Tag: windscale

Wolf Creek nuclear plant among three in U.S. that need more oversight, NRC reports (via McClatchy and The Kansas City Star)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

You might want to make a copy of this post. When someone is carefully explaining to you as if to a small child that while there have been  problems, this kind of thing (meltdowns, leaks, etc.) couldn’t happen in the United States – While he is consigning you to the ranks of the unrealistic tree huggers who unlike him don’t deal with the “real world,” you might wave this in front of his often unseeing eyes and watch a momentary doubt pass like a wedding veil briefly over his face. He’ll think for a moment about claiming that the NRC is also a bunch of tree huggers but decide against it. Then smiling he will regain the offensive by saying, “Thats why it can’t happen here. Our guys are better than there guys when it comes to safety. See right there in the paper. You’ve proved mycase.”

At this point, give up on persuasion. Give up on logic and reason. You are dealing with a religion, a belief that the real world involves cruel often vicious decisions and when someone raises a moral or ethical question or even a simple fact, they are to be considered, “unrealistic.”

They believe that we must be cruel and unflinching, ever striving to be tougher and less principled than our enemies, who are everywhere.

I am willing to consider nuclear power as a part of an energy policy but I want careful safeguards and real assurances. The PR nonsense and hack formulaic writing gives me that impression that once I am consigned to the anti-nuclear wackos, my concerns are irrelevant.

If that is going to be the level of discourse, then I don’t want any nuclear power anywhere on this planet.

The concerns of many that there were problems in safety have been ratified cruelly by events. And yet I read over and over again how this is just a bump in the road while listening to the insults directed against those who committed the greatest crime possible in the dispute over nuclear power, being right.

James Pilant

By MIKE McGRAW From the Kansas City Star –

The Wolf Creek nuclear power plant is among three in the United States that need more intensive oversight, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Congress on Thursday.

NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko stressed that all 65 nuclear generating stations, which have a total of 104 reactors, are operating safely. But Jaczko said Wolf Creek and two others need a higher level of review because of continuing problems with safety systems and unplanned shutdowns.

Jaczko told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the three plants “are the ones we are most concerned about.” The other two are the H.B. Robinson plant in Hartsville, S.C., and the Fort Calhoun plant near Omaha, about 180 miles northwest of Kansas City.

Japanese nuclear plant’s containment vessels remain suspect as radiation levels spike (via McClatchy)

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Courtesy of The Market Oracle

This crisis just keeps on going. I want an end to it. I want everybody to be okay, unhurt, undamaged. But I am not going to get my wish. The people who created this disaster were so smart, so well placed and so well financed that all warnings no matter how factual bounced off of them.

Those who opposed nuclear power from the fringe to the most respectable were consigned as unrealistic tree huggers.

Well, the treehuggers got it right.

But I tell you, I feel pain every time I come across another article that talks about how this is just like getting another chest x-ray a year and that compared to stepladders and animal attacks the casualties have been few.

There comes a point at which this kind of commentary moves from the average to the mediocre, from opinion writing to caricature.

Even when they admit some unfortunate fact, they still conclude with, “It can’t happen here.”

It can’t happen here. It can, does and will. Human stupidity is a common characteristic. Add human stupidity to the semi-eternal capabilities of radiation and you have a very bad mix indeed.

Tens of thousands of Japanese may never be able to return to their homes and possessions. A thousand of the dead from the tsunami and earthquake cannot be gathered from the area. They rot uncared for.

This is the reality, a reality which will be denied over and over again. It’s already being denied.

The advocates of nuclear power will hope that in time this will all go away. Memories will fade, new PR, friendly hack articles will appear and nuclear power will be heralded as the cure for our problems.

And then some more will be built – until the next “accident.”

James Pilant

From McClatchy –

Radiation levels spiked inside and outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Thursday, slowing work on the facility once again and once more throwing into doubt the integrity of the containment vessels that hold the fuel rods.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials said levels of radioactive iodine in water at the plant spiked to levels 10,000 times permissible limits, preventing workers from getting near the water.

Engineers have been pumping water out of the tunnels in the basements of the facilities and into holding areas in an attempt to permit access to areas where workers are trying to restore electricity to the cooling pumps that could ultimately bring the situation at the stricken facility under control. But they cannot do so when radiation levels are that high.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Hi-Res Photos | Cryptome (via DFTF)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I thought you might like to see this picture.

My thanks to DFTF.

James Pilant

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Hi-Res Photos | Cryptome If you’re wondering why trace amounts of radiation has been found in Washington state, check out these photos. The most trashed reactor, No. 3,  above, is actually in reasonable shape while the one that looks the most undamaged, No. 2, has probably already melted down. Draw your own conclusions about the safety of nuclear power. View Photos. … Read More

via DFTF