Foreign Policy In Focus

Japan’s government and nuclear industry, with assistance from the U.S. military, is in a desperate race to stave off multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns.

Nuclear energy is high-risk technology with catastrophic potential. Given what’s happening at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear complex, it’s time for a serious review of what our nuclear safety authorities consider improbable: a nuclear accident at one of our facilities here in the U.S.

Despite massive subsidies and research-and-development investments, not one new American nuclear power plant has been built in decades. Two reactors are slated for construction in Georgia by Southern Co., but the company hasn’t broken ground yet on that $14 billion project.

There are several reasons why Wall Street walked away from nuclear power:

• Spiraling costs. The average capital costs for nuclear power plants increased nearly three- to four-fold between the early 1970s and 1983.

• Inadequate technology. Even though the first nuclear reactors were deployed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, key aspects of the technology required further research and development. This was especially so for nuclear safety systems. Instead of addressing these emerging problems, the Atomic Energy Commission (which was later replaced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and an agency that became part of the Energy Department) ceased much of its research and development on light-water reactors. Since the early 1960s it has focused on the “next generation” of reactors that use plutonium as fuel.

• Not enough standardization. Despite generic design similarities, the nation’s existing nuclear power complexes are comprised of one-of-kind facilities, each with many different characteristics.

• The Three Mile Island accident. This 1979 disaster dramatically demonstrated nuclear power’s financial risks. The costs for constructing the failed reactor and the following clean-up of the accident were $2 billion.

• Nuclear waste uncertainties. The inability of industry or government to forge a credible disposal path for spent fuel from nuclear reactors resulted in a ban on new construction in California in 1976. It reverberated throughout the country.

America would be better off investing in conservation, fuel efficiency, renewable energy and carbon capture technologies than building a new wave of nuclear reactors. Under the Obama administration, the Energy Department is being called on to usher in a new energy future for the U.S., but lacks the tools it needs to meet that challenge

Critical Needs
The Obama administration should fundamentally restructure the Energy Department, starting by placing its nuclearweapons complex in the Department of Defense, where it belongs, and realigning the agency with our critical needs.

The Energy Department needs to ramp up our investment in green technology and mandate stringent clean-up procedures at our existing nuclear plants. We don’t need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better, safer and cheaper ways to generate electricity.

After the cooling system in Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor failed and the Japanese government declared it an emergency, Donna Leinwand of USA Today contacted IPS's own Robert Alvarez.

"It has the potential to be catastrophic," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and a former senior policy adviser to the Energy Secretary during the Clinton administration. . . The venting may relieve some pressure and give workers more time to restore the emergency cooling systems. They have a 12- to 24-hour window, Alvarez said.

"I don't think the venting is going to result in a catastrophic release, but it's definitely an indication that all is not well there," he said.

If the cooling is not restored quickly, the core can overheat, causing the water to boil over and exposing the core to air. The interior can catch fire and cause a meltdown, releasing nuclear material into the concrete containment dome that surrounds the reactor, Alvarez says.

"Is this barrier going to be sufficient?" Alvarez said. "It's a dicey proposition. The best you can say is, stay tuned."

If they re-establish a stable power supply and restore the cooling, "We should all breathe a sigh of relief," Alvarez said. "If they can't, it's very serious."

Here's Robert's own post for IPS:

In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain indoors.

Plant operators haven't been able to cool down the core of one reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling. In a race against time, the power company and the Japanese military are flying in nine emergency generators. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that the U.S. Air Force has provided cooling water for the troubled reactor. Complicating matters, Japan's Meteorological Agency has declared the area to be at high risk of being hit by a tsunami.

The plant was operating at full power when the quake hit and even though control rods were automatically inserted to halt the nuclear reaction, the reactor core remains very hot. Even with a fully functioning emergency core cooling system, it would take several hours for the reactor core to cool and stabilize. If emergency cooling isn't restored, the risks of a core melt, and release of radioactivity into the environment is significantly increased. Also, it's not clear if piping and electrically distribution systems inside the plant have been damaged. If so, that would interfere with reactor cooling.

A senior U.S. nuclear power technician tells me the window of time before serious problems arise is between 12 and 24 hours.

Early on, Japanese nuclear officials provided reassurances that no radiation had been released. However, because the reactor remains at a very high temperature, radiation levels are rising on the turbine building -- forcing to plant operators to vent radioactive steam into the environment.

The devastating Japanese quake and its outcome could generate a political tsunami here in the United States. For instance, it may become impossible for the owners of the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon reactors to extend their operating licenses.

These two California reactors are sitting in high seismic risk zones near earthquake faults. Each is designed to withstand a quake as great as 7.5 on the Richter scale. According to many seismologists, the probability of a major earthquake in the California coastal zone in the foreseeable future is a near certainty. The U.S. Geological Survey reports the largest registering 8.3 on the Richter scale devastated San Francisco in 1906.

"There have been tremblers felt at U.S. plants over the past several years, but nothing approaching the need for emergency action," Scott Burnell, a spokesman at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Reuters. 

As the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe approaches next month, Japan's earthquake serve as a reminder that the risks of nuclear power, when things go seriously wrong. The Chernobyl accident required nearly a million emergency responders and cleanup workers. More than 100,000 residents from 187 settlements were permanently evacuated because of radioactive contamination. And area an equal to half of the State of New Jersey was rendered uninhabitable.

Fortunately, U.S. and Japanese reactors have extra measures of protection that were lacking at Chernobyl, such as a secondary concrete containment structure over the reactor vessel to prevent escape of radioactivity. In 1979, the containment structure at the Three Mile Island reactor did prevent the escape of a catastrophic amount of radioactivity after the core melted. But people living nearby were exposed to higher levels of radiation from the accident and deliberate venting to stabilize the reactor. With one hour, the multi-billion dollar investment in that plant went down the drain.

Meanwhile, let's hope that the core of the Japanese reactor can be cooled in time. We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better and much safer ways to make electricity.

Cross-posted from the IPS blog.

In a recent report to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) in the Energy department is “unable to overcome technical challenges” to producing tritium (H3) in a commercial power reactor for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. As a result the ability to provide new supplies of this radioactive isotope used to enhance the explosive power of nuclear weapons “is in doubt.”

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is an important part of any modern nuclear arsenal. It is why thermonuclear weapons are known as “H-bombs.” It is used in modern nuclear weapons to boost the explosive power of plutonium, which in turn, creates enough heat to cause hydrogen atoms to fuse together. This releases a tremendous amount of destructive energy, in the same process that fuels the sun and stars.

Because of its half-life of 12.3 years, tritium has to be periodically replenished in weapons.  From 1954 to 1988, tritium was produced in government reactors, which were closed for safety reasons. In 1993, GAO concluded that tritium supplies from nuclear arms reductions were adequate to meet warhead needs until 2012. After that year, GAO concluded that a new tritium production capability would be needed. 

In response, the Department of Energy decided in the late 1990s to produce new supplies in a commercial power reactor, using new tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TBARs). They contain lithium-aluminate pellets lined with zirconium, and are clad into long pencil-shaped, stainless steel rods. Tritium is produced when the atoms of lithium-6 absorb neutrons in the reactor core.

However, the rods cannot fully contain the tritium, which is permeating into the reactor cooling system, approaching safety limits set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). To meet projected tritium requirements, additional TVA reactors may be required. NNSA has not yet coordinated this with the NRC, which must approve any such reactor changes. 

A reserve stockpile of tritium has yet to be tapped and its size remains classified. Nor is it clear how much more tritium is expected to come from the pending START II arms reduction agreement with Russia, now before the U.S. Senate. Nonetheless, GAO remains concerned. “If NNSA takes longer than expected to increase tritium production, even reserve quantities may be insufficient to meet requirements for an extended period of time.” 

Tritium production alternatives include building a new government production reactor or the development of linear accelerators. Both are likely to cost billions of dollars and take several years to bring on line.  

However, expanding the production of tritium for nuclear weapons in commercial nuclear power plants further undermines the long-standing barrier between military and civilian nuclear energy applications -- a key element of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy. 

This is a situation where public debate and greater transparency by the U.S. nuclear weapons program is sorely needed.

"The United States has made new concessions as part of its civilian nuclear agreement with India," Nicholas Kravlev reported for the Washington Times back in April, "while New Delhi has yet to make it possible for U.S. companies to benefit from the unprecedented deal. … Washington agreed to Indian demands to increase the number of plants allowed to reprocess U.S.-supplied nuclear fuel from one to two [in order to] avoid long-distance transportation of dangerous materials. Arms control experts denounced the new deal saying it adds to the "damage" done by the original agreement."

For those unfamiliar with how damaging that was, Kralev reminds us that "the Bush administration went against established norms and allowed a country that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to use U.S.-supplied fuel to make plutonium, though for strictly civilian purposes."

Nor is it just the arms control crowd for which the United States engaging in nuclear commerce with India presents a problem. As Colum Lynch reported in his UN blog "Turtle Bay" at Foreign Policy . . .

"There is mistrust," said Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Maged A. Abdelaziz [according to whom] the five major nuclear powers are [among other things] permitting a special group of nations -- India, Israel, and Pakistan -- a free pass to produce nuclear weapons, without having to abide by the obligations of signatories to the NPT. "States outside the treaty are reaping the benefits of the treaty," he said.

As Andrew Lichterman and M.V. Ramana write in Beyond Arms Control (2010, Critical Will):

"Procedurally, if such a deal were to be agreed to at all, it should have been voted on by all states parties to the NPT rather than just by" those few states that compose the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). "By its very constitution, the NSG, consisting mostly of countries that engage in and profit from nuclear commerce, is a biased body, not suited to decide on the future of non-proliferation norms. … There is a sour irony in the NSG making such an exception for India, since the trade cartel was formed largely in response to India exploding a nuclear device in 1974. [Emphasis added.]

Meanwhile, what's this about New Delhi yet to make it possible for U.S. companies to benefit from the original deal? Disarmament considerations aside, is America being played by India? More likely, the aftershocks from Bhopal have yet to cease reverberating. As Kralev wrote in his Washington Times piece, "India thus far has failed to pass legislation that would release U.S. companies from liability in case of accidents [in the] two reactors expected to be built" under the original agreement.

Presumably, though, U.S., as well as Indian, corporations expect to ultimately prevail. Lichterman and Ramana again: ". . . the nuclear deal is part of a broader set of [U.S.-Indian] agreements [which] US-based multinationals are. . . hoping to use. . . as a wedge to further open India to foreign investment and sales." Of course . . .

In light of the spiraling collapse of the US financial sector, the notion that opening India to its particular brand of radically deregulated, short-term profit-driven "financial services" will promote "economic stability" is highly suspect. [Read: laughable. – RW] … The effect of the US-India deal. . . will be to bind India to a development path favourable to particular elements in the US political and economic elite and to their Indian counterparts. … nuclear power is most useful for serving. . . the consumption needs of the elites who profit from them. It has far less promise, however, for solving the energy needs of the vast majority of India's population. … Nuclear power, as the most expensive form of centralized electricity generation, is an inefficient way to deliver energy to this population living in villages spread out over a vast country side.

Meanwhile, whither sustainable development in this equation? Lichterman and Ramana explain that "use of decentralized, renewable energy technologies in India [would be] economically efficient. . . self-reliant. . .  and environmentally sound [and would promote] innovation and bring down prices."

We'll end with another irony to bookend the earlier instance cited by Lichterman and Ramana in which the Nuclear Suppliers Group made an exception for the state (India) in response to whose explosion of a nuclear device the NPG was, in large part, formed. "But even in terms of the urban rich," they write, "the reality is that nuclear power in India has been mostly a failure. [It generates] less than one percent of its total energy needs. This is unlikely to grow significantly."

Between India's elites failing to see the return they expected, its masses denied both energy and sustainable development, and U.S. plans thwarted at the moment by the Indian legislature, it looks like the India-U.S. nuclear deal has thus far been a lose-lose-lose deal.

President Eisenhower is well-remembered for warning the public in his final address to the nation to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence . . . by the military-industrial complex.” But it is little known that Eisenhower, in that same speech further cautioned that “we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

In May, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steve Chu announced that 42 university-led nuclear research and development projects would receive $38 million through the Department of Energy’s “Nuclear Energy University Program” designed to help advance nuclear education and develop the next generations of nuclear technologies. "We are taking action to restart the nuclear industry as part of a broad approach to cut carbon pollution and create new clean energy jobs," said Secretary Chu. "These projects will help us develop the nuclear technologies of the future and move our domestic nuclear industry forward."

At a time when the United States should be creating a new Manhattan Project for safe, clean, green energy from the sun, wind, and tides, the Obama administration is trying to recreate the old Manhattan project, training our best and brightest to continue to wreak havoc on the planet with nuclear know-how. Instead of letting the old nuclear complex rust in peace, the government is proactively taking the initiative to create a whole new generation of Dr. Strangeloves, enticing young people to study these dark arts by putting up millions of precious dollars for nuclear programs and scholarships.

What a disappointment that Dr. Chu, a Nobel laureate scientist, appointed by Obama for “change we can believe in”, represents the old paradigm of top-down, hierarchical, secret nuclear science. It’s just so 20th century! Chu has apparently ignored the myriad studies that show that dollar-for-dollar, nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways to meet energy needs, when lifecycle costs are compared to solar, wind, geothermal, appropriate hydropower and biomass, as well as efficiency measures. This is also true for reducing carbon emissions, as expensive nuclear power would actually exacerbate catastrophic climate change since less carbon emission is prevented per dollar spent on costly nuclear technology compared to applying those funds to clean energy sources and efficiency.

Further, countless studies, including recent reports from three communities in Germany with nuclear reactors, indicate that there are higher incidences of cancer, leukemia and birth defects in communities with toxic nuclear power plants that pollute the air, water, and soil in the course of routine operations. And a recent report from the New York Academy of Sciences, by distinguished Russian scientists, finds that deaths from the disastrous accident at Chernobyl now number over 900,000. Dr. Chu, a nuclear physicist, is well aware that the radioactive byproducts of nuclear power will remain toxic for 250,000 years and that there is no known solution to safely store this lethal brew for the eons it will threaten human health and the environment.

Americans should oppose any further funding for this failed, dangerous technology as well as the inordinate subsidies presently planned for the nuclear industry. It’s time to invest in a clean energy future that will create millions of jobs and enable the US to earn an honest dollar by developing desirable new technology to offer to the world. Instead we will be providing a growing number of countries the wherewithal and technical know-how with which to make a nuclear bomb, while subjecting their communities to the consequences of toxic radiation.

Alice Slater is the New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.