nuclear regulator, the CNSC, has in fact used that very option to deal with exceedances of things like [deuterium]-pickup, feeder pipe thinning, etc. in the past," Greening said.

By the end of July, the CNSC had given such contradictory requests to Bruce Power that Greening was asking: "Does the CNSC's left hand know what its right hand is doing?"

As he wrote to CNSC president Rumina Velshi back on July 14, "maybe it would be better to admit that the CNSC and the Canadian nuclear industry are collectively unable to predict pressure tube corrosion and hydrogen pickup in operating CANDU reactors…and in the interest of public safety, permanently shut down these very old reactors."

In an email to rabble.ca Greening stated that a good place to start this shut down would be Pickering unit 6 and unit 7, which are both long past their fit for service date.

Otherwise, the consequences could be dire.

Canadian freelance writer Joyce Nelson is the author of seven books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca

Image: Chuck Szmurlo/Wikimedia Commons 

 

Nuclear Safety Commission Directs Bruce Power To Assess Fitness For Service Of Reactors

John Divinski

Aug 29, 2021 

A public Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (SNSC) meeting is scheduled for Friday, September 3rd to talk about the recent discovery of elevated hydrogen equivalent concentrations and the responses by nuclear power plant licensees and CNSC staff.

The meeting is being held by the External Advisory Committee on pressure tubes.

You may recall Bruce Power ran into some issues earlier in July with the condition of pressure tubes in two units which are not operating at this time.

A Commission report says the Bruce Power pressure tubes in Units 3 and 6 had higher measurements of hydrogen equivalent (Heq) than predicted which contravened the company’s operating licence conditions.

The reactors with the higher hydrogen content in pressure tubes are shut down for refurbishment and maintenance outages and do not pose a safety concern to the public or environment.

Hydrogen content is not a concern when reactors are shut down or have reached operating temperature.

At the time, the CNSC said in its release, “Since hydrogen content can only be measured while the reactors are shut down, CNSC staff have directed Bruce Power to assess the fitness for service of the other operating reactors and issued formal notices to all nuclear power plant licensees in Canada requesting further analysis on the continued safe operation of pressure tubes.”

The September 3rd virtual meeting will be webcast live at nuclearsafety.gc.ca

UN urges Japan to investigate damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors for clean-up

Isabel Vincent
August 28, 2021 6:05pm
Updated

The Fukushima nuclear disaster was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, which wrecked cooling systems at the plant on Japan's northeast coast, sparking reactor meltdowns and radiation leaks.AFP via Getty Images

A team of United Nations experts is urging Japan to investigate nuclear reactors damaged a decade ago by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Scientists working for the International Atomic Energy Agency reviewing the progress of the Fukushima plant’s clean-up say that Japan has been slow to examine the melted fuel inside the reactors.

And they’re worried that the country will be unable to meet a 2051 target to clean up the mess, according to a report.

“We need to gather more information on the fuel debris and more experience on the retrieval of the fuel debris to know if the plan can be completed as expected in the next 30 years,” said Christophe Xerri, head of IAEA, at a press conference after he and a colleague submitted a report on their recent findings to the Japanese government Friday

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Tanks holding radiation-contaminated water are seen in the premises of Tokyo Electric Power Co’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on April 12, 2021 in Okuma, Fukushima, Japan.The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

A worker moves bags of nuclear waste in an evacuation zone area damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, in 2016.Bloomberg via Getty Images

A massive earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011 destroyed cooling systems at the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan, triggering meltdowns in three reactors in the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, according to the Associated Press.

Japanese officials said that they hope to finish the decommissioning process within the next 30 years, although many experts believe that the timetable is optimistic.

Japanese government officials and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, have not provided any clarity as to how the plant will look when the cleanup ends.

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It’s unclear whether Fukushima nuclear disaster cleanup in Japan can be finished, as planned, by 2051

Japan’s government adopted an interim plan in recent days it hopes will win support from fishermen and others to release into the Pacific Ocean treated, still radioactive water from the wrecked nuclear plant.

By Mari Yamaguchi | AP Aug 27, 202

Nuclear reactor units of No. 3 and 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan. Hiro Komae / AP

TOKYO — Too little is known about melted fuel inside damaged reactors at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, even a decade after the disaster, to be able to tell whether its decommissioning can be finished, as planned, by 2051, a U.N. nuclear agency official says.

“I don’t know, and I don’t know if anybody knows,” Christophe Xerri, head of an International Atomic Energy Agency team reviewing the plant’s cleanup progress, said Friday.

A massive earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011 destroyed cooling systems at the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan, triggering meltdowns in three reactors. It was the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

Japanese government and utility officials say they hope to finish its decommissioning within 30 years, though some experts say that’s overly optimistic and that a full decommissioning might not even be possible.

The biggest challenge: removing and managing highly radioactive fuel debris from the three damaged reactors, according to Xerri, director of IAEA’s Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology.

“We need to gather more information on the fuel debris and more experience on the retrieval of the fuel debris to know if the plan can be completed as expected in the next 30 years,” he told reporters.

The cleanup plan depends on how the melted fuel needs to be handled for long-term storage and management, he said.

The IAEA team’s review, the fifth since the disaster, was mostly conducted online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Only Xerri and another team member visited the plant before compiling and submitting a report to Japan’s government on Friday.

The team noted progress in a number of areas since its last review in 2018, including the removal of spent fuel from a storage pool at one of the damaged reactors as well as a Japanese government plan, adopted this past week, to start discharging massive amounts of treated, though still radioactive, water that’s accumulated at the wrecked plant into the Pacific Oean in 2023.

It hopes to win support for the plan from fishermen and others.

Research and development of new technologies needed for the cleanup will take one or two decades, Xerri said.

Government officials and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings haven’t provided a clear picture of how the plant will look when the cleanup ends.

‘Huge hole.’ Looming nuclear shutdowns rattle Illinois

By Jeffrey Tomich | 08/26/2021 06:05 AM EST

Steam billows from the cooling towers at Exelon Corp.'s nuclear power generating station in Byron, Ill. Scott Olson/Getty mages

Like other school districts across the country, COVID-19 protocols were front of mind in the Byron Community School District #226 in northern Illinois as classes began last week.

But for district officials, another potential problem looms: the future of the giant nuclear plant a 10-minute drive south.

Exelon Corp.’s 2,300-megawatt Byron Generating Station, a top 10 U.S. nuclear plant, is less than a month from shutting down unless legislators come to the rescue. Depending on who you listen to, the reason is sagging electricity prices or a market failure to adequately value the carbon-free power the twin reactors produce.

The closure would especially hit the local school district, which relies on the plant for more than 70% of its budget. But the economic ripple would extend throughout the county, which shares $400 million of property tax revenue and other economic benefits tied to the facility.

“It will leave a huge hole,” said Byron, Ill., Mayor John Rickard. “You pull that plug in a rural community that only has about 5,000 residents, and that’s a huge hole.”

The threat to Byron comes as Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) is striving to put the state on a path to 100% carbon-free energy. Byron is among several nuclear plants to shut down across the U.S. in recent years with more slated for early retirement or at financial risk, even as President Biden has set a goal to eliminate power sector carbon emissions by 2035. From Vermont to California, communities that hosted once-thriving nuclear plants are now being forced to reckon with deep economic cuts caused by their closures.

In northern Illinois, anxiety and worry have been building since Chicago-based Exelon announced plans a year ago to close the plant absent legislative relief, Rickard said. And while the federal infrastructure bill backed by Biden and passed by the Senate this month includes $6 billion in aid for struggling reactors, the financial boost wouldn’t come in time to keep the Illinois plants running (Energywire, Aug. 10).

Exelon CEO Chris Crane said on the company’s quarterly earnings call earlier this month that he’s not willing to delay retirements any longer.

“We don’t want to close these plants, but we cannot make decisions based on hope of legislation being passed in the future,” Crane said. “We’ve been doing that since 2016, while significant losses have been incurred. We must act on the economic facts as they exist today.”

Company officials declined to comment specifically on the current status of legislative negotiations. But local leaders have pushed for months for state legislators to agree on aid for the nuclear plants — something they did this spring after months of contentious debate. Pritzker also signed off on $694 million of ratepayer aid to help the Byron and the nearby Dresden plants stay online for the next five years.

The nuclear provision was a key part of a sweeping energy and climate bill that fizzled in the General Assembly’s final days because of a disagreement over how a phaseout of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants would be handled (Energywire, June 2). The political stalemate lasted through summer, with two key Democratic constituencies — organized labor and environmental groups — unable to come to an agreement.

The deadlock has led Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), whose district includes the Byron and Dresden plants, to petition the White House to intervene by invoking the Defense Production Act or the Federal Power Act to prop up the facilities.

"The decisions you and your administration make on these matters in the days ahead will have a substantial impact on the future of America’s energy and climate policy," he said in a letter Monday to Biden.

Exelon officials have said that only the Illinois General Assembly can act in time to save the Byron and Dresden plants.

‘Significant progress’

While the clock is ticking at Byron, Illinois legislators face another deadline at the end of the month.

According to the Illinois Power Agency, an estimated $317 million to provide solar incentives would be returned to customers if it’s unspent by Aug. 31. The funds represent what’s been collected from customers and committed to helping fund new solar installations, but not yet paid out (Energywire, Dec. 7, 2020).

The solar industry has for more than a year urged lawmakers to pass a bill that would allow funds to roll over for that intended purpose. But the Legislature has so far indicated it will only work with an omnibus energy bill that still hangs in the balance.

With the solar industry on hold and Byron’s twin reactors poised to begin the “coast down” process leading to a permanent shutdown on Sept. 13, parties at the negotiating table are again hopeful they can reach a compromise.

Adding to the momentum: The General Assembly is due to convene in special session Tuesday to consider legislative maps following release of U.S. Census data.

Parties say they could have an energy bill ready to vote on by then.

“Over the last two weeks, I think it’s very safe to say we made way more progress than we had in the previous two months,” said Pat Devaney, secretary-treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO. “We’ve been working daily on it and making significant progress at a compromise.”

Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, likewise is encouraged.

“I think that there is definitely a renewed sense of urgency around trying to hammer out a bill that can pass before those key nuclear dates, and perhaps even by the end of this month,” Darin said.

For his part, Pritzker, who is seeking a second term and has promised climate action, has been unwavering in insisting that the state must move to cleaner energy.

“Any decarbonization framework must move Illinois aggressively beyond the status quo,” the governor said in a letter to a group of labor organizations earlier this month.

But he, too, sounded optimistic last week. Speaking to a group of climate activists at the Illinois State Fair, Pritzker said: “Folks, we’ve got some work to do, but we’re about 97% of the way there.”

Fossil fuel dilemma

The ramp down and closure of fossil fuel power plants in Illinois has been the key sticking point between the labor unions and the coalition of environmental groups, each of which pushed competing bills this spring.

The proposal being debated would require closing coal plants in the state by 2035, including the Prairie State Energy Campus. The 1,600-MW mine-mouth plant, an hour southeast of St. Louis, began operation less than a decade ago. Its owners — municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives across the Midwest — have balked at the idea of shutting it down more than a decade before bonds used to finance the $5 billion plant are paid off.

The bill would also require retirement of natural gas-fired power plants by 2045. But it also includes declining greenhouse gas emissions caps that could force fossil plants to ramp down sooner than the statutory deadlines.

That was enough of a concern that the developer of the $1.3 billion Three Rivers combined-cycle gas plant under construction an hour southwest of Chicago threatened to immediately pull the plug on the project — and hundreds of union jobs — if the bill passed as it was drafted.

The plant isn’t set to begin operation until 2023, and developer Competitive Power Ventures Inc. told Crain’s Chicago Business that proposed carbon caps threatened the plant’s viability before the 2045 date when gas plants would be phased out.

Devaney of the Illinois AFL-CIO said the bill would immediately shut down cleaner-burning fossil plants like Three Rivers, costing the state well-paying jobs and leaving Illinois short of generation and buying dirtier power from out of state.

“We know the energy generation space is going to transition away from fossil fuel energy generation,” he said. “But can we do it in a way that’s a little more rational and orderly?

“The difference is the process we use in getting there.”

Another sticking point between labor and environmental groups has been prevailing wage provisions and labor standards, though both sides suggested last week that they’re very near a compromise.

In the Aug. 2 letter to the governor and legislative leadership declaring impasse in talks with labor, the environmental coalition said they had agreed to the unions’ proposed labor standards for 96% of new renewable energy projects.

But environmental groups sought a temporary prevailing wage carve-out for some minority-owned businesses and smaller projects.

For all the optimism that a deal could be struck by the end of the month, Rickard and others in Byron continue to call legislators, write letters and emails as they’ve done for more than a year.

But frustration is growing for the mayor and others, knowing that a political squabble over something that may happen a decade or two from now could lead Exelon to pull the plug on the Byron plant next month.

“That’s happening in three weeks,” Rickard said. “You’ve got a decade and a half to deal with the coal and gas.”