Entries in Nuclear Power Plant Accidents (3)
Update on Radioactive Leak at Sabia in Idaho Falls
Update on Radioactive Leak at Sabia in Idaho Falls
Posted: March 3, 2008 08:04 PM
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The investigation is complete into a radioactive material leak at an Idaho Falls business. The red 'hazardous material' tape still blocks the entry to Sabia Incorporated, but the Department of Energy's Radiological Assistance Program team has cleared the scene.
The RAP team used radiological testing equipment to test the air and hard surfaces inside the building for dangerous material. Officials would not say how much of the material was leaked but would say it was stronger in one area than others. None of the radioactive material leaked outside Sabia's facility.
This incident started Friday when an employee was extracting radioactive material from a nuclear gauge and preparing it for disposal when it broke and he inhaled an unknown amount of Strontium 90. The worker sought treatment at a local hospital and was later released. Three other workers who were in the area were not affected.
Employees at Sabia were not back at work today, but those businesses next to the company opened their doors after getting a little peace of mind from the RAP team.
Steven Morreale, Regional RAP Team Leader: "We went into the adjacent bays with the business owners and demonstrated to them that there was no radiation by showing them how the instruments work and demonstrating they were safe."
Sabia will now be responsible for cleaning up the radioactive material. They said they will hire a contract company and will re-open after the clean-up is complete.
Gregor Gable
in Nuclear Power Plant Accidents
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Did Turkey Point again take Florida to the radioactive brink?
Columns
Harvey Wasserman
Did Turkey Point again take Florida to the radioactive brink?
February 27, 2008
As many as two million Floridians were blacked out yesterday by a series of grid malfunctions that forced shut two old atomic reactors south of Miami and renewed nightmares of a radioactive catastrophe. The chain of events should serve as yet another serious warning to those who would build still more atomic reactors in Florida and elsewhere.
The wide-ranging blackout apparently started with an accidental trip at a substation. That sabotage has been ruled out may not be all that reassuring. Countless homes and businesses were affected from the Florida Keys to as far away as Tampa, Gainesville and Daytona Beach. Frightened Floridians were trapped in elevators or abandoned offices by making their way down dark, sweltering stairwells. In Miami-Date along at least forty traffic accidents piled up as signals went dark.
This blackout’s reach was limited by steps taken since a 2003 reactor-related grid failure in Ohio led to a massive blackout that left 50 million people without power.
But the two large reactors at Turkey Point did trip from the loss of off-site power. (For safety reasons, vital cooling systems and other critical components rely on electricity coming from sources other than the reactors.)
A far more tense shut-down came when off-site power was lost during 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, whose eye passed directly over Turkey Point. At the height of the storm, communication from the control room was also dangerously lost. Tools and equipment valued at around $100 million were destroyed or simply blown away.
Andrew’s epic devastation made it clear that south Florida could never be evacuated in the wake of a melt-down amidst a hurricane. After the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, the NRC adopted specifications for evacuation procedures that were simply shredded by Andrew.
But Turkey Point re-opened three weeks later. To this day, no procedures are in place that could reliably evacuate south Florida’s burgeoning human population if radiation releases occurred even under optimum weather conditions, let alone amidst a major wind event.
Nonetheless, Florida Power & Light now wants to build two more reactors at Turkey Point, at a cost of some $20 billion. The generators could not come on line until sometime between 2020 and 2025.
A request for “Construction Work in Progress” (CWIP) is now before the Public Utilities Commission. CWIP would force state ratepayers to cover the cost of the reactors as they are being built. The PUC could make a decision within a month.
FPL may also seek federal loan guarantees, $18.5 billion of which were noticed in the federal Appropriations Bill passed in December, 2007. The Lieberman-Warner Global Warming bill, soon to be debated in the US Senate, may also come with hefty subsidies for projects like this one. Two more reactors have been proposed by Progress Energy for a site near one reactor already operating at Crystal River, near Tampa.
Little if any private financing is likely forthcoming for the proposed Florida reactors. But if CWIP or federal loans come through, they may be hard to stop.
New reactor construction at Turkey Point would have substantial environmental impacts on the nearby Everglades National Park. Serious questions remain about pressure put on water supplies, damage to nearby wildlife habitat, and much more. A wide range of local and national environmental groups have begun to intervene against the project.
This blackout and reactor shut down happened on a clear, calm Florida day. Had the state been getting its power from solar panels installed on buildings, a blackout like this one could never have occurred.
But with still more reactors on the drawing board, it may be only a matter of time before Florida’s reactors finally do take the sunshine state into the radioactive abyss.
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Harvey Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth (www.solartopia.org)
Gregor Gable
in Nuclear Power Plant Accidents
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Hundreds of Vietnamese workers evacuated due to radioactive leak
Hundreds of Vietnamese workers evacuated due to radioactive leak
Hanoi (Xinhua): Between 400 and 500 workers of a limited-liability company in Vietnam were evacuated after a radioactive source used to inspect an oilrig was misplaced, according to local newspaper Ho Chi Minh City Law on Saturday.
The workers of the Alpha Maritime Engineering Technical Service Company were evacuated on Friday afternoon after the radioactive source used to inspect welding knots of the oilrig in southern Vung Tau city was lost for over an hour.
In the late afternoon of the same day, the misplaced radioactive source was found.
The workers asked the oilrig management board to explain the accident's cause and clarify its potential impacts on their health, the newspaper said.
Vietnam is upgrading security systems of its radioactive sources. The country currently houses 188 industrial and healthcare establishments having a total of 1,961 radioactive sources, some of them have not been equipped with tight security systems, according to the Vietnam Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety and Control under the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Vietnam's sole nuclear reactor, becoming operational in the Da Lat Nuclear Institute in Da Lat city in central highlands Lam Dong province in 1984, has a capacity of 500 kw. It is used for training and research purposes, especially medical ones. Vietnam plans to build its first nuclear power plant between 2015 and 2020.
Gregor Gable
in Nuclear Power Plant Accidents
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