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As Floodwaters Approach, Two Nuclear Plants Get Ready – NYTimes.com

27 Jun

Fukushima’s already happened. Indian Point hasn’t blown yet, and may never go off. But right now two reactors in Nebraska are in danger of flooding.

BROWNVILLE, Neb. — Like inhabitants of a city preparing for a siege, operators of the nuclear reactor here have spent days working to defend it against the swollen Missouri River at its doorstep. On Sunday, eight days after the river rose high enough to require the operators to declare a low-level emergency, a swarm of plant officials got to show off their preparations to the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The reactor, Cooper Station, is one of two nuclear plants on the Missouri River that are threatened by flooding. The second reactor, Fort Calhoun, 85 miles north, came under increased pressure for a brief period on Sunday. Before dawn, a piece of heavy equipment nicked an eight-foot-high, 2,000-foot-long temporary rubber berm, and it deflated. Water also began to approach electrical equipment, which prompted operators to cut themselves off from the grid and start up diesel generators. (It returned to grid power later Sunday.) Both nuclear plants appeared prepared to weather the flooding, their operators and federal government regulators said.

via As Floodwaters Approach, Two Nuclear Plants Get Ready – NYTimes.com.

Behind Veneer, Doubt on Future of Natural Gas

27 Jun

Sounds like the energy folks are placing too much faith in their own private Tinker Bell.

But not everyone in the Energy Information Administration agrees. In scores of internal e-mails and documents, officials within the Energy Information Administration, or E.I.A., voice skepticism about the shale gas industry.

One official says the shale industry may be “ set up for failure.” “It is quite likely that many of these companies will go bankrupt,” a senior adviser to the Energy Information Administration administrator predicts. Several officials echo concerns raised during previous bubbles, in housing and in technology stocks, for example, that ended in a bust.

via Behind Veneer, Doubt on Future of Natural Gas – NYTimes.com.

Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush – NYTimes.com

26 Jun

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.

In other words, business as usual; self-deception, lying, and lBS.

via Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush – NYTimes.com.

Women Impact Collective Intelligence

23 Jun

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review gave highlights from an interview with Professors Woolley and Malone regarding their study. The Professors explained that they gave subjects aged 18-60 standard intelligence tests, then randomly assigned each person to a team. Each of the 192 teams they studied was given a complex problem to solve that required brainstorming, visual puzzles and decision-making. Once finished, each team was given an intelligence score based on the group’s performance.

Results confirmed that the groups having more members with higher IQ’s didn’t get the highest group score, the ones that had more women did.

via Women Impact Collective Intelligence – Technorati Technorati Women.

Electric Cars in Israel — Marginal Revolution

23 Jun

In 2009 Shai Agassi made a splash at TED with his plans for electic cars. Agassi’s innovative idea was to make the batteries swappable; swappable batteries and swap-station infrastructure mean that electric cars are as mobile as gas. Even more importantly, it makes possible a pure electric car which is much cheaper to make than a hybrid. The news out of Israel is that Agassi’s company BetterPlace is within months of rolling this out in Israel and in Denmark just months after that. Indeed, you can see charge stations like this around Jerusalem.

via Electric Cars in Israel — Marginal Revolution.

Corrosion causing leaks at most US nuclear sites

22 Jun

Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of United States commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

via Corrosion causing leaks at most US nuclear sites – Environment – NZ Herald News.

US: 75 Percent Of Nuclear Plants Have Leaked Radioactive Tritium (AP)

22 Jun

Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

via US: 75 Percent Of Nuclear Plants Have Leaked Radioactive Tritium (AP).

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Three-Month Update of Fukushima Accident and the Flood of New Information Coming Out | Dr. Kaku’s Universe | Big Think

21 Jun

In the nuclear world, negligence, stupidity, and greed are the gifts that keep on giving, for centuries or more.

6. Estimates for the clean up vary. Toshiba corporation estimated it would take 10 years. The Hitachi Corp estimated, however, that it would take 30 years. One nuclear engineer estimated that it might actually take 100 years. Remember that it took 14 years to clean up Three Mile Island, where there was no breech of containment. It has been 25 years since Chernobyl, and that accident still has not ended. So 30 to 100 years are not unreasonable guesses for the amount of time the cleanup will take.

via Three-Month Update of Fukushima Accident and the Flood of New Information Coming Out | Dr. Kaku’s Universe | Big Think.

Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think

19 Jun

“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,” Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.

Japan’s 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant.

Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.

“Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed,” he said, “You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.”

via Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think – Features – Al Jazeera English.

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Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood | Reuters

18 Jun

Let’s hope we can believe the NRC.

(Reuters) – The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska remains shut down due to Missouri River flooding, but the plant itself has not flooded and is expected to remain safe, the federal government said Friday.

The rising river “has certainly affected the site, but the plant itself, the actual reactor is still dry,” said Scott Burnell, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.

via Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood | Reuters.

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