NNSA: 1% of Budget Reduces US Nuke Number

As the new year begins, federal budgets for FY2013, passed by the previous Congress, are being signed into law by the President. Although a few federal programs will shrink, NNSA's budget for FY2013 will increase by 4.9% to approximately $11.5 billion. Quoting from NNSA's website (http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/budget), these monies will be allocated as follows:

"The FY 2013 budget provides $7.58 billion to implement the President’s strategy for the stewardship of the nuclear weapons stockpile in coordination with our partners at the Department of Defense. It includes $2.24 billion for facility operation and maintenance, and construction projects, helping NNSA modernize Cold War-era facilities, with increases are requested for the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex and the TRU Waste Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)."

"$51.3 million is provided in FY 2013 to continue reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the United States’ stockpile. NNSA has committed to completing the dismantlement of all warheads retired as of FY 2009 by FY 2022. In FY 2011, NNSA completed the dismantlement of the last B53 nuclear bomb, one of the largest ever built, ahead of schedule and under budget. NNSA also eliminated the W70, the last warhead in the US Army’s arsenal."

"$2.46 billion is requested to help achieve the President’s nonproliferation objectives and NNSA works toward meeting his four-year goal to secure vulnerable nuclear material around the world. This funding will help complete the removal or disposal of 4,353 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and plutonium in foreign countries, and provide NNSA with the necessary support to equip approximately 229 total buildings containing weapons-usable material with state-of-the-art security upgrades by the President’s deadline."

"The President also continued to request funding for the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility and Waste Solidification Building at the Savannah River Site, critical nonproliferation construction projects. The $569.5 million requested for MOX and related activities this year will lead to the permanent elimination of enough plutonium for at least 8,500 nuclear weapons."

"The FY 2013 budget request gives NNSA the resources needed to maintain its one-of-a-kind emergency response capabilities, which allow NNSA to respond to a nuclear or radiological incident anywhere in the world. In FY 2011, NNSA was able to assist the U.S. military, military families, and the Japanese people by deploying its unique emergency response assets in the aftermath of devastating tsunami that affected the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant." 

"To power the nuclear navy, the budget request includes $1.1 billion for the Naval Reactors program, which will support the OHIO class submarine replacement and modernize key elements NNSA’s infrastructure."

(These separate allocations sum to $11.76 billion.)

It may be of interest to note that NNSA's FY2013 budget provides just $51.3 million "to continue reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the United States’ stockpile", but $7.58 billion to "implement the President’s strategy for the stewardship of the nuclear weapons stockpile in coordination with our partners at the Department of Defense"; i.e., the amount of money assigned to maintain and/or improve the current nuclear weapons stockpile is 148x greater than the amount of money assigned to reducing the size of the stockpile.

Meanwhile, $2.46 billion is assigned to the nuclear non-proliferation program and $569 million "for MOX  and related activities"; but, the MOX program, as advertised, is itself a non-proliferation activity.

No money is assigned by NNSA to the cleanup of legacy nuclear waste; i.e., nuclear wastes which are a legacy of the nuclear weapons program. Rather, this is included as a $5.65 billion line item in DOE's $27.45 billion budget for FY2013. The itemized DOE budget for FY2013 is compared with its budgets for the two preceding years at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/energy.pdf. Money assigned to the cleanup of legacy nuclear waste will be 1.1% less than in FY2012. DOE's total (discretionary) budget will increase by 3.2% relative to FY2012.

It is curious that Sec. of Energy Steven Chu, in his public remarks, dated Dec 21, 2012, celebrating the career of retiring NNSA chief administrator Tom D'Agostino, said (see Press Release section of NNSA's website):

"Under his [D'Agostino's] watch, we have eliminated or secured hundreds of nuclear weapons worth of nuclear materials.  We have reduced the number of deployed warheads to the lowest level since the 1950s—an approximate reduction of 85% from the darkest days of the Cold War – while successfully maintaining the safety, security, and effectiveness of a shrinking stockpile.  Through Environmental Management, we have permanently cleaned up 690 square miles of contaminated land—an area more than 30 times the size of Manhattan—and completed the cleanup of 22 transuranic waste sites across the nation, permanently eliminating an environmental risk at these sites and reducing the cost of monitoring and storing this waste."

But, Sec. Chu chose here to mention only those NNSA operations that tend to "reduce nuclear dangers at home and abroad" by shrinking the size of the nuclear weapons stockpile, even though this is only 1% of NNSA's annual budget. Moreover, the cleanup of lands contaminated by the accumulated detritus of the nuclear weapons program, to which he referred, is a DOE, but not an NNSA, responsibility. Oddly, too, Chu referred only indirectly to the dominant part of NNSA's current mission which is to "maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of the remaining weapons"; i.e., the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which eats up 2/3 of NNSA's annual budget.

MOX Musings

How to dispose of more than 33 tons of fissile plutonium (P239), declared surplus from the nuclear weapons program?

Is it better to mix it with depleted uranium (U238), form the mixture into fuel rods (MOX), burn the fuel in civilian nuclear reactors, and then bury the exhausted, but still radioactive fuel in a deep pit for a very long time, essentially forever?

Or, is it better to combine the surplus Pu239 with waste from nuclear power plants, vitrify the highly radioactive mixture steel canisters, and then bury the canisters in a deep pit for a very long time, essentially forever?

Are either of these schemes guaranteed to permanently dispose of the surplus Pu239; i.e., such that it would be forever impossible to build a viable nuclear warhead from the nuclear wastes?

Well, maybe not! But, in this regard, details matter and much of the relevant information is classified as Secret Restricted Data; e.g., just what can be constructed successfully from waste materials of a given nuclidic composition is unknown to the general public.
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Nevertheless, advocacy groups vouchsafe a variety of views on this topic. Across the spectrum of views there are, on the one hand, views associated with pessimistic  feelings about nuclear energy and, on the other, views associated with optimistic feelings about all things nuclear. Those who feel pessimistic about nuclear energy occasionally also express negative thoughts about other human attempts to control and exploit nature. Those who feel optimistic about all things nuclear also often express positive thoughts about scientific and engineering undertakings, generally.

Thus, do I reveal some of my own bias!

Now, a few quotes from websites advocating for and against MOX:
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From Nuclear Information and Resource Service  (an antinuclear activist group):

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/moxproliferation.htm

Plutonium Proliferation and MOX Fuel

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to mix 33 or more metric tons of plutonium from nuclear weapons with depleted uranium into a mixed-oxide fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors is a direct reversal of decades-old U.S. policy aimed toward non-proliferation of nuclear weapons materials. A plutonium fuel program will increase the risks of nuclear terrorism and the international proliferation of plutonium.

A decision on the part of the U.S. government to engage in a large scale civilian plutonium program would encourage the continuation of the messy and dangerous reprocessing programs in Europe and Japan. A plutonium fuel program would destroy any leverage the U.S. might have to influence non-weapons states from creating their own civilian reprocessing programs.

Irradiating weapons plutonium in a reactor does not make the plutonium unusable for weapons purposes. The U.S. government proved with a nuclear test in 1962 that so-called "reactor grade" plutonium can be used in nuclear bombs. Using weapons grade plutonium in reactors does not effectively safeguard plutonium, and it undermines disarmament efforts.

A U.S. plutonium fuel program would send a clear signal to other countries: the U.S. government approves of separated plutonium fuel programs. This would undercut the government's ability to discourage reprocessing in other countries and may encourage other countries to pursue plutonium programs. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director John Holum explained the situation clearly in a memorandum to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary: "U.S. decisions on plutonium disposition are inextricably linked with U.S. efforts to reduce stockpiles as well as limit the use of plutonium worldwide. The multi-decade institutionalization of plutonium use in US commercial reactors would set a very damaging precedent for US non-proliferation policy."


The alternative, to encase the plutonium in ceramics or glass (immobilization), will not affect the government's non-proliferation goals, nor encourage civilian reprocessing in the U.S. or elsewhere. Immobilizing plutonium will send the proper signal that plutonium is a dangerous waste and needs to be treated as such.
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From the National Nuclear Security Administration:

NNSA Completes Milestones for Initial Steps in Plutonium Disposition
Nov 16, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has announced that it recently completed two milestones towards production of early plutonium oxide feedstock for its Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility. In its second year in production, NNSA exceeded the FY 2012 goal of 200 kilograms of plutonium oxide production by disassembling nuclear weapons pits and converting them into plutonium oxide at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). NNSA also initiated operations at H-Canyon and HB-Line at the Savannah River Site (SRS) to begin plutonium oxide production. The oxide production at both LANL and SRS provides the initial feedstock for the MOX facility and demonstrates the first steps towards permanent plutonium disposition.

“The progress achieved at LANL and SRS in support of plutonium disposition demonstrates the benefits of utilizing existing facilities in support of NNSA’s efforts to eliminate surplus weapons plutonium,” said NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino.

“Feedstock for the MOX facility represents a critical component of the U.S. plutonium disposition strategy and will enable the U.S. to meet international nonproliferation commitments while advancing President Obama’s goal of permanently reducing the number of nuclear weapons across the globe.”

The disassembly, conversion and certification, which were completed at LANL, are significant accomplishments in an ongoing effort to safely dispose of surplus weapon-grade plutonium. NNSA used the Advanced Recovery and Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) at LANL to prepare, package and certify the plutonium oxide product. Following a rigorous product certification process, Shaw AREVA MOX Services, the prime contractor for the design, construction and start-up of the MOX facility, has officially accepted a total of 442 kilograms of plutonium oxide from LANL for the MOX facility.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) initiated repackaging and dissolution of the non-pit plutonium material in H-Canyon this month, marking a significant milestone for H-Canyon's efforts to support the mission to produce early feed for the MOX facility. The H-Canyon Complex will eventually provide approximately 3.7 metric tons (MT) of plutonium oxide feedstock for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility from the excess defense plutonium currently stored at SRS.

Under an agreement between NNSA and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), the SRS H-Canyon and HB-Line, which are owned by EM and operated by the SRS management contractor SRNS, will process plutonium to meet the specifications for use in the MOX facility. Use of the SRS’s HB-Line and H-Canyon, the only operating production-scale, shielded chemical separation facilities in the U.S., takes advantage of the extensive plutonium experience among SRNS’s H-Canyon and HB-Line staff and allows for the conversion of this plutonium into feed material that will be readily available for the MOX facility’s first years of operation. The successful startup of the dissolution process is a key milestone in preparing the materials for conversion to MOX fuel.

Through the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, the U.S. and Russia have agreed to each dispose of at least 34 MT of surplus weapon-grade plutonium, enough total material for 17,000 nuclear weapons. Once at the MOX facility, the plutonium oxide from LANL along with the oxide already at SRS from H-Canyon will be blended with depleted uranium, fabricated into MOX fuel and irradiated in domestic nuclear power reactors. After the MOX fuel is irradiated in civilian reactors, it is no longer suitable for use in nuclear weapons. [A question still remains as to whether or not a crude nuclear device could be fashioned successfully from MOX fuel that had been irradiated in civilian reactors.]
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Also of interest is a related topic, presented by a well-known nuclear policy expert:

Op-Ed Contributor  / New York Times
Japan’s Nuclear Mistake
By FRANK N. VON HIPPEL and MASAFUMI TAKUBO
November 28, 2012  

THIS year has seen a lot of concern about the confrontation between China and Japan over a group of islets in the East China Sea.

Less attention, though, is being paid to what may be a more destabilizing development: next year Japan plans to bring its long-delayed Rokkasho reprocessing plant online, which could extract as much as eight tons of weapons-usable plutonium from spent reactor fuel a year, enough for nearly 1,000 warheads. That would add to Japan’s existing stockpile of 44 tons, 9 of which are stored in domestic facilities.

Japan has repeatedly vowed never to develop nuclear weapons, and there’s no reason to doubt that now. But there’s more to worry about: reprocessing not only creates a tempting target for terrorists, it also sets a precedent for countries around the world to follow suit — and pushes the world toward rampant nuclear proliferation.

Originally, Japan, like other countries, considered the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel necessary to obtain start-up plutonium for a new generation of plutonium “breeder” reactors that would use uranium more efficiently. But uranium remains cheap and abundant, and the planned reactors, so-called molten-sodium-cooled breeders, proved to be costly and unreliable.

Japan’s own Monju prototype breeder reactor operated for only four months in 1995 before a sodium fire shut it down. Its operators are still struggling to restart it.

Japan then shifted to a strategy of recycling separated plutonium back into the fuel of its existing reactors. That effort was delayed by technical problems and public opposition and, in the wake of last year’s Fukushima accident, appears completely unviable. Still, Japan continues to plan to reprocess its nuclear fuel.

And it does so despite international pressure. At a nuclear-security event in Seoul, South Korea, last March, President Obama said, “We simply can’t go on accumulating huge amounts of the very material, like separated plutonium, that we are trying to keep away from terrorists.”

Not only did Japanese authorities ignore him, but some reprocessing advocates claim that the Obama administration in fact supports Japan’s plutonium recycling program.

Japan insists that its stockpiles are safe, but just one successful theft by would-be nuclear terrorists would create a global crisis. Of even more concern is how reprocessing provides cover for other countries to acquire a nuclear option.

We learned this in 1974 when India took plutonium enriched with help from the American Atoms for Peace program and used it for “peaceful nuclear explosion.”

Thanks to sustained diplomatic efforts, starting with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and to the high cost of reprocessing, Japan is the only non-nuclear state that continues to reprocess its nuclear fuel. South Korea is insisting, however, in its negotiation of a new Agreement of Nuclear Cooperation with the United States, that it should have the same right to reprocess as Japan.

South Korea isn’t alone. South Africa’s energy minister recently reasserted her country’s interest in reprocessing. When asked

why the country would want to embark on such a costly venture, a South African nuclear official once responded, “Reprocessing is the currency of power in the modern world!” Meanwhile, Iran insists that it has the same rights as Japan and is building a reactor similar to the one India used to produce the plutonium for its first nuclear bombs.

Despite the added cost of reprocessing — about $2.5 billion a year for the new facility — Japan insists it is the only viable option for the spent nuclear fuel which is filling up the cooling pools at its reactors. But there are easier alternatives.

When nuclear power plants in most other countries need space in their pools, they remove some of the older, cooler fuel and place it in air-cooled casks within the plant’s security perimeter. That costs 5 percent as much as reprocessing does. Eventually, the spent fuel is to be shipped to an underground repository, as is to be done with the high-level radioactive waste from reprocessing.

Reprocessing advocates in Japan and South Korea say that communities around the nuclear power plants will not allow dry-cask

storage and that, when the spent fuel pools fill up, the power plants will have to shut down.

But in both countries those local governments receive large subsidies and taxes — typically 50 percent of a municipality’s revenue in Japan — for playing host to nuclear power plants. They are unlikely to force permanent shutdowns just because they don’t like extra spent fuel kept at the reactor site, especially if the safety advantages of dry-cask storage are explained to them.

The Obama administration should make it emphatically clear to Japan’s government that the separation of more plutonium is in no one’s interest. The two countries should instead jointly lead a global effort to reduce existing stocks of separated plutonium by discouraging reprocessing and encouraging safe disposal of already separated stocks, which could be done, for example, by immobilizing the plutonium and placing it in three-mile-deep boreholes.

The waste of trillions of taxpayers’ yen is Japan’s problem. The risk it presents, however, is the whole world’s concern.

Frank N. von Hippel is a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton. Masafumi Takubo is a nuclear policy analyst based in Japan.
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Other relevant info is available from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Pools and Dry Casks

    Radioactive Waste: Production, Storage, Disposal
    Materials Safeguards and Threat Assessment
    Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel
    Locations of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations
    Dry Spent Fuel Storage Designs: NRC Approved for General Use
    Nuclear Fuel Pool Capacity
   
What We Regulate

There are two acceptable storage methods for spent fuel after it is removed from the reactor core:

    Spent Fuel Pools - Currently, most spent nuclear fuel is safely stored in specially designed pools at individual reactor sites around the country.
    Dry Cask Storage - If pool capacity is reached, licensees may move toward use of above-ground dry storage casks.

For additional information, see our Spent Fuel Storage in Pools and Dry Casks, Key Points and Questions & Answers page.

How We Regulate

The NRC regulates spent fuel through a combination of regulatory requirements, licensing; safety oversight, including inspection, assessment of performance; and enforcement; operational experience evaluation; and regulatory support activities.

For general information, see the How We Regulate page. For details, see the following:

    Regulations, Guidance, and Communications
    Licensing
    Oversight
    Public Involvement
    Waste Confidence

Page Last Reviewed/Updated Thursday, October 18, 2012
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Finally, from the World Nuclear Association / Representing the people and organizations of the global nuclear alliance (a nuclear trade association)

Megatons to Megawatts /  Military Warheads as a Source of Nuclear Fuel   (last updated Aug, 2011)

•    Weapons-grade uranium and plutonium surplus to military requirements in the USA and Russia is being made available for use as civil fuel.

•    Weapons-grade uranium is highly enriched, to over 90% U-235 (the fissile isotope). Weapons-grade plutonium has over 93% Pu-239 and can be used, like reactor-grade plutonium, in fuel for electricity production.

•    Highly-enriched uranium from weapons stockpiles is displacing some 10,600 tonnes of U3O8 production from mines each year, and meets about 13% of world reactor requirements.

For more than three decades concern has centered on the possibility that uranium intended for commercial nuclear power might be diverted for use in weapons. Today, however, attention is focused on the role of military uranium as a major source of fuel for commercial nuclear power.

Since 1987 the United States and countries of the former USSR have signed a series of disarmament treaties to reduce the nuclear arsenals by about 80%.

Nuclear materials declared surplus to military requirements by the USA and Russia are now being converted into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The main material is highly enriched uranium (HEU), containing at least 20% uranium-235 (U-235) and usually about 90% U-235. HEU can be blended down with uranium containing low levels of U-235 to produce low enriched uranium (LEU), typically less than 5% U-235, fuel for power reactors. It is blended with depleted uranium (mostly U-238), natural uranium (0.7% U-235), or partially-enriched uranium.

Highly-enriched uranium in US and Russian weapons and other military stockpiles amounts to about 2000 tonnes, equivalent to about twelve times annual world mine production.

World stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium are reported to be some 260 tonnes, which if used in mixed oxide fuel in conventional reactors would be equivalent to a little over one year's world uranium production. Military plutonium can blended with uranium oxide to form mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.

After LEU or MOX is burned in power reactors, the spent fuel is not suitable for weapons manufacture.
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Any questions?!

WIPP: How It Gets Stuffed

The Los Alamos Monitor reported yesterday on a request filed by the Southwest Research and Information Center with the New Mexico Environment Department, regarding a SRIC lawsuit against NMED being adjudicated by the NM Court of Appeals. SRIC is requesting a stay of NMED's Nov. 1, 2012 grant of a Permit Modification Request by  the Department of Energy for the continued operation of its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

According to LAM: SRIC and Margaret Elizabeth Richards filed a Notice of Appeal in the NM Court of Appeals against NMED's decision of Nov. 1, 2012 to allow Remote Handled transuranic nuclear waste in shielded containers to be stored at  WIPP.

The appellants and approximately 200 individuals argue that the request to modify the state’s WIPP permit be subject to a public hearing because of the dangers posed by RH waste, the technical complexity of handling RH waste at WIPP and the substantial public interest in the request.

NMED approved DOE's Permit Modification Request although the state agency had in December, 2011 and January, 2012 rejected virtually the same request. [That is, whereas NMED under the outgoing Gov. Richardson had denied the request, NMED under the new Gov. Martinez has approved it.]
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SRIC's website contains relevant information: http://www.sric.org/nuclear/docs/NMED%20Appeal%20press%20release%20111612.pdf

“SRIC feels that the permit request was incomplete and did not adequately address the real reason that DOE wants shielded containers — there is not enough space for RH waste because of the way the facility has been mismanaged."

In other words, SRIC objects to the proposal to store RH waste in shielded containers at WIPP on the grounds that there is no longer room at WIPP to store similar amounts of RH waste in unshielded containers. This issue has been clarified in a formal request filed with NMED for a stay of NMED's decision to allow the use of shielded containers to store RH waste at WIPP, pending a decision by the NM Court of Appeals of a suit filed by SRIC against NMED.

See SRIC's formal request to NMED for a stay of its grant of the PMR:  http://www.sric.org/nuclear/docs/NMED%20motion%20for%20stay111612.pdf

The following is excerpted (and contains paraphrasing) from SRIC's formal request to NMED for a stay of its grant of DOE's PMR:

SRIC shows, first, that we are likely to prevail in our Appeal.

An application for a Class 2 Permit Modification should be denied if it is a) incomplete, b) fails to comply with applicable requirements, or c) fails to protect human health or the environment. An application proposed for Class 2 procedures must be denied or reclassified as Class 3 if there is a) significant public concern or b) the modification is complex. each of these criteria provides grounds for vacating the Department's decision. We address them now in order.

a) The application is incomplete  -  because it does not fully explain why the modification is needed.

b) The application conflicts with present requirements  -  Under current regulations, WIPP may store up to 7080 m**3 of RH waste. However, according to a literal interpretation of the permit modification, WIPP will be authorized to store up to 93,750 m**3 of RH waste in shielded containers, which is the current limit for CH waste. That is, the proposed modification appears to confuse the limits for RH and CH waste, thus enabling the storage of much more RH waste than originally intended.

c) The application raises complex issues and issues of significant public concern  -  The changes in capacity limits for RH waste disposal, that will apply under this modification, are a complex issue.

d) Failure to stay the decision may cause irreparable injury  -  Without a stay pending appeal, Permittees will be able to introduce RH waste in shielded containers without realistic limit. Once emplaced, RH waste cannot be extracted without great difficulty, and such becomes more true the longer the waste is in place, and additional waste is emplaced in front of it.

e) A stay will not cause significant injury to Permittees  -  The only injury to Permittees from a stay would be some delay in introducing RH waste in shielded containers.

f) A stay is consistent with the public interest  -  The benefit to the public interest would be that no stranded RH waste in shielded containers would be created.

Thus, it is likely that the NM Court of Appeals will deny the requested Permit Modification. And for this reason, as well as for all of the reasons set forth herein, the Department should issue an order, staying effectiveness of the Nov 1, 2012 determination approving the Permit Modification Request for RH in shielded containers until the NM Court of Appeals acts upon the pending appeal.
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LANL Radiates Economic Benefits

The Regional Coalition of LANL Communities held their monthly meeting yesterday at Los Alamos Research Park Bldg in Los Alamos, NM; 9:30AM - 12:30PM.

The RCLC is a group of elected local public officials whose aim is to encourage the integration of DOE-LANS-LANL into the local community, so as to improve the economic outlook for local businesses, and perhaps also eventually for local citizens. This is a task which is critical now, according to individual RCLC members, when the many state and local economies are so distressed.

However, even in the best of times, NM is at the bottom of a list of the 50 states of the US in terms of per capita income, and at the very top of a list of the states in terms of federal dollars returned per dollar of federal taxes paid out. NM also leads the nation in the size of the disparity in income of its poorest citizens, in comparison to its richest.

Approximately 12 RCLC members and staff were in attendance today; the meeting was led by RCLC chairman, and Santa Fe mayor, David Coss. There are also ~30 members of the general public in attendance.

In his opening remarks, chairman Coss  recalled the recent tour taken by RCLC members of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in southern New Mexico. Mayor Coss allowed that RCLC members had been favorably impressed by the tour, and that he personally thought of WIPP as a technological marvel.

This will be the first meeting of RCLC in which the agenda contains an item entitled "Community Voices"; viz., a period of 75 min allotted to local community groups and individuals who signed up in advance, and will present ~5 min talks describing their perspectives on issues relating to LANL, its operations, and its interactions with the local community. Formerly, the general public had not been invited to speak at RCLC meetings.

Among the community voices being heard today were:

1) Ray Baca, the Executive Director fpr NM Building and Construction Trades Council, who spoke about the difficult future confronting the local construction and trades workforce, of which there are now ~700 members at LANL.

2) Jay Coghlan, ED for Nuclear Watch NM, talked about the continued devotion of LANL to the care and feeding of nuclear weapons; ~64% of LANL's current budget, he said, was spent on nuclear weapons work. He thought that,in the future, LANL should focus more on non-proliferation efforts (although not related to the preparation of MOX fuel), and on work connected to the ongoing clean-up of contaminated LANL dump sites.

3) Holly Beaumont, Head of Interfaith Worker Justice, spoke about worker justice issues as being age-old, and of her own perspective on such matters as emanating from the judaic-christian, or abrahamic, tradition.

4) Joni Arends ED of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety spoke about the importance of LANL's Storm Water Permit and the fact that LANL produces contamination that can be carried beyond LANL site boundaries by stormwater runoff. The contaminated stormwater is subject to agreements and oversights which are separate from the those described by the Consent Order, she said.

5) A representative of Tewa Women United spoke about the continuing threat to the traditions of Pueblo peoples presented by ongoing LANL operations. She noted that the threat of contaminated water emanating from LANL property is particularly serious for native women, and for their children, who are among the most vulnerable members of the local community.

6) William Enloe, Chair LA National Bank, and Kevin Holsapple, of the LA Chamber of Commerce, spoke about the importance for local businesses of ensuring stable LANL funding. This is especially critical now, they said, given that the  business climate is being stressed by the stumbling national economy.

7) Chip Chippeaux, Chair of Century Bank of Santa Fe, spoke about the need to ensure stable LANL funding, even though the type of work being performed at LANL is controversial within parts of the local community. He suggested that local community members needed to join forces in their efforts to help to secure stable LANL funding, in spite of the existence of this controversy.

A good deal of the meeting was spent discussing bureaucratic matters of interest to particular RCLC group members. Many of these matters, especially as related to the RCLC budget and to travel on RCLC business by individual RCLC members, were broached by the RCLC ED, De Anza Spaien, and took up `~1 hr of the Coalition's meeting time today.This is not to try to take anything away from Ms. Sapien, who appears to be a competent, and even formidable, ED. Rather, the problem here, if any, lies in the nature of the bureaucratic group.

Comparing the RCLC and the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board , there are some obvious similarities and differences.

1) Both of these groups are bureaucratic in form and spend a significant fraction of their time and effort in maintaining themselves as such. However, it seems interesting that the annual budget for the RCLC is much smaller than that of the NNMCAB; e.g., ~$200K for the RCLC vs $2 million for the NNMCAB, even though these two groups are of a similar size. (The NNMCAB budget number here may have recently been reduced.) Moreover, the sources of this funding are also different. Whereas, most of the money to run the RCLC now comes from local governments, with only a minor fraction from the DOE, the NNMCAB's entire budget comes from DOE.

2) Therefore, and unsurprisingly, the mandates of these two groups are different. The RCLC is apparently intended to deepen relations between DOE-LANS-LANL and the local community, while seeking to promote the health of LANL as an institution, for the purpose of trying to grow the local economy. By contrast, the NNMCAB is specifically mandated by the DOE to help to smooth relations between DOE-LANS-LANL and the local community, in order to promote the well-being of LANL, but only incidentally to promote the well-being of the local community.

3) Nevertheless, the NNMCAB occasionally entertains challenges by individual members to the notion that the influence of LANL on the local community is altogether benign. (The size of these challenges is kept within strict limits, normally, since DOE oversight of the NNMCAB is hands-on and almost always effective.) It remains to be seen whether or not the RCLC will allow the expression of active criticsm of LANL, and its programs, to become a regular part of the RCLC agenda. It is without a doubt that such critical views are a persistent part of the spectrum of views within the local community. What is unknown, however, in my view, is the degree to which such critical views may be prevalent.

4) The reinforcement of pro-LANL views is commonplace at NNMCAB meetings. Information about LANL operations is made available regularly at these meetings by informed and intelligent LANL presenters and the volume of information presented is large. The effect on NNMCAB members of these presentations is usually very positive. In a similar vein, the RCLC heard today from Kurt Steinhaus, LANL Director of the Community Programs Office. Mr. Steinhaus pointed out that LANS donates ~$3 million annually from its management fee (~$75 million, almost all of which is divided among senior LANS managers) to support educational development within the local community.

Finally, a new element in the ongoing drama of relations between DOE-LANS-LANL and the local community was added when the ED of the Energy Communities Alliance, Seth Kirshenberg, delivered a brief introduction to the ECA and its projects. The ECA is an group of communities, each one centered at a DOE laboratory. These labs are, of course, located all around the country. Hence, the ECA tries to express a community of interests and aims to expedite and improve the relations between the DOE, its laboratories, and the surrounding communities nationwide. It was decided today that the RCLC will become a member of the ECA, and that Mayor Coss will attend the upcoming ECA national convention in New Orleans. RCLC member F. Berting (who is an LA County Council member, as well as national secretary of the ECA) may also attend.

DOE-LANS: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?

As of 10/29/12,  the Chromium Settlement Agreement of 2007, between DOE-LANS and NMED, has been terminated and the Consent Order of 2005 has been modified. The following link to an NMED page
(http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/HWB/lanlperm.html#Modification10292012) contains the related information:

"Approval of Consent Order Modification"

"Compliance Order on Consent March 1, 2005 (Revised 10/29/2012)"  [287 pages]

"Termination of Chromium Settlement (10/30/2012)"
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The Settlement Agreement and Stipulated Final Order was accepted by the Parties in June, 2007.

Among other things, the Settlement Agreement stipulated that the RACER database would be subject to third party management by the New Mexico Community Foundation, for the duration of the Agreement. In particular, in Section IV of the Agreement, entitled RACER, the following language appeared:

"The project managers (Colorado State University and the Risk Assessment Corporation) will involve the public, including all interested stakeholders, in the project through public meetings and opportunities for public comment."

"The project will accumulate, consolidate, and organize all environmental data from the Laboratory and enter the data into a computer database. The database will allow the spatial display of the data, the comparison of the data to standards and reference values, and the plotting of trends in the data. the database will be functioning and accessible to the Department (NMED) and to the public by December 31, 2007."

"The database will be turned over to an independent manager, the New Mexico Commubity Foundation, by September 30, 2008."
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However, the revised Compliance Order on Consent does not refer to third party management of the database; i.e., as described in the new Section III.Z, which appears below. Apparently, the new database  will be managed entirely by LANS, for the duration of the revised Consent Order.

"The Respondents shall maintain a publicly accessible database containing all data from environmental media (i.e., soil, sediment, surface water, groundwater, air, and biota) collected by the Respondents as part of environmental investigation and monitoring. The database shall include the capacity for the spatial display of data, the comparison of data to standards and reference values, and the plotting of trends in the data. Additionally, to the extent that data are collected pursuant to the requirements of the Consent Order, the database shall include the analytical quality assurance/quality control and data validation information. As new data becomes available, the Respondents shall enter such data into the public database through updates on no less than a monthly basis. The Respondents shall correct any inaccuracy in the data within 60 days of discovery of such inaccuracy."
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Therefore, for the general public, the reliability of included environmental data will remain an open question. This is in spite of the fact that the purpose of a publicly accessible environmental database, must be to help to allay the fears and suspicions of the general public with regard to LANL operations. But, since there is no provision for independent oversight of the new database in the revised Consent Order, the public will probably continue to be skeptical of LANS' management of the data.

Is DOE-LANS' failure to provide for independent oversight of its publicly accessible environmental database simply a matter of money?  Or does DOE-LANS continue to think of independent oversight as an avoidable inconvenience?

NNSA's Safety Culture: Does It Cost Too Much?

The 24th Annual "Nuclear Weapons Complex Waste Management & Cleanup Decision Makers’ Forum" took place recently, (October 15-18, 2012), in Jacksonville, Florida. The keynote address was presented by Peter Winokur, Chairman, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). A summary of Winokur's address, entitled "DNFSB, DOE and the Contractors: Roles, Responsibilities, and the Road Ahead", follows:

Is the DOE defense nuclear facilities complex safer now than when the Board commenced operations in the late 1980's? Yes! ... However, we cannot ignore current and emerging challenges ... and the federal commitment to protect the health and safety of workers and the public. Past success is a poor reason to decide to lessen present safeguards ... and giving up now on any of the elements of success would be foolish.

History teaches us that organizations have responded to budgetary pressures by accepting lower standards in their daily operations, especially safety, maintenance, and training; viz., often, by allowing their safety culture to degrade.

Beset by budgetary stringencies, DOE is concerned that it has become too risk-adverse and that its safety strategies have become too burdensome. DOE seems to be signaling that it is now willing to accept more risk. Moreover, DOE has also failed to learn important recent lessons and to implement related corrective actions on major design and construction projects.

Apropos of which, there is an old Chinese proverb: to know the road ahead, ask about the experiences of those who have arrived along that road.

In particular, history teaches that a broken safety culture has all too often led to serious accidents:
(For each of the following six events, descriptive material from Wikipedia has been added.)

1) Tokai-mura criticality accident

    In 1999 three workers received high doses of radiation in a small Japanese plant preparing fuel for an experimental reactor. Two of these workers died from their exposure. The accident was caused by concentrating excessive amounts of enriched uranium (~20% U235), leading to a criticality excursion (a limited uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction), which continued intermittently for 20 hours.

    A total of 119 people received a radiation dose over 1 mSv from the accident. Three operators' doses were above all permissible limits and two of the doses proved to be fatal. The cause of the accident was "human error and serious breaches of safety principles", according to IAEA.

2) Davis-Besse NPS

    Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio. It has a single pressurized water reactor, also known as a light water reactor. As of 2011, it was being operated by the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp.

    On March 5, 2002, maintenance workers discovered that corrosion had eaten a football-sized hole into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse plant. Although the corrosion did not lead to an accident, this was considered to be a serious nuclear safety incident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission kept Davis-Besse shut down until March 2004, so that FirstEnergy was able to perform all the necessary maintenance for safe operations. The NRC imposed its largest fine ever -- more than $5 million -- against FirstEnergy for the actions that led to the corrosion. The company paid an additional $28 million in fines under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

    According to the NRC, Davis-Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979.

3) NASA's two space shuttle disasters

    The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the spacecraft broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster failed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to impinge upon the adjacent hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the structural failure of the external tank, and aerodynamic forces then broke up the orbiter. The O-ring had been previously identified as a vulnerable component, but engineers who had sounded the alarm were ignored by management.

    The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the spacecraft broke up during reentry into the atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members. The loss of Columbia was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation broke off from the external fuel tank. The debris struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the Shuttle's thermal protection system, which shields the vehicle from the intense heat generated during reentry. It had long been recognized that foam shed during launch could jeopardize the integrity of the heat shield, but this had been discounted by management as an unlikely event.

4) BP Texas City Oil refinery disaster

    On March 23, 2005, a fire and explosion occurred at BP's Texas City Refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring more than 170 others. BP was charged with criminal violations of federal environmental laws, and has been subject to lawsuits from the victims' families. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration slapped BP with a then-record fine for hundreds of safety violations, and subsequently imposed an even larger fine after claiming that BP had failed to implement safety improvements following the disaster.

5) Deepwater Horizon disaster

    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and is the largest marine spill in the history of the petroleum industry. It stemmed from a sea-floor oil gusher caused by the 20 April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The rig explosion killed 11 men working on the platform and injured 17 others. On 15 July 2010, the gushing wellhead was capped, after it had released about 4.9 million barrels of crude oil. The platform was owned by Transocean, and operated for BP. Both transocean and BP have been heavily criticized for their failure to foresee, and to prepare for such an accident.

6) Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster

    The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster encompassed a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive material at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The nuclear disaster was caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, and is the largest such event since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

    It has been accepted by Power Plant authorities that the safeguards in place prior to the disaster were inadequate; i.e., in view of the fact that the reactor complex had been sited in an area where more than one devastating tsunami had occurred during the last ~500 years.


Winokur concluded his talk by pointing out that:

a) Even under severe budget constraints, DOE must continue to ensure that its priorities are well-balanced between mission and safety concerns.

b) DOE's current successful safety strategies have been developed with effort over many years and must not now be cast aside or downgraded.

c) Design basis accidents and beyond design basis accidents have already been analyzed extensively and should now be treated as real and imminent threats.


For more on this topic, see my blogpost of July 14, 2012 entitled "DNFSB Disagrees with NNSA Analysis"; also, the blogpost of Februrary 27, 2012 entitled "NRS Studies NNSA and its Nuke labs."

DOE/NNSA Assigns New Money to Nukish R&D

In the wake of the privatization of management contracts at the two senior US nuclear weapons laboratories, (Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2006, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory  in 2007, both during the G W Bush Administration) Department Of Energy's efforts to obtain more bang for its research buck is being thwarted. As a measure of the size of this problem, the National Research Council warned in a recent report that both the quantity and quality of research being conducted at the nuclear weapons labs has declined since the advent of privatization. (See: NRC report dated April 18, 2012 entitled "Review of the Quality of the Management and of the Science and Engineering Research at the DOE’s National Security Laboratories.")

It is unclear to NRC whether fault lies in the structure of the present management contracts, whether it is inherent in the for-profit management construct, as applied to the nuclear weapons labs, or if it is to be laid entirely at the feet of DOE and/or its daughter agency the National Nuclear Security Administration. Certainly, in their report, NRC revisited some of the complaints made by interested parties about DOE/NNSA micromanagement and mismanagement. But, these complaints are not new, and have been heard since DOE's founding during the Carter Administration, and since NNSA's founding during the Clinton Administration. Indeed, DOE was founded in order to correct management problems thought to exist in ERDA, its predecessor agency, and NNSA was founded in order to correct suspected management problems in DOE.

More specifically, those in the know assert that there has been a recent decrease at the labs in the amount of work supported by institutional funds redirected from day-to-day weapons work to research performed in support of the weapons program; i.e., so-called programmatic research. Prior to 2006, these funds had been redirected at the discretion of low-level technical management, and were expended in addition to Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) money, awarded through a competitive process and earmarked specifically for R&D work, not all of which was programmatic. Today, LDRD money continues to be supplied for this purpose by DOE to its nuclear weapons labs, but NRC considers that this is insufficient. Discretionary funds are no longer available to weapons research since they are being absorbed by out-sized management salaries and bonuses; e.g., to the tune of ~$70 million each, at LANL and LLNL.

In trying to overcome this perceived short-fall in discretionary funding for nuclear weapons research, the DOE has adopted a strategy of awarding research dollars directly to individuals; usually, ones who are either already employed at a nuclear weapons lab, or who work at an institution of higher learning where programmatic research is being conducted under contract. Thus, DOE is attempting to intervene in a faltering research process by "reaching over the heads" of its for-profit managers at the nuclear weapons labs. (See: DOE Press Release dated Sept 20, 2012, announcing "NNSA, DOE Office of Science Award $14M in Research Grants," available at: http://nnsa.energy.gov/ and http://science.energy.gov/fes/.)

In any case, more money is going again into nuclear weapons R&D. Clearly, this is advantageous for the nuclear weapons industry, and for its present economic engine, the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program. It is the SSMP which produces demand pull for ever more information about the operation of nuclear weapons. Thus, in the absence of nuclear weapons explosive testing, the USA has come to lead the world in the development of the means to test nuclear weapons indirectly via computer simulation, and indirectly via laboratory scale tests of related weapons components and concepts. Whether this work constitutes a breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty must be a matter for government lawyers to decide.