Former US NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko: "All 104 nuclear power reactors now in operation in the United States have a safety problem that cannot be fixed"

From New York Times (4/8/2013), right after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission effectively shelved the idea of filtered vent:

Ex-Regulator Says Reactors Are Flawed

WASHINGTON — All 104 nuclear power reactors now in operation in the United States have a safety problem that cannot be fixed and they should be replaced with newer technology, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday. Shutting them all down at once is not practical, he said, but he supports phasing them out rather than trying to extend their lives.

The position of the former chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, is not unusual in that various anti-nuclear groups take the same stance. But it is highly unusual for a former head of the nuclear commission to so bluntly criticize an industry whose safety he was previously in charge of ensuring.

Asked why he did not make these points when he was chairman, Dr. Jaczko said in an interview after his remarks, “I didn’t really come to it until recently.”

“I was just thinking about the issues more, and watching as the industry and the regulators and the whole nuclear safety community continues to try to figure out how to address these very, very difficult problems,” which were made more evident by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, he said. “Continuing to put Band-Aid on Band-Aid is not going to fix the problem.”

Dr. Jaczko made his remarks at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington in a session about the Fukushima accident. Dr. Jaczko said that many American reactors that had received permission from the nuclear commission to operate for 20 years beyond their initial 40-year licenses probably would not last that long. He also rejected as unfeasible changes proposed by the commission that would allow reactor owners to apply for a second 20-year extension, meaning that some reactors would run for a total of 80 years.

Dr. Jaczko cited a well-known characteristic of nuclear reactor fuel to continue to generate copious amounts of heat after a chain reaction is shut down. That “decay heat” is what led to the Fukushima meltdowns. The solution, he said, was probably smaller reactors in which the heat could not push the temperature to the fuel’s melting point.

The nuclear industry disagreed with Dr. Jaczko’s assessment. “U.S. nuclear energy facilities are operating safely,” said Marvin S. Fertel, the president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association. “That was the case prior to Greg Jaczko’s tenure as Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman. It was the case during his tenure as N.R.C. chairman, as acknowledged by the N.R.C.’s special Fukushima response task force and evidenced by a multitude of safety and performance indicators. It is still the case today.”

Dr. Jaczko resigned as chairman last summer after months of conflict with his four colleagues on the commission. He often voted in the minority on various safety questions, advocated more vigorous safety improvements, and was regarded with deep suspicion by the nuclear industry. A former aide to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, he was appointed at Mr. Reid’s instigation and was instrumental in slowing progress on a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles from Las Vegas.

Dr. Jaczko visited Fukushima last summer. Maybe it was that visit that influenced him. If you haven't seen the NHK documentary of that visit, see my post from December 30, 2012. In the documentary, he seemed to be genuinely touched by the devastation in Namie-machi, and by the people's lives destroyed by the nuclear accident.

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#Radioactive Asia: There Will Be 100 Additional Nuclear Reactors in Asia in 20 Years

As far as Asians are concerned, the Fukushima nuclear accident seems to have encouraged them to embark on new nuclear projects.

They probably look at Japan, and say, "Well their government has said all along there is no bad effect from triple meltdowns and melt-throughs, and people don't seem to care anyway, so what's there to lose? Not much."

Japan (and probably South Korea and Russia, too) would be very willing to foot the bills anyway via the loans at preferential rates and give away other goodies (some may call "bribes") to the government officials.

Japan is downwind, but that's not even a slight concern to the nuclear makers and the Japanese government, particularly the one under the prime minister who has already started going to bathrooms too frequently during the Diet sessions. (PM Abe suffers from ulcerative colitis.)

From Nikkei Shinbun (2/15/2013), nuclear reactors currently under construction, and currently planned:

Japan: 2
Taiwan: 2
South Korea: 19
China: 56
Vietnam: 14
Indonesia: 4
India 18

Nikkei says it means more opportunities for the Japanese nuclear manufacturers, but the competition will be intense among Japan, South Korea, and Russia. Nikkei's estimate is the 50 trillion yen (US$535 billion) market in Asia alone, at 500 billion yen per reactor.

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Europe Has 150 Nuclear Reactors to Decommission in Two Decades

It may cost up to $1 billion to dismantle one reactor, so the potential total of $150 billion. Where does the money come from?

The US is kicking the can down the road by extending the license and doing nothing, for up to 60 years, even after the reactor is shut down. (See the New York Times article from March this year.)

(On the other hand, Spain just got $125 billion from EU to recap its banks...)

From The Washington Post WONKBLOG (6/9/2012):

How hard is it to dismantle 150 nuclear reactors? Europe’s about to find out.
Posted by Brad Plumer at 09:31 AM ET, 06/09/2012

Last year, after the tsunami and reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, many European nations decided to phase out their existing fleets of nuclear power plants. Germany and Belgium are aiming to end all atomic generation by 2030. Switzerland is shooting for 2035.

Yet the mere act of shutting down those reactors is going to pose a huge challenge in the years ahead. According to a new report from GlobalData, Europe is on track to decommission nearly 150 nuclear power plants in the next two decades. Some, like those in Germany, are being mothballed for political reasons. Others, in France and Britain, are simply getting old. Yet dismantling a nuclear reactor is an arduous, time-consuming task — typically costing between $400 million and $1 billion per plant. And it’s not clear that Europe is fully prepared for the onslaught of retirements.

In a recent issue of New Scientist, Fred Pearce offered a handy step-by-step guide on how to take apart a nuclear reactor. There are thousands of tons of radioactive material to deal with — not just the spent fuel rods, but also various materials that have picked up lower levels of radioactivity. That includes, potentially, the reactor vessel, the fuel-rod casings, various bits of scrap metal and even old clothing. That waste can’t just be carted off to regular landfills; it needs to be disposed of properly. (Here’s a graphic breaking down the various types of waste.)

Very broadly speaking, there are three main ways (pdf) to decommission a nuclear reactor. The first option is to remove the fuel, disassemble the surrounding structure and find a safe place to store all the different radioactive bits. One problem with this option? Not every country in Europe currently has proper waste facilities set up, Pearce reports.

Alternatively, workers could simply take out the fuel, drain the plumbing and then lock up the reactor, letting the isotopes decay until the plant itself is less radioactive. After 10 to 80 years, the whole structure will be easier to dismantle. The third option, meanwhile, is to bury the reactor in a “tomb” of concrete and hope that no one cracks the structure open for the next 1,400 years. The U.S. Department of Energy took this approach for two old reactors at Savannah River in South Carolina.

All of these methods are time-intensive. As of 2012, some 138 nuclear reactors have been shut down (pdf) around the world, but only 17 have been fully decommissioned. It took England two full decades to finish its decommissioning of the Sellafield site after the nuclear reactor there was shut off in 1981.

What’s more, the process is costly: GlobalData estimates that it will cost at least $81 billion to decommission Europe’s reactors between now and 2030, with the biggest markets in France and Russia. Pearce suggests that some countries, such as Britain, may not currently have enough money budgeted for the task — in part because many of its reactors are custom-built and likely to cost more than expected to tear apart.

These sorts of headaches could be one reason why the United States is taking a different approach to its aging plants. The GlobalData report notes that U.S. utilities and regulators have announced plans to extend the lives of 71 nuclear reactors by another 20 years. Between now and 2030, only five U.S. commercial power reactors are expected to be decommissioned. (That’s in addition to the 28 commercial reactors that the United States has already shut down.)

Granted, the United States still has plenty of challenges — as Matthew Wald recently detailed for the New York Times, funds for decommissioning are lagging here, as well. But those problems are somewhat smaller than what Europe will be facing in the next two decades.

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New York Times: As Reactors Age, the Money to Close Them Lags

US nuclear plant operators may not have enough money to decommission their aging reactors. If the reactors have to be shut down, it may be 20 to 60 years until they have enough money in the funds set up to pay for decommissioning.

The industry claims they are victims of the 2008 financial turmoil and market collapse.

From New York Times by Matthew L. Wald (3/20/2012; emphasis is mine):

WASHINGTON — The operators of 20 of the nation’s aging nuclear reactors, including some whose licenses expire soon, have not saved nearly enough money for prompt and proper dismantling. If it turns out that they must close, the owners intend to let them sit like industrial relics for 20 to 60 years or even longer while interest accrues in the reactors’ retirement accounts.

Decommissioning a reactor is a painstaking and expensive process that involves taking down huge structures and transporting the radioactive materials to the few sites around the country that can bury them. The cost is projected at $400 million to $1 billion per reactor, which in some cases is more than what it cost to build the plants in the 1960s and ’70s.

Mothballing the plants makes hundreds of acres of prime industrial land unavailable for decades and leaves open the possibility that radioactive contamination in the structures could spread. While the radioactivity levels decline over time, many communities worry about safe oversight.

Bills that once seemed far into the future may be coming due. The license for Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt., at 40 the nation’s oldest reactor, expires on Wednesday, for example. And while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted its owner, Entergy, a new 20-year permit, the State of Vermont is trying to close the plant.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has vowed to force the two operating reactors at another Entergy plant, Indian Point, 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, to shut down when their licenses expire in 2013 and 2015 by denying them state environmental permits.

Entergy is at least $90 million short of the projected $560 million cost of dismantling Vermont Yankee; the company is at least $500 million short of the $1.5 billion estimated cost of dismantling Indian Point 2 and 3.

The shortfall raises the possibility that Vermont could tend one sleeping reactor for decades while New York oversees three; Unit 1 , another reactor at Indian Point, shut down in 1974 and has yet to be dismantled.

Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chairman is uneasy about the prospect of a 60-year wait.

“These facilities should be cleaned up, and their footprints reduced as much as possible so that these areas can be returned to other productive uses within the community,” the chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, said recently.

Gil C. Quiniones, the president and chief executive of the New York Power Authority, a state utility that sold Indian Point 3 to Entergy in 2000, called Entergy’s failure to plan for or finance the decommissioning of Indian Point in real time “stunningly irresponsible.”

“Delaying action for 60 years — when Entergy might no longer even exist — is offensive to the communities of Westchester County and the people of New York,” he said. James Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, said that financing would not be a problem because the company still expects to obtain new 20-year licenses for Units 2 and 3, which would allow time for savings to grow, and to prevail on the state permit issue.

Assuming that the plants remain open for two more decades, the company has promised Westchester County that it will decommission Indian Point in a “reasonable” period of time after the reactors close, probably in the 2030s.

Of the 20 reactors that lack the money for swift deconstruction, the owners hope that license renewals from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will make the problem go away. For the plants that are fighting with their host states, Indian Point and Vermont Yankee, the federal courts may have the final say on whether and how long they keep operating. (A large demonstration in favor of closing the plant is planned for Wednesday at Vermont Yankee.)

The remaining 84 active reactors have enough savings on hand to satisfy the commission’s minimum financing requirements for eventual dismantling, some of them because they won license extensions.

The nuclear industry had been counting on steady returns on the funds and did not anticipate the 2008 market crash. Altogether the nation’s 104 power reactors have about $40 billion on hand. “A lot of decommissioning funds did take a hit at the nadir of the economic crisis,” said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the regulatory commission.

One plant, Palisades in western Michigan, had $597.6 million saved up at the end of 2006, but the account was down to $218.8 million two years later and was only $279.2 million by the end of 2010, the most recent figures show.

Bruce Biewald, an economist who specializes in electricity economics at Synapse Energy, a Boston consulting firm, said the mothball strategy carries risks that could outweigh benefits. Proponents say “it’s like magic — compound interest on the one hand and radioactive decay on the other,” he said. (Because radioactivity levels decline over time, deconstruction workers would ultimately be exposed to less contamination.) But future investment returns could prove bleak, Mr. Biewald warns, and anticipated deconstruction costs could easily rise.

Responding to a petition from Sherwood Martinelli, an antinuclear activist who lives near Indian Point, Dr. Jaczko, the regulatory commission chairman, sought a shorter period between closing and dismantling.

But in October, Dr. Jaczko was outvoted 4 to 1 by his fellow commissioners. And the commission’s staff said that even 60 years was not a hard-and-fast outer time limit for suspending a reactor’s operations.

In the industry, this status is known as Safstor and it usually involves putting the spent nuclear fuel into storage casks on site, draining many of the plant’s fluids, making security arrangements and maintaining the reactor so it looks like a decent neighbor.

Environmental experts say the plants can be dangerous when they are not running. In a letter, the three members of Vermont’s Congressional delegation pointed out that 55,000 gallons of contaminated water spilled out of a mothballed plant in Illinois after a pipe froze. An attentive night watchman was credited with catching the spill in time to contain it.

Indian Point 1 has leaked a variety of radioactive materials into the soil on the banks of the Hudson in the 38 years since it closed, a point acknowledged by Entergy, which responded by emptying a spent fuel pool that was the source of the problem. The environmental group Riverkeeper argues that this is a harbinger of further trouble if Units 2 and 3 enter Safstor.

Compounding the worries about radioactive materials, the nation still lacks a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel after decades of jockeying by politicians who sought to bar it from their backyards. So the fuel at the sleeping reactors will remain on site.

Twelve reactors across the country have been retired in the last three decades, all on short notice, because of a design or safety flaw that the economics did not justify fixing. The low price of natural gas, a competing fuel, makes the economic lifetime of existing reactors uncertain.

Some have been decommissioned in a few years, like Connecticut Yankee, whose owners, a group of New England utilities, footed the cost. Decommissioning started two years after its 1996 shutdown and was completed in 2005 at a cost of $871 million.

In Haddam, Conn., officials are still advertising for a new industrial tenant for its former site on the east bank of the Connecticut River.

Asked if tearing it down had been the right call, Paul J. DeStefano, the town’s first selectman and top official, said, “I’m a little hesitant, from a layman’s standpoint, of having something sitting around for 60 years. It just doesn’t sound right.”

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