A bad week for the nuclear power cabal

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the ongoing controversy over Southern California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant, a reminder that nuclear industry woes aren’t confined to California.

First, a report of the latest shutdown, this time on the East Coast. John Murawski of the Raleigh News & Observer reports:

Duke Energy Progress shut down the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County on Wednesday after the company discovered that the reactor vessel – which holds the plant’s nuclear fuel and contains the nuclear reaction – showed early indications of corrosion and cracking.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported Thursday morning that plant officials made the discovery earlier this week during a review of ultrasonic data that had been recorded in spring 2012.

The year-old data showed a one-quarter-inch flaw in the reactor vessel head, the term for the lid that is bolted on top of the vessel to maintain superheated water under high pressure.

Read the rest.

More from NBC News outlet WITN:

Duke Energy owns the Shearon Harris plant, which began operations in 1987.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the quarter inch crack was not all the way through the reactor wall and there’s no indication any radioactive material escaped.

The NRC says the plant was shut down so crews could repair the crack. It says there is no impact “to the health and safety of employees or the public.”

Read the rest.

And the problems aren’t confined to the coasts, either.

Problems in Michigan, cracks once again

From Henry Erb of NBC affiliate WOOD in Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Authorities say they’ve found the crack that led to “slightly radioactive water” spilling from the Palisades nuclear power plant into Lake Michigan.

The Covert Township plant was shut down May 5 after about 79 gallons of slightly radioactive spilled into a pond that flows into Lake Michigan. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said the water did not pose a public health risk. The leak was in a 300,000-gallon tank used to hold water that floods and cools the nuclear reactor during refueling and in the event of a problem.

The problem was a half-inch crack in the welding around one of nine nozzles in the tank, authorities said Monday. Three of those have been replaced and every weld and every nozzle is now being checked. The entire bottom of the tank is also being checked.

Read the rest.

And here’s a report from WOOD featuring an interview with Congressional Rep. Fred Upton [R-St. Joseph]:

Perhaps we’re getting a signal. . .

Conflicting reports cloud San Onofre’s fate

The latest news from Southern California’s aged and troubled nuclear plant complex is, to say the least, confusing.

There’s no doubt that the San Diego Gas & Electric complex is in troubled, as we’ve noted before. But the latest developments have added a new dimension of uncertainty for the plant, which has been plagued with leaking cooling pipes and a long history of other problems.

The first development, reported Monday by Reuters, raised the possibility of a public hearing before the utility could restart the plant:

An independent nuclear regulatory panel on Monday called for a full public hearing on the proposed restart of one of the two damaged San Onofre nuclear reactors, a move that will delay Southern California Edison’s plan to run the plant this summer.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruling favored petitioner Friends of the Earth, an anti-nuclear group that sought more public input of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) review of steam generator problems at the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Read the rest.

More from the Associated Press:

The plant between San Diego and Los Angeles hasn’t produced electricity since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

Friends of the Earth, an advocacy group, argued that the federal process set up to consider a restart of the plant’s Unit 2 reactor was in fact a change to the plant’s operating license that would require a courtlike hearing. The three-member board concluded that the restart would allow operator Southern California Edison “to operate beyond the scope of its existing license.”

Read the rest.

And a critical detail from the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Morgan Lee:

Murray Jennex, a former systems engineer at San Onofre for nearly 20 years who now teaches at San Diego State University’s College of Business Administration, said the order likely pushes back a final decision on restarting the Unit 2 reactor until after summer.

“I won’t say this is a death blow to Unit 2, but it does make restart less likely,” Jennex said. “If approved, the additional downtime makes the Unit 2 restart more complex and costly due to corrosion issues from sitting.”

Any delays put additional financial pressure on Edison. CEO Ted Craver recently indicated that without a green light to restart by year’s end, the company might decide to permanently shut down one or both reactors, adding closure costs and a void in the region’s power grid.

Read the rest.

But there’s a catch. . .

As the Associated Press reports:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not decided whether it will hold a public hearing on a plan to restart the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant in California, the nation’s top nuclear regulator said Tuesday.

NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane told reporters in Washington, D.C., that she is aware of strong public interest in California and among some members of Congress for a public hearing, but added that a ruling this week by an NRC licensing panel does not require such a hearing be held.

“There are potential opportunities for public hearings,” Macfarlane told reporters after a speech to the nuclear industry. She called the situation at San Onofre complex with “multiple moving parts right now.”

Read the rest.

Dave Rice of the San Diego Reader offers some critical context:

Comments from Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Alison Macfarlane on the future of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station have generated media confusion and potentially put her at odds with environmental groups, Senator Barbara Boxer, and the NRC’s own Atomic Safety Licensing Board.

After speaking before a group representing nuclear industry business interests on Tuesday, Macfarlane said that a public hearing wasn’t necessarily required before changes to San Onofre’s license could be approved that would allow the plant to re-start. She did acknowledge public interest in such a procedure, however, saying the situation concerning the power plant’s shutdown had “multiple moving parts,” and that there existed “potential opportunities for public hearings.”

Read the rest.

Steve Chu, who served as Barack Obama’s Secretary of Energy through 22 April, is a physicist and an exuberant backer of nuclear power, as evidenced in his tenure as head of of UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Chu’s interim successor, Acting Secretary Daniel Poneman, is a lawyer and political scientist, and unlikely to make any controversial decisions.

Meanwhile,m a ticking time bomb sits on standby on the Southern California coast, separated from the mighty Pacific by a short seawall and located immediately adjacent to a fault capable of uncorking an earthquake vastly morfe powervful than the plant is designed to withstand.

Headlines of the day: Recessions and Big Agra

From EUbusiness:

Eurozone trapped in austerity-led recession

From Keep Talking Greece:

Recession here: Greece economy shrank by 5.3% in 1Q of 2013

From Svenska Dagbladet via Presseurop:

‘Inequality growing fastest in Sweden’

From The Guardian, reporting on something we’ve covered extensively:

Diplomatic cables reveal aggressive GM lobbying by US officials

Review of more than 900 cables reveals campaign to break down resistance to GM products in Europe and other countries

And, from Mother Jones, something else from Big Agra to worry about:

Mysterious Poop Foam Causes Explosions on Hog Farms

Headlines of the day: Blood and greed edition

From The Independent:

BP and Shell price-fixing inquiry: Oil giants raided over allegations of collusion

From Australia’s News.com:

Charity calls to ban cancer-causing chemicals used by women

• Breast Cancer UK calls for total ban on BPA chemical

• BPA is “contributing to rapid increase in breast cancer”

• Chemical commonly used in food and beverage packaging

From a BBC story on the sex slavery comments of Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto, who also calls for a “restoration” of dictatorship:

Japan WWII ‘comfort women’ were ‘necessary’ — Hashimoto

From a BBC story about those “freedom fighters” the Obama administration supports in Syria:

Outrage at Syrian rebel shown ‘eating soldier’s heart’

Finally, from Mother Jones, a story about the folks who are smiling whilst the blood flows:

Contractors Raked in $385 Billion on Overseas Bases in 12 Years

Every year, US taxpayers send billions of dollars abroad to build and maintain our military presence.

Headlines of the day: Of corporations and cash

From The Atlantic Wire:

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought to Keep Your Taxes Complicated

From Common Dreams:

Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures

A troubling pattern emerges as private funds seek to profit from beleaguered cities

From ANSAmed:

Greece: youth unemployment reaches a grim record of 64.2%

From World Socialist Web Site:

IMF demands further austerity in Greece

From Raw Story:

Mao Zedong’s grand-daughter worth more than $815 million according to China’s ‘New Fortune’ magazine

Quote of the day: The slow death of journalism

From The State of the News Media 2013 by the Pew Research Center:

Estimates for newspaper newsroom cutbacks in 2012 put the industry down 30% since its peak in 2000 and below 40,000 full-time professional employees for the first time since 1978. In local TV, our special content report reveals, sports, weather and traffic now account on average for 40% of the content produced on the newscasts studied while story lengths shrink. On CNN, the cable channel that has branded itself around deep reporting, produced story packages were cut nearly in half from 2007 to 2012. Across the three cable channels, coverage of live events during the day, which often require a crew and correspondent, fell 30% from 2007 to 2012 while interview segments, which tend to take fewer resources and can be scheduled in advance, were up 31%. Time magazine, the only major print news weekly left standing, cut roughly 5% of its staff in early 2013 as a part of broader company layoffs.  And in African-American news media, the Chicago Defender has winnowed its editorial staff to just four while The Afro cut back the number of pages in its papers from 28-32 in 2008 to 16-20 in 2012. A growing list of media outlets, such as Forbes magazine, use technology by a company called Narrative Science to produce content by way of algorithm, no human reporting necessary. And some of the newer nonprofit entrants into the industry, such as the Chicago News Cooperative, have, after launching with much fanfare, shut their doors.

This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands. And findings from our new public opinion survey released in this report reveal that the public is taking notice. Nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to.

Headlines of the day: It’s a simple matter of class

First, from Bloomberg, a story by a fellow doing quite well, thank you very much:

Gore Is Romney-Rich With $200 Million After Bush Defeat

And from Business Insider, news about others not doing as well:

The Worst Unemployment Crisis In Modern History Is Unfolding Right Now

And from the London Telegraph, a story about a change of heart:

 

German euro founder calls for ‘catastrophic’ currency to be broken up

Oskar Lafontaine, the German finance minister who launched the euro, has called for a break-up of the single currency to let southern Europe recover, warning that the current course is “leading to disaster”.

And back home to California, where the fruits of a clever neoliberal property tax scheme are continuing to bear fruit for the one percenters, reported by the Los Angeles Times:

Prop. 13 loophole gives edge to big players

Change of ownership, key to reassessment, is cut-and-dried for homeowners but not businesses. It means a loss of tens of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue.

Chart of the day: San Onofre, a question of faults

Okay, so it’s a map. But it shows the real reason lots of folks should be worried about Southern California’s ticking nuclear time bomb, especially now that San Onofre owner San Diego Gas & Electric is threatening to permanently close the plant unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gives fast approval to a restart.

The chart was prepared by Dr. Nelson Mar, who served as  Senior Engineer during the design of two of the plant’s reactor units. The reactors, he told the Irvine City Council, were designed to withstand a maximum 7.0 earthquake and a thirty-foot-high tsunami, but after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Mar took a new look at updated seismic research and discovered that the plant lies adjacent to a fault capable of generating an 8.0 shocker. Such a quake would release thirty-two times more energy than the reactors are designed to withstand.

The two circles represent two different standards for areas to be evacuated in event of a disaster, with the smaller zone representing the current U.S. standard and the larger circle representing the safe distance from the Fukushima reactors recommended to Americans by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo after the disaster.

Click on the image to enlarge.

H/T to San Onofre Safety.

And for fun, here’s a video of powerful California Rep. Howard Berman, when he was confronted by activists Myla Reson and Roger Johnson about the corporate push for a fast restart at San Onofre:

Tales from San Onofre: Of nukes and nudes

We’ve written about Southern California’s San Onofre beach many times before, always in the context of nuclear power.

San Onofre’s located on the northern San Diego County coastline adjacent to the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, and it houses two nuclear reactors run by San Diego Gas and Electric.

The site is located directly on the beach and along an earthquake faultline, and the Fukushima earthquake-spawned nuclear disaster has sent some spines a-quivering, especially when word came out last year of leaks that forced a shutdown.

Now comes even more bad news, reported by Mitch Blacher of Channel 10 News in San Diego:

An inside source gave Team 10 a picture snapped inside the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) showing plastic bags, masking tape and broom sticks used to stem a massive leaky pipe.

San Onofre owner Southern California Edison (SCE), confirms the picture was taken inside Unit Three, but did not say when. The anonymous source said the picture was taken in December 2012.

Unit Three is the same unit that leaked radiation in January 2012.  SONGS has been shutdown since then as a precaution.

Read the rest.

Blacher’s report comes three days after after this Channel 10 report:

But then there’s another San Onofre controversy, this one reported by Fox 6 News in San Diego:

We guess the common thread is coverups involving catching some rays. . .

Quote of the day: Gee, ya think so?

From UC Berkeley’s Robert Reich:

Four years into a so-called recovery and we’re still below recession levels in every important respect except the stock market. A measly 88,000 jobs were created in March, and total employment remains some 3 million below its pre-recession level. Labor-force participation is its lowest since 1979.

Businesses won’t hire and expand unless they have more customers, but most Americans can’t spend more. Last Friday’s retail sales report showed sales down .4 percent in March. Consumer sentiment has fallen to its lowest level in nine months.

The underlying problem is the vast middle class is running out of money. They can’t borrow more — and shouldn’t, given what happened after the last borrowing binge.

Real annual median household income keeps falling. It’s down to $45,018, from $51,144 in 2010. All the gains from the recovery continue to go to the top.

Headlines of the day: Economics and illnesses

We open with Europe with this from the Irish Times:

IMF trims global growth forecast and warns of bumpy recovery

Warns Europe not to relax efforts to tackle debt crisis

From Spiegel:

Capital Study: Chinese Investment in Europe Hits Record High

From El País:

IMF sees Spain’s jobless rate climbing to 27 percent this year

Closer to home, there’s this From ProPublica:

FDA Let Drugs Approved on Fraudulent Research Stay on the Market

And finally this from the Sacramento Bee:

Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country

Social Security cuts: Liberal and radical takes

From The Real News Network, host Paul Jay moderates a debate of Barack Obama’s planned Social Security cuts featuring Joseph Minarik, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Committee for Economic Development (CED) in Washington, and chief economist of the Office of Management and Budget for the eight years of the Clinton Administration. He’s pitted against one of esnl’s favorite economists, Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and currently a Visiting Professor of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University in New York.

A transcript of the debate is posted here.

We are reminded of an 8 November 1954  letter from then-President Dwight David Eisenhower to his older brother Edgar:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Headlines of the day: With a song in our heart?

From The Independent:

‘Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead’ closer to number one spot as it reaches midweek top ten following Margaret Thatcher’s death

From RT America:

‘Irreparable’ safety issues: All US nuclear reactors should be replaced, ‘Band-Aids’ won’t help

From ENENews:

TV: Gas release from U.S. nuclear site covered up? — Continued for several days — “Spontaneous, not controlled”

From McClatchy Newspapers:

Obama’s drone war kills ‘others,’ not just al Qaida leaders

From CNN:

Syria rebel group’s dangerous tie to al Qaeda

From Greek Reporter:

Labor Cost in Greece Drops Dramatically

From Spiegel:

Brain Drain: 120,000 Professionals Leave Greece Amid Crisis

Headlines of the day: Looking for patterns?

From Newswise:

Cigarette Relighting Tied to Tough Economy

From the Washington Post:

Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.

From Reuters:

U.S. considers less prison time for ex-Enron CEO Skilling

From The Guardian:

Mary Schapiro: the latest official through the regulatory revolving door

Former SEC chairman Schapiro, 57, to switch to the private sector in a move likely to anger critics of ‘regulatory capture’

Chart of the day: Economy or environment?

From Gallup, the latest annual poll results focusing on a question premised on a false dichotomy:

Stunning, infuriating: ‘The Tax Free Tour’

From Dutch public television, another stunning VPRO Backlight documentary [previously featured shows], this one exploring the dirty little corporate tricks used to avoid  paying taxes:

The program notes:

“Where do multinationals pay taxes and how much?” Gaining insight from international tax experts, Backlight director Marije Meerman (‘Quants’ & ‘Money & Speed’), takes a look at tax havens, the people who live there and the routes along which tax is avoided globally.

Those routes go by resounding names like ‘Cayman Special’, ‘Double Irish’, and ‘Dutch Sandwich’. A financial world operates in the shadows surrounded by a high level of secrecy. A place where sizeable capital streams travel the world at the speed of light and avoid paying tax. The Tax Free Tour is an economic thriller mapping the systemic risk for governments and citizens alike. Is this the price we have to pay for globalised capitalism?

At the same time, the free online game “Taxodus” by Femke Herregraven is launched. In the game, the player can select the profile of a multinational and look for the global route to pay as little tax as possible.

research: William de Bruijn
camera: Jean Counet
montage: Bart van den Broek
geluid: Tim van Peppen, Benny Jansen, Joris van Ballegoijen
productie: Marie Schutgens
animaties: Bitcaves & Motoko

What becomes clear is that borders are only meaningful for the flesh-and-blood person, while they are utterly permeable for the disembodied corporate person so beloved of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Finally: ‘The First Honest Cable Company’

From ExtremelyDecentFilms via Corrente:

Headlines of the day: From hither and yon

From EconoMonitor:

Latest US GDP Data Show Economy Weak at Year’s End but Corporate Profits Near Record High

From RT:

Obama signs ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ written by Monsanto-sponsored senator

From World Socialist Web Site:

US food stamp use swells to a record 47.8 million

From Cornell University:

You Don’t “Own” Your Own Genes

Headline of the day: Hey, man, that’s my bag!

Apropos of today’s Chemo Chronicles post, a headline from a story from the London Mail that makes a reality of a friendly crack made to us by our elder daughter about our own much less glamorous urostomy bag :

Victoria’s OTHER Secret: Designer creates world’s first lingerie colostomy bags as they often put partners off

H/T to Jay Sheckley.

Ethos: A documentary on money and power

Hosted by actor Woody Harrelson and written and directed by Pete Gain, Ethos is a 2011 documentary that explores the relationship between banking, power, politics, personal freedom, and environmental destruction. Among those featured are Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Chalmers Johnson.

It’s well worth 68 minutes of your time.