GLOBAL WALKOUT - Climate Action Now!

"Why extreme climate scenarios no longer seem so unlikely" PBS NewsHour 9/19/2019

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SUMMARY:  The United Nations has called climate change the “defining issue of our time.”  But new analyses suggest the planet’s temperature will rise by even more than the UN had estimated -- and that warming creates ever-increasing energy consumption due to the need for more air conditioning.  Paul Solman takes an updated look at the extreme risks the globe faces from potential worst-case scenarios.

"Youth marches for climate action draw millions around the world" PBS NewsHour 9/19/2019

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SUMMARY:  In cities across the globe on Friday, protesters took to the streets to demand action on climate change.  The demonstrations, easily the largest to focus on climate, represent a movement driven largely by young people -- many of whom left school to join the walkout.  William Brangham spoke to several participants about their mission to reduce fossil fuel emissions and how they plan to execute it.

"Why transitioning to only renewable energy will be difficult for the U.S." PBS NewsHour 9/19/2019

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SUMMARY:  After millions of protesters marched around the globe to demand action on climate change, we more closely examine what policies they are proposing.  Miles O’Brien joins William Brangham to discuss current sources of U.S. energy and what it would take to transition to all renewables, plus the outlook for nuclear power as the infamous Three Mile Island plant closes.

CHERNOBYL - 33 Years Later

"The impact of Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster 33 years later" PBS NewsHour 4/21/2019

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SUMMARY:  It will be 33 years this week that the former Soviet Union experienced a devastating nuclear disaster in what is now a part of Chernobyl, Ukraine, killing 29 people and causing permanent evacuations for miles.  For more on the aftermath of the accident, Hari Sreenivasan is joined by Adam Higginbotham, author of “Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster.”

ENERGY - The Nuclear Option

"Is alluring but elusive fusion energy possible in our lifetime?" PBS NewsHour 1/18/2017

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SUMMARY:  Limitless power with virtually no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste.  If that sounds too good to be true, that's because it is.  For decades, researchers have looked for ways to control, confine and sustain fusion as an energy source.  But there has been a lot of progress on a small scale, building on years of physics understanding and progress.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The hunt to create fusion energy.  While many people remain worried about pursuing further development of nuclear power, some researchers believe nuclear fusion could hold the key to clean and plentiful energy.

There have been many false starts before, but some scientists see real reason for hope that this path will eventually pay off.

Miles O'Brien has a report for our weekly segment 'The Leading Edge,' a co-production in this case with NOVA and his special, “The Nuclear Option.”

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  In Southern California, this complex, power-hungry machine is hard at work on a seemingly quixotic mission, akin to catching lightning in a bottle.  It is a plasma generator.  Its builders hope it's a key step in the long journey to the Holy Grail of energy production, fusion.

MICHL BINDERBAUER, Tri Alpha Energy:  Fusion is nature's preferred way of making power.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Michl Binderbauer is chief technology officer for a startup called Tri Alpha Energy that is making a $500 million bet on fusion.

MICHL BINDERBAUER:  Think of this like a mini-sun, a very hot mini-sun, and it radiates.  And it's that radiation that is intercepted on the surface of the machine, and then it becomes heat, and then you can process that into electricity.

MILES O'BRIEN:  The promise, no less than limitless power, with virtually no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste.  If that sounds too good to be true, it is.  No one knows that better than nuclear engineer Steve Dean.

STEVE DEAN, Fusion Power Associates:  Fusion is not low-tech.  It's not going to be easy to prove that it's reliable, maintainable, cost-effective, because it is complicated.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Dean is president of Fusion Power Associates, a foundation focused on research and education.  He joined the fusion industry in 1962, working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which coordinated and funded the U.S. fusion effort.

STEVE DEAN:  To me, it seemed like it was something I could spend my career on, and we would have electricity on the grid by the time I retired.

(LAUGHTER)

STEVE DEAN:  That's what I thought.  So, it didn't happen that way.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Fusion is as old as the cosmos.  It is the nuclear reaction that takes place in our sun and all the other stars in the universe.  In a fusion reaction, hydrogen atoms collide at high speed, fusing together, forming a helium atom, releasing one neutron.

Since the mass of the helium atom is less than the combined mass of the two atoms that collided in the first place, energy is released.

The dawn of man-made fusion broke over the Pacific in 1952, with the first explosion of a hydrogen bomb.

MICHL BINDERBAUER:  The hydrogen bomb was a quick success.  And so a derivative of that was euphoria.  In a few more years, we could do civilian energy production out of fusion.  And while there were glimmers of hope along the way, we all now know, painfully, that hasn't happened.

NUCLEAR POWER - New Generation Ideas

"Demand for clean energy inspires new generation to innovate nuclear power" PBS NewsHour 1/4/2017

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SUMMARY:  The next generation of nuclear power is coming, as concerns about climate change bring the industry out of hibernation.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on how new startups and young scientists are hoping to develop solutions for safely generating vast amounts of nuclear energy.

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  This is where nuclear power began.  Welcome to the Idaho National Laboratory.  It covers a vast swathe of high desert nearly the size of Rhode Island.

It is dotted with experimental nuclear reactors that wrote the textbooks on how to generate power by splitting atoms.  And now a new chapter is being written here.

MARK PETERS, Idaho National Laboratory:  If we're going to mitigate climate change, we have to think about how to develop new nuclear.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Laboratory director Mark Peters says concerns about climate change have brought his industry out of a long nuclear winter.

MARK PETERS:  We're restarting and testing infrastructure to start to develop the next generation of nuclear power.  So I'm just incredibly excited about the fact that we're finally starting to get a public dialogue going now that it's important to build the next generation.

MILES O'BRIEN:  The Bush and Obama administrations and Congress have concurred on that point.  Together, they authorized tens of billions in loan guarantees for nuclear plant construction, and tens of millions in funding to develop what's known as Generation IV technology.

MARK PETERS:  Generation IV are future reactors that are based on different concepts, different core designs, different coolants.

MILES O'BRIEN:  And perhaps his most promising client is an innovator from another industry.  Microsoft founder Bill Gates is among a handful of entrepreneurs with seemingly bottomless pockets making big bets on nuclear power.

In a 2010 TED Talk, he announced he had co-founded a company called TerraPower.  His partner is his former chief technology officer at Microsoft, Nathan Myhrvold.

NATHAN MYHRVOLD, TerraPower:  We need to have base load carbon-free power, and nuclear is a great example of something that is base load carbon-free power.  Base load means 7 by 24, day and night, whenever, it's going to be there.

NUCLEAR POWER - PG&E's Diablo Canyon Closing

"END OF A NUCLEAR ERA" by Ivan Penn & Samantha Masunaga, San Diego Union-Tribune 6/22/2016

NOTE:  This is from the online edition of the newspaper, so no link to article.

One of California's largest energy utilities took a bold step in the 21st century electricity revolution with an agreement to close its last operating nuclear plant and develop more solar, wind and other clean power technologies.

The decision announced Tuesday by Pacific Gas& Electric Co. to close its beleaguered Diablo Canyon nuclear plant within the next decade runs counter to the nuclear industry's arguments that curbing carbon emissions and combating climate change require use of nuclear power, which generates the most electricity without harmful emissions.

Instead, PG&E joined with longtime adversaries such as the Friends of the Earth environmental group to craft a deal that will bring the company closer to the mandate that 50 percent of California's electricity generation come from renewable energy sources by 2030.

PG&E's agreement will close the book on the state's history as a nuclear pioneer, but adds to its clean energy reputation.  California already leads the nation by far in use of solar energy generated by rooftop panels and by sprawling power arrays in the desert.

“California is already a leader in curtailing greenhouse gases,” said Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  “Now they're saying they can go even further.  That's potentially a model for other situations.”

Under the proposal, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County would be retired by PG&E after its current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission operating licenses expire in November 2024 and August 2025.

The power produced by Diablo Canyon's two nuclear reactors would be replaced with investment in a greenhouse-gas-free portfolio of energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage, PG&E said.  The proposal is contingent on a number of regulatory actions, including approvals from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, built against a seaside cliff near Avila Beach, provides 2,160 megawatts of electricity for Central and Northern California — enough to power more than 1.7 million homes.

Tuesday's announcement comes after a long debate over the fate of the plant, which sits near several earthquake fault lines.  The Hosgri Fault, located three miles from Diablo Canyon, was discovered in 1971, three years after construction of the plant began.

Calls to close Diablo Canyon escalated after a 2011 quake in Japan damaged two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant there, leading to dangerous radiation leaks.  In the aftermath of that disaster, state and federal lawmakers called for immediate reviews of Diablo Canyon and the San Onofre Nuclear Plant in San Diego County, which was still in use.

The San Onofre plant was shut down for good in 2013 as a result of faulty equipment that led to a small release of radioactive steam and a heated regulatory battle over the plant's license.

In documents submitted to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission as recently as last year, PG&E said Diablo Canyon can safely withstand earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding.

Daniel Hirsch, director of the program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at UC Santa Cruz, said PG&E's agreement was thoughtful.

“It is not simply a decision to phase out the plant, but to replace it with efficiency and renewables,” he said.  “So it is a very strong net gain for the environment.”

As the state boosts its energy efficiency goals and plans for renewables, including solar and wind power, Hirsch said, Diablo Canyon is “getting in the way.”

PG&E Chief Executive Tony Earley acknowledged the changing landscape in California, noting that energy efficiency, renewables and storage are “central to the state's energy policy.”

“As we make this transition, Diablo Canyon's full output will no longer be required,” he said.  That eventually would make the nuclear plant too expensive to operate, Earley said during a conference call with reporters.  Hirsch tempered his approval with caution, saying that as long as the plant remains in operation, safety risks remain.  “Diablo really does pose a clear and present danger,” he said.  “If we had an earthquake larger than the plant was designed for, you could have a Fukushima-type event that could devastate a large part of California.”

State Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, echoed Hirsch by saying nuclear energy is “inherently risky, and the Diablo Canyon Power Plant is vulnerable to damage from natural disasters that could threaten the well-being of millions of Californians.  This transition will make our energy sources less volatile, more cost-effective, and benefit the air we breathe.”  In the mid-2000s, the nation's utilities had anticipated a nuclear renaissance that would usher in a new age of centralized power plants.  Power companies submitted proposals to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 31 new reactors.  President George W. Bush pushed federal loan guarantees to hasten nuclear plant construction.

However, instead of a renaissance, the nuclear industry began to unravel.

Duke Energy announced in February 2013 that it would close the Crystal River, Fla., nuclear plant after a steam generator replacement project led to cracks in the concrete reactor containment building.  The plant became too costly to fix.

In May 2013, Dominion Resources Inc. permanently shut down the Kewaunee nuclear plant in Wisconsin after the power company said it was no longer affordable to operate the facility.

A month later, Southern California Edison permanently closed the San Onofre plant after determining that fixing the new but faulty steam generators would prove too expensive.

Perhaps the biggest problem for the nuclear industry was the vast amount of natural gas that became available in the United States because of fracking.

Natural gas plants now are far cheaper to build and operate than a nuclear plant.  A natural gas facility runs at about 8 or 9 cents a kilowatt hour compared with twice that much for a nuclear plant.

And the push for renewable energy has turned attention to solar and wind power to help reduce emissions and combat human-caused climate change.

“The unraveling of the renaissance was not a surprise to anyone who understood the workings of the power markets,” said Bradford, the former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission member.  He serves as an expert witness in legal proceedings across the nation.

Bradford said PG&E's plan for Diablo Canyon shows the flaws in arguments by the nuclear industry that a clean-energy network requires nuclear.

“It's a very tough day for people who have been advocating for massive nuclear subsidies,” Bradford said.

Even after Diablo Canyon closes, Southern California will still get a small percentage of its electricity from Arizona's Palo Verde nuclear plant.  Among the owners of the 4,000-megawatt nuclear plant in the Arizona desert are Southern California Edison, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Southern California Public Power Authority, whose members include municipal power companies supplying Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank and Anaheim.

The impending closure of Diablo Canyon would leave just one nuclear plant on the West Coast, the Columbia Generating Station, about 200 miles outside of Seattle.

To craft Tuesday's proposal, PG&E worked with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, the Coalition of California Utility Employees, the National Resources Defense Council, Environment California, Friends of the Earth, and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.

CHERNOBYL - 30yrs After

"Thirty years after Chernobyl disaster, families say children are getting sick" PBS NewsHour 4/24/2016

IVETTE FELICIANO (NewsHour):  The disaster forced tens of thousands of residents around Chernobyl to flee and never some back.

But many other people remained in a zone that was considered safe enough distance to stay.

In the village of Zalyshany, about 32 miles southwest of Chernobyl, 8-year-0ld Bogdan Vetrov suffers from an enlarged thyroid gland.

His mother, Viktoria, believes it is due to radiation found in their food, but she says her family’s options are, eat food that may be contaminated or starve.

VIKTORIA VETROVA:  We are aware of the dangers, but what can we do?  There is no other way to survive here.  Especially in this region we just cannot survive.

IVETTE FELICIANO:  Vetrov and his siblings are among 350,000 children living in areas where monitoring radiation in the soil ended four years ago.

Greenpeace, the European Union and the World Health Organization have found links between contaminated produce and milk and increased levels of thyroid cancer.

One EU study tracked 4,000 children for three years and found more than 80 percent of them had cardiovascular issues.

Doctors who perform annual checks on children here have seen that first-hand.

YURY BANDAZHEVSKY, PEDIATRICIAN:  There are very serious pathological processes, which definitely will unfortunately have negative consequences on the development of these children.

JAPAN - Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 2016

"An exclusive look at the world’s largest-ever nuclear cleanup" PBS NewsHour 3/11/2016

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SUMMARY:  Five years ago, an epic tsunami off the coast of Japan triggered a triple-reactor nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Ever since then, 7,000 workers have been laboring round-the-clock on a massive, and unprecedented, cleanup effort.  Science correspondent Miles O’Brien takes an exclusive look at ground zero of the greatest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour):  Fukushima Daiichi was one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world.  Today, it is a busy, crowded, dangerous deconstruction site.

My invitation to see it up close was unique.

What next?  Does three have a lot to…

But even with special permission, getting inside is not easy by design.  Radioactive contamination levels have gone down, but not nearly enough to dispense with the Tyvek suits, three layers of socks and gloves and full face respirators.

It’s like being an astronaut on a space walk.  Here, 7,000 workers are doing a job for which there is no playbook.

NAOHIRO MASUDA, TEPCO (through interpreter):  What makes this so difficult is the lack of experience.  Nobody in the world has done this before.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Naohiro Masuda is the chief decommissioning officer for the Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO.

NAOHIRO MASUDA (through interpreter):  We still need to decide what we’re even going to do.  For that, we need to rely on the knowledge of people all around the world.

MILES O’BRIEN:  He relies heavily on this man.

LAKE BARRETT, TEPCO Advisor:  For them to come out and to publicly say “We need help” is different for them.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Lake Barrett is one of a very select group who has some experience with a job like this.  He was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission manager in charge of the decommissioning of Three Mile Island Unit 2 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  It melted down in 1979.

LAKE BARRETT (adviser):  Fukushima is much more complex.  The damage is much greater.  There’s three melted cores.  But the fundamentals of how you address this and how you recover are similar.

MILES O’BRIEN:  The daily details of this 40-year job are managed here in a radiation-shielded, earthquake-proof emergency operations center.

The superintendent is another TEPCO veteran, Akira Ono, on duty here since June of 2013.

AKIRA ONO, TEPCO (through interpreter):  Ever since the disaster, we have been working here 24 hours a day 365 days a year.  We’re ready to respond to anything that happens.

"The heroes of Fukushima Dai-ichi, but don’t call them that" by Miles O'Brien, PBS NewsHour 3/13/2016

ARE YOU KIDDING - Fukushima as Host for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Events?!

"Fukushima2020?  Disaster-stricken area hopes to host Tokyo Olympic events" RT.com News 12/21/2014

Fukushima hopes to host some of the events for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo to show the world that the worst days of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster are behind it.

"We need to set a goal so that we can show how much Fukushima has recovered," Masao Uchibori, who was elected the new governor of Fukushima Prefecture in October, said Tuesday.

"The Olympics is meant to show to the world the Tohoku region's reconstruction.  We want to cooperate as much as possible," he said, as cited by Reuters.

Uchibori made no mention of which events Fukushima Prefecture would aim to host, but football is the likely choice, on account of the schedule and large number of stadia needed for the Olympic tournament.

In September 2013, Tokyo successfully won the bid to host the 125th International Olympic Committee (IOC) session, beating out Madrid and Istanbul.  Japan last hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964 – the first Olympics ever held in Asia.  Tokyo was actually supposed to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, although Japan’s invasion of China saw the games moved to Helsinki before ultimately being canceled because of World War II.

Tokyo said the event would help the country recover from the 2011 tsunami and earthquake which sparked the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

“Japan needs hope and dreams,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after the IOC announcement.

Just days before Tokyo won the bid, Abe told the IOC that ongoing leaks of radioactive water at Fukushima would have no impact on the country’s ability to host the 2020 Olympics.

“There have been some expressions of concern over the leak of polluted water at Fukushima, but the government will take a lead in achieving a complete resolution of this problem,” Abe told reporters at the time.  “I will explain carefully that we are doing our utmost with a firm resolve and that in 2020, seven years from now, there will be absolutely no problem.”

The president of the Japanese Olympic Committee further attempted to assuage fears by saying the radiation level in Tokyo was “the same” as in other major global capitals such as London, New York and Paris.

But Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, said it was “immoral” to invite people to the Olympic Games in Japan, saying “the health environment cannot be secured,” the UK Independent cited him as saying at the time.

He called for the bid to be rescinded.

Later that month, Abe ordered that two Fukushima reactors which survived the 2011 disaster be permanently decommissioned.

The president of Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operated the disabled Fukushima plant, promised Abe it would finish treating contaminated water at Fukushima by March 2015.

Earlier this month, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said the radioactive water that has accumulated at the plant must be decontaminated and dumped into the ocean.

Fukushima water to be cleaned, dumped into Pacific, watchdog says

Some 400 tons of untainted groundwater are believed to be seeping into the buildings of the Fukushima plant on a daily basis.  It is then mixing with the toxic water generated in the process of cooling the crippled reactors.  TEPCO collects the radioactive groundwater and stores it at the site of the plant.  However, storing the groundwater becomes more difficult each day, as the water quantity continues to increase.

The March 11, 2011, incident at Fukushima was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.  Despite TEPCO’s intensive cleanup operation at the site, it will likely take four decades to completely decommission the plant’s four damaged reactors.

JAPAN - Is Nuclear Power Suitable?

"Japan considers energy future after Fukushima" PBS NewsHour 3/13/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  It’s been three years since a tsunami destroyed the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan, and forced the government to shut down the plants that remained.  Today, regulators announced they would speed up safety checks on a pair of idle reactors in southwest Japan, a key step in the prime minister’s push to restart them and others.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O’Brien looks at the debate raging in the country about that idea.

MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour):  In Japan, a meticulous and massive cleanup is under way near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

They are scraping off two inches of soil contaminated with cesium and other radionuclides expelled from the plant after a series of explosions triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011.  The contaminated soil is bagged, placed on a watertight pad, and then covered with a tarp.  It will be stored like this until a permanent site can be found.

The radioactive cesium will remain in the soil for 300 years.  At Yutaka and Keiko Hakozaki home in Naraha, the cleanup apparently worked.  We took some Geiger counter readings in their yard.  Cesium levels were 0.204 microsieverts per hour, just under the government limit of 0.23.

Still, the Hakozakis are unsure about returning to their home, but their feelings about nuclear power are now etched in stone.

“We experienced this accident firsthand, which is all the more reason we think that nuclear power plants are not suitable for this country,” he said.

Right now in Japan, not a single nuclear power plant is online generating electricity, 48 nuclear reactors, able to generate 30 percent of Japan’s electrical demand, idle while this country decides if the Hakozakis are right or if turning the nukes back on is prudent, perhaps even mandatory, to maintain Japan’s highly electrified lifestyle.

Japan is making up for the idle nuclear facilities by running their fossil fuel plants at full-tilt, importing $266 billion worth of oil, gas and coal last year.  In the country where the Kyoto protocols were drafted, CO2 emissions are up 13 percent.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing an energy policy that would turn the nuclear plants back on as soon as they meet more stringent safety standards adopted after the Fukushima meltdowns.  While he has the votes in parliament to make that happen, he doesn’t have much support on the street.  In fact, polls show as much as 80 percent of voters here now oppose nuclear power.

And large, noisy protests like this outside Abe’s office are a regular occurrence.

JAPAN - Fishing Radioactive Waters Off Fukushima

"Fishing for data in the radioactive waters off Fukushima" PBS Newshour 3/5/2014

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MILES O’BRIEN (Newshour):  As brisk winter mornings go, this was a fine one to go fishing.  We steamed out of the port of Kashima, Japan, on the good ship Inari Maru.  Our captain was Kimio Sato, a fourth-generation fisherman.  His son, Kosi, was at the helm.

Their predecessors in the family business never went on an expedition like this one.

“We cannot eat the fish we catch,” he told me.  “All fish must be released.  We are allowed to fish only the amount necessary for inspection.”

The Inari Maru was plying troubled waters, fishing for data.  It’s part of a long-term effort to figure out when, if ever, fish caught near the Fukushima Daiichi power plant will be safe to eat.

Really reeled in nets filled with flounder, but threw most of them back into the Pacific.  In the end, their haul was just one small bucket, about 12 pounds of fish, headed to a lab to be tested for radionuclide.

In Japan, the radiation safety standard for fish is 100 Becquerels per kilogram, the most stringent in the world.

“We occasionally catch fish exceeding that safety standard,” says Kimio.  “I don’t think there are many, though, but because we’re in the 20-kilometer zone, I think we should be cautious.”

KEN BUESSELER, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:  The Fukushima reactor in the background.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Scientists who have studied these waters wouldn’t disagree.  Ken Buesseler is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.  He was part of the team 12 weeks after the meltdowns on a research expedition financed by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, also a NewsHour funder.

Buesseler cut his scientific teeth studying the impact of the Chernobyl meltdown on the Black Sea.

NUCLEAR POWER - Japan's 'Frozen Wall' Plan to Stop Fukushima Leaks

"Japan to Build Frozen Wall to Stop Radioactive Water Leaks at Fukushima" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 9/3/2013

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  There's more bad news from Japan about radioactive leaks at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant and a new plan to deal with those problems.

We begin with a report from Tom Clarke of Independent Television News.

TOM CLARKE:  It's two-and-a-half years since the reactors here were sent into meltdown, and the cleanup has hardly begun.  Instead, engineers have been battling daily to prevent hundreds of tons of radioactive water leaking from storage tanks from the site.

As confidence in the plant's operator, TEPCO, has dwindled, today, Japan's prime minister announced the government would intervene.

PRIME MINISTER SHINZO ABE, Japan (through interpreter):  The whole world is watching whether we can successfully resolve problems at the plant and decommission the reactors.  We must all work together on the issues.

TOM CLARKE:  The current crisis at the plant stems from the huge quantities of water needed to cool the four stricken reactors.  Nearly 400,000 tons of water is being stored in these hastily constructed tanks.  More are being added daily, and they're running out of space.

Since the initial meltdown in 2011, contaminated cooling water has been leaking from the reactor buildings into the groundwater beneath, and a fortnight ago, TEPCO admitted radioactive water had leaked from storage tanks too.

Today's plan is to drill hundreds of boreholes around the reactors and pump them full of supercool seawater to freeze the ground, forming an ice barrier that will stop contaminated water leaking out.

TREVOR JONES, nuclear technology consultant:  The difficulty comes in actually being age able to get close enough or to get into the locations that they would require to install the wells.  So it may be that they have to make the ice wall further away from the radioactive source than they would have ideally wanted.

TOM CLARKE:  The rest will be spent on the thousands of tons of contaminated water in leaky tanks.  It's being suggested today's action is to improve Japan's image abroad on the eve of the decision to choose the 2020 Olympic host nation.

"What if the Fukushima Ice Wall Defrosts?  Looking at Risks of Japan's Experiment" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 9/3/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Japanese government is planning to build an ice wall around the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant to try to stop radioactive water leaks.  Jeffrey Brown examines the risks and potential political fallout with Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environment Research and Kenji Kushida of Stanford University.

JAPAN - Update, Looking at Fukushima Today

"A Look Around the Ruins of Fukushima, Where Radiation Still Poses Danger" PBS Newshour 7/26/2013

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN:  And next to Japan, where the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been leaking contaminated underground water into the sea more than two years after the earthquake and tsunami.

Today, officials at Tokyo Electric Power admitted they delayed releasing that information, saying they didn't want to worry the public.  Meanwhile, the area around the plant remains deserted.

But Alex Thomson of Independent Television News got brief and rare access.

ALEX THOMSON:  Few people ever get in to the Fukushima exclusion zone.  Nobody gets in without protective equipment and screening.

Here's the radio to keep in contact, she's telling us.  Monitoring equipment for radioactivity comes next, then off, out to the final police checkpoint.  And we pull in just inside the exclusion zone to suit up.

It's becoming a way of life around here.  TEPCO, the company that runs the stricken plant, have given us five hours in the zone with a radio to keep in contact with us, let us know when our time's up.  The regalia in which I'm now standing, including this, a dosimeter which will give my accumulated radiation dose across the time that we're inside the exclusion zone.

We have come here with Anthony Ballard, who used to live in Futaba, the town which houses the giant nuclear plant, as did his friend and fellow English teacher Philip Jellyman.  Rubble from the quake stays just where it fell, fringed now with weeds.  The clock on the main street stopped at 2:46, the second the first tremors shattered this region on March the 11th, 2011.

The town shrine lurches after the quake.  Someone's been back at some point to try and save it with ropes.  Good luck messages to the gods for the unluckiest of towns after a quake, a tsunami, and radiation.

MAN:  The students who were at the school that day have never seen their houses.

NUCLEAR POWER - Fukushima Nuclear Plant a Warning on Safety Regulation by Industry Insiders

Gray and silver storage tanks filled with radioactive wastewater
are sprawling over the grounds of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

U.S. nuclear regulators need to take heed.  "The story of how the Fukushima plant ended up swamped with water, critics say, is a cautionary tale about the continued dangers of leaving decisions about nuclear safety to industry insiders."

"Flow of Tainted Water Is Latest Crisis at Japan Nuclear Plant" by MARTIN FACKLER, New York Times 4/29/2013

Excerpt

Two years after a triple meltdown that grew into the world’s second worst nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is faced with a new crisis, a flood of highly radioactive wastewater that workers are struggling to contain.

Groundwater is pouring into the plant’s ravaged reactor buildings at a rate of almost 75 gallons a minute.  It becomes highly contaminated there, before being pumped out to keep from swamping a critical cooling system.  A small army of workers has struggled to contain the continuous flow of radioactive wastewater, relying on hulking gray and silver storage tanks sprawling over 42 acres of parking lots and lawns.  The tanks hold the equivalent of 112 Olympic-size pools.

But even they are not enough to handle the tons of strontium-laced water at the plant — a reflection of the scale of the 2011 disaster and, in critics’ view, ad hoc decision making by the company that runs the plant and the regulators who oversee it.  In a sign of the sheer size of the problem, the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, plans to chop down a small forest on its southern edge to make room for hundreds more tanks, a task that became more urgent when underground pits built to handle the overflow sprang leaks in recent weeks.

“The water keeps increasing every minute, no matter whether we eat, sleep or work,” said Masayuki Ono, a general manager with Tepco who acts as a company spokesman.  “It feels like we are constantly being chased, but we are doing our best to stay a step in front.”

While the company has managed to stay ahead, the constant threat of running out of storage space has turned into what Tepco itself called an emergency, with the sheer volume of water raising fears of future leaks at the seaside plant that could reach the Pacific Ocean.

That quandary along with an embarrassing string of mishaps — including a 29-hour power failure affecting another, less vital cooling system — have underscored an alarming reality; two years after the meltdowns, the plant remains vulnerable to the same sort of large earthquake and tsunami that set the original calamity in motion.

There is no question that the Fukushima plant is less dangerous than it was during the desperate first months after the accident, mostly through the determined efforts of workers who have stabilized the melted reactor cores, which are cooler and less dangerous than they once were.

But many experts warn that safety systems and fixes at the plant remain makeshift and prone to accidents.

The jury-rigged cooling loop that pours water over the damaged reactor cores is a mazelike collection of pumps, filters and pipes that snake two and a half miles along the ground through the plant.  And a pool for storing used nuclear fuel remains perched on the fifth floor of a damaged reactor building as Tepco struggles to move the rods to a safer location.

The situation is worrisome enough that Shunichi Tanaka, a longtime nuclear power proponent who is the chairman of the newly created watchdog Nuclear Regulation Authority, told reporters after the announcement of the leaking pits that “there is concern that we cannot prevent another accident.”

A growing number of government officials and advisers now say that by entrusting the cleanup to the company that ran the plant before the meltdowns, Japanese leaders paved the way for a return to the insider-dominated status quo that prevailed before the disaster.

Even many scientists who acknowledge the complexity of cleaning up the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl fear that the water crisis is just the latest sign that Tepco is lurching from one problem to the next without a coherent strategy.

“Tepco is clearly just hanging on day by day, with no time to think about tomorrow, much less next year,” said Tadashi Inoue, an expert in nuclear power who served on a committee that drew up the road map for cleaning up the plant.

But the concerns extend well beyond Tepco.  While doing a more rigorous job of policing Japan’s nuclear industry than regulators before the accident, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has a team of just nine inspectors to oversee the more than 3,000 workers at Fukushima.

And a separate committee created by the government to oversee the cleanup is loaded with industry insiders, including from the Ministry of Trade, in charge of promoting nuclear energy, and nuclear reactor manufacturers like Toshiba and Hitachi.  The story of how the Fukushima plant ended up swamped with water, critics say, is a cautionary tale about the continued dangers of leaving decisions about nuclear safety to industry insiders.

JAPAN - Town Aims for a Comeback 2 Years Fukushima Disaster

"Japanese Town Hit Hard by Natural and Nuclear Disaster Imagines Renewable Future" PBS Newshour 3/11/2013

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  ..... A Japanese town aims for a comeback two years after the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima reactor.

Our story comes from special correspondent Emily Taguchi, a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, one of our reporting partners.

EMILY TAGUCHI:  It's been two years since the meltdowns at the Daiichi nuclear power plant.  The city of Minamisoma is celebrating the Nomaoi festival, showcasing their heritage as horsemen and warriors.

About a third of the city is still uninhabitable.  But, on this day, residents who fled the city return, standing shoulder to shoulder with former neighbors to honor their history.

MAYOR KATSUNOBU SAKURAI, Minamisoma, Japan:  I'm Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai of Minamisoma.  This year's Nomaoi festival, in the hopes of recovery for our residents affected by the nuclear crisis, is being held per the custom.

EMILY TAGUCHI:  At 20 miles north of the Daiichi plant, Minamisoma was cut off from the rest of the world two years ago by radioactive plumes.  Not even aid trucks would come near.  Mayor Sakurai uploaded a plea for help (Japanese with English captions) on YouTube.

NUCLEAR POWER - Report on Fukushima, Was Manmade Accident

"Report Blames Japanese Government for Nuclear Meltdown" PBS Newshour 7/5/2012

Excerpt

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): The Fukushima nuclear accident is often seen as a consequence of a rare natural disaster. But a tough new report from Japan concludes that the accident was manmade in more ways than one.

The traditional narrative of what went wrong in Japan in early 2011 had gone like this. After withstanding a powerful 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant lost all power to three of its six units when a tsunami destroyed its emergency generators and cooling pumps. With those offline and severe flood damage to structures and equipment, meltdowns soon followed and seemed unavoidable. But a new report released today says otherwise.

NUCLEAR PLANTS - Meltdowns, Is the U.S. Ready?

"Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Ready for a Fukushima-Like Meltdown?" PBS Newshour 5/25/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: When Chairman Gregory Jaczko resigned from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week, reports suggested it was linked to battles within the commission over safety requirements. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Miles O'Brien reports on how government regulators in the U.S. set the safety bar for nuclear plants.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, how should government regulators here set the safety bar for nuclear power plants in the U.S.?

This week, the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced his resignation, and news reports suggest that battles within the commission over safety requirements may partially account for his departure.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien has been looking into these bigger questions well before the latest news.

His report was produced in partnership with ProPublica.

COMMENT: Looking at this video I am struck by the site having a backup generator as the last ditch defense against meltdowns JUST OUTSIDE the plant IN THE OPEN!

At the very least, these generators should be underground or in bunkers. In the case of terrorist attack, generators in the open could be wiped out or an actual secondary target to ensure the primary is succeeds.

Significant excerpt

MILES O'BRIEN: Among the recommendations (UCS Report)? A requirement that plants have vents designed to prevent buildup of explosive gas, that operators plan for outages at more than one reactor simultaneously, and, most important, the installation of extra generators like this one at River Bend that would allow a nuclear plant to endure a long blackout of at least eight hours without losing the ability to keep cooling water flowing over the hot nuclear fuel rods.

Come ON, they have to even think about this?! Assuming the commissioners have brains.

Union of Concerned Scientist (UCS)

NUCLEAR POWER - Fukushima One Year Later 3

"Fukushima's Food Fallout: Testing Groceries for Radiation in Japan" PBS Newshour 3/13/2012 (Series Part-3)

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Next, the last in our special series on the aftermath in Japan, one year after the nuclear accident at Fukushima.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien has been reporting on the continuing concerns in the region, including fears of contamination.

Tonight, how Japanese citizens are grappling with very real questions about farming and food safety.

NUCLEAR POWER - Fukushima One Year Later 2

"After 500 Years in Family, Rice Farmers Forced Off Land by Fukushima" PBS Newshour 3/12/2012 (Series Part-2)

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Next, the enormous challenges of trying to clean up radiation contamination from the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan. Sunday marked the first anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent meltdowns.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien returned to the region for a series of stories.

Here's his second report.

NUCLEAR POWER - Fukushima One Year Later

"Near Fukushima, a Big 'Guessing Game' Over Radiation's Long-Term Risks" PBS Newshour 3/9/2012 (Series Part-1)

Excerpt

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Sunday will mark a year since the massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. The pair of tragic events killed as many as 20,000 people, and led to the partial meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plants.

The Japanese government is expected to be cleaning up radiation for years, and nearly 90,000 residents in an evacuation zone had to leave their homes, likely forever.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien recently returned to the area for a series of reports one year later.

Here's the first.

"Fukushima Survivor: 'I've Hardly Smiled This Whole Year' (Part-1)"
PBS Newshour 3/9/2012


Fukushima Survivor: 'I've Hardly Smiled This Whole Year' (Part-2)

NUCLEAR POWER - Debating the Issue

"Debating the Safety, Wisdom of New Nuclear Reactors in Georgia" PBS Newshour 2/15/2012

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Now, a big move forward for nuclear power in the U.S.

This construction site in eastern Georgia will house the nation's first new commercial nuclear reactors in decades. They're to be built at the Plant Vogtle facility, where two existing reactors have operated since the late 1980s. The plant is situated near Waynesboro, Georgia, 34 miles southeast of Augusta, 170 miles east of Atlanta.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu visited the site today to see the work in progress. Basic construction had begun more than a year ago, anticipating that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would license the new reactors, which it did last week in a vote of 4-1.

The reactors are the first to be approved since 1978, the year before the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

President Obama has several times called for expanding the role of nuclear energy as part of an overall national strategy.

COMMENT: Aside from the issue if SHOULD the license be held until after a guarantee of incorporation of "lessons learned" reminder, no one can predict the unknown.

Also, another excerpt

STEPHEN SMITH, executive director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy: Well, if this was a mature industry, as they claim it is, then they really shouldn't be going to the government for handouts and support.

And we think that, because of the inherent economic risk, these price tags on these reactors have absolutely skyrocketed from what they were originally proposed to do. Georgia Power in Georgia is actually having to take money from rate payers now before the reactor is even built because no one wants to invest in these things. They have to get the loan guarantees.

And it's just extremely costly and economically risky. Much of the much-touted nuclear renaissance has largely evaporated because demand is down, natural gas prices are low, energy efficiency is showing much stronger potential, renewable prices are dropping. And so we're seeing that we don't really need to go in the direction of these high-risk energy choices.

And the federal government really doesn't need to be subsidizing it if the market doesn't want to support these.

Because the demand is down at present does NOT mean it will stay down. When the demand goes up, and it will, it will be MORE costly to pay for in the future. Pay now while the financing cost is low.