Nuclear Plant Radioactive Leaks

I keep getting the feeling, that I jumped into the tail-end of this "radioactive radiation" situation without first understanding the complexity of how it all evolved? It seems like such a large behmouth complex set of circumstances, that has evolved into a complicated mess, that's at the precept of destroying life as we know it. If you go with the notion that "History repeats itself" are we looking at a re-make of a distant memory of power, greed and control as in a "Glorified Atlantis?"

I can't help but wonder, if the main and foremost purpose of constructing and building these Nuclear Power Plants was first initated to manufacture pure grade Plutonium? And is production of uranium and thorium part of this process? The steam generated through the process was redesigned to produce electricity as a bi-product, which was verbially sold to the Public as an energy commodity? In the Public interest, large swatches of prime real estate was seized in the name of progress. No different from the practice of building main roads and Interstate systems across the Globe. With the lastest intrusion, gas and oil pipelines.

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_plant

A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical in all conventional thermal power stations the heat is used to generate steam which drives a steam turbine connected to a generator which produces electricity. As of 16 January 2013 (2013-01-16)[update], the IAEA report there are 439 nuclear power reactors in operation[1] operating in 31 countries.[2]

Operating costs were passed on to consumers:
To date all operating nuclear power plants were developed by state-owned or regulated utility monopolies[13] where many of the risks associated with construction costs, operating performance, fuel price, and other factors were borne by consumers rather than suppliers. Many countries have now liberalized the electricity market where these risks, and the risk of cheaper competitors emerging before capital costs are recovered, are borne by plant suppliers and operators rather than consumers, which leads to a significantly different evaluation of the economics of new nuclear power plants.[14]

Complexity:
Nuclear power plants are some of the most sophisticated and complex energy systems ever designed.[17] Any complex system, no matter how well it is designed and engineered, cannot be deemed failure-proof.[18] Veteran anti-nuclear activist and author Stephanie Cooke has argued:

The reactors themselves were enormously complex machines with an incalculable number of things that could go wrong. When that happened at Three Mile Island in 1979, another fault line in the nuclear world was exposed. One malfunction led to another, and then to a series of others, until the core of the reactor itself began to melt, and even the world's most highly trained nuclear engineers did not know how to respond. The accident revealed serious deficiencies in a system that was meant to protect public health and safety.[19]

Term - Normal Accidents - the result of an unanticipated interaction of multiple failures in a complex system.

The 1979 Three Mile Island accident inspired Perrow's book Normal Accidents, where a nuclear accident occurs, resulting from an unanticipated interaction of multiple failures in a complex system. TMI was an example of a normal accident because it was "unexpected, incomprehensible, uncontrollable and unavoidable".[20]

Plant location:
In many countries, plants are often located on the coast, in order to provide a ready source of cooling water for the essential service water system. Seawater is corrosive and so nuclear energy supply is likely to be negatively affected by the fresh water shortage.[33] This generic problem may become increasingly significant over time.[33]

Routine emissions of Radioactive material:
During everyday routine operations, emissions of radioactive materials from nuclear plants are released to the outside of the plants although they are quite slight amounts.[41][42][43][44] The daily emissions go into the air, water and soil.[42][43]

NRC says, "nuclear power plants sometimes release radioactive gases and liquids into the environment under controlled, monitored conditions to ensure that they pose no danger to the public or the environment",[45] and "routine emissions during normal operation of a nuclear power plant are never lethal".[46]

Economics:
On the other hand, construction, or capital cost aside, measures to mitigate global warming such as a carbon tax or carbon emissions trading, increasingly favor the economics of nuclear power.

((Comment: I look upon the above statement as pure B.S. and more in line, that the hype created behind global warming and the carbon tax, is to generate another consumer tax, to fund the cost of Nuclear Power Plants? ))

_http://library.thinkquest.org/17658/nuc/nuchistoryht.html

December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi achieves a controlled nuclear chain reaction with a demonstration reactor, called the Chicago Pile 1.

August 6, 1945,the United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, then on August 9th on Nagasaki.

October 6, 1947 US Atomic Energy Comission looks into possibly using atomic energy for peaceful uses.

December 20, 1951, experimental reactor produces first energy from a nuclear reaction, enough to light four lightbulbs.

January, 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission begins prorgram of funding for nuclear power plants between government and industry.

In 1956, the first nuclear power station was built. Using uranium as its fuel. The station was named Calder Hall Power Station, built on coast of Cumberland.

December 2, 1957, in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, the first full scale nuclear power plant goes into service.

April 3, 1965 the first nuclear reactor is operated from outer space.

1973, American utilities buy 41 nuclear power plants.

March 28, 1979 at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania a major nuclear accident occurs. Fortunately no one is hurt, but all damage is to the reactor of the plant.

January, 1983 President Reagan signs the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

Hydro power was surpassed by nuclear power in total electrical generation in 1984.

In the unit 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear plant were two explosions on April 26, 1986. This disaster exposed millions of people to radioactive isotopes. It has been linked many forms of cancer in natives of eastern Europe and Russia, as well as destroying animals and plants.

December 1993, the total number of nuclear power plants in the United States is 109, collectively producing 610 billion kWhs of electricity.


Effects of Nuclear Radiation on Health:
_http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Radiation-and-Health/Nuclear-Radiation-and-Health-Effects/

A decent site that goes into the different types of radiation exposure and some history on events, although I feel they "play down" the harmful effects in many given areas, as being natural environmental exposures.

Need more study?
 
Along with mysterious clusters of severe birth defects in rural Washington, a rare case is being reported from Maryland, of a 4 month old born with a rare brain tumor that contains developed "teeth."

_http://news.yahoo.com/babys-rare-brain-tumor-had-teeth-220748968.html (Photo)

Thursday Feb. 27, 2014 - A 4-month-old infant in Maryland may be the first person to have had teeth form in his brain as a result of a specific type of rare brain tumor, according to a new report of the case.

The boy is doing well now that his tumor has been removed, and doctors say the case sheds light on how these rare tumors develop.

Doctors first suspected something might be wrong when the child's head appeared to be growing faster than is typical for children his age. A brain scan revealed a tumor containing structures that looked very similar to teeth normally found in the lower jaw.

The child underwent brain surgeryto have the tumor removed, during which doctors found that the tumor contained several fully formed teeth, according to the report. [14 Oddest Medical Cases]

After an analysis of tumor tissue, doctors determined the child had a craniopharyngioma, a rare brain tumor that can grow to be larger than a golf ball, but does not spread.

Researchers had always suspected that these tumors form from the same cells involved in making teeth, but until now, doctors had never seen actual teeth in these tumors, said Dr. Narlin Beaty, a neurosurgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center, who performed the boy's surgery along with his colleague, Dr. Edward Ahn, of Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

"It's not every day you see teeth in any type of tumor in the brain. In a craniopharyngiomas, it's unheard of," Beaty said.

Craniopharyngiomas commonly contain calcium deposits, "but when we pulled out a full tooth...I think that’s something slightly different," Beaty told Live Science.

Teeth have been found in people's brains before, but only in tumors known as teratomas, which are unique among tumors because they contain all three of the tissue types found in an early-stage human embryo, Beaty said. In contrast, craniopharyngiomas have only one layer of tissue.

The boy's case provides more evidence that craniopharyngiomas do indeed develop from the cells that make teeth, Beaty said.

These tumors are most often diagnosed in children ages 5 to 14, and are rare in children younger than 2, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The boy is progressing well in his development, the researchers said. However, because craniopharyngiomas are tumors of the pituitary gland — a gland in the brain that releases many important hormones — they often cause hormone problems.

In the boy's case, the tumor destroyed the normal connections in the brain that would allow certain hormones to be released, Beaty said, so he will need to receive hormone treatments for the rest of his life to replace these hormones, Beaty said.

"He's doing extremely well, all things considered," Beaty said. "This was a big tumor right in the center of his brain. Before the moderate surgical era this child would not have survived," Beaty said.

The teeth were sent to a pathologist for further study, Beaty said, and generally, these types of tissue samples are saved for many years in case more investigation is needed.

The report is published in the Feb. 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
 
Japan, U.S. Move to Expand Nuclear Power Programs Despite Contamination at Fukushima & New Mexico (_http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/26/japan_us_move_to_expand_nuclear)
Wed / 26 Feb 2014

[Note: there is an accompanying video segment which I could not get to embed]

Full Transcript (for this segment):
Japan, U.S. Move to Expand Nuclear Power Programs Despite Contamination at Fukushima & New Mexico

AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with nuclear news from both Japan and the United States. Japan has just announced a major push to revive its nuclear energy program, just weeks before the third anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown. This comes just a week after it was revealed about a hundred tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from one of the hundreds of storage tanks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Here in the United States, the Obama administration announced last week it approved $6.5 billion in loan guarantees to back construction of the country’s first new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years. This comes as a nuclear waste disposal site is set to reopen near Carlsbad, New Mexico, following an unexplained leak of radioactive material that occurred on February 14th. The underground waste dump was shut down after an air monitor detected radioactive contamination. On Monday, federal regulators reported "slightly elevated levels" of airborne radioactivity, but said they didn’t pose a threat to the public.

For more, we’re joined by the co-authors of the new book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster. Edwin Lyman is one of the country’s leading experts on nuclear power safety and security and is senior global security scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Susan Stranahan is with this. She has covered nuclear energy issues since she was the lead reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer’s coverage of the Three Mile Island accident, which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

We’re going to begin with Edwin Lyman. Talk about these parallel nuclear developments, Japan with its conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, despite the polls showing overwhelming opposition to anti-nuclear—to growth of nuclear power reliance, is announcing upping this, and the United States is also moving in this direction.

EDWIN LYMAN: Well, I think these are both symptoms of the same phenomenon, which is the complacency about the nuclear industry and its dangers that was prevalent before Fukushima and is still—and still exists today. So, we have Japan, the new government, which is hoping that the people will eventually forget about the crisis that they went through, so that they can restart the 50 nuclear power plants that were shut down after the accident. In the United States, we have the government’s all-of-the-above energy policy, which includes more government subsidies for nuclear power. And we’re very concerned that if these efforts go forward without taking all the lessons of Fukushima into account, that we’re setting up a potential disaster.

AMY GOODMAN: What are those lessons?

EDWIN LYMAN: Well, the main lesson is you have to accept the fact that any nuclear power plant is going to be vulnerable to a large natural disaster and that there’s no way to completely eliminate the dangers of nuclear power. There are steps you can take to reduce the risk, but we’re afraid that here in the United States the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry are not going as far as they need to go to really reduce the risk to the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the stories, Susan Stranahan, that this country is missing? You were the lead reporter on the coverage of Three Mile Island. Young people weren’t even born, who are watching or listening to this show right now. They might not even know what Three Mile Island is.

SUSAN STRANAHAN: Well, I think the parallels from Three Mile Island in '79 and Fukushima are that the industry regulators and the American public were not prepared for what happened. And what we point out in the book is that it's been 35 years since Three Mile Island, and fundamental lessons remain unlearned. And fundamental mindsets exist, that were prevalent in 1979, are prevalent today. And as Ed said, we haven’t learned the lessons from Fukushima. We need to learn those and then move forward.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what the lessons from Three Mile Island and Fukushima are.

SUSAN STRANAHAN: Well, I think it’s what—it’s what we point out in the book, is that there is just a general assumption that nuclear power is safe and we don’t need to add on an extra layer for the unexpected. As we say in the book, they’ve set the safety bar at X, but have refused to ask what if X-plus-1 happens?

AMY GOODMAN: Edwin Lyman, what most shocked you when you were doing research for this book?

EDWIN LYMAN: Well, being in Washington for a long time, very little shocks me. But I could say that while the government—while the U.S. government was telling the American people there was nothing to fear from Fukushima and that U.S. plants aren’t vulnerable to the same problems, internally, they were—there was a much different story. So we’ve learned from a lot of Freedom of Information Act documents that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the White House were actually very concerned about the potential impact of radiation from Fukushima affecting not only Americans in Tokyo, which was more than a hundred miles away from the plant, but also Americans on the West Coast. And they were furiously running calculations to try to figure out how bad it could get. But there was no sense of this in what they were telling the public.

AMY GOODMAN: But, so Americans were telling Americans—the U.S. government was telling Americans in Japan to leave, much quicker than the Japanese government was. I just—we just came from Tokyo. We broadcast for three days from Japan. And we’re going to play the interview I did with the former prime minister, the one in charge at the time, Naoto Kan. He said it was extremely difficult to get a straight answer from TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, that ran the plants, and he had to fly in. He figured the only place he could get a straight, nonpolitical answer—he flew in the middle of the night to the plant to talk to the workers to figure out whether he had to evacuate 50 million people in Tokyo.

EDWIN LYMAN: Yes, well, there was the general panic because the utility, nuclear power, was a huge part of its profile, and they wanted to do everything they could to stabilize the accident so they didn’t have to tell the rest of the world that they were failing. And so, there was a lack of transparency, which is persistent to this day and hampering the cleanup efforts.

AMY GOODMAN: The human stories that you followed, Susan?

SUSAN STRANAHAN: I think that what we have always missed in the nuclear debate is the human side, the face of a disaster. And that’s what I hope to portray by my contribution. Ed and our co-author, Dave Lochbaum, are nuclear safety experts. I’m a journalist. And I tended to see the opportunity to put a human face on a nuclear disaster. So we portray what happened to the people in Japan, the disruptions in their lives, the economic consequences, and a lot of the political backstory into how we got where we are today.

AMY GOODMAN: This leak that took place in New Mexico on Valentine’s Day, on February 14th, this is right near Carlsbad, New Mexico, at the WIPP facility. Explain what that is and why you’re concerned about it. Government officials say, "Don’t be concerned."

EDWIN LYMAN: Well, WIPP is a—is the only operating geologic repository for nuclear waste in the U.S., and it’s where the Department of Energy sends waste that’s contaminated with isotopes of plutonium that have very long half-lives and are very toxic. So there’s a lot of garbage from the legacy of making nuclear weapons that’s contaminated with plutonium, and that is essentially put into 55-gallon waste drums and loaded into this salt mine. And the leak, no one really knows the origin, but they’ve detected plutonium and americium actually outside of the facility. And so, they have to figure out exactly where it came from, and no one knows yet.

AMY GOODMAN: And now, this has been touted as such a safe facility that New Mexico, this area, could become a depository for much more nuclear waste. That might alarm many in New Mexico.

EDWIN LYMAN: Right. The local boosters want to keep it going, and so they’re searching the country for more waste to put in it. But this issue, depending on how it plays out, could put a monkey wrench in those plans.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. Congratulations on your new book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster. The co-authors, Edwin Lyman and Susan Stranahan.
Click to expand...

... also saw this:

Nuclear Expert: “They must be terrified” at South Florida nuke plant; “The damn thing is grinding down” — Gundersen: “Magnitude of what’s going on at St. Lucie is off the charts”; 100 times worse than average
Published: February 22nd, 2014 at 10:45 pm ET By ENENews

Tampa Bay Times, Feb. 22, 2014: Yet another Florida nuclear plant may be in trouble. [...] More than 3,700 tubes that help cool a nuclear reactor at Florida Power & Light’s St. Lucie facility exhibit wear. Most other similar plants have between zero and a few hundred. Worst case: A tube bursts and spews radioactive fluid. That’s what happened at the San Onofre plant in California two years ago. The plant shut down forever because it would have cost too much to fix. [...] FPL is so confident in St. Lucie’s condition that it boosted the plant’s power. The utility acknowledged that will aggravate wear on the tubes, located inside steam generators. [...] FPL insisted St. Lucie should not be linked to San Onofre from either a safety or financial standpoint.[...] During hearings, [officials at San Onofre] repeatedly pointed to St. Lucie as having the same problem […] When it closed, San Onofre 3 had 2,519 wear spots at least 20 percent deep into a tube wall. When last inspected in 2012, the St. Lucie plant had 1,920, the Times analysis found.

Michael Waldron, FPL spokesman: “From an engineering perspective [...] you can neither make a comparison [between the San Onofre and St. Lucie plants], nor can you assume an outcome because the two systems are so different.”

Southern California Edison, owner of now-closed San Onofre nuclear plant between San Diego and Los Angeles: “[St. Lucie is] the next closest plant with a high number of wear indications. [...] Although a different (steam generator) design, the (antivibration bars) serve the same design function [...] So St. Lucie was used to determine similarities and potential actions.”

Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer: “I think the comparison [with San Onofre] is dead on [...] All of the failure modes except for (tubes hitting each other) are identical. When the same problem popped at the two San Onofre plants, it suddenly became a cluster. [...] St. Lucie is the outlier of all the active plants [...] the magnitude of what is going on at St. Lucie is off the charts. These guys are a hundred times worse than the industry average.”

Daniel Hirsch, University of California at Santa Cruz nuclear policy lecturer: “The damn thing is grinding down [...] They must be terrified internally. They’ve got steam generators that are now just falling apart. [The tubes] need to be very strong to prevent a meltdown [...] Steam generators are really critical to safety. It’s not a feature you want to play with.”
Click to expand...
 
Igmz on Enenews posted a link to this article on the WIPP situation.
http://www.currentargus.com/carlsbad-news/ci_25232120/breaking-13-wipp-employees-exposed-radiation

“Thirteen employees of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant were exposed to radiation, according to test results taken the day a radiation leak was detected at the nuclear waste repository.”

“The following week, the radiation was also found in air filter above ground, roughly half a mile from the site.”

“NWP spokesman Donavan Mager said that "there is no way the radiation could be spread" because workers were only exposed to an internal dose of radiation.”

They inhaled a dose. It was in the air. It has spread.
 
The Hanford, Washington area and it's leaking Nuclear sites seems to be a major problem ......

Eleven workers sickened by 'toxic fumes' while working at nuclear site in Hanford (Washington):
_http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Portion-of-Hanford-evacuated-after-employees-get-sick-from-fumes-252337381.html

Hanford sources tell the KING 5 Investigators that at least 11 people have gotten sick in the last six days after breathing in toxic fumes while working near underground tanks holding hazardous nuclear waste. At this point, employees do not know the source or sources of the vapors.

The first two workers to fall ill in the last week breathed in fumes that “tasted like copper” on Wednesday, March 19. The men work for the government contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) which is in charge of all 177 underground tanks at the nuclear site. To date, both are still suffering effects of breathing in the vapors: headache, chest pain, difficulty breathing, nose bleeds and sore throats. One employee has coughed up blood.

Sources who work in this area of Hanford tell KING it is unknown exactly what the employees ingested into their lungs, but that this is “extremely unusual” to have symptoms persist this long.

The next batch of employees to get sick breathed in fumes today, Tuesday, March 25. Four WRPS employees breathed in vapors at 9:00 am and were immediately transported to a medical facility on the Hanford site, known as HPMC, the Hanford Occupational Health Services clinic. After that incident, the tank farm, identified as AY-AZ farm was evacuated, deemed a Vapor Control Zone. Between 20 and 30 people were working there at the time.

Immediately afterward two employees from what’s known as the industrial hygiene department of WRPS, who monitor chemical exposures, were sent out to investigate and they too, had reactions to the fumes and were transported to the onsite medical facility. Those employees allegedly were not wearing protective devices such as respirators.

Sources tell KING 5 that three additional employees got sick from ingesting fumes later on Tuesday. These WRPS employees were working in a different portion of the tank farm complex, known as the S-SX Farm, located about 8 to 10 miles from the AY-AZ farm. That location was also deemed a Vapor Control Zone and was evacuated. Sources say two were transported to the hospital by ambulance and one was transported to the HPMC.

“The place is falling apart and they (WRPS) aren't doing anything to fix it,” said one employee.

Sources tell KING 5 that three additional employees got sick from ingesting fumes later on Tuesday. These WRPS employees were working in a different portion of the tank farm complex, known as the S-SX Farm, located about 8 to 10 miles from the AY-AZ farm. That location was also deemed a Vapor Control Zone and was evacuated. Sources say two were transported to the hospital by ambulance and one was transported to the HPMC.

“The place is falling apart and they (WRPS) aren't doing anything to fix it,” said one employee.
 
Along with the Hanford Nuclear mess, there's a report of a gas plant explosion in Plymouth, Washington - a neighbor to the Hanford Nuclear "reservation" - both share the Columbia River on the Washington State side.

5 Hurt in Explosion at Plymouth Gas Plant

http://www.keprtv.com/news/local/Explosion-at-Plymouth-gas-plant-253219421.html

Monday Mar 31, 2014 PLYMOUTH, Wash. -- A robot is being sent in to assess the damage following an explosion at the natural gas plant in Plymouth. Four workers were hurt and sent to the hospital. One person was taken to a burn center in Portland. The other three had minor injuries and were treated in Hermiston.

The plant is called Williams Northwest Pipeline Company and is located at 42612 E. Christy Road. The plant is just west of the I-82 bridge near McNary Dam.

Neighbors say the explosion was huge and felt from as far away as Irrigon, which is six miles away. A command post for the media was established at Highway 14 and I-82 for the sake of everyone's safety.

The injured are all workers at the plant. Initially, we were told of only one injury and that the person would recover. Up to 1,000 people evacuated around the area, all on the Washington side. Benton County Sheriff Steve Keane says the fire is now out. The blast was at 8:20 a.m. Monday. The Sheriff says the explosion sent a mushroom-shaped cloud towering into the air, and shrapnel punctured a liquefied natural gas tank. Some gas leaked but did not ignite.

A robot was being sent in to assess the damage at the plant, and there is also a plan to use a helicopter to view it from the air.
 
The Hottest Particle : http://fairewinds.org/hottest-particle/

Three years ago, Fairewinds was one of the first organizations to talk about “hot particles” that are scattered all over Japan and North America’s west coast. Hot particles are dangerous and difficult to detect. In this video Mr. Kaltofen discusses the hottest hot particle he has ever found, and it was discovered more than 300 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi site. If Fairewinds Energy Education was a Japanese website, the State Secrets Law would likely prevent us from issuing this video. Arnie Gundersen provides a brief introduction and summary to the video.
 
Another revelation that has surfaced to shock the nerves, a fee/tax added to electric bills thirty years ago, accumulating to the sum of $43 billion collected to date, sitting in a trust fund with accrued interest, for the attended purpose of constructing a facility capable of disposing Nuclear waste - still sitting in the Trust Fund. At least, a Federal Appeals Court has issued a decree for the Department of Energy to stop the collect of the fee.

Govt halts fee for non-existent nuke waste site after 30 years and $43 bn collected
_http://rt.com/usa/159560-energy-nonexistent-nuclear-waste-fee/

The US Department of Energy will no longer collect a small electricity fee from the bills of nuclear energy customers which was originally intended to fund the construction and operation of a nuclear waste dump that was never built.

The charge, which will no longer be collected past Friday, was first instituted in 1983 with the aim of constructing a facility capable of disposing of what is now almost 70,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel. The waste is spread throughout nuclear reactors across the US.

The government collected $750 million from the charge each year, totaling $43 billion. It remains to be seen what Washington plans to do with that money.

“From the very infancy of the commercial nuclear power industry, the federal government has always stated that it would take responsibility for the (disposal) of high-level nuclear waste, and that hasn’t always happened,” Michigan Public Service Commissioner Greg White told KDVR-TV in Colorado. “The waste all sits at the plant sites where it was generated, despite the collection of some $40 billion.”

Vast amounts of decaying waste are expensive to store, terrible for the environment, and constitute a major risk to public health.
Nuclear and utility industries have for years complained that the Energy Department has collected the money while doing nothing to ease the disposal process, eventually filing suit to stop the fees from being collected.

Last year, an appeals court determined that the government had no intention to actually build the dump and that it could not accurately estimate the cost of such a plan. It then ordered the Energy Department to suspend the collection of the fee,though it took nearly six months for the government to carry out the legal order, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“The federal courts have gotten fed up with what the Department of Energy is doing,” said Jay Silberg, the industry’s lead attorney in the case against the charges. “We want something in exchange for our money.”

It’s unlikely that customers will notice they are paying a fraction of a cent less on their bill from now on. An estimated $31 billion of the $43 billion that was collected sits in a trust fund that will accrue interest, likely until a plan for a dump is actually developed.

The initial $12 billion taken from that $43 billion sum was spent trying to develop a waste facility in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, although the project was stopped before any meaningful progress was made.

The Energy Department said this week that, despite the delays, lawmakers still hope to find a solution that works for all those concerned.

“When this administration took office, the timeline for opening Yucca Mountain had already been pushed back by two decades, stalled by public protest and legal opposition with no end in sight,” the Department of Energy said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Illinois), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment and Economy subcommittee, welcomed the end of the fee but urged the government to continue pursuing a valid plan for a nuclear waste site.

“To get our nuclear future back on track, the secretary simply needs to carry out that obligation and restart Yucca Mountain,” Shimkus told The Hill. “Short of that, I am glad this annual theft of $750 million from electricity consumers has finally come to an end.”
 
Radiation Leaking/Diablo Canyon Nuke Plant/California
_http://investmentwatchblog.com/radiation-leakingdiablo-canyon-nuke-plantcalifornia/
(video)

The Radiation Network has issued a ALERT for the Diablo Canyon Area (Shell Beach)
 
I wonder at what temperature radioactive 'hot' water freezes? Has anyone ever tried to freeze radioactive water? Tepco doesn't even know where the corium melts are and continues to pour water in to cool them which heats up the water. Tepco really should build a bigger breakwater or a dam around their lagoon to stop the flow of radioactive water out to sea. The lagoon could become a large cooling pond. Filtering the cooling pond could keep the radiation levels down so they could continue to work the site. Locks could be added for their ships to pass. ‘Diluting’ the radioactive water to the ocean is killing the creatures in the sea and exporting their problem to the west coast of North America.
 
angelburst29 said:
Along with the Hanford Nuclear mess, there's a report of a gas plant explosion in Plymouth, Washington - a neighbor to the Hanford Nuclear "reservation" - both share the Columbia River on the Washington State side.

5 Hurt in Explosion at Plymouth Gas Plant

http://www.keprtv.com/news/local/Explosion-at-Plymouth-gas-plant-253219421.html

Monday Mar 31, 2014 PLYMOUTH, Wash. -- A robot is being sent in to assess the damage following an explosion at the natural gas plant in Plymouth. Four workers were hurt and sent to the hospital. One person was taken to a burn center in Portland. The other three had minor injuries and were treated in Hermiston.
Click to expand...

Mother Nature at work?

Tornadoes touch down near Hanford Nuclear Reservation
_http://www.khq.com/story/26275907/weather-alert-national-weather-service-confirms-tornado-touch-down (Video)

Spokane, North Idaho News
Friday August 15, 2014

RATTLESNAKE MOUNTAIN, Wash.- The National Weather Service confirmed that a short-lived, weak tornado hit near Rattlesnake Mountain about 6:30pm Wednesday evening. Rattlesnake Mountain is near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The tornado had wind speeds estimated from 70 to 80 miles per hour and last just a few minutes. It did not do any damage.
 
Big problems at the Turkey Point facility in Miami, Florida.

Is Miami on the Brink of A Nuclear Disaster?

New reports indicate a Fukushima-style nuclear disaster is inevitable in the Miami area, and needs to be investigated immediately.

_http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/is-miami-on-brink-of-nuclear-disaster.html#more

Thursday August 21, 2014

Concerns over the possibility of a Fukushima-like nuclear meltdown event in the U.S. have been growing, with the most likely next disaster predicted in 2011 to be surprisingly close to Miami Florida, at the Turkey Point facility 41 miles south near Homestead.

According to a July 23rd NPR story, the Turkey Point facility was found to be (literally) in hot water, over its cooling system, which caused federal regulators to be so concerned, that they upped the nuclear plant's cooling system allowable temperature to exceed the 100 degree limit for 10 days - up to 103 degrees if necessary. The plant has come close to 100 degrees, which should mandate an immediate shut down. But instead of exercising precaution, regulators simply increased their legal limit, causing environmental groups in nearby Biscayne National Park to express grave concern.

Read or listen to the NPR story, Nuclear Plant May Be In Hot Water Over Its Cooling System, to learn the alarming details, which includes the following highly disturbing fact:

The Turkey Point facility has a canal-based cooling system, technology like something out of the Dark Ages. What happens if that system fails as it appears to be doing now? Will the non-canal based cooling back up system (diesel-based) work? These questions need to be asked and answered, but the most poignant question of all is: is a core infrastructure failure occurring and responsible for the insufficient cooling system the plant is experiencing?

According to the original Miami New Times exposé published in 2011, the Turkey Point nuclear facility has serious infrastructure issues that make it an extreme risk for a radiation leakage event, or much worse:

It's old. When Turkey Point went into operation in 1972, it was licensed for 40 years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently "rubber-stamped" another 20 years, allowing the plant to operate until 2033. "This is uncharted territory," Saporito says. "They cannot dispute that those reactors may crack from being bombarded with high-level radiation."
The most concerning evidence was provided by Erin Elizabeth, founder of HealthNutNews, who reported and documented earlier today that the closest radiation monitor to the Turkey Point station far north was the highest in the country at 100, which is very close to ALERT level, the highest parameter the only publicly supported real-time independent radiation monitoring site RadiationNetwork.com has in their gradient of concern. See screen shot below taken at 12 pm EST:

Strangely, the monitoring station's readings have fluctuated today, from as low as 30 back up to 100, indicating, at the least, that an investigation is justified. It is clear that the disconcerting radiation levels occurred at such a great distance from the Turkey Point plant, that this anomaly must be taken seriously and an explanation must be provided by those whose responsibility it is to protect the public and secure the safety of this facility.

What are the implications of this?

We don't truly know. Following the global suppression of coverage on Fukushima – have you heard anything about it lately? – we can expect similar silence on the subject of this reactor, and all the others that should have been decommissioned decades ago. This is citizen activism at its finest. We need to spread awareness, raise concern, and hope for the best. At the least, we need to acknowledge the significance of a potential meltdown event here in the states.

As reported by the Miami Times, Thomas Saporito, a Jupiter-based former instrument control technician at nuclear power plants in Florida, Arizona, and Texas, who spent three years at Turkey Point, and who now works as a consultant and nuclear watchdog, the plant's spent fuels are brimming with danger. In recent interview he stated that the increase in temperatures indicate that, "This is uncharted territory." Also, that, regulators and plant operators "[C]annot dispute that those reactors may crack from being bombarded with high-level radiation."

Thomas Saporito also revealed in the Miami Times report:

Last June, FPL was fined $70,000 for violations regarding Turkey Point's spent fuel pools. The negligence "could have resulted in a severe nuclear accident," Saporito says. "That could be a horrific disaster all by itself."

If Turkey Point melts down, Miami is doomed. Saporito says there will be no time to evacuate the city to protect ourselves from radiation. If there's a meltdown, "people are going to die," he says, "and the entire city of Miami could become a ghost town that nobody can go back to for 50,000 years."

To confirm the inevitable danger of a nuclear disaster in Florida, A Huffington Post article published in 2014 revealed how "How Rising Seas Could Sink Nuclear Plants On The East Coast," featured the Turkey Point plant as an inevitable victim of sea level rise, making it seemingly inevitable that this plant will undergo a disaster.
 
Angelburst29,

"Turkey Point experiences reactor trip, steam dump and Miami gets gamma radiation spikes." in Libbe's podcast at Nuclear Hotseat.

Turkey Point has been dosing Miami every year of it's operation. Opening the reactor for refueling releases a spike of radiation for a couple days. These operational releases are not made public and, in fact, are covered up in the yearly totals that are made public. Most of the yearly total comes in that one bad day.

http://enenews.com/scientist-massive-spikes-radioactivity-being-hidden-public-radiation-doses-around-reactors-increase-exponentially-major-worry-very-very-important-video

Full interview http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/2088/

Ian Fairlie's website http://www.ianfairlie.org/

Every NPP does a refueling about once a year. Requiring the operators to inform the public of that bad day would help us to limit the cumulative lifetime radiation dose we each acquire.
 
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