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Nuclear Safety Push To Be Softened After US Objections
mdsolar writes with news that the U.S. objects to a proposal to amend the Convention on Nuclear Safety put forward by Switzerland. The United States looks set to succeed in watering down a proposal for tougher legal standards aimed at boosting global nuclear safety, according to senior diplomats. Diplomatic wrangling will come to a head at a 77-nation meeting in Vienna next month that threatens to expose divisions over required safety standards and the cost of meeting them, four years after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Switzerland has put forward a proposal to amend the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), arguing stricter standards could help avoid a repeat of Fukushima, where an earthquake and tsunami sparked triple nuclear meltdowns, forced more than 160,000 people to flee nearby towns and contaminated water, food and air.
The first thing would be tougher rules for nuclear site selection.
While it restricts the allowed area for a nuclear site, there'd be almost no additional cost for the site construction and maintenance (unless it's a really remote location). This would already help a lot.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't fukushima's nuclear plant already breaking Japan's law? Why would then more regulation even help the problem? Enforcing current regulations on older plants should take priority over more red tape and bureaucracy.
I can't think of a reason ANYONE would want the nuclear power generation industry to be less safe than it possibly could be, except where it meant that designs with potential flaws & faults would be blocked from sale to countries requiring lowest possible cost nuclear power. Blocking increased safety simply sounds like someone wants their income protected.
If current regulatory practices means that there are ways of getting round safety, then they MUST be rewritten and/or extended. Anything less I consider a dereliction of duty to the people who would live near nuclear plants.
The Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) is a treaty-ish pile of broad and anti-specific foofy diplo-language. Its purpose is not to share or agree on a single iota of practical knowledge, though over time a tiny bit might creep into it. It exists to permit and encourage the ratification of itself by as many parties as possible, and in this, it is like those "bad luck if you do not forward me" chain letters.
The Swiss proposal said in effect, stop all the music and implement every feature ever conceived to make new plant designs safer, to every existing plant. Somehow. Even if it is redundant and absurd. The whole kitchen sink. They cannot be bothered with specifics, that is not the game being played. Signing on to every broad recommendation would be a direct insult to our own NRC, which does not dabble in such diplomatic newspeak, preferring to assess actual risk, look at each site, mandate practical and specific engineering guidelines, evaluate what has been done.
See INFCIRC/449 and Add.2 and Add.3 and Add.4 and Swiss Amendment.
This stuff was written by people from another planet. It was probably leaked from Planet X which is orbiting with the Earth directly behind the Sun. Planet X is just like ours only its United Nations truly runs everything. That is why they send UFOs to abduct an engineer every now and then, to keep their shit from falling apart. Then we send one of our own (out of Hangar 19) to bring 'em back. Maybe we got the wrong one back, one of their 'senior diplomats' instead.
In it you will find some vague things that sound like good ideas. You're supposed to imagine that this is a world where people do not apply common sense unless they are acting directly on the recommendations of a multi-national NGO.
The compromise statement now says basically, "New nuclear power plants should be designed and constructed with the objective of preventing accidents, and minimizing off-site contamination in case of accidents. Reasonably achievable safety improvements identified at existing plants during... safety assessments should be oriented to these objectives and be implemented in a timely manner."
Engineers should not be afraid to stand up and express their anger when they are insulted. This is an insult. We lose an essential part of our human self-respect and tenacity when insults like this go unanswered. Governance of the world should not be bestowed upon folks who cannot be bothered to delve into detail. Regardless, some people will be comforted by the mere presence of the CNS, they're the people who distrust corporations and their own government, to find solace in the flowery language of international diplomacy even though there is little substance in it.
Basically, this organization-thing was spawned in 1994 and went to sleep. Fukushima woke it up, and they've been running in little circles ever since to come up with a timely response. The response has finally arrived and is on the table in early 2015. This is the kind of time frame you can expect if you pursue world governance.
Meanwhile, the United States Nuclear Power industry and its associated regulatory body NRC hit the ground running in 2011, assessing the disaster and lessons learned from Fukushima. If you are expecting me to elaborate on them and think there is something to be learned from every earthly experience you wil
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It's been a log time since I worked in the industry (I did programming in Health Physics at San Onofre many years ago) but I know that at the time, France was considered to have the safest reactors, operating rules, and procedures. Their Health Physics rules were particularly admired. Of course, this makes sense, because historically, isn't France the country with the widest deployment of and most reliance on nuclear reactors? But, now France has decided on a long-term goal of phasing-out nuclear power. Perhaps the best way to win this game - is to not play at all.
Exactly. Th problem is generally that the existing laws are ignored in the name of profits, becasue all the *individuals* calling the shots benefit from corporate profits, but suffer no penalties for corporate malfeasance. We could fix that.
To start with, how about we make CEOs personally responsible for any and all negligence that occurs on their watch? Start with liquidating their assets, with no "trust fund" safe harbors permitted, as ill gotten gains. And then proceed to criminal penalties.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Others have already pointed out two reasons. One, making it a billion times safer than carrots also makes it cost a million times as much as it already does, and two, if it's more costly than coal, people will just burn coal instead. I'd like to point out two more reasons.
Suppose you make $60,000. You can only spend that $60,000 once. If you pay $100 more on your electric bill to make your power even more safe, that's $100 you don't have to spend on having your car a bit safer - two more airbags, perhaps. Spending your safety budget on the wrong things gets people killed, because any money from your pay check that ends up paying for safer energy is money that can't be used for traffic safety, food safety, etc. So the way to have the safest LIFE is to spend your safety budget where it does the most good, which probably isn't energy related.
Secondly, have you ever worked at a place that makes you change your password monthly? Pretty much everyone there increments their password, so all passwords end with two digits. Ever seen a highway with a speed limit posted that's clearly much too low? Everyone ends up speeding, but by vastly varying amounts since there's no reasonable guidance on how fast you should be going. Excessive rules are counterproductive because they just get people in the habit of ignoring the rules. If you wnt people to follow the rules, you need a) rules that are reasonable and b) people who understand why the rules they are handed are reasonable.
So the proper set of safety rules, the most effective are:
Carefully selected for maximum effect per cost, keeping the safety budget in mind.
Reasonable to follow.
Well explained, so people understand WHY they are reasonable rules that should be followed.
Not sure what exactly it was that got you riled up like that. Of course it is held in broad strokes, and of course it's the job of the national nuclear safety institutions to come up with, implement and oversee the guidelines and rules. It's the lowest common denominator everyone can (or should be able to) agree upon. That's how these things work.
The amendment states:
"Nuclear power plants shall be designed and constructed with the objectives of preventing accidents and, should an accident occur, mitigating its effects and avoiding radionuclides causing long-term off-site contamination. In order to identify and implement appropriate safety improvements, these objectives shall also be applied at existing plants."
There's also a bit on the goal of the amendment: "Switzerland believes that making the principle of "avoiding off-site contamination" legally binding in the Convention would be a vital step towards improved global nuclear safety. ..."
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. But then some existing plants would have to be reexamined and maybe even receive some upgrades to their safety measures. Which would affect somone's bottom line, and we can't have that, now can we?
Switzerland has put forward a proposal to amend the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), arguing stricter standards could help avoid a repeat of Fukushima, where an earthquake and tsunami sparked triple nuclear meltdowns, forced more than 160,000 people to flee nearby towns and contaminated water, food and air.
How convenient it is to conflate the blame for mass suffering from the tsunami with the nuclear event.
Many people have bought into the myth that the nuclear event at Fukushima was a human disaster of epic proportion, ignoring the real disaster which was the tsunami, and by doing so giving a big middle finder to those victims. Many people along the coast of Japan, well outside the Fukushima zone, are still struggling and displaced. They've lost loved ones and their homes. Many will not be able to rebuild in the same place as their old home, but the anti-nuke agenda driven assholes of the world gladly ignore that suffering because they see an opportunity to spread fear.
Meanwhile, not a single human has suffered any health impact due to radioactive releases from the accident, and the prognostications are that none will ever be detected. (if you feel tempted to post a link to the thyroid hoax study, do us a favor and first learn a little about the methods used before you spread ignorance)
Yes, the nuclear accident has complicated matters significantly, and should get due attention, but ask yourself, what do you care about more, an anti nuke agenda or the real human disaster that took place? Do you trust those that are more driven by their agenda than human compassion? Try to find stories about those forgotten victims. It takes a little sifting and effort. Too much for some folks I guess.
Your government is what sucks not you. Actually it us not the administration itself, but your lobby driven ggovernment.
Its the same shit which has been established by the EU through EU commission.
It's actually greed (of money/power/prestige/etc). Individuals, governments, corporations.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
This didn't make national news like it should have. Capitalism and dangerous things don't seem to mix too well.
Tell me how Donald Trump (for example) behaves when an underling questions him and then get back to me about how "cultural" this is.
Well, a quick Google search shows you wrong - there is well-documented research into the amount of radioactivity in coal plant emissions. As an example, USGS: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html
EPA: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm/coalandcoalash.html
and others.
Is it an issue? The released radioactivity from a coal plant is up to 100 times that of a nuclear power plant - but those emissions are so ludicrously low that you can treat it as (100 * 0) = 0. There really isn't a health issue from the emissions.
Mercury, Sulfur, Nitrogen, sure - Radioactivity, not so much.
And the worms ate into his brain.
After reading your references, yes, actually it does look like no one was injured by radiation. There is mention of a 70% higher risk of developing thyroid cancer and a 7% higher risk of leukemia and lower percentages for other cancers. To this level of risk I have to say "so what?". These increases in risk are far far lower than the increased risk of cancer just from being poor, or living down wind of a coal fired power plant, or being an airline pilot. Those are risks we all accept each day. This level of increased risk is laughable. You could probably more than offset this level of risk of death and injury by taking the bus instead of driving in a car for a month. Yes, the article mentions that there might be a lifetime risk of death of 2 to 12 onsite workers, which is immediately followed by a caution that the methodology used in calculating those numbers as a sum of risks for serial low level exposures is unproven and possibly suspect. It's also important to remember that the astronomical radiation levels reported during the event were from short lived isotopes of oxygen (oxygen-15 has a half-life of 122.24 seconds) and nitrogen (nitrogen-13 has a half-life of 9.965 minutes). Tritium with a half-life of 12.32 years was probably the most problematic, but given that it is hydrogen, it would have almost certainly diffused to negligible levels rapidly. Yes there was a release of some cesium-137 with a half-life of 30.17 years and strontium-90 with a half-life of 28.8 years, but we have a lot of experience with mitigating and dealing with the effect of these, to the point where the added risk is practically negligible compared to the other risks we face daily. I would expect the health effects of the panic, relocation, and losing one's home far outweighed any and all radiation risk. Or perhaps that was your point?
So far all death and heavy injuries were related to mechanical incidents, not radiations. Even your wiki article shows it to be so. There is a projected increase of cancer, but it is relatively low compared to other environmental effect (like living near a coal plant).
As for the evacuation it was a *precaution*. The fact is, the measured radiation were actually lower than in some part of the world where people live on regular basis, like people living in granitic area (for example france : macif central).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Pressed for time this morning... but may I suggest a commentary and analysis of the failure modes of Fukushima reactors and fuel pool#4?
Fukushima âoeMelt Throughsâ: Fact or Fiction?
Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool
Fukushima Fear Uncertainty and Doubt
The torus is a known weak point in any boiling reactor design. Triple-redundancy is our best approach right now. High pressure operation, what can you do?
Truth is, I never set out to 'defend' light water reactors at all. I got into this to push for a renaissance of molten salt designs. But seeing the level of hysteria and outright disinformation out there, I find myself compelled to speak out on behalf of those who have made this dangerous practice of mixing uranium and water routine and as safe as it can possibly be.
Some inspection at Fukushima has been carried by endoscopy and is still incomplete, but conditions observed do not appear to support full meltdown and especially melt-through. And about pool #4 catching fire... and #3's 'prompt criticality' ... those are straight from the Arne Gundersen playbook, which is a muddle of quotes and speculations, confused tenses and intentional failure to communicate whether he is fronting a speculation or citing observed fact, and a smarmy, deliberate dishonesty with which he holds on to those theories as contrary evidence becomes available. He misleads people. Gundersen's apocalyptic poop may litter the Internet forever, but it is hoped that his meal ticket as a doom-lecturer will be cancelled.
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