Report Blames NRC For VT Yankee Leak

mdsolar writes "A new report from a nuclear watchdog group finds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 'is ignoring its oversight and enforcement responsibilities at the nation's increasingly leaky, uninspected and unmaintained nuclear power plants.' Because of this lack of oversight, 'at least 102 reactor units are now documented to have had recurring radioactive leaks into groundwater from 1963 through February 2009.' So, the leak at Vermont Yankee that Slashdot has been following is not just a fluke, but is systemic."

Comments

So says a site...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Working for a world free of nuclear power..." right in their masthead.

Re:So says a site...

[HarrySquatter]

mdsolar is a well-known troll. Basically about 90% of all the submissions from this tool is basically FUD against nuclear power.

Re:So says a site...

[Bing Tsher E]

For one thing, the story here is billed as kind of a 'breaking news' 'new findings' kind of thing.

But the summary makes it clear it's a rehash, a dredging up of every bad thing the anti-nuke site it is hosted on could dig up, going back to 1963.

Coal

[FlyingBishop]

So far nobody has died because of the nuclear industry's negligence. What we need is a probe of our coal industry, and expansion of the comparably clean nuclear engery, with research into minimizing and recycling nuclear waste for fuel.

Re:Coal

[HarrySquatter]

The funny thing about this whining about nuclear plants is that coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste.

Re:Coal

[Shakrai]

The Soviet military invaded the plant for a "scientific test" and held the technicians at gunpoint while they bypassed every security feature that site had.

Umm, bullshit. The test was scheduled by the plant crew. It was originally supposed to be held during the day when more experienced operators were on duty but was moved to the night shift because the USSR's persistent electrical shortages would not allow the idling of a reactor during peak demand. The Soviet military had nothing to do with it until the disaster happened nor was anybody held at gunpoint and forced to conduct the test.

On a side note, I've often wondered why the thought of having the more experienced operators come in and work the night shift didn't cross anyone's mind. I guess communism doesn't encourage standing out from the pack and suggesting such "novel" ideas....

Re:Figures

[Wyatt Earp]

More people died this month alone from coal power than have died from all the commercial nuclear power accidents in the US.

Tritium exposure is relatively benign

[Anonymous Coward]

NRC page on tritium http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html. Even the levels at so called "contaminated wells", assuming you drink from it every day for a year, are negligible compared to other sources of background radiation and even potassium in your body.

My attemp to actually read the article

[electricprof]

First, the quote, "Numerous incidents of unplanned releases of radioactivity have been reported to the NRC within the past few months." "These incidents of leaks, overflows and spills have resulted in contamination of areas outside of plant buildings. " is not actually in the article but rather it is in the link from the NRC in 1979 about responding to the leaks. The article then goes on the say "the NRC is capitulating to an industry decision to take almost three more years before announcing an action plan" but the link supporting this is broken, so I can't evaluate it. The next two paragraphs have no links or citations, just general accusations. The next paragraph seems to be supplying substantive information about tritium leaks, but both of the supporting links are broken, so again, I can't evaluate them. I downloaded the full report but just wasn't interested in reading 50 pages of stuff after trying to evaluate these few paragraphs.

This is not Chernobyl

[SovBob]

I seem to notice that there is a lot of FUD and misinformation out there (not just from mdsolar and Beyond Nuclear) regarding nuclear power. This is helped in part because of ignorance by the general public. It's important to understand that there is a wide range of radioactive sources. Most of them are naturally occurring, or occur is such small amounts that they present no health hazard.

Radiation exposure is usually measured in Rem (or mRem). Let's take a look at some common activities and see how they compare.

One chest X ray (8 mRem)

One mammogram (70 mRem)

One X ray of the abdomen (300 mRem)

One renal nuclear medicine procedure (310 mRem)

One CT head scan (3000 mRem)

CAT scan of whole body (5000 mRem)

As you can see, there is a wide variance of radiation sources. Most people in the US receive approximately 300 mRem / year from natural background radiation sources (primarily from radon and sun exposure.) So, how much radiation exposure do you need to cause bodily damage?

There is no agreed-upon level which is considered "safe", however there is relatively clear agreement on thresholds where radiation has noticeable effects on the human body. (NOTE: These are listed in Rem, not mRem)

Changes in blood chemistry (5-10 Rem)

Nausea (50 Rem)

Fatigue (55 Rem)

Vomiting (70 Rem)

Hair loss (75 Rem)

Diarrhea (90 Rem)

Hemorrhage (100 Rem)

Possible death (400 Rem)

Death within 1-2 weeks (1000 Rem)

Damage to central nervous system (2000 Rem)

Death within days (2000 Rem)

But what about cancer? The risk for cancer can be increased by radiation exposure, which resulted in increased mutation rates of cell growth. The EPA estimates that in a group of 10,000 people 2,000 of them will die from cancer. If each person received 1 Rem (not mRem) of non-natural ionizing radiation exposure accumulated over their lifetime, 2,006 people would die from cancer.

So, now that we have an idea of just how bad different levels of radiation exposure are, what about these tritium leaks that have got certain people so upset? The highest reading that these monitoring wells have read was 2.45 microcuries / liter. This translates into roughly 425 mRem / year (assuming it was not diluted). 425 mRem is substantially higher than the current NRC limits, but still much too low to present a health hazard.

When people hear words like "nuclear reactor piping leak" they naturally assume that high-level radioactive particulates are getting out to the environment. The fact is that the incident at Vermont Yankee represents a very small health hazard to the public.

Re:Divide by zero error

[Divide By Zero]

Wait up, hold on a minute, I didn't even POST to this thread before now, there's no WAY I've screwed up already!