ECA Update: October 31, 2012
Published: Wed, 10/31/12
|
National Day of Remembrance honors nuclear weapons workers
WBIR.com
October 30, 2012
WBIR.com
October 30, 2012
The Cold War Patriots met in Oak Ridge Tuesday for the fourth annual National Day of the Remembrance.
The non-profit works with Congress every year to dedicate October 30th to remember the contributions of thousands of nuclear weapons workers, many of whom were civilians.
"Unfortunately when you work around plutonium, uranium, cadmium, heavy metals, a percentage of workers are always going to come down with certain illnesses that are work related. Many of those folks have actually given their lives, unintended perhaps, for the service of our country," said Tim LeRew of the Cold War Patriots
The Day of Remembrance began in 2009. Both Congressman Chuck Fleischmann and Jimmy Duncan were guest speakers at the event.
Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) Solicits Proposals for FY 2014 Funding
SERDP
October 25, 2012
SERDP released solicitations on October 25, 2012, seeking proposals for FY 2014 funding. Through a Federal Call for Proposals and a Broad Agency Announcement, funds are available through a competitive process to both Federal and private sector organizations to perform basic and applied research and advanced technology development.
Core SERDP projects vary in cost and duration, consistent with the scope of the work proposed. The Statements of Need (SON) referenced by this solicitation request proposals related to the SERDP program areas of Environmental Restoration (ER), Munitions Response (MR), Resource Conservation and Climate Change (RC), and Weapons Systems and Platforms (WP). For the Core solicitation, all pre-proposals are due to SERDP January 8, 2013.
The SERDP Exploratory Development (SEED) Solicitation provides funding opportunities for work that will investigate innovative environmental approaches that entail high technical risk or require supporting data to establish proof of concept. Funding is limited to not more than $150,000 and projects are approximately one year in duration. This year, SERDP is requesting SEED proposals for the Munitions Response (MR) and Weapons Systems and Platforms (WP) program areas. All SEED proposals are due March 12, 2013.
Webinar for the SERDP Solicitation: The SERDP Executive Director will conduct an online seminar "SERDP Funding Opportunities"on November 13, 2012, from 2:00-3:00 PM Eastern Time. This "how to play" briefing will offer valuable information for those interested in new SERDP funding opportunities. During the online seminar, participants may ask questions about the funding process, the current SERDP solicitation, and the proposal submission process. Pre-registration for this webinar is required. To register, visit https://cc.readytalk.com/r/k2xnbacyfs63. If you have difficulty registering, please contact the SERDP Office at partners@hgl.com or by telephone at 571-372-6384.
Detailed instructions and the SONs are available at www.serdp-estcp.org/Funding-Opportunities/SERDP-Solicitations.
DOE IG Report, Review of the Compromise of Security Test Materials at the Y-12 National Security Complex
DOE Inspector General
October 30, 2012
Following the July 28, 2012, security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12), the Department of Energy's (Department) Office of Health, Safety and Security (HSS) was tasked with conducting a comprehensive inspection of the site's security organization. The inspection, initiated on August 27, 2012, included both practical exercises and tests designed to evaluate the knowledge, skills and abilities of the site's Protective Force. In our continued monitoring of the situation, the Office of Inspector General initiated a special review into alleged compromise of the HSS inspection.
Our inquiry confirmed that the security knowledge test, including answers to the test questions, had been compromised and that it had been distributed in advance of the test to numerous WSI-Oak Ridge (WSI-OR) Captains, Lieutenants, and Security Police Officers (SPO), the very people whose knowledge was to have been evaluated as part of this process. Specifically, despite the fact that the document was labeled as a test and was initially distributed via encrypted email to individuals appointed as "Trusted Agents," WSI-OR officials treated the document as if it were a training aid, mentioned its receipt at daily Protective Force supervisor meetings, and widely distributed it to a variety of officers.
While we do not believe that they excuse actions taken in this case, we observed several opportunities to improve the integrity and transparency of the knowledge testing process. Although the Federal official who initially distributed the test took action to protect its contents by encrypting the email used to transmit it and sending it only to "Trusted Agents," the email did not contain specific instructions for protecting the test against compromise. The transmitting email only asked for comments on the applicability of the security questions to the Y-12 environment. The lack of detailed instructions is particularly relevant in that the Department Order regarding the designation of "Trusted Agents" does not specifically mention that the practice is also applicable to security knowledge tests. In addition, as with the recent intrusion at the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility described in our Special Report on Inquiry into the Security Breach at the National Nuclear Security Administration's Y-12 National Security Complex (DOE/IG-0868, August 2012), problems with the administration of the National Nuclear Security Administration's contractor governance system appeared to have had a role in the compromise of the test materials at Y-12, certainly, the assurance system did not prevent the compromise. Therefore, we made several recommendations that, if fully implemented, should help restore confidence in the integrity of the Department's protective forces.
Management did not agree that its implementation of the governance process was a contributory cause of the knowledge test compromise. We recognize that there was a breakdown of controls at the contractor level regarding the Trusted Agent concept. However, our analysis also led us to conclude that there was a more fundamental issue involving the lack of in-depth security knowledge and involvement of Federal oversight officials. Management agreed to implement our recommendations regarding the integrity of security testing at all sites.
Work on new security system at major Los Alamos nuke lab delayed after overruns
Associated Press
October 26, 2012
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A new $213 million security system designed to increase protection for the nation's nuclear bomb-building lab doesn't work, federal officials acknowledged Friday, the latest in a series of cost-overruns and questions about the integrity of work on projects aimed at upgrading the aging plutonium facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The lab and its oversight board confirmed there are major problems with the system, which has been under construction for seven years, after a memo from the National Nuclear Security Administration about the project surfaced.
"The performance on this project has been unacceptable and we will hold LANS fully accountable for all costs," said Joshua McConaha, a spokesman for the NNSA, the federal agency that oversees Los Alamos. "We take our responsibility to protect taxpayer dollars seriously. We will use all the tools available to correct the situation."
He said the agency is sending a team to the lab "to examine the financial and management issues that led us to this point. As always, protection of Category 1 material is our top priority, and we will ensure that the project is completed while maintaining full compliance with all protection requirements."
Lab spokesman Kevin Roark emphasized that security at the complex at what is called Technical Area 55 "is fully operational, very robust, and not adversely impacted by this completion delay."
Technical Area 55 is the only place in the country where nuclear weapon triggers can be made and includes a cement, bunker-like complex that houses two aging lab's where most of the lab's work with dangerous plutonium is done. Work to upgrade those facilities and make sure they are structurally able to withstand a major earthquake has also been plagued by cost overruns. The complex sits atop major fault lines.
This summer, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recently sent lab officials a report and letter saying that board staff had identified a number of deficiencies in calculations that concluded that any release from the lab's plutonium facility known as PF4 would be below the threshold deemed safe to the public. Board staff said its calculations indicate that the potential for a radiation release from an earthquake-induced fire could instead be more than four times higher than levels considered safe for public exposure.
Also this year, Congress put on hold for five years plans to build a new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility, whose cost estimates have ballooned from $500 million to nearly $6 billion over the past decade.
"It's a pretty big black-eye," Greg Mello, executive director of the watchdog Los Alamos Study Group, said of the latest revelations. He said Los Alamos National Security, which manages the lab, shouldn't be managing construction projects.
"They are supposed to be managing a science laboratory. It's a little like the fox guarding the henhouse. And there seem to be an optimism bias regarding project management across NNSA. Or you could call it a lack of sobriety.
Mello said NNSA needs to "adopt a more defensive and aggressive management style and get it into their contracts to make these contractors accountable because the enterprise can't continue with the level of incompetence.
"The notion that the security systems guarding plutonium at the nation's premier plutonium site are deficient and need compensatory measures has not just national but international ramifications. It makes it difficult for the United States to tell other countries that their security is inadequate."
WIPP Environmental Initiatives Earn DOE Recognition
DOE Press Release
October 29, 2012
CARLSBAD, N.M., October 29, 2012 -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently recognized four initiatives at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and more than 20 people for improvements in energy, water and fleet efficiency while reducing pollution and waste across the DOE complex.
"We're very pleased by the Department's Sustainability Awards," said Carlsbad Field Office, which has responsibility for WIPP and the National Transuranic (TRU) Program, Manager Joe Franco. "They recognize our commitment to innovation and using our resources wisely. I thank the teams and people who are very deserving of these honors."
The first award was for asphalt recycling during the reconstruction of WIPP's South Access Road. The WIPP management and operating contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership LLCs heritage company, Washington TRU Solutions LLC, chose to recycle the existing pavement for resurfacing of the road. The result was the reuse of 78,000 tons of asphalt.
Another award was for the development of the "Green Catalogue." WIPP team members performed an analysis of WIPP's current green procurement program to create the catalogue. This provided an easy-to-use single source for finding sustainable office supply products from any of the office supply vendors used at a federal facility.
A third award was for WIPP's improvement of the procurement card and purchase requisition programs. They were designed to ensure sustainable purchasing requirements continue to be met while increasing the number of sustainable products used at WIPP in the future.
Also recognized were WIPP's initiatives to enhance metals recycling, which increased from 28 metric tons in fiscal year (FY) 2010 to 103 metric tons in FY 2012.
The team of current and former CBFO, URS, WIPP and sub-contractors' employees honored included Bernie Rodriguez (posthumously), Danny Contreras (posthumously), Mel Balderrama, Bill Barnhart, Corey Burnett, Frank Bush, Hank Carey, Dona Cassingham, Ronnie Crockett, Shari Cullum, Kelli Egan, Dan Ferguson, Marty Gonzales, Debra Hicks, Lynn Johnson, Stewart Jones, Susan McCauslin, Judy McLemore, Helen Moore, Kendra Navarrete, Randy Pettigrew, Lonnie Riley, Jaren Singleton and Gene Stoudt. Also recognized was Owen Lofton from the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management Carlsbad Field Office.
WIPP is a DOE facility designed to safely isolate defense-related transuranic waste from people and the environment. Waste temporarily stored at sites around the country is shipped to WIPP and permanently disposed in rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation 2,150 feet below the surface. WIPP, which began waste disposal operations in 1999, is located 26 miles outside of Carlsbad, N.M.
Nuclear Plants Get Through the Storm With Little Trouble
Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times Green Blog
October 30, 2012
The nuclear reactors in Sandy's path mostly handled the storm well - better than other parts of the region's electric system.
But one reactor, on the New Jersey coast, declared a low-level emergency because rising water threatened to submerge pumps it uses to pull in cooling water.
That plant, Oyster Creek, in Toms River, about 60 miles east of Philadelphia, had shut a week earlier for refueling, but still had cooling requirements, especially for its spent fuel pool, where fuel used decades ago is stored; that fuel must be kept submerged, and continues to generate waste heat.
Oyster Creek declared an alert, the second lowest on the four-step emergency scale established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on Monday night. If the operators had been forced to turn off the water-intake pumps, they might have had to use fire hoses to add water to the pool, to make up for evaporation as it heated up.
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, without any cooling, the pool would have taken about 25 hours to reach the boiling point, giving the operators time to implement an alternate cooling method.
Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission, said that the operators of the plant, which is owned by Exelon, had moved a portable pump into the threatened building in case the regular pump had been submerged, but they had not had to use it. In a statement, David Tillman, a spokesman for Exelon, the plant's owner, said that no water had flooded into the plant and that "all safety and backup systems operated fully and reliably."
The reactor's operators hoped to exit the "alert" status on Tuesday.
The number of alerts declared at plants around the country is usually a handful a year. According to the N.R.C. definition, an alert means "events are in process or have occurred which involve an actual or potential substantial degradation of the level of safety of the plant."Radiation releases, if any, are expected to be a small fraction of the level that would require action offsite, according to the definition.
In Buchanan, N.Y., Indian Point 3 shut down at 10:41 on Monday night because of a disturbance on the high-voltage grid, but Indian Point 2 continued running. Upstate, Nine Mile Point 1 automatically shut down when the flow of power into the plant failed; Nine Mile Point 2 also felt the disturbance but its emergency diesel generators started up and it kept running, Mr. Sheehan said. Nuclear plants deliver huge quantities of electricity to the grid, but they run some of their equipment on power drawn from the grid, so that if they shut down suddenly, their equipment is still powered.
Three reactors reduced power, partly at the urging of the regional grid operators, who said that if one of the plants had failed suddenly at full power, the loss would destabilize the system. Those were Millstone 3, in Waterford, Conn., and Limerick 1 and 2, in the Pennsylvania town of the same name, northwest of Philadelphia.
Some reactors also reported that some of their emergency sirens had been knocked out by the storm.
The NRC said it would continue to monitor the affected plants.
Editorial: Obama, Romney pander on U.S. nuclear waste
The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board
October 27, 2012
Exposure to nuclear waste is dangerous. Exposure to hypocrisy over nuclear waste should also be avoided.
That's a tough challenge in the current race for the White House. Both President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney say they support a new generation of nuclear power plants. But both have muddled plans on what to do with the high-level nuclear waste from those plants and waste from an older generation of reactors.
These muddled positions are no accident. They have everything to do with politics - namely, Nevada's six electoral votes that are up for grabs on Nov. 6.
Since 1987, Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been the federal government's leading candidate for a high-level nuclear waste repository. Yet despite the $10 billion spent on the project, the Yucca Mountain repository is unlikely to open in 2017, just as it failed to open in 1998, the original deadline. And it certainly won't open anytime in the future if Obama or Romney have anything to do with it.
Since becoming president, Obama has attempted to kill the Yucca Mountain project, as he promised to do while on the campaign trail in 2008. Obama's Energy Department has sought to withdraw its application for license on the project. And Obama has appointed Allison Macfarlane, a critic of Yucca Mountain, to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
No doubt, studies have found technical and engineering challenges with Yucca Mountain. Water moves through this site's underground geology quicker than scientists originally thought.
That means that storage of waste would have to be carefully engineered to avoid groundwater contamination.
But that is not the reason Yucca Mountain is facing a near-death experience. Even the Government Accountability Office has concluded that political, not technical, hurdles have stalled this project. The biggest of these is Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada. Reid, still angry that Congress teamed up against Nevada to designate Yucca Mountain as the nation's waste repository in 1987, is determined to kill the project and has an ally in Obama.
It would be one thing if Reid and Obama were philosophically opposed to nuclear power. They are not. Both say they support a new generation of nuclear power plants. Yet they have yet to outline a long-term plan for safely storing waste from these plants, and more ominously, highly toxic waste from the nation's nuclear weapons plants.
Yes, dry cask storage will safely handle used fuel rods for a century. But should utilities embark on another wave of nuclear plant construction with no firm plan for storing more waste? Already, more than 62,000 metric tons of used fuel rods have accumulated statewide, including some now stored at the closed Rancho Seco plant in Sacramento County.
You might think Romney, as a supporter of nuclear power, would point out the contradictions of Obama's policy. But he seems as interested in pandering for Nevada votes as the president. In last October's primary debate, Romney argued that states should be allowed to decide if they wanted to host a nuclear waste repository. "I think the people of Nevada ought to have the final say," he said.
Good luck, Mr. Romney. If you left the decision to the states, the nation's next nuclear waste repository would be built on ... Mars.
The Bee's past stands
"Does the Sacramento region truly feel safer by leaving Rancho Seco's nuclear rods here for thousands of years? In a logical weighing of risks, Yucca Mountain would prevail."
- July 9, 2002
Finland Builds Nuclear Dump at Island as Obama, Merkel Lag
Torsten Fagerholm, Bloomberg News
October 30, 2012
Olkiluoto is different from other idyllic islands off Finland's west coast. Instead of summer cottages where Finns sunbathe and enjoy saunas under tall birch and pine trees, this is where the nation will store its most toxic nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years.
When Posiva Oy's Onkalo site opens in 2020, 420 meters (1,378 feet) below ground, it will be the world's first final store for spent atomic fuel, which the World Nuclear Association estimates at 270,000 metric tons, growing by about 4 percent a year. U.S. President Barack Obama withdrew support in 2009 for a facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, leaving the country without a permanent repository plan. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who seeks to exit nuclear power by 2022, is facing political gridlock ahead of a decision on storage in a salt cave 800 meters below the town of Gorleben.
Posiva President Reijo Sundell sees the project as protecting the next generation from the by-products of generating the power that meets about a quarter of Finland's demand, the 64-year-old said as he showed pictures of his five grandchildren.
"It's been a 42-year marathon," Sundell said of the site built in 1.6 billion year-old bedrock. "Implementing final storage of nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technical one and we realize that doing nothing isn't the answer," he said on Sept. 25, displaying a layout of the site near the 2.8 mile tunnel entrance.
Soviet Imports
Finland embraced nuclear power in the 1970s to cut its dependence on imports from the Soviet Union. Lacking the oil and hydropower supplies of neighbors such as Russia and Norway, the country uses atomic energy to supply power to its energy- intensive export industries.
The contribution to the economy from such industries, including pulp production, chemicals and basic metals, is twice the European average, according to the International Energy Agency.
Since the nuclear power use began, Fortum Oyj (FUM1V) and Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, Posiva's owners and operators of the nationâ€(TM)s four reactors, have been planning storage for the waste.
The European Union last year required every member state to comply with the bloc's new legislation on final nuclear waste storage by August 2013 and to produce detailed plans, cost estimates and time frames by 2015.
It will cost about 10 billion euros ($13 billion) to close Finland's reactors and store all the waste, Jorma Aurela, senior energy engineer at the country's economy ministry, said in an interview in Helsinki.
Black Pellets
Posiva plans to store 12,000 tons of radioactive fuel, which resembles small black pellets stacked into metal tubes, from seven reactors and will spend the next two years testing water flows and durability. Engineers will then spend five years from 2014 blasting away even more bedrock and open the site in 2020.
Olkiluoto also hosts a lone wind turbine 65 meters high and two nuclear reactors which supply 17 percent of Finland's power use. A third atomic unit, which will be the world's biggest, is under construction and a fourth is planned.
Swirling Tunnel
"If something happens to the iron cast and copper canister that surrounds the fuel, as well as the bentonite clay buffer, then we're in trouble," Janne Laihonen, a Posiva geologist, said as he chauffeured visitors in a minivan through the swirling tunnel into the waste facility. "The worst case scenario is that radioactivity seeps out and contaminates the ground water," he said.
At the end of the tunnel stand half a dozen vertical shafts, each five feet wide, where waste capsules will be stored. The temperature in the cavern is 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) and the ground is slippery and muddy. The only sound is the humming of power generators that provide artificial light. The air smells of firecrackers.
The bedrock, 75 percent gray gneiss and 25 percent granite, has fractured zones with seeping water.
"We must avoid them, which is a big challenge. A little water flow, but not too much, is ok since the bentonite requires humidity to swell," Laihonen said.
No Guards
After a few decades of interim storage in pools adjacent to reactors to cool down after the final reactor has shut, the spent fuel will be encapsulated and sealed away and the tunnels filled up with bentonite clay blocks. The site will be left without guards or security.
"We want to leave the rock in the same condition as it was when we came," Posiva's Sundell said. "It's closed and hidden in the forest. No marks will be left on the surface."
While Republicans in the U.S. Congress are pressing the Obama administration to resume work on the Yucca Mountain disposal site, 161 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Las Vegas, the plan is opposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, set up by Obama after he abandoned plans for Yucca, urged "prompt efforts"to develop at least one consolidated storage facility, according to a report published on Jan. 26.
"The Energy Department is working on a plan based on the Blue Ribbon Commission's recommendations,"the Washington-based agency said Oct. 23 in an e-mailed statement.
$30 Billion
As the federal government has collected more than $30 billion in payments and interest for the storage, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is using lawsuits to force the administration to act. The group, based in Washington, expects Congress to take on the issue after the November presidential elections by writing legislation that would start the process for picking a permanent storage site, Rob Thormeyer, a spokesman, said by phone on Oct. 23.
German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier said it's "desirable and possible that Germany finds a consensus" across party-lines on identifying a permanent site to store high-level nuclear waste, his ministry said in an Oct. 25 statement.
Altmaier called for a "speedy" process, after the opposition earlier this month rejected his draft bill to enable a new search for a nuclear waste site that, while open to alternatives beyond Gorleben, doesn't exclude the site in Lower Saxony. A previous government of Social Democrats and Greens blocked research at Gorleben for 10 years through 2010.
Back in Finland, Onkalo "offers a good example that permanent disposal solutions can be found,"International Atomic Energy Agency's Director General Yukiya Amano told reporters when he visited the site in August. "The disposal site is not theory, but a fact."
 |
|
More Information |
|
To help ensure that you receive all email with images correctly displayed, please add ecabulletin@aweber.com to your address book or contact list |
|
ECA Board
Election Notice
ECA Executive Committee elections will be held on December 12, 2012.
If you would like to nominate someone or if you are interested in running for a position, please contact Bob Thompson (BThompson@ci.richland.wa.us), Amy Fitzgerald (AFitzgerald@cortn.org), or Pam Brown-Larsen (PBrown@ci.richland.wa.us).
Current ECA Board Nominations
Chair: Mayor Tom Beehan, Oak Ridge
Vice Chair: Council Member Chuck Smith, Aiken County
Secretary: Nominee needed
Treasurer: County Councilor Fran Berting, Los Alamos |