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.

Comments

Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[Boronx]

They need to find a way to keep stupid people from running the plants. Fukushima's problems were severe, but the meltdowns were all preventable. That's the dirty little secret that Japan doesn't talk about. Any competent nuclear plant operator could have shut down Fukushima safely.

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[Anonymous Coward]

A big part of the Fukushima's problems were cultural. A Japanese tendency towards social order and not questioning superiors let bad decisions worsen the situation.

Only reason it didn't go Chernobyl was the plant manager, Masao Yoshida, chose to disobey direct orders and continued to pump in sea water (his superiors told them to stop and pull out which would have led to a complete meltdown)

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[Paradise Pete]

And he died of cancer not too long after. "Unrelated," they (The power plant owners) say, but it hadn't been diagnosed before the incident.

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[Firethorn]

You do realize that it takes a while for cancer to be fatal, right? Generally years.

From the time my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer until her death was less than a month. She had had it for far longer, of course.

Most high level officials/employees in Japan are incredibly old.

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[AmiMoJo]

What really worries people in Japan is that previously undiscovered problems keep coming to light at existing plants, now that proper checks are being done. Any trust that existed has proven to have been misplaced.

To be fair, some of the issues could not have been discovered when the plants were built. Equipment to find fault lines like the ones discovered recently did not exist in the 1980s. That just makes it worse though, because it demonstrates how even now we are discovering new issues and improving our understanding of the environment.

When the consequences of an accident are so severe being 99% sure it's okay isn't enough to gamble on. Of around 450 commercial electricity producing reactors 6 have melted down catastrophically. That's a 1.33% failure rate, and doesn't include all the other serious problems at nuclear plants. It's no wonder nuclear plants can't get commercial insurance.

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[notunexpected]

Mistakes were made, but the operators did what they could with what they had. Those in the nuclear industry don’t fault their actions. They were heroic. The Fukushima reactors *were* shut down safely. It's an automatic event during a loss of offsite power, and for some plants, a seismic event. All the rods inserted into the all the cores. There's nothing an operator can do to stop it. But, there is still a massive amount of decay heat that must be removed long term, on the order of 100s of MWs initially, then falling over the course of several months. The diesel generators and decay heat removal systems all worked properly in order to remove this heat. The isolation condensers (IC) (unit 1 only), and reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC) systems on the other units started and began maintaining water level in the reactor pressure vessels (RPV) and removing decay heat. There are numerous high pressure (> 400 psi) and low pressure ( 400 psi) water supply systems. RCIC is a high pressure steam driven turbine relying on steam from the RPV and DC power (batteries) to supply power for the valves. The isolation condensers are passive natural circulation heat exchangers. These two systems are designed to be used for short term cooling until the RPV pressure can be lowered to allow the low pressure systems to take over. The low pressures systems require AC power from either offsite or the diesel generators. 41 minutes after the shutdown, the tsunamis took out the diesel generators and the DC switchgear. This is where things went south. The operators ended up with no way to cool the cores. There was little they could do to combat it. Batteries were pulled out of cars to power DC valves. A portable generator was use to power some instrumentation. A fire truck was used to try to maintain water levels until a hydrogen explosion destroy the connections. All the while these guys were taking massive doses of radiation and with the knowledge that their families were likely dead.

Re:Regulation, more regulation, only lawyers win

[thegarbz]

If you went to build anything these days with 1970s era thinking, 1970s era technology and 1970s era safety standards you would be denied commercial insurance.

The problem is not that the numbers look bad, its that the numbers are horrendously skewed compared with knowledge of nuclear power generation. It's like saying cars are incredible death traps and thus refusing to build new cars with crumple zones, seat belts, and air bags.

The process / power industry has evolved, the designs have evolved, but nothing has been built. So any statistics you use about x number of meltdowns out of x reactors basically need to be adjusted for 1970s era thinking. And we did a lot of mistakes back then across all industries.

I reject the notion that if you built a nuclear reactor now that is has a 1.33% of catastrophic meltdown over 40 years.

Who has a financial interest in this one then?

[Angeret]

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.

Re:Who has a financial interest in this one then?

[ShanghaiBill]

I can't think of a reason ANYONE would want the nuclear power generation industry to be less safe than it possibly could be

I can think of a reason: Perfect safety costs infinity dollars.
Real life involves tradeoffs. There are no perfect solutions.

Re:Who has a financial interest in this one then?

[Firethorn]

I can't think of a reason ANYONE would want the nuclear power generation industry to be less safe than it possibly could be,

How about this one: where the increased 'safety' would mostly be theater and cost so much that it would raise the expense of the already known to be far safer nuclear power plants to the point that people burn more coal, which is known to kill hundreds of thousands a year from mining accidents and pollution. That's before you get into global warming.

Germany's building coal power plants to replace their nuclear and satisfy additional demand(presumably at night).

Shrug, yawn. Have you read it?

[TheRealHocusLocus]

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

Use France as a prototype?

[jtara]

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.

Re:I don't know about the US government's stance..

[Immerman]

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.

two more reasons. It kills people, and it kills pe

[raymorris]

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.

Re:The real disaster

[NatasRevol]

How convenient it is to conflate the blame for mass suffering from the tsunami with the nuclear event.

Pretty convenient when you put the nuclear power plants right next to the sea and near a huge crustal rift.

not a single human has suffered any health impact due to radioactive releases from the accident

Holy shit are you unfactual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Also, the impact was minimized BECAUSE THEY EVACUATED THE SITE.

Downwind, it's a shit storm too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Again, minimized because of avoidance/restrictions.

Sounds like 'not a single human has suffered any health impact' to you?

Re:The real disaster

[garyisabusyguy]

The proposal was to make containment of radioactive material and avoiding off-site contamination in an accident a legally binding agreement
http://www-ns.iaea.org/downloa... (bottom of page 15)

The actual wording includes the term 'shall', which in a regulatory sense is a pretty absolute statement, it ends with the statement, "these objectives also shall be applied at existing plants"

So, any nuclear operator in the planet would be out of legal compliance if they have any existing nuclear plant that 'may' present a risk of losing containment... Yeah, that would cost a shit-ton of money for the industry to just tread water and would greatly INCREASE the dependence of coal energy in the short to mid term

Everybody seems to ignore that coal also releases Uranium into the atmosphere due to fly ash, this author estimates that annual release to be 1.069 PBq/yr
http://nuclearaustralia.blogsp...

This is far beyond estimates that "40 trillion becquerels released into Pacific ocean" had escaped from Fukushima
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ti...

Where is the shouting for coal to clean up its act?
Nuclear has become the whipping boy for the Green political party and Greenpeace, who in turn seem to be operating well in favor of the coal industry over the interests of the general population

Re:The real disaster

[garyisabusyguy]

The reality is that continued reliance on fossil fuel results in spreading uranium (through coal fly ash) and and CO2 (all fossil fuels) and none of the (so called) clean power sources like wind and solar can provide a steady baseline of energy

Nuclear is the method to get us through the next 50 years without continuing with to increase the production of greenhouse gases, fear mongering over nuclear pollution (uranium from coal fly ash produces more annually than the accidents that you mentions) only drives us deeper into dependence on fossil fuels

Is it s tough choice? Yes, but getting emotional over the scary work 'nuclear' does not make a better decision

Re:The real disaster

[Mr D from 63]

Try looking for real perspective than repeating FUD and misreading facts;

http://link.springer.com/artic...

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://blogs.scientificamerica...

http://news.discovery.com/eart...

http://www.insidescience.org/c...

Re:The real disaster

[quenda]

Sounds like 'not a single human has suffered any health impact' to you?

He means no direct impact. No radiation poisoning or excess cancers observed. The biggest health effect are psychological, e.g. people displaced from their homes.
In the context of 20,000 dead from the tsunami, and zero from radiation poisoning (there were 29 at Chernobyl) , the media is making way too much fuss about the radiation, don't you think?
    Two worker deaths from heart attack have been blamed on overheating while wearing radiation suits.
A big fear was thyroid cancer from iodine, but that has not materialised. Some models still predict a small increase in cases in future.

Re:The real disaster (no radiation injuries)

[Retired Spy]

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?