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."

Re:Coal

[HarrySquatter]

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

Figures

[flaming error]

Numberous aviation accidents between the years 1905 and 2009 may indicate the FAA is not doing it's job, either.

Re:Figures

[jo_ham]

And since this submission is from mdsolar, I think we must take issue with the number of people who have died as a result of exposure to the sun between the years 1905 and 2009.

Or the number of people dying while digging coal and oil out of the ground.

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.

Re:Coal

[HarrySquatter]

It's like saying there's more cyanide in ocean water than in a glass of cyanide, because there's more cyanide collectively in the ocean as a whole.

Huh?

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

That sounds nothing like your analogy at all.

Re:Coal

[nomadic]

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

I saw that and found it meaningless, and certainly no "clarification" for the purposes of this thread; I would hope that shielded nuclear waste would release less radiation into the environment than unshielded coal ash. The point remains that while coal plants may produce more radiation per unit of energy created than nuclear plants, "ounce for ounce" coal ash is less radioactive than nuclear waste.

Okay, but what does it mean?

[Mr Otobor]

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this... for instance:

at least 102 reactor units are now documented to have had recurring radioactive leaks into groundwater from 1963 through February 2009.

(which is a broken link from the linked article/page)

So the NRC is a 50 year epic fail? That leaks are increasing? Increasing... post-Regan/post-90's/post-40-year-old-reactors? No implied pattern? Caused by what... maintenance failures? Expected wear? Unexpected wear? Lack of oversight?

Sorry, I just tend to take a somewhat guarded view to statements that amount to, "It's all f*cked up!" and not much more.

Divide by zero error

[dbIII]

Think about it - background radiation is always supposed to be higher than a properly shielded radiation source.
You've been conned by a divide by zero error.

Re:Okay, but what does it mean?

[TheKidWho]

It's mdsolar, he sells solar panels online and regularly posts these anti-nuclear FUD tinged posts.

You do the math.

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.

Nuke gets criticised - misdirect to coal

[dbIII]

Don't let him drag you down with the bullshit - people have been raving about nuclear material coming out of the stacks for 40 years but nobody has been able to find anything yet despite it only being a matter of setting up an absorbion spectrometer to look at the flue gas.
The whole misdirection to coal thing is a trick and a waste of time anyway. We don't want dangerous power plants of any kind when we can have well regulated ones.
Nuclear has to keep it's promises and argue on it's own merits. This sort of argument of "Billy hit Sally and got away with it so why are you picking on me?" should have been left in the playground instead of being taken up by ill-informed adults.
It's not just established energy sources such as coal that an experimental technology such as nuclear has to compete against, it's also all of the other alternative energies.

Re:Environmental effects

[Areyoukiddingme]

They're dams, not damns, and bypass structures to allow fish to pass dams have been around since the 17th century. They're called fish ladders, and there are dozens of them in the United States, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. There's one under construction in Montana right now.

As for large scale solar and wind installations, they're connected to the grid the exact same way a nuclear power plant is: a high voltage transmission line or two. It's not like the nuclear power plant is going to be built inside the city it services. It will be built in a remote location, the same as any other power plant.

Environmentalists SAY they want the whole world to live in straw houses and wear hair shirts and never go further from their birthplace than they can walk. Of course the ones we can actually hear say this are the ones who live hundreds of miles from their birthplace in a typical middle class suburb and are using a computer, one of mankind's pinnacles of techno-industrial achievement, to talk to us. Their protests ring rather hollow.