Situation Worsens in Japan, Higher Radiation Levels Detected

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today - Tuesday, March 15, 2011:

Workers Strain to Retake Control After Blast and Fire at Japan Plant - Hiroko Tabuchi, David Sanger, and Keith Bradsher in The New York Times [link]

• Japanese officials and safety workers struggled to reassert control over badly damaged nuclear reactors on Tuesday after the situation at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant appeared to verge toward catastrophe, with a huge spike in radiation levels after a new explosion and fire.
• According to government statements most of the 800 workers at the plant had been withdrawn, leaving 50 or so in a desperate effort to keep the cores of three stricken reactors cooled with seawater pumped by firefighting equipment.
• But late Tuesday Japan’s nuclear watchdog said a pool storing spent fuel rods at that fourth reactor had overheated and reached boiling point and had become unapproachable by workers.
• In a brief morning address to the nation Prime Minister Naoto Kan pleaded for calm but warned that radiation that had leaked earlier had already spread from the crippled reactors and that there was “a very high risk” of further leakage.
• Earlier Tuesday the Japanese government told people living within about 20 miles of the Daiichi plant to stay indoors, keep their windows closed and stop using air conditioning. More than 100,000 people are believed to be in that area.
• Tokyo Electric Power said Tuesday that after the explosion at the No. 2 reactor pressure had dropped in the “suppression pool” — a section at the bottom of the reactor that converts steam to water and is part of the critical function of keeping the nuclear fuel protected. After that occurred radiation levels outside No. 2 were reported to have risen sharply.
• As a result, the nuclear fuel in that reactor was exposed for many hours, increasing the risk of a breach of the container vessel and more dangerous emissions of radioactive particles.

NOTE: For more on how Ploughshares Fund is responding to this crisis, click here.

How Much Can We Justify Spending on Nuclear Weapons? - Walter Pincus in The Washington Post [link]

• The horrific earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week lead me to this question: Is it not time to talk realistically about the 
$200 billion or more we plan to spend over the next decade on strategic nuclear weapons and their land- and sea-based delivery systems?
• The threat of radioactive gases being released in the air from the Fukushima Daiichi unit 1 reactor caused the evacuation of everyone within the surrounding 12.5-mile area. This threat would seem minor in the face of what would be generated by an explosion in the area of a 100-kiloton nuclear warhead, which is the equivalent of 100,000 tons of TNT.
• Think for a minute: Now and for the next 10 years the United States is planning to keep deployed as many as 1,500 such warheads or bombs, many even more powerful than 100 kilotons and almost all ready to be launched or dropped anywhere in the world inside of one hour.
• Nevertheless, last week, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), described himself as “a little nervous about how we’re going to be able to really provide all of our [strategic nuclear warhead] needs” if the United States reduces the number of launching tubes on a new generation of Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines from 20 to 16 “to save money.”
• The Navy is trying to develop “the best design that we can and to get the cost into a manageable range,” he said. “We’ve taken $1 billion per boat out within the last year, and we are looking for another half-billion per boat.” That would still put the cost at about $4.5 billion.
• Neither McKeon nor Turner, nor any members of Congress, ever questioned what targets exist that require being hit by nuclear weapons. Nor do they ever discuss at these hearings what impact the use of nuclear weapons would have should they be used.

In Fuel-Cooling Pools, a Danger for the Longer Term - William Broad and Hiroko Tabuchi in The New York Times [link]

• Even as workers race to prevent the radioactive cores of the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan from melting down, concerns are growing that nearby pools holding spent fuel rods could pose an even greater danger.
• The pools, which sit on the top level of the reactor buildings and keep spent fuel submerged in water, have lost their cooling systems and the Japanese have been unable to take emergency steps because of the multiplying crises.
• By late Tuesday, the water meant to cool spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor was boiling, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said. If the water evaporates and the rods run dry, they could overheat and catch fire, potentially spreading radioactive materials in dangerous clouds.
• “It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.”
• A 1997 study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island described a worst-case disaster from uncovered spent fuel in a reactor cooling pool. It estimated 100 quick deaths would occur within a range of 500 miles and 138,000 eventual deaths. The study also found that land over 2,170 miles would be contaminated and damages would hit $546 billion.

Nuclear reactor nightmare: Could it happen in the U.S.? - David Freeman for CBS [link]

• As workers in Japan struggle to limit the release of dangerous radiation from the nation's earthquake-stricken nuclear reactors, some in the U.S. are wondering: Could the same thing happen here?
• "We have 23 nuclear reactors that are the same design as the Fukushima plants that have failed," Dr. Ira Helfand, past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a long-time critic of nuclear power, told CBS News.
• "The Indian Point reactor just north of New York City is built on a fault capable of generating a magnitude 7 earthquake, but it was only built to withstand a magnitude 3 quake," he said. "If the Indian Point reactor experienced a major meltdown, the entire New York metropolitan area, with 20 million people, would be at risk."
• The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the central California coast, which is within about 60 miles of the San Andreas Fault, and even close to other faults, was built to withstand a 7.5 earthquake, according to owner Pacific Gas and Electric. The company maintains that the faults in the region are not expected to produce any larger quakes.
• Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko was asked at a press briefing by CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid whether reactors in the U.S. could withstand a quake similar to the 9.0 event in Japan. He offered a vague response: "At this point what I can say is we have a strong safety program in place to deal with seismic events that are likely to -- to happen at any nuclear facility in this country."

Nuclear Test Gauges Beat Media, Aid Radiation Watch in Japan Earthquake - Viola Gienger in Bloomberg [link]

• Devices used to monitor a potential ban on atomic-weapons testing are helping warn of possible tsunamis from aftershocks in Japan and may aid in tracking radiation leaks from the country’s damaged nuclear plants.
• The seismic detection system delivers earthquake data “more quickly than many other sources,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington. Radiation monitors provide reliable information on radiation plumes, “whether the source is from a nuclear weapons explosion or nuclear power accident,” he said.
• The system, based in Vienna, has about 270 of 337 planned monitoring stations operating worldwide.
• Countries request the treaty organization’s data “due to the reliability of our system, our network and the global nature of our network as well,” Lassina Zerbo, the officer-in-charge and director of its international data center, said in the telephone interview yesterday.
• The monitoring system also will include 80 radionuclide monitors, of which 63 are operational, Thunborg said. The monitors can help determine how much and what kind of radiation is moving through the atmosphere and where it is likely to go, based on weather patterns, she said.