Gundersen; New Report Shows 50 tons Of Rubble Fell In Unit 3 Pool, "Removal of Fuel Cannot Exist"

missingsky102


   

Published on Feb 13, 2014

TEPCO released a report entitled, TEPCO's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Roadmap, that contained some astounding information regarding Unit 3. Follow Fairewinds Energy's Arnie Gundersen as he shows you the 35-ton refueling bridge that fell in the Unit 3 spent fuel pool during the Unit 3 detonation explosion. Do the math. The bottom line here is that TEPCO has just acknowledged that at least 50-tons of rubble has fallen on top of and into the spent fuel pool in Unit 3. What does this 50-ton pile of debris mean to the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and its cleanup?

http://fairewinds.org/media/fairewind...

Related articles

• Gundersen: New Report Shows 50 tons Of Rubble Fell In Unit 3 Pool, "Removal of Fuel Cannot Exist"
• New TEPCO Report Shows Damage to Unit 3 Fuel Pool MUCH Worse Than That at Unit 4
• HATRICK PENRY WAS RIGHT: New Report Shows 50 TONS of Rubble Fell Into Unit 3 Pool - Removal of Fuel Impossible
• Gundersen: New report reveals 50 tons of rubble fell in Unit 3 pool, spent fuel is 'highly damaged' - Like a fully loaded 18-wheeler felll from sky after supersonic explosive shockwave - "Mast... like a knights lance, it fell straight into fuel" (VIDEO)
• Fukushima "Apocalypse in Progress" Gundersen & Wasserman

Nuclear energy is not an alternative to energies that increase global warming, because nuclear increases global warming. When high-grade uranium runs out, nuclear will be worse for CO2 emissions than burning fossil fuels.

Nuclear power plants world-wide, in operation, as of 18 January 2013

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WashingtonsBlog

Former NRC Commissioner: Trying To Solve Global Warming By Building Nuclear Power Plants Is Like Trying To Solve Global Hunger By Serving Everyone Caviar

Posted on January 22, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

And Nuclear Pumps Out a Lot of Carbon Dioxide

It is well-documented that nuclear energy is very expensive and bad for the environment.
Former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Peter Bradford notes:

If asked whether we should increase our reliance on caviar to fight world hunger, most people would laugh. Relying on an overly expensive commodity to perform an essential task spends too much money for too little benefit, while foreclosing more-promising approaches.
That is nuclear power’s fundamental flaw in the search for plentiful energy without climate repercussions, though reactors are also more dangerous than caviar unless you’re a sturgeon.
***
Nuclear power is so much more expensive than alternative ways of providing energy that the world can only increase its nuclear reliance through massive government subsidy—like the $8 billion loan guarantee offered by the federal government to a two-reactor project in Georgia approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this year.
***
Many more such direct government subsidies will be needed to scale up nuclear power to any great extent.
***
John Rowe, former chief executive of Exelon Corp., an energy company that relies heavily on nuclear power, recently said, “At today’s [natural] gas prices, a new nuclear power plant is out of the money by a factor of two.” He added, “It’s not something where you can go sharpen the pencil and play. It’s economically wrong.” His successor, Christopher Crane, recently said gas prices would have to increase roughly fivefold for nuclear to be competitive in the U.S.
***
Countries that choose power supplies through democratic, transparent and market-based methods aren’t building new reactors.

Indeed, nuclear is not only crazily expensive, but it also pumps out a huge amount of carbon dioxide during construction, and crowds out development of clean energy.
Nuclear may also provide a lower return on energy invested than renewable forms of alternative energy. In other words, it might take more energy to create nuclear energy than other forms of power … which is worse for the environment.

Read More Here

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Number of reactors in operation, worldwide, 2013-01-18 (IAEA 2013, modified)

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Number of reactors under construction, 2013-01-18 (IAEA 2013, modified)

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Nuclear share in electricity generation, 2011 (IAEA 2012, modified)

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WashingtonsBlog

Nuclear Power Is Expensive and Bad for the Environment … It’s Being Pushed Because It Is Good For Making Bombs

Posted on April 11, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

Since the 1980s, the U.S. Has Secretly Helped Japan Build Up Its Nuclear Weapons Program … Pretending It Was “Nuclear Energy” and “Space Exploration” …

As demonstrated below, nuclear energy is expensive and bad for the environment.
The real reason it is being pushed is because it is good for helping countries like Japan and the U.S. build nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Energy Is Expensive

Forbes points out:

Nuclear power is no longer an economically viable source of new energy in the United States, the freshly-retired CEO of Exelon, America’s largest producer of nuclear power [who also served on the president’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future], said in Chicago Thursday.
And it won’t become economically viable, he said, for the forseeable future.
***
“I’m the nuclear guy,” Rowe said. “And you won’t get better results with nuclear. It just isn’t economic, and it’s not economic within a foreseeable time frame.”

U.S. News and World Report notes:

After the Fukushima power plant disaster in Japan last year, the rising costs of nuclear energy could deliver a knockout punch to its future use in the United States, according to a researcher at the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment.
“From my point of view, the fundamental nature of [nuclear] technology suggests that the future will be as clouded as the past,” says Mark Cooper, the author of the report. New safety regulations enacted or being considered by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission would push the cost of nuclear energy too high to be economically competitive.
The disaster insurance for nuclear power plants in the United States is currently underwritten by the federal government, Cooper says. Without that safeguard, “nuclear power is neither affordable nor worth the risk. If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible.”

Alternet reports:

An authoritative study by the investment bank Lazard Ltd. found that wind beat nuclear and that nuclear essentially tied with solar. But wind and solar, being simple and safe, are coming on line faster. Another advantage wind and solar have is that capacity can be added bit by bit; a wind farm can have more or less turbines without scuttling the whole project. As economies of scale are created within the alternative energy supply chains and the construction process becomes more efficient, prices continue to drop. Meanwhile, the cost of stalled nukes moves upward.

AP noted last year:

Nuclear power is a viable source for cheap energy only if it goes uninsured.
***
Governments that use nuclear energy are torn between the benefit of low-cost electricity and the risk of a nuclear catastrophe, which could total trillions of dollars and even bankrupt a country.
The bottom line is that it’s a gamble: Governments are hoping to dodge a one-off disaster while they accumulate small gains over the long-term.
The cost of a worst-case nuclear accident at a plant in Germany, for example, has been estimated to total as much as €7.6 trillion ($11 trillion), while the mandatory reactor insurance is only €2.5 billion.
“The €2.5 billion will be just enough to buy the stamps for the letters of condolence,” said Olav Hohmeyer, an economist at the University of Flensburg who is also a member of the German government’s environmental advisory body.
The situation in the U.S., Japan, China, France and other countries is similar.
***
“Around the globe, nuclear risks — be it damages to power plants or the liability risks resulting from radiation accidents — are covered by the state. The private insurance industry is barely liable,” said Torsten Jeworrek, a board member at Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurance companies.
***
In financial terms, nuclear incidents can be so devastating that the cost of full insurance would be so high as to make nuclear energy more expensive than fossil fuels.
***
Ultimately, the decision to keep insurance on nuclear plants to a minimum is a way of supporting the industry.
“Capping the insurance was a clear decision to provide a non-negligible subsidy to the technology,” Klaus Toepfer, a former German environment minister and longtime head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said.

See this and this.
This is an ongoing battle, not ancient history. As Harvey Wasserman reports:

The only two US reactor projects now technically under construction are on the brink of death for financial reasons.
If they go under, there will almost certainly be no new reactors built here.
***
Georgia’s double-reactor Vogtle project has been sold on the basis of federal loan guarantees. Last year President Obama promised the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power, $8.33 billion in financing from an $18.5 billion fund that had been established at the Department of Energy by George W. Bush. Until last week most industry observers had assumed the guarantees were a done deal. But the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, has publicly complained that the Office of Management and Budget may be requiring terms that are unacceptable to the builders.
***
The climate for loan guarantees has changed since this one was promised. The $535 million collapse of Solyndra prompted a rash of angry Congressional hearings and cast a long shadow over the whole range of loan guarantees for energy projects. Though the Vogtle deal comes from a separate fund, skepticism over stalled negotiations is rising.
So is resistance among Georgia ratepayers. To fund the new Vogtle reactors, Southern is forcing “construction work in progress” rate hikes that require consumers to pay for the new nukes as they’re being built. Southern is free of liability, even if the reactors are not completed. Thus it behooves the company to build them essentially forever, collecting payment whether they open or not.
All that would collapse should the loan guarantee package fail.

Bad for the Environment

Alternet points out:

Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Vermont Law School … found that the states that invested heavily in nuclear power had worse track records on efficiency and developing renewables than those that did not have large nuclear programs. In other words, investing in nuclear technology crowded out developing clean energy.

Many experts also say that the “energy return on investment” from nuclear power is lower than many other forms of energy. In other words, non-nuclear energy sources produce more energy for a given input.
And decentralizing energy production and storage is the real solution for the environment … not building more centralized nuclear plants.

Read More Here

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• Former NRC Commissioner: Trying To Solve Global Warming By Building Nuclear Power Plants Is Like Trying To Solve Global Hunger By Serving Everyone Caviar
• Nuke issue could restore power to the regions
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• More experts advocate the use of nuclear energy

Fukushima Mayor Was Told: "No Accident Could Ever Happen"; "Disaster Of All Humanity-Entire World"

missingsky102


 

Published on Jan 17, 2014

Former Official in Fukushima: "This is a disaster of all humanity... the entire world" — "It's on an international level, huge consequences" — "Now bigger than anything we can cope with"

TV: "Many young people in Fukushima who are in high school have died suddenly"; Officials "ignore all the problems" — Former Mayor: People are always told "any disease they have is not caused by radiation"
Mayor of Town That Hosted Fukushima Nuclear Plant Says He Was Told: "No Accident Could Ever Happen"
Democracy Now With Amy Goodman
We speak with Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of the town of Futaba where part of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant is located. The entire town was rendered uninhabitable by the nuclear disaster. We ask him what went through his mind after the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011. "It was a huge surprise, and at the time I was just hoping nothing that had happened at the nuclear power plant. However, unfortunately there was in fact an accident there," Idogawa recalls. He made a decision to evacuate his town before the Japanese government told people to leave. "If I had made that decision even three hours earlier, I would have been able to prevent so many people from being exposed to radiation." For years he encouraged nuclear power development in the area; now he has become a vocal critic. He explains that the government and the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, always told him, "'Don't worry, Mayor. No accident could ever happen.' Because this promise was betrayed, this is why I became anti-nuclear."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Music from the film Nuclear Nation: The Fukushima Refugees Story. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. This is the third day of our broadcast from Tokyo, Japan, and the final day. We are talking about moving in on the third anniversary of the Fukushima disaster. Nineteen thousand people died or went missing on that day, March 11th, 2011, and the days afterwards, when the earthquake triggered a tsunami, and three of the reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant melted down.
We're joined right now by Futaba's former mayor, Katsutaka Idogawa. For years, he embraced nuclear power. Now he has become a vocal critic. He is featured in the film Nuclear Nation.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! And thank you for traveling two hours to join us here at the studios of NHK International for this conversation. Mayor, explain what happened on that day—special thanks to Mary Joyce, who is translating for you today—on that day, March 11, 2011, and the days afterwards, when you decided it was time for the thousands of people who lived in your town, Futaba, to leave.
KATSUTAKA IDOGAWA: [translated] On that day, there was an earthquake of the scale of something we'd never experienced before. It was a huge surprise. And at the time, I was just hoping that nothing had happened to the nuclear power plant. However, unfortunately, there was in fact an accident there. And then I worked with the many residents, and thinking about how I could fully evacuate them from the radiation.
AMY GOODMAN: You made a decision to evacuate your town before the Japanese government told the people in the area to do this, but not before the U.S. government told Americans to leave the area and other governments said the same.
SHOW FULL TRANSCRIPT ›
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/17...
All material provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.
The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry
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http://www.youtube.com/user/redbutton...
http://www.youtube.com/user/ichicax4
http://www.youtube.com/user/arclight2011
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https://www.youtube.com/user/jrae50021

A Revolutionary Nuclear Savior ?

MissingSky101·


   

Published on Dec 14, 2013

RT News-"Breaking the Set" with Abby Martin
David Martin, chief executive at the Weinberg Foundation, talks about the many potential energy benefits of thorium, a largely unexplored element that poses far less risks than uranium and plutonium.



Thorium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

The Thorium reactor energy option
http://commonsensecanadian.ca/thorium...

Thorium backed as a 'future fuel'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-env...

LFTRs in 5 minutes - Thorium Reactors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T...

FORMER CUMBRIAN OPEN CAST MINE CANNOT STORE RADIOACTIVE WASTE, SAYS GOVERNMENT
http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/former-...

Sellafield
Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing site, close to the village of Seascale on the coast of the Irish Sea inCumbria, England. The site is served by Sellafield railway station. Sellafield incorporates the originalnuclear reactor site at Windscale, which is currently undergoing decommissioning and dismantling, andCalder Hall, another neighbour of Windscale, which is also undergoing decommissioning and dismantling of its four nuclear power generating reactors.
The total cost of decommissioning, which will be born by UK taxpayers, is now considered to be in excess of £70 bn.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Sellafield snafu: UK nuclear site shutdown totals $160bln amid cost overruns
http://rt.com/news/sellafield-nuclear...

Study on IAEA website: Core meltdown risk now around 1,000% higher because of Fukushima — Engineer: Nuclear disaster "a certainty" over next 30 years in Europe
http://enenews.com/study-iaea-website...

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry
http://nuclear-news.net/

FukushimaDiary
http://fukushima-diary.com/category/d...

http://fukushimafacts.com/.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MsMilkyth...

http://www.youtube.com/user/HatrickPenry

http://www.youtube.com/user/ichicax4

http://enenews.com/

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Thorium Reactors: Nuclear Redemption or Nuclear Hazard?

Posted by: Herman Trabish

Could thorium be the faltering nuclear industry’s salvation -- or is it a mirage? Is the U.S. missing an immense energy opportunity?
“We should be trying our best to develop the use of thorium,” former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix recently told BBC News. “I am told that thorium will be safer in reactors - and it is almost impossible to make a bomb out of thorium.”
Thorium is up to 200 times more energy dense than uranium and as common as lead. It could be a safer, cheaper nuclear fuel, GTM reported shortly after the 2011 Fukushima disaster: “China, India, Japan, France, Russia and the U.S. are all currently developing thorium-based reactors.”
Yet thorium-based nuclear power is still a hypothesis. Maybe because, Blix noted, besides the technical obstacles, there is a multi-billion dollar uranium-based nuclear industry “backed by vested interests.”
“Uranium, which is much better for making bombs, took over the stage” during World War II, explained SuperFuel author and thorium advocate Richard Martin on NPR’s Science Friday last year. Thorium was “pushed aside.”
It could be coming back. India, with the world’s biggest thorium resource, is committed to a program using “thorium compounds as breeder fuel to produce more uranium.” It plans to get “30 percent of its electricity from thorium reactors by 2050,” according to the November Economist.
China is developing “a next-generation reactor which its supporters say will enable thorium to be used much more safely than uranium,” BBC News said. And Norway’s Thor Energy is developing thorium technology through an “evolutionary approach” that will use thorium “in existing reactors together with uranium or plutonium.”

TerraPower, backed by Microsoft billionaires Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold, is a uranium-based small modular reactor (SMR) technology that reuses stockpiled nuclear waste.  The NY Times recently called it  “a very long term bet.”
Thorium technologies fit the nuclear industry’s move toward SMRs. Flibe Energy’s modular liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) and “known thorium reserves” could supply “advanced society for many thousands of years,” according to a Flibe fact sheet.
LFTR’s external nuclear chain reaction also reuses stockpiled nuclear waste and safely eliminates the need for containment vessels because it shuts down automatically if there is a disruption. Thorium is cheaper and more efficient than uranium and LFTR modular reactors would be mass produced cost effectively, use less water, and provide waste heat and marketable byproducts.
Nobel laureate and former CERN Director Carlo Rubbia leads advocacy for an alternative accelerator-driven system (ADS) thorium technology that would give thorium "absolute pre-eminence" over other fuels, Rubbia said recently. Norwegian nuclear industry player Aker Solutions purchased Rubbia’s patents earlier this year and is investing $1.8 billion in their development. 

Read More Here

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AGreenRoad - The Nuclear Industry Transfers All Risks And Losses To Taxpayers

AGreen Road Project


 

Published on Oct 25, 2013

 

All Things Political host Steve Leal interviews chief engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education and financial analyst Russell Lowe. The show discusses the recently released Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission report; the San Onofre steam generator modifications and ensuing complications in California; loan guarantees for the nuclear industry; radiation concerns worldwide; whistleblowers and domestic nuclear issues; and a future with energy alternatives.

 Arnie Gundersen / Fairewinds: http://www.fairewinds.com/

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Britain to build Europe's first nuclear plant since Fukushima

Image Source:  Wkimedia Commons     PD-USGOV.
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Sun Oct 20, 2013 4:36pm BST

By Karolin Schaps and Geert De Clercq


LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - Britain is set to sign a deal with France's EDF for the first nuclear plant to start construction in Europe since Japan's Fukushima disaster raised safety concerns worldwide, at a cost estimated at around $23 billion.
Under the deal, to be announced on Monday, the French state-controlled utility will lead a consortium, including a Chinese group, to construct two European Pressurised Water Reactors (EPRs) designed by France's Areva.
Industry estimates, based on other nuclear projects, put the cost at around 14 billion pounds or more than 16 billion euros.
EDF's long-time partner China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), possibly in combination with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), is expected to have a 30 to 40 percent stake in the consortium, with Areva taking another 10 percent, according to newspapers including France's Les Echos and Britain's Sunday Telegraph.
The two reactors, each with a capacity of 1.6 gigawatts, would together make up nearly five percent of British generating capacity and increase energy security in the country, which needs to replace 20 percent of its ageing and polluting power plants over the coming decade.
EDF and the British prime minister's office declined to comment on the media reports, but EDF said in a statement on Sunday its CEO Henri Proglio would give details about the UK nuclear project in a web conference Monday morning.
The project is a boost for the global nuclear industry, which has seen projects cancelled since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Germany decided to phase out nuclear power, Italy scrapped a planned nuclear programme and France has pledged to cut atomic power to 50 percent of its electricity mix from 75 percent today.
Britain's government and main opposition parties support nuclear power and anti-nuclear sentiment among the population is muted by comparison with other parts of Europe.
George Borovas, nuclear specialist at law firm Pillsbury, said Britain is a unique environment for nuclear, given political support, a relatively strong economy and an existing nuclear fleet.
"If nuclear can't work in the UK, where else?" he said.

Read More Here

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