Preemptory Blue Ribbon National Commission on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

June 22: It is 1.7 trillion dollars...so that is another 140 nuclear plant for a total of 340 nuclear plants.

What are we talking about, 70% of the electricity we use in the USA? 

June 21: 

So we spent a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000) on Iraq…we and the world got nothing out of it. Ok, 5 $billion per new nuclear plant. We could build 200 standard size nuclear plants with the best of technology,  with the cost of the Iraq war not including Afghanistan. I get it, the war is like a giant public works program except we got to kill 100,000s of people. It a is public works and jobs program without the ability to enjoy the fruits of our labor and taxes.

We could have shut down our obsolete operating nuclear plants while doubling the capacity of nuclear sector. Basically all our economy would have to pay for is the fuel and upkeep of the new plants for the next 60 years...   

June 16: Mr Meyer has remove his entry from his webs site?

Mr Meyers is saying these plants have a set budget for the operations. If they are spending money on Fukushima, they are withholding funds from training for the same budget.

President Obama and VP Biden,  thi is a cry for help deep within the nuclear industry for a National Commission on the NRC:  

Initial Licensed Operator Exams - Lowest Pass Rate in Five Years - INPO Reveals Shortcomings

Submitted by NUCBIZ on June 14, 2014 - 08:08

By Bob Meyer

Information is available from the NRC website for all the numbers. The industry on the whole is failing on training. Fukushima rigor does not apply in training, a predicted outcome by PROS that training would suffer, hence plant performance will decline. Fukushima resource requirements make other areas of the nuclear model weaker.

INPO/NRC meeting I revealed the disaster of the Initial Licensed Operator Training Programs and the training programs endevour to conform to the NRC inconsitent regional requirements. My exposé stated that as an industry, we are not doing well managing our resources. High failure rates, poor programs, lesson plans out of date, line that does not have the manpower to see an initial class through. These are not new concerns. It is often a revelation to many managers, INPO and the NRC that the Initial Licensed Operator classes are performed on back shift, midnights. An often asked question, "How would you perform going to college on the midnight shift?" INPO and the NRC staff appear to be disconnected. If you have a dual unit plant, you should be required to have a dual unit simualtor (DC Cook). Single units need two simluators to keep trianing programs from double bunking. Simulator training is the choke point.

The new document issued by INPO on June 12, 2014 concerning deficiencies in training clearly shoots INPO in the foot. Ineffective in ensuring a 10CFR50.120 requirement is met, the systematic approach to training breakdown, not following training procedures (T.S. Violation). This is the best job INPO has done in delineating short comings for the second time. As I see it INPO is in noncompliance with the 2012 Memorandum of Understanding with the NRC. This Memorandum allows the NRC to pass off regulatory oversight to INPO (Board of Directors all Industry CEOs or equiv.) may be a big mistake for nuclear safety.

Fukushima, Chernobyl, and TMI happened for different reasons, but they all have one thing in common.

This article does not reflect the views of the Professional Reactor Operator Society. This is an opinion.

 Show me one issue that would show how corrupts the NRC is…I would point to how the NRC didn’t do a public operability determination on the Palisades primary coolant pump.

It is risk perspectives, it makes all rules plastic.

June 12 NYT blog: Lochbaum offered this reaction:

First, the good news. The indications of elevated tritium levels strongly suggest a leak of radioactively contaminated water from Indian Point (it’s not irrefutable evidence of an ongoing or recent leak since it could be past leakage finally reaching the monitoring wells due to recent rainfall.) This is good news in the sense that all the monitoring wells are fairly recent additions to the site. More than 12 years ago, leakage would either not have been detected or only detected after people started dying, a la Love Canal. So, strange as it seems, awareness is a good thing. It provides time to implement measures to protect people and the environment.

Turning to the bad news, the NRC needs to get off the bench and into the regulating game. All the rhetoric about 20,000 picocuries per liter and neighbors drinking two quarts a day for a year is totally irrelevant.

N.R.C.’s regulations do not allow a drop of radioactively contaminated water to leave Indian Point except via monitored and controlled pathways. Even if the monitoring wells constituted a monitored pathway (which they don’t despite the name), it’s not a controlled pathway. Thus, N.R.C.’s regulations are being violated. But N.R.C. does not enforce those regulations. N.R.C. could impose a fine of $130,000 per day. That would give Entergy ample incentive to quickly find the leak (and stop the fine tally) and to implement steps to prevent future leaks (and future fines).

But nooooo. The N.R.C. instead invoked the “no blood, no foul” rule and becomes Entergy’s ally in allowing ongoing leaks (and ongoing crimes.)

The regulations were adopted following a public rulemaking process. That process allowed the public to chime in if the proposed regulations seemed too tame. The process allowed owners to chime in if the proposed regulations seemed too onerous. The final regulations adopted by the N.R.C. by definition became Goldilocks standards, neither too harsh nor too lean.

The regulations are essentially three-way contracts between the N.R.C., plant owners, and the public. The regulations protect owners from the N.R.C. requiring more stringent, and more costly, measures. The regulations should protect the public from the N.R.C. accepting less than compliance with the regulations.

But the N.R.C. is breaching its contract with the public around Indisn Point. It is allowing Entergy to leak radioactively contaminated water from Indoan Point as long as that leakage dies not kill people.

The N.R.C. should enforce its regulations or change its name to N.C. For the R in N.R.C. stands for Regulatory and the N.R.C. needs to do something to deserve such labeling or the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] should get after them for false advertising.

I documented the regulations the N.R.C. had established but the ignored in my September 2010 report Regulatory Roulette.

Originally posted on 6/9

(I am always in a  continuing process to update this entry and fix my errors. I will cue you into I changed something.)

June 13: This would be the accident I’d be concerned about with large scale popping of pins and freeing up large amounts of reactivity. This kind of accident would emerge within a few seconds. We’d still have the rods out and supplying feed water to the core. Many fuel pellets would be exposed to the water and moderator...would be freed from the cladding. You would have that cascade accident with one assembly after another being damaged. We would have a tremendous insertion of reactivity...the end result would be a steam explosion.(hyperbole) It might have enough energy to blow off the reactor head, remember the exploding Fukushima plants...then it would disperse fuel all over the local environments.   

SL-1

You should talk to me about the Vermont Yankee event I exposed with their one “pin”  in core steam explosion. It tore open the cladding of one pin and dispersed pellets into the coolant. Coolant leaked into the pin surrounding the fuel pellets, they pulled a rod nearby...which caused the fuel pellets to overheat and created the opportunity of a nuclear reactivity steam explosion.   

Ok, this is the smart question...this is the cover-up.

Salem 2 PCP potential event

(fixed this up a bit on 6/11)You notice the pump seizure with a bolt is an issue with Salem and threatening fuel damage, while a 5 by 12 inch impeller blade, with the lost blade being an inch thick, is not analysed as pump seizure stoppage accident at Palisades. The disparity between these two plant's accident analysis are shocking.

Fuel assembly:

So a fourth of the water flow in the core quickly stops...hot spot and areas where there is higher local power levers begin to quickly heat up. May be one fuel pin burst open, may be 10 pins burst open, may be a whole fuel assembly's pins burst open... You could consider any fuel pellet coming in contact with coolant water as super moderated and being able to quickly generate a lot more power and heat than normal at normal power operations. If don’t think it would take a lot of fuel pellets to put out so much power and heat only steam and water vapor would remain in the assembly. So that would cause addition pins to pop. Say the majority of pins popped in a assembly, the pins would be scrambled in the assembly, the fuel pellets would congregate at the bottom of the assembly and clog up the flow. Does those broken fuel pellets at the bottom of the assembly end with in a local "steam explosion", then bend and damage the assembly through the tremendous heat and power being produced there? Is there enough energy in the steam and vapor to seriously damage the neighbor assembly?  It is the beginning of a cascaded where pins in another neighbor assembly start to pop and damage the assemble, then another, then another. In this process we might not have scrammed yet.

How the assemblies are nestled together:

May be one, two or three assemblies get destroyed, maybe a rod can’t get all the way in the core...but the nuclear reaction stop. diverse cooling to the core is never threatened. What emergency classification would you be in? It would telegraph to outsider how serous the accident is. There is going to be a tremendous amount of freed radioactivity in the core if just one assemble gets destroy...lots if only one or two pins are destroyed. It is going to be a nasty cleanup of the core and it would be questionable if it is worth the price of a cleanup. But there would be little off plant release of radiation.

How do you think the outsiders would portray this? The antinukes would say there was a core meltdown. The NRC and plant would say they were always safe. This is just normal and expected. The UFSAR and plant licencing allows this. Can you imagine the media and political debate out of this?

Thanks NEI. Fuel pins or rods:

See, basically risk perspective only protects us from a severe core melt...this was mostly a small partial core meltdown with diverse core cooling always available. That is what they mean when they say its safe...safe mean less than severe core meltdown and it wouldn’t happen very often. I saying the political and public fallout would be severe, industry threatening...but it is all really a small partial meltdown. See how the nuclear industry doesn’t protect themselves from such a close near death experience and risk traumatizing a significant segment of our population. One, two, or three destroyed assemblies would be defined a safe and acceptable...but the outsiders would think you are bsing them on a meltdown and loss of another plant.

I am just saying this would be a severely painful and damaging event for the nation... but the NRC treats a partial core meltdown as a walk in the park in their analysis. Risk perspective does not capture public and political risk...it just looks at not having a severe core melt and limiting its off site release.  Risk perspectives should carry public credibility or political fallout and limiting a severe core melt and resultant unacceptable off site doses. All this is a profit!  

The problem is, most media outlets don’t have the money to hire nuclear expert reporters. There just is not a big audience for this. So they have to depend on a very limited group of experts for advice.  

You might have a good story...the reporter has no idea what you are talking about. The nukes don’t talk, they only have a limited amount of pro safety people. So they don’t know what you are talking about...that defaults into looking for a so called credentialed experts. Who says they know what their talking about, even if they got a engineering degree or PhD? That what their lawyers need. If they still don’t get it...the safest thing is to drop the story. They are always inclined to drop the story. More than not today, news is entertainment driving circulation...it is unrelated to what information you really need about the world today.  

So lets see, I sent an e-mails to Senator Shaheen, Senator Markey, President Obama and VP Biden Enformable...

How do you contact the NYT with a story idea?

June 10: Bam...got the managing editor of the NYT Mr. Baquet on my side?

I know, just throwing a pebble in a ocean's worth of internet data...

(Shit…I made a spelling or word mistake to the president and VP :) Was the word I was looking for preemptory or peremptory. I hate English, but it is the only language I know? I think I got it right. I was hoping I was going to look smarter than I am.).

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Washington Post...

Dear Senator Shaheen, 
 

To Sarah_Holmes@shaheen.senate.gov

 

Today at 9:27 PM

 

Dear Senator Shaheen,

 

Could I get your help with asking president Obama to set up a “Preemptory Blue Ribbon National Commission on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? We had a set of recent very troubling events in the nuclear industry...Millstone’s loss of all outside electricity being one of them among others. Please look over my blog at your convenience with other recent events.

http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/2014/06/preemptory-blue-ribbon-national.html

“Preemptory Blue Ribbon National Commission on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?

“Think, if they threw a blue ribbon commission at the anomalies in the off shore oil well industry before Deepwater, or Fukushima? Say the president throws five presidential blue ribbon commissions at the world, what would we discovered and learn about in our greater world just by mistake, with only one blue ribbon commission really being productive in preventing another Deep Water Horizon type accident. Wouldn’t it be worth our waste of treasure? You are dam lucky I am not president.”

This below is e-mail I sent to president Obama.

Dear President Obama,

This is about the dysfunction in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and my worry about the nuclear industry. I have actually spent countless hours talking with NRC inspectors and their bosses. I got many documents submitted on the NRC Adams wed site and have been involved in many NRC internal processes (10 CFR 20: 2.206). I have been watching and monitoring these guys for decades. Years ago I was a worked at nuclear plant and was a licensed operator. I was in Navy between 1974 and 1980...I served on the experimental fast attack nuclear submarine the USS Lipscomb SSN 685.

I am nether pro or antinuke...I am a transparency nut. All I want to see is honesty and truth. I need no confidentiality or anonymity of any kind.

I know two NRC commissioner might be stepping down in the next few months...got a huge issue with commissioners Apostolakis.

We need a reset with the NRC. I am asking for a preemptory presidential blue ribbon national Commission on the NRC. I got a lot of recent industry issues written up on my blog...we are in serious trouble.

Call me anytime?

Sincerely,
 

Mike Mulligan
Hinsdale, HN
16033368320

National Commission On the Role of Nuclear Power in the United State

Report to the President

National Commission on the Adequacy of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Future of the Nuclear Power Industry

Then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2007 that the five-member NRC had become "captive of the industries that it regulates" and Joe Biden indicated he had absolutely no confidence in the agency

 

What the hell happened to these guys: Joe Biden in the Keene Sentinel in 2007 just a few miles from my home?

“What kind of confidence do you have on the regulatory capacity of the NRC (Keene Sentinel reporter)? “NONE NONE (candidate Biden).”

“I have been the biggest nemesis when I was on there for the NRC”

“It’s like getting homed, ah, coming into a small town playing at basketball championship with the local referees.” 

“On that NRC, there would be watch dogs, not house dogs. There would watch dogs.”

“I would restaff the NRC differently. “

“I would reconstitute the NRC.”

“If they were fundamentally reconstituting the plant”  

Your choice, you can have the presidential report before the debilitating accident or after the accident?

The DeepWater Horizon Presidentual commission.

National Commission On the Role of Nuclear Power in the United States

Report to the President

National Commission on the Adequacy of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Future of the Nuclear Power Industry.

Here is my pitch to President Obama on throwing a full scale “Presidential Blue Ribbon Commission” (like Challenger, Columbia and Deepwater Horizon) on the NRC and nuclear industry. From soup to nuts:
(If he only had the guts)

Dear President Obama,

“OK, this link is just for general interest, or is it? Check out for yourself if this shutdown is on the internet anywhere. The NRC PR guy was the only one allowed to talk to me…this wasn’t how I discovered it. She talked about a sump leak rate who took them out. They wouldn’t tell me what the leak rate was and the limits. I utterly hate talking to these PR guys, but I’ve learned to put an artificial polite face on it now and a smile! You made me just like the rest you 

Secret Cooper Nuclear Related related shutdown

I am the designated crazy guy with poor communication skills in this, I mean no harm.

I think a presidential code of ethics is a great idea for people in and around the NRC….a Obama edict. If you got Obama’s ears, why don’t you throw in a presidential blue ribbon commission on the nuclear industry and especially the NRC?

Mark my idiot words; we are going to be dealing with this in the nuclear industry.

“The hazard analysis requirement stipulates the analysis must be appropriate for the complexity of the operation, and the hazards identified from the analysis must then be managed.( pg 82)”

Think, if they threw a blue ribbon commission at the anomalies in the off shore oil well industry before Deepwater, or Fukushima? Say the president throws five presidential blue ribbon commissions at the world, what would we discovered and learn about in our greater world just by mistake, with only one blue ribbon commission really being productive in preventing another Deep Water Horizon type accident. Wouldn’t it be worth our waste of treasure? You are dam lucky I am not president.

Let me paint you a crazy man’s picture in a couple of e-mails…”

Yep, the agency would be more credible if the board had anti nukes and safety activist on the board or higher. Constructive antis not obstructionist.

Ok. you got to get rid of these academic types as commissioners with no direct nuclear plant experience. These academic people are invaluable, but they have the wrong skill sets and experience base for this kind of work.

I’d separate the Nuclear Power (NPE) enterprise from everything else. I put the NPE under the executive branch…but I won’t wet my pants if I can’t get my way. You got to get this this away from the senators and congressman.

I’d put the new gov agency under a single agency head or CEO thingy. Maybe a board of director thing under the agency head. All these guys would have deep NPE roots, maybe utility Ceos, nuclear power fleet Vps and union executives overseeing their plants with direct experience. I don’t care if you load up the board with utility executive guys…but you need one union guy in there to keep everyone straight. Exactly, get senior engineers on the board with direct nuclear experience. If it is construction time, a construction industry CEO and engineer on the board.

Maybe a advisory board or department to get the government rules thing right.

I’d swear to god, I’d love a experience politician on the board or even in the agency head spot.

What is the NTSB chairwomen up to today?

I mean, if you are thinking about an industry reset? And the rebuild?

mike

Regulatory Capture

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

According to Frank N. von Hippel, despite the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has often been too timid in ensuring that America's 104 commercial reactors are operated safely:

Nuclear power is a textbook example of the problem of "regulatory capture"—in which an industry gains control of an agency meant to regulate it. Regulatory capture can be countered only by vigorous public scrutiny and Congressional oversight, but in the 32 years since Three Mile Island, interest in nuclear regulation has declined precipitously.[

Then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2007 that the five-member NRC had become "captive of the industries that it regulates" and Joe Biden indicated he had absolutely no confidence in the agency.

The NRC has given a license to "every single reactor requesting one", according Greenpeace USA nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio to refer to the agency approval process as a "rubber stamp".[55] In Vermont, ten days after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japan's Daiichi plant in Fukushima, the NRC approved a 20-year extension for the license of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, although the Vermont state legislature had voted overwhelmingly to deny such an extension.[55][56] The Vermont plant uses the same GE Mark 1 reactor design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant.[55] The plant had been found to be leaking radioactive materials through a network of underground pipes, which Entergy, the company running the plant, had denied under oath even existed. Representative Tony Klein, who chaired the Vermont House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said that when he asked the NRC about the pipes at a hearing in 2009, the NRC didn't know about their existence, much less that they were leaking.[55] On March 17, 2011, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a study critical of the NRC's 2010 performance as a regulator. The UCS said that through the years, it had found the NRC's enforcement of safety rules has not been "timely, consistent, or effective" and it cited 14 "near-misses" at U.S. plants in 2010 alone.[57] Tyson Slocum, an energy expert at Public Citizen said the nuclear industry has "embedded itself in the political establishment" through "reliable friends from George Bush to Barack Obama", that the government "has really just become cheerleaders for the industry."

There have also been instances of a revolving door. Jeffrey Merrifield, who was on the NRC from 1997 to 2008 and was appointed by presidents Clinton and Bush, left the NRC to take an executive position at The Shaw Group,[55] which has a nuclear division regulated by the NRC.

A year-long Associated Press (AP) investigation showed that the NRC, working with the industry, has relaxed regulations so that aging reactors can remain in operation.[59] The AP found that wear and tear of plants, such as clogged lines, cracked parts, leaky seals, rust and other deterioration resulted in 26 alerts about emerging safety problems and may have been a factor in 113 of the 226 alerts issued by the NRC between 2005 and June 2011.[59] The NRC repeatedly granted the industry permission to delay repairs and problems often grew worse before they were fixed.

Bottom line, why I do this. If the big accident comes, I am betting on it, I going to be able say I did 1000 times  more stuff than any ordinary person. I am still go to terrible regret or be guilty I didn’t do enough to stop it though.