Latest Energy News from the Web:

• - Boehner says GOP will add Keystone provision to infrastructure bill
• - How Much Energy Do You Waste Charging Your Cellphone?
• - A 'thermal battery' for villages in India
• - GOP wants Sen. Baucus to go rogue on Keystone XL oil sands pipeline
• - Dot Earth Blog: An Extraordinary Aurora Borealis
• - BP Feared Gulf Oil Spill Rate of 3.4 Million Gallons a Day
• - New Data Not So Sunny on U.S. Natural Gas Supply
• - Delahunt Retreats on Project He Financed in Congress
• - Northeast Carbon Trading System a Startling Success
• - House Republicans extend Solyndra probe to Defense Department
• - Editorial: In Defense of Clean Energy
• - Microbubbles Cut Cost of Algae-Derived Biofuel
• - Green Blog: New York's Fracking Deliberations Inch Along
• - Green Blog: Racing Up (and Down) the Performance Index
• - Ba-bye to six more U.S. coal plants
• - Green Blog: When Marine Mammals Become Food
• - OpenEI Apps now live!
• - USDA bets (again) on advanced biofuels
• - TransCanada chides Obama administration over Twitter
• - Green Blog: Reaping a Bonus From Cap-and-Trade
• - House GOP begins moving on Boehner’s plan to link drilling and infrastructure
• - Magnetic Soap May Help Clean Up Spilled Oil
• - Green Blog: On Our Radar: 6 More Coal Plants to Close
• - Hydrogen 'sponge' could extend EV driving range
• - Indiana’s bet on electric car manufacturing looking like a bust
• - Green Blog: How to Manage U.S. Forests, Version 3.1
• - Geothermal Energy Risk The Focus As Opportunities Evaluated
• - Local officials tell N.D. lawmakers about oil boom problems
• - Parent company of EV battery maker files for bankruptcy
• - Residents of ‘EVTown’ in Illinois kick tires at electric car show

---

MISO Markets In Real Time

By samb - Posted on July 21, 2011 at 11:00 am

Watch MISO markets in real time including wind contribution and day ahead forecasts for wind among other system data.

MISO Markets

Fukushima Daiichi in Cold Shutdown

By samb - Posted on June 28, 2011 at 9:05 am

Update on Fukushima Daiichi-December 19, 2011

The Fukushima Daiichi reactors are in “a state of cold shutdown,” with temperatures at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessels and containment vessels stably below the boiling point and radiation levels at the plant boundary below 100 millirem per year. (By comparison, the average radiation level from all sources to U.S. citizens is about 400 millirem per year.) The announcement last Friday by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is a key milestone in the site’s recovery plan, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said on his first visit to the site since March.

What does “a state of cold shutdown” mean?  (From NEI’s Website)

In non-nuclear speak, it basically means the conditions within the nuclear reactor are such that it would be impossible for a chain reaction to occur. This term usually comes into play whenever a reactor is shut down periodically for refueling or for the final time prior to the long-term before it is decommissioned. When a reactor is in cold shutdown, the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) can be safely opened with great care and additional water is added to the cavity above the vessel for shielding to permit safe handling of the fuel for refueling (replacing depleted fuel elements) or defueling (removing the entire core).

In Fukushima Daiichi’s case, achieving the strict definition of “cold shutdown” is not possible because the RPVs have been breached. This means that the RPVs will not hold water (currently the cooling water is flowing through them) and some of the melted fuel may not be in the vessel, but rather on the floor below, which is still within the primary containment. To clean up the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant’s owner and operator, will work with the Japanese government and other parties to develop a long-term plan that will include removing the damaged fuel.

TEPCO understood this important nuance to achieving “cold shutdown” early on this year when it developed its initial recovery plans and developed a new term, “cold shutdown condition,” which applies to how they are bringing the reactors to stable condition. Their definition is as follows:

• Temperature of RPV bottom is, in general, below 100 degrees Celsius.
• Release of radioactive materials from PCV is under control and public radiation exposure by additional release is being significantly held down. (Not exceed 1 mSv/y at the site boundary as a target.)

By their definition, the Fukushima Daiichi reactors will reach “cold shutdown condition” once they are below boiling point and are no longer releasing significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. This new definition, thus, has an important distinction between the more commonly used “cold shutdown,” which typically takes place at a nuclear plant under normal conditions.

Reaching “cold shutdown conditions” at Fukushima Daiichi, however, has been an extremely difficult task for TEPCO workers given the conditions at the site and is a very significant milestone in their recovery efforts. TEPCO expects to reach this condition in just a few weeks by the end of 2011.