Renewing Aging Nuclear Reactors (Part 1)

  • Watts Bar Unit 1 was the last nuclear power reactor to receive a new operating license in the U.S. in 1996. Reactors are licensed to operate for 40 years. After that, the utility has to apply for a 20 year renewal. (Photo courtesy of USNRC)

President Barack Obama has been stumping for nuclear power lately.
He announced loan guarantees to kick-start construction of the first new reactor in 30 years. Those guarantees might lead to just a handful of new reactors in the next decade. Shawn Allee reports the real action in the nuclear industry is in old reactors we already have:

Transcript

President Barack Obama has been stumping for nuclear power lately.

He announced loan guarantees to kick-start construction of the first new reactor in 30 years.
Those guarantees might lead to just a handful of new reactors in the next decade.

Shawn Allee reports the real action in the nuclear industry is in old reactors we already have:

To run a reactor, you have to have the federal government’s permissison, but that permission lasts 40 years.
If a company wants more time, it’s got to renew that license – for twenty years at a pop.
Companies are flooding the government with renewal applications.

To understand why, I talk with Don Kreis. He teaches environmental law at the Vermont Law School.

“Think about an automobile that you owned for a really long time, but it’s still working fine.”

OK. You’ve got two choices …. you can bet your car repair costs will be low … or you fork over a hefty wad of cash for a new car.

“Which of those two things are you going to do? Well, you’re goiing to run your old machine … and run it for as long as something can possibly run. Nuclear power plants run exactly the same way. ”

This is an understatement; it’s MUCH cheaper to run an existing nuclear reactor than to build a new one.
In Kreis’ home state of Vermont, a company bought an old reactor in 2002.
It paid 180 million dollars.
To build the same-sized plant new would cost 2.4 billion dollars today.

That’s the industry’s motivation for license renewal, but only the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give the final O-K.

In the past decade, the NRC’s approved renewal at 59 reactors … more than half the nuclear fleet.

This is too fast for critics.

“We haven’t been happy with the process and I think there are issues with license renewal and the NRC needs to address those.”

That’s Edwin Lyman.
He’s a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group.

Lyman worries the NRC downplays risk from old reactors.

Take the case of the Crystal River reactor in Florida.

Last year, workers tried to replace old steam turbines.

“To do that you have to cut a hole in the containment building, when they did that, they found there was a huge gap that had developed in the containment building that you couldn’t see or detect from the outside and they only saw it when they cut through it. and so, the question is, was this an age-related issue that people didn’t know about.”

The containment building keeps the public safe from radiation during accidents.
The power company caught the problem after it submitted an application for renewal.
Lyman also worries about corroding pipes and reactor vessels.

“So, there are uncertainties and these will probably only grow as the fleet of power plants gets older.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says critics like Lyman shouldn’t worry about aging reactors.
Samson Lee oversees renewal applications at the NRC.
He says old reactors meet the same safety standards new ones do, plus, companies have to show they’ll manage aging parts.

“So if they continue to meet the requirement to ensure the plants are safe, and if they continue to meet that, then you know, we can issue a renewal license.”

But as for the charge the renewal process is too quick or easy?

Lee says the NRC can say “no.”

“NRC has returned one application for license renewal.”

“What was that for?”

“That was because of poor quality of application. It was how they put together the application.”

“Did that reflect on the plant or the application process?”

“It’s the application process. This is how they chose to prepare the application.”

So, for now … the biggest problem the NRC has seen during license renewal has been in the paperwork.

Right now, the federal government’s handing out renewal licenses, allowing nuclear power plants to run up to 60 years.

But there’s more to come.

The government’s prepared to evaluate renewals to let plants run up to 80 years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Tomorrow Shawn Allee will have
a report on one state that has said “no”
to re-licensing a nuclear power plant.

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Obama Pushes ‘Cash-For-Caulkers’ Program

  • A volunteer cuts insulation for a home in Alaska. Under a proposed federal program, homeowners could get rebates for making their home more energy efficient. (Photo by Ben Brennan courtesy of FEMA)

President Barack Obama is pushing for a new federal program that would create a Cash-for-Clunkers like rebate for people who make energy-saving home repairs. The Environment Report’s Orlando Montoya covered the President’s announcement:

Transcript

President Barack Obama is pushing for a new federal program that would create a Cash-for-Clunkers like rebate for people who make energy-saving home repairs. Orlando Montoya covered the President’s announcement.

The program would be called HomeStar. In it, homeowners would be eligible for up to $3,000 in rebates if they hire someone to seal up their attic, install new windows or make other repairs to cut down on home energy use.

The President made his announcement at a community college in Savannah, Georgia. In the audience were contractors that he said could do some of the energy-efficient work.

“These are companies ready to take on new customers. They’re workers eager to do new installations and renovations, factories ready to produce new building supplies. All we got to do is create the incentives to make it happen.”

Administration officials say, the program could cost six-billion-dollars. Mr. Obama wants the HomeStar program included in a bill jobs bill being drafted by Congress.

For The Environment Report, I’m Orlando Montoya.

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Salt in the American Diet (Part 2)

  • Health professionals often work to reduce their patients salt intake to reduce high blood pressure. Should the government get involved too? (Photo by James Gathany for the US CDC)

New research shows that Americans’ health
would benefit dramatically if we ate less
salt. But some people say it’s not the
salt in the saltshaker that’s the
problem. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

New research shows that Americans health would benefit dramatically if we ate less salt. But some people say it’s not the salt in the saltshaker that’s the problem. Julie Grant reports:

Darryl Bosshardt comes from a salt family. His grandfather started mining salt on their farm in central Utah. When Bosshardt hears about a new study that shows 100-thousand American lives could be saved each year if everyone reduced their salt intake by just a half teaspoon – he cringes.
He says salt is being given a bad name.

“And the challenge is, how we define salt.”

Most of the salt today all looks the same – perfectly pour-able, uniform bright white grains. It’s pure sodium and chloride, but Bosshardt, whose family owns the Real Salt Company, says it’s not the same as naturally occurring sea salt.

“Sea water occurs with many trace minerals. Over 50 to 60 trace minerals. It doesn’t occur, the salt in sea water doesn’t occur, as pure sodium and chloride.”

Bosshardt says those trace minerals help the body to process sodium, but most salt today looks perfect because the trace minerals have been taken out. He says when our bodies lack the minerals needed to process sodium; it raises blood pressure, which can lead to heart problems.

There are some books by holistic doctors that make these kinds of claims,but there’s not much science to prove this.

Most doctors today say salt is salt; sodium chloride. Our bodies need it, but not as much as much as most Americans are eating.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s lead author of that new study on salt – the one that finds Americans could reduce deaths from heart disease by 100-thousand just by slightly reducing salt consumption:

“I don’t think we’re saying salt is bad and one of these other types of salt would be good. I think the newer types of salt that are on the market might have a lower sodium content for the taste that they have and so that would certainly be potentially beneficial.”

But Bibbins-Domingo says most Americans only get 6-percent of their sodium from their own saltshakers. The rest comes from processed foods and restaurants. So buying expensive sea salts with those trace minerals isn’t going to make much difference to most people. She says the problem is that salt is ubiquitous – people don’t even realize they’re eating it:

“If you start out with a healthy bowl of cereal with some milk, you’ve already consumed quite a bit of salt right there. If you have that healthy turkey sandwich or tuna sandwich, you have a bit of salt right there. If you have the marinara sauce with the pasta, you have salt there. So you realize that there are so many different ways, without you choosing items that we might clearly associate with a high sodium content, that there are a lot of places that we’re all consuming salt.”

Bibbins-Domingo supports efforts like the one in New York City. There Mayor Michael Bloomburg is urging food manufacturers to reduce the salt in their foods by 25% over the next five years.

Mark Kurlansky thinks it’s a terrible idea. He wrote a book called “Salt.” When laws curb smoking – that’s one thing. But salt is something different:

“You have to deal with the fact that people like salt. There isn’t the moral imperative of cigarettes because there isn’t a problem of second hand salt. If you don’t want to eat salt and the guy at the next table wants to eat it, it’s not going to affect you. It becomes an issue of government messing around with individual choice.”

But most people don’t realize they’re making that choice – there’s just so much salt in all the foods they buy. Other countries, such Finland and England, have worked with food manufacturers to lower salt content. In the UK, they cut sodium in foods by 10-percent. And researchers say the public didn’t even notice. They’re still studying to see if it’s actually improved health.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Insights on Human Disease From Dolphins

  • Researchers think dolphins can give them insights into some cervical cancers. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

New research on diseases in dolphins could help us understand more about cancer in humans. Samara Freemark reports:

Transcript

New research on diseases in dolphins could help us understand more about cancer in humans. Samara Freemark reports:

Cervical cancer can be caused by human papilloma virus, or HPV.

There are a lot of different strains of HPV. And the more strains a person gets at one time, the higher the chance of developing cancer.

Other animals get papilloma too. But up until now, researchers thought only humans could host multiple strains at once.

Hendrik Nollen studies marine animal diseases at the University of Florida.

His team has now found multiple papilloma strains in the dolphins they’ve been studying, but they also found one very important difference between dolphins and people.

“There are no reports of cervical cancer in dolphins. So here we have an
opportunity to look at the same setting, the same situation, and see why does one species develop disease and another one doesn’t.”

Understanding why dolphins don’t get cervical cancer could mean a step towards a cure for humans.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Home Weatherization Gets Snagged

  • It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was one way to help jump start the economy. (photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)

The Recovery Act called for a multi-billion dollar home weatherization program. It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was the ultimate “shovel ready” project to help jump start the economy. But as Mark Brush reports, so far, it just hasn’t worked out:

Transcript

The Recovery Act called for a multi-billion dollar home weatherization program. It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was the ultimate “shovel ready” project to help jump start the economy. But as Mark Brush reports, so far, it just hasn’t worked out:

The Department of Energy’s Inspector General found the data alarming.

Of the ten states receiving the most money for home weatherization – eight of them weren’t even at two percent of their goal.

One reason for the hold-up is bureaucracy. There’s a law that says if you get federal money – you have to pay workers a “prevailing wage” or a fair wage. And there was confusion over how much to pay people.

Don Skaggs is with Ohio’s Office of Community Services. He says most states waited until the issue was resolved – but Ohio didn’t wait:

“So we decided to go ahead and do production. And then once we understood what the requirements were, we would go back and retroactively adjust those wages for those staff, which is what we did.”

So Ohio’s on track – but most states are not. The Department of Energy said it’s working on these problems – and expects things to ramp up soon.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Salt in the American Diet (Part 1)

  • Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half. (Photo by Paul Goyette)

If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.

Transcript

If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.

When Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo sees patients with high blood pressure, she advises them to cut back the on the salt.

She says they often return to the office – happy to announce that they’ve cut out fast food and processed snacks.

“AND THEN I ASK THEM TO TELL ME WHAT THEY’RE EATING AND I AM AWAYS BLOWN AWAY WHEN THEY COME BACK WITH THESE NICE HEALTHY VEGETABLE SOUPS THAT ARE CHOCKED FULL OF SALT. AND SO ALL THE THINGS THAT THEY DON’T REALIZE ARE HIGH IN SALT ARE ACTUALLY STILL THERE IN THEIR DIET.”

Bibbins Domingo is associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s also lead author of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at Stanford and Columbia University Medical Centers co-authored the study.

They did a computer simulation – to see what would happen if every American reduced their salt intake by a half teaspoon a day. That’s 3 grams.

“WHAT WE FOUND THAT IS IF WE WERE ABLE TO REDUCE SALT IN THE U-S DIET BY 3 GRAMS PER DAY, WE WOULD ANTICIPATE 100-THOUSAND FEWER DEATHS EACH YEAR, 100-THOUSAND FEWER HEART ATTACKS, AND MORE THAN 100-THOUSAND FEWER CASES OF NEW HEART DISEASE.”

Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half.

But not everybody puts that much stock in the new study.

Michael Alderman is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says the government shouldn’t act so quickly based on this new study:

“WELL, IT’S INTERESTING THAT IT’S CALLED A STUDY, WHICH I THINK SORT OF SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE REAL OUTCOMES AND REAL PEOPLE THAT WERE STUDIED. IN FACT, OF COURSE, WHAT IT IS A SIMULATION, A MATHEMATICAL MODELING.”

Alderman says there are lots of different findings when it comes to sodium consumption. And some show reducing salt intake could have actually have negative health effects:

“WE KNOW THAT REDUCING SODIUM INTAKE, BY AN AMOUNT SUFFICIENT TO REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE, ALSO INCREASES SYMPATHETIC NERVE ACTIVITY, IT INCREASES RESISTANCE TO INSULIN…”

If we already ate low salt diets, the researchers in this latest salt study say those concerns might be valid. But Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says salt consumption in the U.S. is higher than is recommended, and it’s on the rise.

But she says there are high levels of salt in so many foods, it’s hard to avoid. Cereal. Bread. Lunch meat. Pasta Sauce.

And she says consumers can’t really reduce salt consumption without some changes by food manufacturers.

“RIGHT NOW THERE ARE NO CHOICES THAT ARE REALLY AVAILABLE THAT MIGHT BE LOWER IN SALT. I THINK THAT’S WHERE THE EFFORTS WITH THE FOOD MANUFACTURERS ARE ABOUT REALLY MAKING A RANGE OF CHOICES SO WE CAN EAT LOWER SALT, WHICH IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE RIGHT NOW.”

Some governments are responding. New York City has already started urging food manufacturers and restaurant chains to lower the salt in their foods by 25-percent over the next five years. Bibbins-Domingo says California is considering salt limits in foods the state buys for schools, prisons and other public institutions.

She also wants the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to alert consumers when foods are high in salt.

In the meantime, Bibbins-Domingo advises her patients to look at food labels – and really look at the sodium content – so they know what they’re getting.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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