Signatures on nuclear power plant environmental impact report forged via Today’s Zaman

Posted on 2015/01/12 by

A report in the BirGün daily on Monday maintained that the engineers responsible for preparing the Akkuyu plant resigned from their posts six months before the reports were due to be turned in, prompting suspicion that the assessments had been conducted unsupervised by professionals.
The Turkish Union of Engineers and Architects’ Chambers’ (TMMOB) requested a criminal investigation, and found that two of the signatures of the nuclear energy engineers had been forged. Furthermore, according to BirGün, the report had been revised by the contractor firm, Akkuyu NPP — a subsidiary of Russian energy firm Rosatom and the private company issuing the ÇED, without notifying the engineers.
According to the report, the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning approved the tampered ÇED, effectively giving the go-ahead for the construction of the power plant.
Environment and Urban Planning Minister İdris Güllüce rejected on Monday BirGün’s claims that the signatures were forged, saying the article was intentionally written to “obstruct Turkey’s development.” Güllüce wrote on his Twitter account that “no one should think they can hinder the development and growth of Turkey with these types of intentional articles.”
After independent analyses by three experts, the signatures on the report were found to have been forged and the license of the private firm that issued the ÇED is expected to be revoked.

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Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant water leak may have reached the Tennessee River, monitoring shows no increased radiation via Al.com

Posted on 2015/01/12 by

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — A worker at TVA’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant doing regular walk-around monitoring Jan. 7 identified a leak of radioactive water at the plant last week.

A Tennessee Valley Authority spokesman said today the leak resulted in a spill of between 100 and 200 gallons and some of that water, mixed with millions of gallons of cooling water, could have migrated to the Tennessee River.

TVA acknowledged that, while no elevated levels of radioactive pollutants have been discovered at the plant near Athens, the water that spilled exceeded federal guidelines for safe drinking.

The leak took nearly three hours to stop and is blamed on a faulty valve. It occurred in a common area for all three of the plant reactors and involved water that was being re-condensed after serving as steam to power the plant’s turbines.

TVA officials said this morning they are monitoring water going back into the river and have detected no elevated levels of tritium. TVA is still reviewing how the leak occurred.

Read more.
◇See also Browns Ferry: Shrinking the Safety Margin at Alabama’s Largest Nuclear Plant
And Browns Ferry Engineer Never Expected to Be Nuclear Plant Whistleblower

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Solar, nuclear, climate progress possible on Obama India visit via The Japan Times

Posted on 2015/01/12 by yukimiyamotodepaul

GANDHINAGAL, INDIA – There could be progress on U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation, solar power and climate change when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India in two weeks, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

While stressing there were no guarantees that some of the most vexing economic issues between India and the United States would be resolved, the officials said some agreements were conceivable.

“We are working on the civil nuclear liability issue,” a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to the home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The goal is to have very concrete and tangible things that we can show forward movement on when President Obama and Prime Minister Modi meet, including on climate change,” he said.

Obama’s visit to India and trips by Kerry and other U.S. senior officials aim to woo India as a strategic partner and to win greater access to the vast Indian market of 1.2 billion people for U.S. companies.

[…]

Under a 2010 nuclear liability law, equipment suppliers are liable for damages from an accident, which companies say deviates from international norms that put the onus on the operator to maintain safety.

India’s national law grew out of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, the world’s deadliest industrial accident, at a factory owned by U.S. multinational Union Carbide Corp., which Indian families are still pursuing for compensation.

The law effectively shut out Western companies from a huge market and also strained U.S.-Indian relations since they reached a deal on nuclear cooperation in 2008.

“I don’t know whether (the nuclear civil liability issue) will be resolved in time for the president’s visit, but I would say I think there is progress being made there,” the senior U.S. official said.

[…]

GE-Hitachi, an alliance between the U.S. and Japanese firms, Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric Company and France’s Areva AREVA.PA have received a green light to build two reactors each. They have yet to begin construction several years later, according to India’s Department of Atomic Energy.

Read more at Solar, nuclear, climate progress possible on Obama India visit 

 

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＜福島第１原発＞作業員負傷が大幅増・１４年 via 河北新報

Posted on 2015/01/12 by yukimiyamotodepaul

（抜粋）

東電によると、１４年４～１１月に福島第１原発で負傷した作業員は３９人に上り、他に体調不良を訴えた作業員が１人いた。１３年度の負傷者数は死者１人を含め通年で２３人だった。
１４年９月２２日には協力企業の作業員１人が放射能汚染水の保管用タンク建設中に落下した鉄パイプで背骨を骨折。１１月７日にはタンク増設工事中に重さ ３９０キロの鋼材が落下し、協力企業の作業員３人が負傷した。うち１人は一時意識不明の重体となり、別の１人は両足首を骨折した。
同原発では１ 日平均の作業員数が増加を続け、特に１４年９月以降は６０００人を超えており、前年同期と比べて２倍近くに増えている。汚染水の処理量が増加し、保管用の 新設タンクを用意しなければならないことが一因だ。作業中の負傷が後を絶たないことから、東電は自社内に作業前の確認や現場の調整、管理面で問題があると 判断。毎月１回、元請け企業と共に安全管理指導会を開き、原因分析などを行っているほか、現場の危険箇所を指摘し対策を進めているという。

全文は＜福島第１原発＞作業員負傷が大幅増・１４年 

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Los Alamos lab contractor loses $57 million over nuclear waste accident via The Los Angeles Times

Posted on 2015/01/11 by

The contractor managing the nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M., was slapped with a $57-million reduction in its fees for 2014, largely due to a costly nuclear waste accident last year.

The contractor, Los Alamos National Security, saw its fee reduced 90% because of the accident, in which a 55-gallon drum packaged with plutonium waste from bomb production erupted after being placed in a 2,150-foot underground dump in the eastern New Mexico desert.
The Department of Energy determined that the contractor had a “first-degree performance failure” and cut its fee to $6.25 million — a pittance compared with the $63.4 million that the contractor could have earned if it had met all of its 2014 contract incentives.

“The size of the cut was astounding,” said Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a group that scrutinizes operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “It is a step in the right direction.”

Coghlan said the Energy Department also reduced the duration of the management contract by one year for the consortium, which was selected in 2007 to help restore order to the lab’s operations after more than a decade of security lapses, management errors and accounting scandals.

The consortium includes San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., the University of California, Charlotte, N.C.-based Babcox & Wilcox Co. and San Francisco-based URS Corp.
[…]
New Mexico’s Environment Department fined the lab $36.6 million in early December, finding it had violated two dozen rules and regulations. Late last week, the U.S. Energy Department and the Los Alamos consortium asserted that the state lacks legal jurisdiction to issue the fine.

Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste program at the environmental watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center, said the refusal to pay the fines amounts to a serious political confrontation between New Mexico’s Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz.

Martinez hand-delivered notice of the fine to Moniz, Hancock said. “It tells you that the Energy Department and the contractor don’t believe they have to comply with laws and permits,” Hancock said.

While watchdog groups applauded the tough sanctions, some nuclear weapons scientists said it was an overreaction.
[…]
“As long as you don’t lick the walls, you can’t get any radiation down there. Why are we treating this like Fukushima?” he said, referring to the 2011 nuclear reactor disaster in Japan.

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第一原発２号機　トレンチ底部に砂堆積　新たな課題に via 福島民報

Posted on 2015/01/11 by yukimiyamotodepaul

セメント注入が続く東京電力福島第一原発２号機の海側トレンチ（電源ケーブルなどが通る地下道）で、底部に堆積した高濃度汚染水を含む砂の除去が新たな課 題として浮上している。セメントでトレンチ内を固め、汚染水を抜き取っても、砂がたまった層の亀裂から地下水が流入し汚染水となり漏れ出す可能性がある。 大規模な漏えいにつながるトレンチ内の汚染水除去を優先するため工事を続行するが、不安材料を抱えたまま作業を進めざるを得ないのが現状だ。

■想定外
２号機のトレンチにはタービン建屋から流れ込んだ汚染水が約５０００トンもたまっていた。再び大地震や津波が発生した際には、汚染水の大量漏えいにもつながりかねない。汚染水の抜き取りは待ったなしだった。
東電はセメントをトレンチ内に注入することで、たまった汚染水が押し出され、完全に除去できると想定した。しかし、東日本大震災の津波で運ばれた底部の砂の存在が昨年１１月、明らかになった。東電は、砂に約２５トンの汚染水が含まれていると推定する。
原子力規制委員会はトレンチの耐震構造から、亀裂の存在を指摘していた。「地下水が入り込み、汚染水となって海洋流出する可能性がある」。県の担当者はセメント注入作業の推移を注視する。
原子力規制庁の担当者は「砂が地下水を汚染する可能性は否定できない。しかし、緊急性の高い汚染水の抜き取りを優先するしかない」としている。

■回収は困難
トレンチの砂は地上から約１２メートルの地下にある上、「セメントでふたをしたような状態」（県担当者）という。
さらに、トレンチ付近の空間線量は毎時１ミリシーベルト（平成２５年６月現在）と高い。砂を取り出すかどうかも含め見通しは示されていない。高坂潔県原子 力専門員は「汚染水を含む砂の残留は、トリチウムを含んだ水や使用済み核燃料の処理など『廃炉のシナリオ』の新たな長期的課題の一つとなった」との認識を 示した。

続きは第一原発２号機　トレンチ底部に砂堆積　新たな課題に

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時代の正体〈４８〉ハタチの叫び（上）　私が自由であるために　安部さくらさん via 神奈川新聞

Posted on 2015/01/11 by yukimiyamotodepaul

東京電力福島第１原発事故が起きたのは高校１年生の時だった。１カ月後、近所でデモがあった。カメラマンの父（５７）に誘われ、見に行った。

思い思いに「原発、いらない」と声を上げ、プラカードを手にした人の列をドラムの軽快なリズムが導く。

楽しそうだった。

「お母さんが小さい子どもの手を引いて歩いていて。デモってどんなものかも知らなかったけど、みんな言いたいことを言っていて、こういうやり方があるのか、と」

想像以上の人の多さに驚き、やがて安部さくらさん（２０）＝東京都練馬区＝は愕然（がくぜん）とする。

「自分は何も知らない」

原発反対と叫ぼうにも、原発の知識は皆無に等しかった。

知りたい、知らなきゃ。

大学に進むと平和について考えるサークルに入った。

（略）

■警句
変化をはっきりと感じた瞬間があった。

毎夏、広島や長崎へ赴き、被爆者の体験談を聞いてきたが、「秘密保護法が話題になる前の２０１３年夏と、法律が成立して集団的自衛権の行使容認が閣議決定された後の１４年夏で、語り部の熱意が一変していた」。

前年に続いて話を聞いた８０歳近い被爆者は語った。

「本当に７０年前の戦争の直前とよく似た状況になっている。いま止めなければ、もうすぐ戦争が始まってしまう」

世間を覆う漠然とした閉塞（へいそく）感、海外での戦争に前のめりになる政府、自由にモノが言えない雰囲気。

これまで経験を語ろうとしなかった被爆者が重い口を開き始めていた。入院している病院を抜け出し、集会に駆け付けた被爆者もいた。

異口同音に語られる「戦前と似ている」の警句。「私は聞いてしまったし、知ってしまった。『今日の聞き手は、明日の語り部』と言う。私が伝えていくのだと思う」

■理由
デモをやったところで政治を動かせるわけじゃない。過剰に反応しているだけじゃないか。そう冷笑するもう一人の自分もいた。

思い出されたのは、大学の教授の言葉だった。

オオカミ少女になれ－。

「国が危機的な方向へ向かっている。そう気付いたら『おかしいよ！』『まずいよ！』と言いふらせばいい。実際、そうならなくてもいい」

そう。危ないと感じる自由、それを口にする自由が私たちにはある。

全文は時代の正体〈４８〉ハタチの叫び（上）　私が自由であるために　安部さくらさん

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＜水産物＞韓国が全面的輸入禁止にしている「福島など８県」って何処だっけ？via みんな楽しくhappyがいい

Posted on 2015/01/10 by

NHK １月9日
８日、日本と韓国の外務次官級の協議が行われ、協力関係を強化することを確認したものの、韓国が福島県などの水産物の輸入を禁止している問題では、具体的な進展はありませんでした。
[…]
一方で、日本側は、福島県など８つの県の水産物に対する輸入禁止の措置を早期に解除するよう求めましたが、韓国側は安全だという国民の認識が得られることが重要だとして、来週行われる韓国側の専門家による２回目の現地調査への協力を求めるにとどまり、具体的な進展はありませんでした。
[…]
韓国が水産物の全面的輸入禁止にしている「福島など８県」とは
青森県　岩手県　宮城県　福島県　
群馬県　栃木県　茨城県　千葉県

群馬県って、海あったっけ？
外務省　平成27年1月9日

韓国政府は日本産水産物の輸入規制の強化を実施
（1）福島を含む8県（福島，茨城，群馬，宮城，岩手，栃木，千葉，青森）全ての水産物の輸入を禁止。
外務省が言っているから、８県とは群馬県を含んでいるんだろう。
東京都と神奈川県は入らなくてもいいのだろうか？
と、ちょっと不思議に思った。

これからますます東京電力が海を汚していく一方なのに、「解除しろ」とはひどいことだ。

もっと読む。

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Illinois report says Exelon nuclear straits not so dire via Midwest Energy News

Posted on 2015/01/10 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Has Exelon been crying wolf?

Or should the state intervene to help the Chicago-based corporation’s nuclear plants prevent closures that could hurt the economy and endanger the electric supply?

A 269-page report created by four Illinois state agencies and released Wednesday sheds light on these questions. The multi-faceted findings defy clear conclusions, but they generally support the idea that Illinois can weather nuclear plant closures; and such shut-downs could even bolster clean energy generation and jobs.

Exelon critics say the report is vindication, showing the company is not in crisis or deserving of government “bailouts.”

Illinois is the country’s top producer of nuclear energy, with six nuclear plants housing 11 reactors run by Exelon, which had $25 billion in operating revenues in FY2013. Nuclear plants emit no carbon dioxide and are highly reliable, as made clear during the polar vortex a year ago when frigid temperatures meant disabled coal plants and interrupted natural gas supplies.

[…]

Good for the environment?

Nuclear energy can pose a conundrum for environmentalists, since it provides power with zero carbon emissions, yet it also raises serious concerns regarding disposal of nuclear waste and uranium mining. The Illinois report did not analyze these upstream and downstream facets of nuclear energy, but focused on the carbon emission impacts if the nuclear plants were closed.

[…]

Environmental Law & Policy Center executive director Howard Learner said in a statement that the report confirms his long-held opinion that the Exelon plants “aren’t economically competitive and can be retired without added costs to Illinois consumers, without hurting reliability, and with more job creation, by growing clean renewable energy and energy efficiency.”

“This report confirms that the competitive power market is working to hold down Illinois energy costs,” he added. “We shouldn’t bail out Exelon’s old, uncompetitive nuclear plants. Instead, we should invest in new renewable energy, like wind and solar, and energy efficiency to grow a cleaner Illinois energy future.”

Kraft said nuclear critics are still furious about the process resulting from the House resolution, which he characterized as “panic-peddling” driven by “half-truths.” He was upset there was no public input or oversight involved in the agencies’ report, but he is encouraged by the result nonetheless.

“Even though Exelon did their best to convince everyone that the sky is falling here in Illinois,” he said, “Even a poorly mandated, non-funded, abstract-model-heavy analysis could not reach that conclusion.”

Read more at Illinois report says Exelon nuclear straits not so dire 

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North Korea hints at nuclear test moratorium via The Japan Times

Posted on 2015/01/10 by yukimiyamotodepaul

SEOUL – North Korea has told the United States that it’s willing to impose a temporary moratorium on nuclear tests if Washington scraps planned military drills with South Korea this year, the North’s official news agency said Saturday.

The reported proposal comes at a time of tensions between North Korea and the U.S. over a Sony movie depicting an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.S. blames the North for crippling hacking attacks on Sony Pictures and subsequently imposed new sanctions on the country, inviting an angry response from Pyongyang, which has denied responsibility for the cyberattacks.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the government proposed to the U.S. what it calls a “crucial step” to ease animosities and remove the danger of war, prompted by desires to pave the way for a reunification with South Korea this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the rivals’ division.

The message “proposed the U.S. to contribute to easing tension on the Korean Peninsula by temporarily suspending joint military exercises in South Korea and its vicinity this year, and said that in this case (North Korea) is ready to take such responsive step as temporarily suspending the nuclear test over which the U.S. is concerned,” KCNA’s report said. “Now is the time for the U.S. to make a bold decision for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.”

Continue reading at North Korea hints at nuclear test moratorium

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