Arnie and Maggie Gundersen discuss the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's (ASLB) decision to hold public hearings about restarting the San Onofre Nuclear Plant. "This whole issue is about the public's right to know. The nuclear industry and the NRC have developed a process to keep the public out," Arnie says.
Read MoreBad things happen when regulators do not enforce nuclear power plant regulations. This week's podcast discusses secret, closed-door meetings between top regulators in Japan, as well as the failure of regulation much closer to home: in Michigan. Arnie Gundersen is joined by Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist with Beyond Nuclear. Finally, surprising radioactive discoveries at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi site call into question the key assumptions regulators use when trying to decide just how well the public is protected from nuclear power plant accidents.
Read MoreOn today’s podcast, Arnie talks about international nuclear contamination with Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Read MoreThe US and Japan are trying to raise acceptable radiation exposure limits. "If you can't decrease the water level, you elevate the bridge," says pediatrician and author Dr. Helen Caldicott.
Read MoreThe most striking thing about seeing any nuclear power plant up close is their sheer size. They are such impressive feats of construction and design, and it's hard to imagine that something so robust could fail. In this week's podcast, find out why nuclear power plants fail, and why failure is a fact of life that the industry refuses to acknowledge.
Read MoreFormer NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko was forced out of the NRC by Congress for not adequately supporting the nuclear industry. The NRC claims all nuclear plants are still safe, but how are they doing their math?
Read MoreWhy is a geologist interested in nuclear plants? Listen to Fairewinds Board member geologist Dr. Les Kanat talk with nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen about seismological events in relation to nuclear power. Why do east coast nuclear plants have higher Core Damage Frequencies and are more likely to be damaged from an earthquake than those in California? Do corporate economic concerns mean that nuclear plants are not designed to handle the worst 'quake? Tune in and discover what the NRC has identified as the most dangerous plant in America.
Read MoreCritical safety documents are continuously withheld from the public with a total lack of openness and transparency. Fairewinds founder Maggie Gundersen and Enformable.com editor Lucas Hixson discuss the difficulties the public has in obtaining information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and from reactor owners. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been a failure in allowing the public to have access to information that affects the safety of their communities
Read MoreThis week's show is all about money. We look at how some utility owned U.S. nuclear power plants continue to drain the public's pocketbook, sometimes to the tune of fifty million dollars a month, without generating a single watt of electricity.
Read MoreFairewinds Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen and special guest David Lochbaum, the Director of Nuclear Safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, compare experiences about how nuclear whistleblowers are NOT protected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission if they bring safety concerns forward. They will also discuss examples citing instances of the NRC failing to support the legitimate concerns of whistleblowers in the nuclear industry, including inside the NRC itself.
Read MoreIn this special edition, Fairewinds analyzes a letter from Senator Boxer and Representative Markey that indicates that the problems at San Onofre were known to its owner, Southern California Edison, years before the steam generators were installed and rapidly failed. This statement by Boxer and Markey supports Fairewinds analysis of one year ago that indicates Edison took shortcuts to avoid public participation in a license amendment for San Onofre.
Read MoreFairewinds Maggie Gundersen and Arnie Gundersen share this podcast to discuss the recent internet attack against the Fairewinds website. Maggie and Arnie also discuss the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's double standard of allowing Nuclear Senior managers off the hook for significant violations while strongly reprimanding, firing, or filing criminal charges against its technicians and engineers. Lastly, Arnie Gundersen then discusses saltwater intrusions and what that means for Japan's Hamaoka nuclear plant and how nuke speak is used to confuse the general public and press.
Read MoreIn this week's podcast, Fairewinds looks at how difficult it is for the public to meaningfully participate in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing process. Arnie Gundersen was retained by Friends of the Earth to assess major problems at the San Onofre nuclear plant in California that have caused a year long shutdown. Arnie met with the NRC this week concerning his analysis of what went wrong and how the problems were foreseeable. In this podcast, Arnie discusses how Southern California Edison deliberately withheld information to make his technical analysis more difficult to accomplish. Fairewinds taped the meeting, so our podcast listeners can hear for themselves the difficulties Arnie encountered and the games the nuclear industry plays to prevent public participation.
Read MoreFairewinds examines continuing problems at four US nuclear reactors, each of which have been shutdown for more than two years. Upstream dam failures continue to plague Ft. Calhoun, steam generator tube failures at San Onofre jeopardized Los Angeles. Crystal River's containment repairs burden Floridians with excessive costs. Finally, Arnie examines a new proposal by the Department of Energy to melt radioactive scrap metal and reuse it in consumer goods like knives and forks.
Read MoreThanks to our listeners and viewers, Fairewinds' fundraiser was a success. Thank you to all our donors who helped us to reach our goal. It's a new year, and 2013 has already kicked off a repeat of the same safety and engineering issues that plagued the nuclear industry in 2012. The two, eye opening nuclear safety issues we discuss in today's Fairewinds' Podcast are: a radiation scandal in Japan and a major safety problem in the US at Fort Calhoun. Arnie Gundersen alerts us to the fact that radiation exposure cover-ups did not occur only in Japan, and have occurred repeatedly in the US as well as in many other countries. Finally, we discuss Wall Street's financial worries over US reactors.
Read MoreIn this week's Fairewinds podcast Arnie Gundersen discusses recent problems at two nuclear reactors and how the NRC is failing to enforce its own laws governing those reactors. Gundersen discusses nuclear containment problems at the Ft. Calhoun reactor near Omaha and accident release rates at the San Onofre nuclear plant south of Los Angeles. In both cases, the NRC seems willing to ignore its own regulations and allow these two damaged reactors to restart.
Read MoreArnie explains that Oyster Creek is the only nuclear plant in the US that lacks a modern High Pressure Safety Injection System. This means that the recently discovered pipe crack in a 3 inch pipe at Oyster Creek would create a serious safety threat if it were to completely break. Arnie also discusses the cost of operating nuclear plants, and how many nuclear plants around the country are no longer a low cost electric producer. Finally, Arnie looks at the three nuclear plants with extended shutdowns (Ft. Calhoun, San Onofre and Crystal River) and concludes that the cost of maintaining large staffs when no electricity is being produced is not in the best interests of the ratepayers.
Read MoreYet more problems for San Onofre: According to Southern California Edison, a possible case of sabotage at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant is being investigated. Gundersen and KH discuss how coolant liquid at the plant may have found its way into an unrelated system and threatened the backup power supply. - San Onofre has a long history of employee concerns, and recent layoffs may have exacerbated their employee problems. - The nation's oldest running Nuclear Plant, Oyster Creek, may remain shut down for longer than expected following the discovery of a crack in the reactor head. - The NRC to back a new study which will re-evaluate earthquake risks and probabilities at U.S. nuclear plants.
Read MoreIn this edition, we'll discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and what lessons must be learned including the breakdown in emergency preparedness. - Nuclear power plants are built to a "design basis" in an effort to prepare them for Mother Nature's worst events. Are these design bases still sufficient? - Containment Venting has long been a concern associated with Mark 1 BWR containment systems. Now, NRC staff has recommended that these filtered vents be hardened. - Looking at industry wide changes, we discuss the new Vogtle nuclear power plant, under construction in Georgia, that will cost billions of dollars for ratepayers and US taxpayers. Finally, in response to reader questions, we discuss what other radioactive isotopes in addition to cesium were released into the environment from the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown.
Read MoreIn this special edition question & answer podcast, Gundersen and KH discuss what effects Hurricane Sandy had on U.S. nuclear power plants, especially Oyster Creek. Gundersen explains how spent fuel pools are not configured to be cooled with diesel power in the event of a loss of offsite power. Oyster Creek and several other nuclear power plants did lose offsite power and Thomson Reuters reports that they may use fire pumps to cool the pools.
Read MoreFairewinds Energy Education is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to furthering public understanding of nuclear power and nuclear safety related issues.
