Three Mile Island - 40 years on

ON THE MORNING OF 28 MARCH 1979, pumps feeding water into the steam generator at Three Mile Island’s No.2 (TMI-2) nuclear reactor near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA, failed. Emergency shutdown systems appeared to have worked correctly - but they hadn’t.

Like all nuclear power plants, TMI-2 used the heat energy produced by nuclear fission reactions to turn water into steam. Just like a power station burning coal or gas, the steam pressure then turns a turbine that spins the electrical generator. However, nuclear fission doesn’t just generate energy. It also produces dangerous waste products like radioactive caesium, iodine, strontium and plutonium. Some remain highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.

Unlike the later disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, a major release of radioactivity was avoided at TMI-2 - but only just. For 16 hours, plant operators struggled to make sense of their instrument readings. A faulty control panel meant they didn’t realise that a safety valve had jammed open, allowing coolant to escape and the reactor core temperature to soar.

By the time they had worked out what was wrong, half of the uranium fuel had melted. The damaged TMI-2 unit had to be permanently closed. It took 14 years and $1 billion to decontaminate the plant by removing two million gallons of radioactive water and putting over a hundred tons of debris and fuel into secure storage.

The nuclear power industry claims nobody suffered health effects from the radioactivity that was released during the TMI-2 incident. However, that is disputed by local cancer sufferers who blame the accident, and the government’s attempts to play down the dangers at the time, for their illness.

What’s certain is that the Three Mile Island accident dealt a severe blow to the idea that nuclear fission could provide safe, clean energy. The US government was forced to introduce more stringent construction and safety regulations. This put a further squeeze on the profits that could be made from building hugely expensive nuclear power stations.  

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when a fire in the graphite core of a nuclear reactor released radioactive plumes for ten days, fuelled public opposition further. In the USA, over 100 orders for new reactors were cancelled and no new plants were approved until 2012.

The advocates of nuclear power then tried to reinvent fission as ‘green’ energy since, unlike burning fossil fuels, it does not generate the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. However, the 2011 Fukushima disaster then provided another deadly reminder of the disastrous consequences of systems failure in a nuclear power station.

The disaster at Chernobyl was a product of an impatient, unaccountable Soviet Union bureaucracy pressuring technicians into a reckless experiment aimed at speeding up repair times. Fukushima was the product of a reckless private operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, ignoring the risk from tsunamis and earthquakes. But could these risks be avoided if nuclear power was part of a nationalised energy system under workers’ management?

A genuine safety culture could reduce risks but, just as at Three Mile Island, the chance of human error and mechanical failure is always present. Even if an accidental release of radiation is avoided, every radioactive reactor eventually has to be decommissioned, at huge cost, when the power station closes.

They can’t just be dismantled like an old factory. The radioactive material has to be safely and securely stored for many thousands of years before its contents could be safe to release into the environment. A 2018 government report estimates the cost of cleaning up just the UK’s 17 nuclear sites could be over £200 billion.

Many of the UK’s nuclear power plants are already operating beyond their originally planned lifetimes as it is. The Hunterston B reactor in Ayrshire has been out of action ever since 370 hairline cracks were found in its ageing graphite core. They can’t be mended so EDF, its private operator, has applied for permission to increase the safety limit to 700 cracks instead!

The fact that only one new UK nuclear power station is under construction, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, is because the economics of nuclear power are now so clearly flawed. This white elephant, a legacy of New Labour's Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s support for the nuclear industry, will, if its technical flaws are overcome, end up being the most expensive power station ever built. The cost will be met by bill payers through a deal that guarantees that EDF will be paid about twice the actual going rate for the new reactor’s electricity output.

Not everyone has struck lucky like EDF. Hitachi and Toshiba have pulled out of their plans to build other new nuclear power stations planned for Wales and Cumbria. In Pennsylvania, the remaining Three Mile Island No.1 reactor is itself facing shutdown this year - not through any accident but because it’s been making a financial loss.

Instead of continuing to subsidise risky and expensive nuclear power, urgent investment is needed in the further development of wind, solar and other renewable sources while rapidly improving energy efficiency. 

Energy generation and transport industries should be part of a nationalised environmental plan of production. This is the only solution to urgently tackling climate change while also providing skilled jobs, particularly for those presently employed in the nuclear industry.

Austerity-ridden capitalism is unable to make the investment needed to rapidly and safely phase out nuclear power, far less the global plan needed to tackle global climate change. For that, socialist change is needed.

Fukushima remembered

A year on from the massive earthquake damage and tsunami that overwhelmed the Fukushima power plant, the true scale of that nuclear disaster is now, unfortunately, all too clear.

Yet, amid all the anniversary reports and events today, it's worth remembering that, in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, the nuclear industry sought desperately to hide the scale of the disaster.

Looking back on my blog from a year ago, http://electmartin1.blogspot.com/2011/04/fukushima-truth-emerges.html, I think these conclusions still ring true:

It is worth remembering how, in the days immediately after the earthquake, nuclear ‘experts’ all insisted that the situation was under control. However some critics – including this blog – realised very quickly that this would prove to be the world’s second most serious nuclear disaster - after Chernobyl.

What’s also emerging is the shameful way that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) ignored the obvious risks of a tsunami knocking out the vital back-up systems that could maintain cooling to its reactors and spent fuel pools.

TEPCO has consistently tried to hide behind the excuse that the March 11 tsunami was “beyond the scope of the assumption”. Yet Japanese media report that seismologist Yukinobu Okamura had warned TEPCO in 2009 that the Fukushima plant was situated in an area where a major tsunami had previously struck ten centuries ago.

Worse, in 2007, TEPCO’s own senior safety engineer, Toshiaki Sakai, estimated that there was a 10% chance that in the next 50 years a tsunami could strike that would overwhelm the plant. TEPCO did nothing. The station’s defences were only built to withstand a maximum 6-metre high wave. On March 11 a 14-metre wave struck the plant.

Particular concerns had also been raised about the design of the ageing General Electric designed Mark I reactors used at Fukushima. U.S. researchers pointed to the particular dangers from loss of power and the risk of hydrogen explosions when venting the reactors to relieve pressure. That’s exactly what happened in reactors No.1 and No.3.

Warnings had also been given about the need to have access to key gauges and instruments to be able to monitor reactors in the middle of a crisis. Again, the concerns went unheeded.

Unfortunately, none of this is really any surprise. Big business always looks to short-term profits first and puts the long-term future of the environment a very long way down its list of concerns. Having ignored the dangers of global warming, many capitalist leaders have turned to nuclear power as a solution. But the risk of catastrophic failures and design flaws - even in technologically advanced Japan – is unavoidable. Nor has any safe method for the long-term storage of spent fuel ever been devised.

The pursuit of profit bears further responsibility for today’s crisis. It has proved difficult to supply power from the West of Japan to the ravaged East, partly because the power grids are run on different ac frequencies (50Hz in the East and 60Hz in Western Japan). This stems directly from the post-war US administration’s break-up and privatisation of the Japan Electric Generation and Transmission Company- in order to undermine the strong All Japan Electric Workers’ Union. See Immediate and longer-term effects of disaster

As that article from a Japanese socialist explains, as the immediate shock at the aftermath of the earthquake subsides, there will be growing anger at the way big business profiteers have put Japanese workers at risk – and how they continue to try and profiteer out of the misery facing those whose lives have been ruined by the consequences of the Sendai earthquake.

Internationally too, the Fukushima disaster has spurred growing protests against nuclear power, particularly in Germany. It is only international co-operation that can provide a way out of the failed energy and environmental policies of the world’s major powers. Only international planning – based on a socialist future – can provide that solution.

UPDATE: See this report of the anniversary demonstration in Taiwan: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5642
"The struggle to ‘control’ Fukushima was fought largely by sub-contracted casual labourers under TEPCO’s outsourced employment structure. These heroes of Fukushima for the most part do not receive pensions or medical insurance from the company".

Fukushima - the truth emerges

Three weeks on from the massive earthquake damage and tsunami that overwhelmed the Fukushima No.1 power plant, the true scale of this nuclear disaster is becoming clear.

The Japanese Government is under pressure to extend the existing 12-mile evacuation zone after radiation levels exceeding the internationally recognised limit for evacuation were found in the village of Iitate, 25 miles from the plant. Worrying levels of radioactive isotopes have been found in soil, water, milk and vegetables from the Fukushima region.

As radiation levels in surrounding sea water continue to rise, engineers have discovered a 20cm crack in a storage pit that is leaking highly radioactive water. Courageous workers – risking a swift death from cancer and radiation sickness – are trying to plug the breach with concrete. 

Radiation levels from the leaking water are at over 1 sievert (1000 millisieverts) per hour. Such a dangerously high measurement - as well as being a very serious health risk – also suggests that water must be leaking directly from the reactor – probably the damaged No.2 unit.

Even if all leaks are detected and stopped, the radioactive cooling water being pumped in will still need to be stored – and TEPCO are struggling to find sufficient storage space. UK papers also quote nuclear engineers as saying that it might be 50 to 100 years from now before it is finally possible to safely remove the nuclear fuel stored in the plant.

It is worth remembering how, in the days immediately after the earthquake, nuclear ‘experts’ all insisted that the situation was under control. However some critics – including this blog – realised very quickly that this would prove to be the world’s second most serious nuclear disaster - after Chernobyl.

What’s also emerging is the shameful way that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) ignored the obvious risks of a tsunami knocking out the vital back-up systems that could maintain cooling to its reactors and spent fuel pools.

TEPCO has consistently tried to hide behind the excuse that the March 11 tsunami was “beyond the scope of the assumption”. Yet Japanese media report that seismologist Yukinobu Okamura had warned TEPCO in 2009 that the Fukushima plant was situated in an area where a major tsunami had previously struck ten centuries ago.

Worse, in 2007, TEPCO’s own senior safety engineer, Toshiaki Sakai, estimated that there was a 10% chance that in the next 50 years a tsunami could strike that would overwhelm the plant. TEPCO did nothing. The station’s defences were only built to withstand a maximum 6-metre high wave. On March 11 a 14-metre wave struck the plant.

Particular concerns had also been raised about the design of the ageing General Electric designed Mark I reactors used at Fukushima. U.S. researchers pointed to the particular dangers from loss of power and the risk of hydrogen explosions when venting the reactors to relieve pressure. That’s exactly what happened in reactors No.1 and No.3.

Warnings had also been given about the need to have access to key gauges and instruments to be able to monitor reactors in the middle of a crisis. Again, the concerns went unheeded.

Unfortunately, none of this is really any surprise. Big business always looks to short-term profits first and puts the long-term future of the environment a very long way down its list of concerns. Having ignored the dangers of global warming, many capitalist leaders have turned to nuclear power as a solution. But the risk of catastrophic failures and design flaws - even in technologically advanced Japan – is unavoidable. Nor has any safe method for the long-term storage of spent fuel ever been devised.

The pursuit of profit bears further responsibility for today’s crisis. It has proved difficult to supply power from the West of Japan to the ravaged East, partly because the power grids are run on different ac frequencies  (50Hz in the East and 60Hz in Western Japan). This stems directly from the post-war US administration’s break-up and privatisation of the Japan Electric Generation and Transmission Company- in order to undermine the strong All Japan Electric Workers’ Union. See Immediate and longer-term effects of disaster

As that article from a Japanese socialist explains, as the immediate shock at the aftermath of the earthquake subsides, there will be growing anger at the way big business profiteers have put Japanese workers at risk – and how they continue to try and profiteer out of the misery facing those whose lives have been ruined by the consequences of the Sendai earthquake.

Internationally too, the Fukushima disaster has spurred growing protests against nuclear power, particularly in Germany. It is only international co-operation that can provide a way out of the failed energy and environmental policies of the world’s major powers.  Only international planning – based on a socialist future – can provide that solution.

This is a nuclear disaster

UPDATE 16/3 22:30:  The chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned this afternoon that all of the water is gone from the spent fuel pool at reactor four of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing “extremely high” radiation levels.

There have also been the first reports of radioactive iodine and caesium traces in drinking water supplies in Fukushima.

LATEST 16/3 15:30: The EU's energy chief Guenther Oettinger has said that in the coming hours "there could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island". He told the European Parliament the Fukushima nuclear site was "effectively out of control". "The cooling systems did not work, and as a result we are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster." The French Government was one of several to advise their citizens to leave Tokyo as soon as possible.

Oettinger's office later isued a 'clarification' saying that 'he just wanted to share his concern' because his comments caused panic in the financial markets. 

Profits before safety once again.

***

News overnight from Japan must surely now shake even the firmest 'accident-deniers' from the nuclear industry into recognising that Fukushima is now the world's second worst nuclear disaster - with long-term consequences.

It seems that last night's blast at reactor no.2 was NOT another hydrogen explosion but a possible breach of the suppression chamber wall INSIDE the containment vessel. This is potentially a far more serious situation. Pressure has reportedly dropped in the suppression chamber - suggesting a crack in the containment vessel. If so, highly radioactive materials (in air or possibly in liquid) will be able to leak out.

Radioactivity levels have now risen significantly - numbers are no longer in MICROsieverts but in MILLIsieverts - a thousand times greater. Recommended maximum annual doses are around 10mSv a year - measurements of 400mSv per hour have been reported near the reactors.

Some operators have been evacuated, others are bravely staying on site to try and maintain water injection. However, there are too many different emergencies for the staff to deal with at once with the limited resources that they have at their disposal.

As a consequence, temperatures in the spent fuel pools have also risen as cooling has not been in place. A further hydrogen-ignited fire therefore broke out in the pool belonging to Reactor 4. Although this reactor is shutdown, the used rods can still generate sufficient heat to cause such an incident if cooling is ceased. These pools are outside the core containment and so radioactive material released by the fire will have risen into the atmosphere.

The previous hydrogen blast at Reactor 3 has left its spent pool uncovered. A fire here could release toxic plutonium into the environment if MOX fuel rods are involved.

So much for a localised 'Level 4' incident. The situation is dire.

For a socialist perspective from the region, read http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4929 'Earthquake could leave “tens of thousands” dead and nuclear threat'
and http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4931 'Disaster hits workers hardest' 

UPDATE: While news reports state that 'radiation levels are falling', the readings are still in millisieverts rather than at the lower microsievert levels previously being recorded. Kyodo News reports the following grim overview:
-- Reactor No. 1 - Cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, hydrogen explosion, seawater pumped in.
-- Reactor No. 2 - Cooling failure, seawater pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, damage to containment system, potential meltdown feared.
-- Reactor No. 3 - Cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater pumped in, hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby.
-- Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, fire caused possibly by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, pool water level feared receding.

FURTHER UPDATE 22.45: A second (or continuing?) fire broke out at reactor No.4 - presumably again from the spent fuel pool. Unlike reactors 5 and 6, where some rods are still stored more safely in the reactor vessel, reports say that ALL of the rods from reactor 4 had been placed in the spent fuel pool - this unfortunately increases the amount of radioactive material that could be released as a result of the fire.

Chernobyl veteran Iouli Andreev has suggested that the storage of so many rods so close to the reactor pointed to the Japanese nuclear industry putting profits before saefty. He also accused the IAEA's emergency team as being "a fake organisation because every organisation which depends on the nuclear industry - and the IAEA depends on the nuclear industry - cannot perform properly. It always will try to hide the reality". http://bit.ly/h7uZ71

UPDATE: 16/3 07:00: After latest fire, radiation levels spiked above 1,000 millisieverts - i.e not micro Sv or milli Sv but 1 Sv. Workers (now facing very serious health risks) also investigating cause of smoke seen above Reactor No.3.

Media 'experts' hide the truth - in Fukushima

UPDATED 15.3.11 07.00

LATEST: NHK Press Conference suggests latest blast at reactor no.2 was NOT another hydrogen explosion but a possible breach of the suppression chamber wall INSIDE the containment vessel. This is potentially a far more serious situation. Some operators have been evacuated, others are staying on site to try and maintain water injection.

Pressure has reportedly dropped in the suppression chamber - suggesting a crack in the containment vessel. If so, radioactive materials (in air or possibly in liquid) can leak out.

Radioactivity levels have now risen significantly - numbers are no longer in MICROsieverts but in MILLIsieverts - a thousand times greater. Recommended annual doses are around 10mSv a year - measurements of 400mSv an hour have been reported.

Temperatures in the spent fuel pools have also risen as cooling is not in place (as warned of below). A further (hydrogen-ignited?) fire broke out in the pool in Reactor 4. Although this reactor is shutdown, the used rods can still generate sufficient heat to cause such an incident if cooling is ceased. down, These pools are outside the core containment and so radioactive material released by the fire will have risen into the atmosphere. The previous hydrogen blast at Reactor 3 has left its spent pool uncovered. A fire here could release toxic plutonium into the environment if MOX fuel rods are involved.

So much for a localised 'Level 4' incident. What a mess.

***

I was angry enough at the lies and distortions that have hit our news screens since Hutton reported on pensions - but the overnight media 'experts' on nuclear safety have driven this physics teacher to further levels of annoyance!

First we were told that there are always 'back-ups to the back-ups' in the nuclear industry - it seems not sufficiently at Fukushima - despite the obvious threat of major tsunamis in the region.

Now they have spent hours wondering whether or not there has been a meltdown when there have been clear reports of caesium being detected outside the reactor. Caesium is a fission product from uranium - there is only one place that it can come from - the reactor core. There has certainly been some kind of leak or meltdown - and the situation could well be getting worse.

There are now also pictures of an explosion at the plant which appeared to have blown off some of the containment structures - potentially allowing radioactive materials to escape into the environment (but see below). There will be brave workers valiantly trying to resolve the situation, but it is unclear how much they are able to do.

UPDATE: One worker at least has died. Sea water and neutron-absorbing boric acid/sodium polyborate (is this Clinton's mystery 'coolant' from the USA?) is apparently now being injected to try and cool the core (apparently an untested method being resorted to because of the failure of the plant's coolant systems- let's hope it works...). Seawater may also be needed to ensure that the 'used' rods in the spent fuel pools are also sufficiently cooled.

UPDATE: The explosion seems to have been a hydrogen explosion - probably caused by steam reacting with hot zirconium in the fuel rods. That alone confirms that there has been some kind of a problem inside the core. While many news outlets are keen to correctly say that this was not a "nuclear explosion" few seem to recognise that the presence of hydrogen in itself suggests that the core has been at worryingly high temperatures.

UPDATE: There is a further reason to worry as we wait to see the extent of core melting: The LA Times reports that the Fukushima No.1 Facility's General Electric Mark One boiling water reactor is one of the oldest designs used commercially and one of its biggest liabilities, experts say, is a weakness in the floor of the containment vessel. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-japan-quake-qa-20110313,0,2957196.story Warnings about the design go back as far as 1972: http://bit.ly/hOEXov

This is already (IMO!) a worse situation than Three Mile Island in 1979. (14.3 - the French Nuclear Agency ASN are now publicly questioning the 'level 4' classification given to the events and suggesting it is a more serious 5 or 6 incident) The nuclear industry has always claimed that the effects of that accident were exaggerated and that there were few long-term health risks. However, at TMI the containment held firm. It was also a new reactor where there had not been time for the Caesium-137 levels to build up within the core. The Fukushima reactors are reportedly 40 years old.

UPDATE: TEPCO are saying that the containment structures remain intact but it is still seems uncertain whether the core has sustained any damage. Nearby residents have tested positive for radiation exposure.

Cs-137 is not only highly radioactive, it is also taken up into the body as if it were potassium, absorbed into muscles and other vital tissues.

Earthquakes are a natural disaster but Japan's choice to rely heavily on nuclear power was a political one. I believe that the risks of nuclear fission and the unresolved problems of waste storage have always meant this was the wrong choice. This disaster will add to the arguments against nuclear power as a solution to dwindling fossil fuels.

UPDATE: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/idINIndia-55523220110312 It appears that TEPCO have previously been found guilty of falsifying data over coolant temperatures and repair records at Fukushima Daiichi -  can we ever trust big business with public safety?

LATER UPDATE 13.3.11:  Belatedly, the media are catching up with the severity of events at Daiichi. Concerns are also being raised about the nearby Fukushima Daini plant. Reports state that the emergency cooling system is also no longer functioning at the Fukushima Daiichi No.3 reactor. Officials are now admitting that they are working on the assumption of a partial meltdown in both reactors 1 and 3 and warning of the possibility of a further hydrogen explosion at No.3 (suggesting that the fuel rods must have been at dangerously high temperatures there too) . The seawater injection is apparently ongoing - permanently disabling the reactors which will never be usable again. However, the risk of further serious release of radioactive material is certainly still possible.
  
A real concern is that Reactor 3 started using MOX (mixed oxide) fuels last Autumn. Its core therefore includes plutonium as well as uranium. 

MARCH 14 UPDATE: Radiation measurements are rising at reactor 1, water levels are falling in reactor 2 exposing the fuel rods, and the inevitable hydrogen explosion has occurred at reactor 3 (containing the MOX fuel). Japan's NISA (Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency) latest press release contains the detail that for two hours overnight sea water injection had to be stopped 'because of the lack of seawater in the pit".

While seawater injection is still required at reactors 1 and 3, Kyodo News reports that the number-two reactor has now become the priority. This is because four of the the pumps to that reactor were put out of operation - perhaps by the earlier explosion in reactor three (which injured eleven). At one stage, the rods were totally uncovered, inevitably leading to at least some melting of the core materials.

The chances of a more serious meltdown allowing materials to break through the floor of the containment vessel in one of these reactors must be increasing.

The media 'experts' continue brazenly on. A BBC news item this morning tried to claim that residents will be protected by the high levels of iodine in the Japanese diet!!

This evening, TEPCO's reports confirm that the 'fuel integrity' is 'damaged' in reactors 1 and 3 and 'unknown' in reactor 2.  While the containment integrity in the reactors is thankfully listed as 'not damaged', water levels in 1 and 3 are 'unknown' and pressures are increasing in reactor 2. See: http://bit.ly/fqj8Ig

This has now been followed by reports of an explosion being heard from Reactor No.2 

Whatever the outcome, surely this incident illustrates that a global energy plan should not rely on nuclear power - and certainly not earthquake-vulnerable Japan.

For a socialist view from China Worker, read: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4929

There's a useful scientific explanation of events on http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fukushima-core