> the agency decided the possibility of such a fire is so unlikely that it could not justify requiring plant owners to pay the estimated cost of $50 million per pool.

Pretty short-sighted for an agency regulating an industry that imposes multi-generation responsibilities (see SAFSTOR and ENTOMB).

>.. Congress has the authority to fix the problem.

No worries here: *this* Congress won't fix it.

The UCS(Union of Concerned Scientists) is a group of pseudo-scientists funded by faux-green organizations and the fossil fuel industry to attack carbon-free nuclear power through their anti-science (fearmongering) articles in order to promote intermittent renewable placebos backed up by coal and/or natural gas/fracking to keep lights on when wind is not blowing or sun is not shining because cost-effective batteries do not exist.
https://pbs.twimg...o16-.jpg

US nuclear regulators greatly underestimate potential for nuclear disaster

No? Really? Do tell.

But, hey...if it makes a buck who cares about people?

More Nuclear Scare Scam nonsense. Our ticket to an energy utopia shredded by the oil, coal and gas barons who really run the world, with the help of bribed and/or coerced politicians.

@WillieWard:

Most of your assertions are easily falsified by an examination of the Union of Concerned Scientists form 990, a public document filed with the IRS for the privilege of operating as a nonprofit.

The ones that are not easily falsifiable are your assertions about funding. UCS pays several large firms for fundraising from phone, internet and email, and personal solicitation, and itself receives no contributions larger than $15,000, so it's hard to follow the money through those firms. You can find their form 990 from this page:http://www.ucsusa...ing.html

How do you know the proportion of "pseudo scientists", "faux-green organizations" and "fossil fuel industry [sic]" in those contributors? Do you have a source? 69% of UCS funding is from membership, so you must have exceptional insight into who those contributors are to make such a statement.

"Greenpeace, Sierra, UCS, NIRS, Public Citizen, PIRG, NRDC, Clamshell and the countless local groups might have been populated with visible, vocal, impassioned volunteers, but at least some of the money supporting their "non-profit" efforts over a sustained 35-40 years period came directly from the establishment, a large portion of which gets its wealth and power from dealing in fossil fuels of one type or another."
https://atomicins...il-fuel/
UCS focus:
"Opposing nuclear power, while claiming to be neither pro- or anti-nuclear."
http://rationalwi...ientists
antinuclear = antiscience
antinuclear = pro-fossil fuels
"Are Fossil Fuel Interests Bankrolling The Anti-Nuclear Energy Movement?"
https://www.forbe...ovement/

@WillieWard

I read the articles. No evidence *whatever* in the first two articles.

In your last article, there is a single anecdote of a $200,000 contribution to another organization FORTY-SEVEN years ago (along with what is likely a demonstration of Betteridges Law) and a disavowal by the author himself:

"Scholars such as Rod Adams and Michael Shellenberger will say to follow the money. But this writer will give more credence to the organizations' deeply-held beliefs, which have merit but which also have flaws."

I'm usually neutral to positive on nuclear energy, but this is just stupid. This isn't a meltdown caused by some esoteric technical fault; it's simple negligence. Like not cutting the brush on your property before fire season.

re Willie Ward and "anti-nuclear = anti-science" -
I wouldn't say I'm anti-nuclear, but I am extremely wary of nuclear fission, be it for bombs or energy. It's dirty and dangerous. Full stop. You can't change that, only try to mitigate it and hope for the best. (Though I grant there's an up-side to it too.)
But before Willie labels me anti-science, he may like to know that nuclear fusion, if we can ever get it to work as an energy source, would be simply marvellous in my opinion. A complete game-changer for humanity.

In science, facts should be stronger than fear.
Fukushima and Three Mile Island resulted in zero deaths from radiation exposure. Nuclear power is the safest per unit of energy produced, fewer fatalities and less ecological impacts than so-called renewables even including Chernobyl with projected deaths never confirmed in practice.
Most of UCS articles are notably written in a scaremongering style, not scientific.

It is an incontestable fact that intermittent renewables are invading untouched natural habitats, slaughtering and exiling native wildlife.
"High-Tech Scarecrow Chases Birds (And Their Poop) From Wind Turbines"
http://www.vocati...urbines/
"You Can't Have Offshore Wind Power Without Oil"
https://www.forbe...troleum/
http://dailycalle...-of-oil/
Birds-choppers are neither ecologically friendly neither fossil-free.

Yes - renewable energy has an environmental cost.

a huge environmental cost for almost nothing in terms of CO2 reduction.
"researchers at the University of St. Andrews have found that the noise made by offshore wind farms can interfere with a whale's sonar, and can in tragic cases see them driven onto beaches where they often die,"
http://www.cfact....-whales/
"Noise generated from the construction of wind farms can damage the hearing of animals like sea turtles, sharks and a number of migratory whales, as well as possibly displace marine mammals from their original habitat."
http://oregonwave...animals/

Fukushima was the result of a freak confluence of problems. Chernobyl was the result of incompetent communist design and human error. The War on Nuclear Power by fifth columnists working for radical environmentalists must be ended.

in spent-nuclear-fuel cooling pools at reactor sites. The pools—water-filled basins that store and cool used radioactive fuel rods—are so densely packed with nuclear waste that a fire could release enough radioactive material

Well, would the pools be so full if the government didn't pull funding from Yucca Mountain where they could have put the spent fuel away?

The problem exists partially because every time someone proposes some way to deal with the nuclear waste issue, the greenies go "NOoooo!!"

Fukushima was the result of a freak confluence of problems.

And of a completely unnecessary design fault, as the company had built the whole thing several meters lower on the bank than its original designs, to save a bit of money.

...and C02 emissions are being cut around the world...

Faux-greens' lies can be debunked in real-time.
https://www.elect...map.org/
https://www.energ...ower.htm
And Swiss Green Lunatics want to follow Germany Energiewende, a trillion-euro ecological disaster.
Switzerland's grid produces around 20gCO₂/kWh
Germany is over 500gCO₂/kWh on average.
http://www.enviro...-closure
http://www.enviro...-in-2016

A couple of points. Notice how the Conservatives answer to a problem created by the lies of the nuclear industry - is immediately to demand tax money.

I don't know where you're coming from with that.

Yucca Mountain was already paid for and nearly completed with money taxed out of the nuclear industry specifically for the purpose, but then the government pulled the plug and defunded it, squandering most of the funds already collected for nuclear waste management and freezing the rest that remain.

Now there's the test borehole in Nevada, which also got anti-nuclear environmentalists picketing and protesting against it to the point where the local government halted construction because of political pressure.

The greenies are hellbent on doing everything they can so the problems of nuclear power are NOT solved in a reasonable manner, so they can keep shouting at how nuclear power has so many problems that it should not be used.

Every 2 MW wind turbine curtails 1,800 tonnes of C02 per year. This is the reason that global C02 emissions are now leveling

No it isn't.

The real reason why global CO2 emissions are leveling is because countries are replacing coal with natural gas, thanks to unconventional gas extraction from shales. Methane produces 1/3rd the CO2 emissions in energy-per-energy comparison, and the reduction is even more when you count the considerably higher efficiency of the newer powerplants and co-generation.

1 MW of coal power belches out over 7,000 tons of CO2 a year, while conventional natural gas turbines do away with half the emissions, and the latest combined cycle gas plants do as low as one fifth the emissions.

Meanwhile 2 MW of wind power does not displace 1 MW of coal, but only around 1/4 MW thanks to the need for increased load following, which matches the 1,800 tons figure. It's completely disingenuous to give the credit to renewables like wind power.

(more..)

See for example:

http://oilprice.c...oal.html

Two regions, the Reliability First Corporation, covering parts of the Northeast and Midwest, and the Southeastern Electric Reliability Council, covering most of the Southeastern United States and much of the Midwest accounted for 80% of the decline in US coal generation. In these regions, gas accounted for 53% of the decline in coal generation while reduced demand accounted for 40% of the decline. Wind accounted for about 6%.

Wind accounted for 6%

Six percent. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

as countries such as Britain are reducing their emissions

Did you even check the sources of the article you linked?

https://www.carbo...on-falls

Gas accounted for 38 per cent of the UK's electricity generation in the third quarter, eight per cent more than in the previous three months, and 12 per cent more than at the same point a year ago.

(...)

At the same time, renewables' share increased slightly from 17 per cent to 18 per cent.

So gas went up 8 points and renewables went up 1 points, while CO2 emissions went down 10 points. The vast majority of the reduction is in fact due to switching fuels and increasing energy efficiency (reducing demand) rather than the increase in renewables.

IIRC, staff at Fukushima frequented a restaurant at a nearby fishing village which had a grim 'memorial' stone with 'high water mark' from a historical tsunami. The mark stood well above their reactor complex sea-wall...

There's personal stupidity, there's institutional stupidity, and there's purblind system stupidity which prevents any-one saying, "Uh, look at this..."

Well, would the pools be so full if the government didn't pull funding from Yucca Mountain where they could have put the spent fuel away?

The problem exists partially because every time someone proposes some way to deal with the nuclear waste issue, the greenies go "NOoooo!!"

It isn't "the greenies," whoever they are. It's the NIMBYs. You might want to put a little research time on that.

The unwillingness to deal with the hazard of overfull pools is a bit surprising after Fukushima. Even if it's a vanishingly rare chance of failure, since extracting the spent fuel is the end goal anyway, we should step it up and just finish the job, so the hazard is completely removed.

The reason the much safer Thorium fuel reactor was/is not used is because it's waste can't create weapons. Power generation is secondary, high grade weapons material is primary.

The reason the much safer Thorium fuel reactor was/is not used is because it's waste can't create weapons. Power generation is secondary, high grade weapons material is primary.

So how come they leave it lying around in pools?

I mean, c'mon, just askin'.

Every 2 MW wind turbine curtails 1,800 tonnes of C02 per year. This is the reason that global C02 emissions are now leveling

The real reason why global CO2 emissions are leveling is because countries are replacing coal with natural gas, thanks to unconventional gas extraction from shales.

Faux-greens account natural gas/fracking as "renewable".
"the wind plants and the solar plants, are gas plants."
https://pbs.twimg...jQiw.jpg
https://pbs.twimg...4M-Y.jpg
https://pbs.twimg...ZJF8.jpg

Yucca Mountain was already paid for and nearly completed with money taxed out of the nuclear industry specifically for the purpose

Yeah I've got an alternate theory on recent govt-funded earth boring megaprojects cancelled for mysterious reasons...

"The area has been arid desert for thousands of years. The [yucca mt] repository location is one of the few in the world where radioactive waste containers can be isolated from the environment by 1,000 feet of dry rock above them and yet be 1,000 feet above the water table"

"The Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) (also nicknamed the Desertron) was a particle accelerator complex under construction in the vicinity of Waxahachie, Texas."

-Both in dry, desert environments similar to mars. One started into the side of a mountain, one by lowering the equipt into a shaft.

Elon musk just bought his own borer for testing yes?

I think these and other mysteries may be R&D for the next exodus.

...wind and solar are hitting the point of being cheaper...

If "wind/solar/wave/tidal" are so cheap so great, why is Greenpeace, and other environuts faux-greens, still using fossil fuels to generate electricity to power their vehicles? Because renewables(excluding hydro and geothermal (both with geographical limitations) and biomass (worse than coal in terms of CO2 emissions) ) are just intermittent placebos backed up by fossil fuels.
https://uploads.d...f818.jpg
http://wpmedia.ne...1808.jpg
http://www.herald...3461.jpg
http://www.greenp...ctic.jpg
http://www.greenp...espy.jpg
https://pbs.twimg...RStP.jpg

...require a high energy density...

Ironically, wind/solar/batteries are ever cheaper thanks to cheap fossil fuels and semi-slave labor in China and other poor countries that have no strict environmental regulations.
When all processes are taken into account, intermittent renewables are neither clean nor fossil-free.

You never heard of the giga factory

"Tesla Solar Roofs Are Very Expensive And Their Warranty Is Far From Infinite" - May 23, 2017
https://www.solar...nfinite/
"... the price of lithium has gone thru the roof since gigafactory started buying"
https://pbs.twimg...WEAp.jpg
"Study: Batteries For Wind And Solar Do 'More Harm Than Good' For Environment"
http://climatecha...ronment/
"As hundreds of thousands more of these batteries hit the market, the problems that come with lithium mining, battery lifecycles and recycling loom large."
http://www.thegua...owerwall

Of course - so is the cost of electricity - and that cost is being driven down by renewable energy - http://www.indepe...096.html

Ta'u is a tiny island with 600 residents, that still use fossil-powered vehicles, and nobody tell us about real costs of solar+batteries and maintenance.
Here's another wind/solar fiasco in small-scale (Germany is in large-scale):
"100% renewables fail. This small island of El Hierro has been attempting to power itself with wind, solar, and pumped hydro for 3 years, but the diesel back is still the mainstay electricity generators."
http://euanmearns...-update/
https://www.boe.e...013-9944

learn some science

REnewable is not Science, it is REligion, completely dishonest and divorced from reality.

You don't mean to say that the spent fuel is stacked densely in open shelving racks in an above ground pool surrounded by an aluminum shed! Good grief. It's known they might self-ignite if exposed to air, and then don't bother running for an ABC fire extinguisher. If a pool were struck by a TOW missile....

Leaving them out to cool for 5 years is gut twisting enough. Force the NRC to require them in Casks!

This isn't just complacency vs. alarmism. Rate payers have paid for this to be done.