All Things Nuclear

If you haven’t read it, IISS’s report from a couple months ago on Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities is really outstanding.

I was particularly interested in the discussion of possible transfers of Soviet SS-N-6 (R-27) missiles to Iran and North Korea. The SS-N-6 was a Soviet SLBM that was deployed from 1968 to 1988. It had a sophisticated design to make it short enough to fit on a submarine, and used lightweight materials for the structure and advanced propellants (nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH). It had a range of 2,400-3,000 km, depending on the version, with a 650 kg payload.

There have long been reports that North Korea received some number of these missiles and sold some to Iran. The second stage of the North Korean Unha-2 launch vehicle that was launched in April 2009 appears to be identical to an SS-N-6 missile, both in appearance and performance. The second stage of Iran’s Safir-2 launch vehicle and the third stage of the Unha appear to use the steering engines of the SS-N-6; these steering engines could have been transferred even if whole missiles were not.

It’s possible that North Korea acquired production equipment from the Soviets to build an SS-N-6. However, for a number of reasons, I think it’s more likely that the second stage seen on the Unha was in fact a Soviet-made missile. For example, this stage appeared to work perfectly despite the lack of any previous flight tests by Pyongyang, which suggests that it was not built in North Korea, even using Soviet equipment. This remains, however, an open question.

The SS-N-6 is a leap beyond the technologies North Korea (or Iran) has previously flown and is currently a key piece of North Korea’s missile program. Its combination of being lightweight and having high thrust added significantly to the range capability of the Unha. And unlike Iran, North Korea does not appear to be seriously pursuing another track for missiles, such as Iran’s development program for solid-fuel missiles.

So, assuming North Korea acquired some number of SS-N-6 missiles from the Soviets, the questions is: how many?

The IISS report makes some encouraging comments on this, but a closer look at the numbers shows how hard it is to come to a definite conclusion without more information.

The report states that it is “highly improbable that complete or disassembled R-27 missiles were exported by Russia” (p. 32), based in part on the fact that there is no history of Russia transferring a strategic missile, or one that uses advanced propellants, to developing countries. But the appearance of the Unha second stage calls this into question and suggests that one or more SS-N-6 missiles found their way to North Korea, and the report later says that the possibility that a limited number of missiles or key components “were shipped or stolen from Russia cannot be excluded” (p. 33).  

The report also argues that after the U.S. Nunn-Lugar program paid Russia to destroy 107 SS-N-6 missiles Russia had “few if any missiles available for transfer” (p. 32).

However, the number of missiles produced was large enough that it’s hard to have confidence in this argument.

Pavel Podvig’s blog Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces points out that the Soviets produced some 2,000 SS-N-6 missiles. It used 653 in flight tests. The Soviet Union had 544 launchers for the SS-N-6, so at least 544 missiles would have been fueled when they were deployed. Because the propellants are so corrosive, once they were fueled they would not be in a condition to transfer. Moreover, the design of the SS-N-6 had the main engine submerged in the propellant (see figure above), so these engines could not be salvaged for reuse. Pavel points out that the smaller steering engines were outside the fuel tank and could have been salvaged.  

In his book (p. 322), Pavel notes that the service life of the SS-N-6 was extended from 5 to 13 years during the time they were deployed. So if you assume the Soviets used two missiles per launch tube over the 20 years the SS-N-6 was deployed, that still leaves about 150 missiles that may have been unfueled, and were in principle “available for transfer.”

It may well be that on average more than two missiles were used for each launcher, since in the early years of deployment the lifetime of the missiles was relatively short.

But without more information, it leaves open the possibility that Russia may have had  a relatively large number of SS-N-6 missiles and components that could have ended up in North Korea and eslewhere. Unfortunately, the jury still seems to be out on this one.

In October 1988, the NRC conducted a public meeting at its headquarters in Rockville, MD to discuss restarting the Pilgrim nuclear plant near Plymouth, Massachusetts. A funny thing happened on the way to restart:

A top aide to Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis was dragged from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) meeting yesterday after he tried to speak out as commission officials discussed a reactor in his state. Peter Agnes, Dukakis’ chief aide on atomic power issues, rose as NRC staff members told the commission the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth was ready to open after a 2 1/2 year shutdown even though it lacks an approved emergency evacuation plan. Agnes, an assistant Massachusetts public safety commissioner, was pulled from the audience by NRC security guards and dragged from the hearing room as he yelled that he was tired of hearing “half-truths.” He was not arrested but was barred from the building. (Washington Post, 10/15/88.)

Mr. Agnes reported that his knee was injured when NRC security personnel pulled him across the back of’ his chair in their haste to escort him from the building. After the expulsion attracted considerable media attention, NRC Chairman Lando Zech sent Mr. Agnes a letter of apology. The Chairman wrote:

I did not recognize who you were before security guards had already removed you from the room. (Boston Globe, 10/15/88)

From the Chairman’s explanation, it would seem that he watched his security staff forcibly remove someone from the meeting room. He did not intercede, presumably because he thought it was merely a member of the public who was being ejected.

Imagine the Chairman’s shock and awe when he learned that the person dragged kicking and screaming from the meeting room was not a lowly, despicable private citizen but a State Official – someone nearly, but not quite, as important as a Federal Official or an NRC person.

Our Takeaway:

Through four decades of monitoring and engaging the NRC, it is UCS’s firm conviction that the NRC views public communications as a one-way street. In NRC’s view, the public has but one role at NRC meetings – to passively listen to the NRC and plant owners. The NRC repeatedly acts as if no member of the public could possibly contribute anything of value to the discussion.

Things are marginally better today than in 1988 when Mr. Agnes was mistaken for a member of the public. In those days, the public had no opportunities to ask questions or make statements during NRC’s “public” meetings. Today, the public has formal opportunities during all NRC public meetings, except those conducted by the Chairman and Commissioners.

The NRC should complement the public’s ability to speak with its own ability to listen.

“Fission Stories” is a weekly feature by Dave Lochbaum. For more information on nuclear power safety, see the nuclear safety section of UCS’s website and our interactive map, the Nuclear Power Information Tracker.

On March 24, 1987, the NRC’s Region I office received allegations from a whistleblower that operators at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant were sleeping on duty in the control room. The NRC immediately sent inspectors to the Pennsylvania plant to investigate. The inspectors reported:

At times during various shifts, in particular the 11:00 pm to 7:00 am shift, one or more of the Peach Bottom operations control room staff (including licensed operators, senior licensed operators and shift supervision) have for at least the past few months periodically slept or have been otherwise inattentive to licensed duties.

NRC inspectors found all three operators asleep during a midnight shift and the shift supervisor reading a magazine. On another shift, the shift superintendent, the shift supervisor, and two operators were asleep while the remaining operator was awake, but he was not in the control room. Finally, the NRC inspectors found the operators on another shift gathered around a console playing a computer game.

A week after receiving the allegations, the NRC ordered Philadelphia Electric to immediately shut down both reactors at Peach Bottom. The NRC explained:

Sleeping while on duty in the control room demonstrates a total disregard for performing licensed duties and a lack of appreciation for what those duties entail.

And because management at the plant knew or should have known about it, the NRC said that itlacked “reasonable assurance that the facility will be operated in a manner to assure that the health and safety of the public will be protected.”

The two reactors at Peach Bottom remained closed for over two years. The NRC fined the operators who had slept on duty and also fined the company for allowing it to happen. Then, with a brand new management team and very well-rested operators, the reactors restarted.

In March 2007, the NRC’s Region I office received allegations from a whistleblower that security officers at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant were sleeping on duty. Within a month, the NRC mailed a letter to the plant’s owner asking them if security officers were sleeping on duty. Within a month, the company mailed its reply back to the NRC. The company essentially answered, “no, but thanks for asking.”

Nonetheless, security officers continued to sleep on duty at Peach Bottom. The whistleblower videotaped the entire squad asleep in the ready room on several occasions. Apparently not wishing to put the NRC to the trouble and expense of mailing another letter to the plant’s owner, the whistleblower provided the videotapes to a TV reporter. The picture above is a still photograph from that videotape showing two security guards napping on duty. When the reporter notified the NRC that he had a videotape of security officers asleep at Peach Bottom, the agency abandoned its pen-pal campaign and actually sent inspectors to the site to investigate. By the way, Peach Bottom is only about 70 miles away from the NRC’s Region I offices.

The NRC inspectors substantiated that security officers had slept on duty on numerous occasions. The NRC did not order Peach Bottom to be shut down. The NRC did not fine the security officers who had slept on duty or the company that allowed it to happen. The NRC did watch, and only watch, as the company fired the whistleblower who had risked – and lost – his job trying to end this recurring unsafe practice.

Our Takeaway:

Sleeping on duty is indefensible whether one works in a nuclear power plant or in the NRC’s offices. When the NRC received information about sleeping security officers in March 2007, they were essentially asleep at the switch. They meekly mailed a letter to the company asking if it were true.

Did Eliot Ness and his Untouchables write Al Capone a letter asking if it was true his gang was handling illegal booze?

Did the Boston Police Department write Joseph “Specs” O’Keefe a letter asking if he and his chums pulled the Brink’s robbery?

Did the NRC write Peach Bottom a letter in 1987 asking if control room operators were napping?

Heck no, that’d be stupid.

So why did the NRC write the company in 2007 asking if security officers were napping?

If not because it reacted stupidly, then perhaps because the NRC was channeling Rhett Butler and simply didn’t give a darn.

The NRC did the right things in 1987 by taking the allegations it received seriously and protecting the identify (and job) of the whistleblower.

The NRC did the wrong things in 2007 by not taking the allegations seriously. The NRC then compounded its mistake by watching the whistleblower lose his job largely because the agency had not done its job.

The NRC needs to do the job right.  Even when reporters aren’t forcing them to get off the bench and into the game.

“Fission Stories” is a weekly feature by Dave Lochbaum. For more information on nuclear power safety, see the nuclear safety section of UCS’s website and our interactive map, the Nuclear Power Information Tracker.

More than 70 experts and former officials from both parties have come out in support of New START. Of the six opponents that the Heritage Foundation has rounded up against the treaty, Paula DeSutter, former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, has taken the strongest stand on verification in the New START treaty, claiming that it does not live up to the standard set by START I, which expired in December.

This is a rather puzzling argument coming from DeSutter, considering that she questioned the very need for stringent verification during her time in the Bush administration. In a 2007 interview, she said that many provisions of START I, including most of its verification, were “no longer necessary.” “We don’t believe we’re in a place where we need have to have the detailed lists (of weapons) and verification measures,” she said.

It’s hard to know how to read the criticisms of New START verification as not being adequate coming from someone who believes they aren’t necessary.

DeSutter’s arguments ring hollow. She states that “the lack of effective verification in New START is dangerous…” because unlike having no verification, as in the SORT treaty, having flawed verification can create a “very false sense of confidence.” But she doesn’t explain how “false confidence” in a treaty process that she doesn’t believe even requires verification could threaten U.S. security.

In addition, DeSutter says the fact that the Obama administration thinks New START provides effective verification raises concerns about “what we can expect from this administration in future agreements” when verification really matters, like going to zero. But it’s not just Obama but a very broad, bipartisan set of military and security experts who believe the verification provisions are effective. DeSutter’s position is the one at odds with main-stream thinking—not Obama’s.

Still, let’s take a look at some of her arguments on verification in New START.

DeSutter says that the on-site inspections of Russian re-entry vehicles (RVs) allowed under New START represent “nothing new,” and will be subject to the same problems the U.S. ran into with inspections under START – specifically problems due to “Russian hard covers” on their missiles.

But this argument is a red herring. The “hard covers” are specifically regulated in both START I and New START to not hinder inspectors from counting the number of warheads. The U.S. did raise issues with the Russians over Russian covers that were too large (as did the Russians over U.S covers), but a recent report on treaty compliance stated that the compliance issues surrounding the RV inspections had been worked out in the last several years. And if problems arise again in the future, the U.S. will be able to address them, as it did before, through the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission (JCIC) that New START sets up.

Moreover, arguing that there is “nothing new” here misses a key point about the purpose of inspections. It’s true that U.S inspectors could look at RVs under START I (although not under the current SORT treaty that the Bush administration negotiated). But the goal of verification is to confirm the data that is provided by each country in the mandatory data exchanges required by the treaty. What is new – and significant - is that, unlike START I, New START requires each country to declare the actual number of RVs that each individual missile carries, rather than simply setting the maximum number of RVs that a particular type of missile could carry. Therefore, the data gathered in New START is much more accurate than under START I, since it eliminates the overcounting of warheads on missiles.

DeSutter also complains that these inspections “can only tell U.S. inspectors what is on the missile inspected, not what every other missile of that type throughout Russia is carrying.” This is disingenuous. The goal of RV inspections has always been to conduct random, spot checks of missiles to make sure they agree with the information in the data exchanges. Under START I, the goal was to ensure you didn’t find any missiles with more warheads than were allowed for that type of missile. Under New START, inspectors pick a specific missile to inspect, and ensure that the number of warheads loaded onto that missile corresponds with the number declared by the Russians. These random inspections provide confidence that no significant cheating is taking place. This is the same principle that the START I inspections worked on.

The UCS fact sheet on verification compares the verification regime of New START to that of START I, and demonstrates that the new procedures preserve the strength of START I while streamlining the process and bringing it in line with today’s security environment.

When the Senate returns from recess, we will have gone 275 days without verification of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. It’s time to get the inspectors back in the field.

The Obama administration gave this year’s congressionally mandated Pentagon report on the Chinese military a new name and a softer tone. It avoids crass insinuations of evil Chinese intent based on PLA propaganda. It recognizes common and conflicting interests between the U.S. and China while emphasizing the need and desire for dialog and cooperation. Advances in Chinese military capabilities are presented calmly, without hyperbole, as one would expect from a confident, professional defense establishment. “No drama” Obama put his stamp on the Pentagon’s public portrayal of the PLA.

Critics insinuated the president changed the tone and delayed the report to avoid offense. If he did, the Chinese failed to notice.

In the wake of the report, Chinese news and opinion makers are circulating talk of a “new cold war.” Anti-American sentiment in the Chinese blogosphere is reaching new crescendos of nationalist outrage. More thoughtful Chinese analysts are expressing concerns about a new U.S. policy of containment.

The seemingly incongruous Chinese reaction makes sense only when seen in the context of the Obama administration’s campaign to reassert American influence in the Pacific Rim. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates launched that campaign in June during his address to the annual Shangri-la Asia Security Conference in Singapore:

“It has become clear to us that an effective, affordable, and sustainable U.S. defense posture requires a broad portfolio of military capabilities with maximum versatility across the widest possible spectrum of conflict. Fielding these capabilities, and demonstrating the resolve to use them if necessary, assures friends and potential adversaries alike of the credibility of U.S. security commitments through our ability to defend against the full range of potential threats.”

Those capabilities and the resolve to use them are being put on display in a series of high-profile naval exercises with regional allies and partners. According to Chinese analysts, recent U.S. naval exercises with South Korea brought the weapons of the USS George Washington carrier group within range of the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing. The Obama administration claims the exercises were meant to send a message to North Korea, which is believed to have sunk a South Korean naval vessel in March killing 46 South Korean sailors. The United States pressured China’s leaders to condemn the sinking but they resisted, successfully opposing a U.S.-led effort to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution explicitly blaming the North. Some Chinese officials see the Obama administration’s display of military force close to their coast as an act of retaliation for their lack of support on North Korea at the U.N., even though President Obama rebuffed South Korean attempts to goad the United States into sailing the carrier group into the Yellow Sea.

The U.S. also plans to conduct exercises with the navies of allies and partners in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Chinese observers believe there is cause to believe these exercises are also meant to intimidate them. In remarks after the U.S.-ASEAN ministerial meeting in July, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implied the United States would use military force to keep the peace in sovereign disputes between China and its neighbors over control of land features and economic rights in the waters of the South China Sea.

The Chinese arms control community, professionally inclined to support dialog and cooperation on security issues, does not like the new nuclear energy agreement between the U.S. and Vietnam announced in Hanoi just before Secretary Clinton’s provocative remarks about the South China Sea. Technical analysts in the Chinese nuclear weapons laboratories believe the terms of the agreement are inconsistent with President Obama’s pledge to control the spread of nuclear weapons. They argue the agreement lacks needed restrictions on the ability to produce nuclear fuels that may one day provide Vietnam with the same latent nuclear weapons capability currently possessed by Japan and sought by South Korea.

One senior Chinese arms controller explicitly linked the U.S.-Vietnam nuclear energy agreement to the U.S. naval exercises. He argued that the two seemingly unrelated developments made it clear to him that the United States was not interested in reassuring China but in threatening and containing it. He added, with obvious frustration, that a dialog on confidence building measures and strategic stability was “out of the question” with a U.S. administration that “says one thing and does another.”

The Chinese aren’t the only ones concerned about the apparent gap between the Obama administration’s words and deeds. Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage recently told Charlie Rose “I think there’s a little schizophrenia in the administration on China.”

Perhaps. Or the president may be taking a page from Teddy Roosevelt in an effort to force China back to the negotiating table for much-needed talks on nuclear and space arms control. China’s modern history – particularly the history of its nuclear weapons, ballistic missile, and space programs – suggests that an American reprisal of the great power politics of early 20th-century Asia is more likely to fail than to succeed in facilitating a productive dialog with China on strategic stability. But that’s a topic for another day

Joshua Pollack over at armscontolwonk posted about a recent Iranian test of its Qiam-1 missile. His post and the comments raised a number of interesting questions about the missile. Since I couldn’t post figures in a comment there, I’m posting here some ideas about what may be going on and what some of the claims by Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi and others may mean. I suspect some of the claims are bluster, but some are not.

-This is the first Iranian missile without fins. Fins on a missile are not useful on descent, but are used to aerodynamically stabilize the missile during boost. If you have a good enough guidance system that can sense changes in the motion of the missile and feed back corrections quickly enough, you can actively stabilize the missile and don’t need fins. The reason you would like to get rid of fins is that they add mass and aerodynamic drag to the missile, which slows it down and reduces its range (for a given payload), as General Seyed Mehdi Farahi noted.

-Vahidi’s statement that getting rid of the fins increases “agility” is right in this sense: A missile is controlled by varying the direction of the thrust, which causes the missile to rotate. If there are fins on the missile, that creates aerodynamic resistance to moving the rear of the missile sideways, and therefore slows the reaction of the missile and makes the maneuvering more sluggish. (This is the same reason that highly agile fighter planes are made aerodynamically unstable, since that reduces aerodynamic resistance to their maneuvering.)

-The improved guidance system may rely on ground controls rather than relying on an internal guidance system in the missile. For example, ground radars can track the flight of the missile and a ground station can radio guidance maneuvers to the missile. This could increase the accuracy of the missile during boost phase and allow the active control needed to remove the fins, although it might not be necessary for that. This kind of guidance can be done for short-range missiles since the boost phase remains within the range of the radar, and this is what was done on a number of early, short-range missiles. A clue that this may be done here are the tabs sticking out from the front section of the Qiam-1:

which are reminiscent of the guidance antennas on China’s DF-2A, which can be seen in this picture that I took at a museum in Beijing:

-If this is what Vahidi means by the “smart navigation system” then the decreased “possibility of it being targeted by other projectiles” may refer to the likelihood of the missile being targeted during boost, not during reentry. Having fins on the missile provides corner-reflectors that can give a large radar return, making the missile easier to see by a defense radar. So removing the fins would also have the advantage of making it somewhat more stealthy during boost.

-Vahidi’s statement that a “smart targeting system” would reduce launch time may simply refer to having better computer systems to calculate faster the burnout trajectory needed to hit a target, and coupling it to a GPS system that knows the launcher’s location. In the past, it was a problem for mobile missiles to know accurately where they were launching from, unless they went to a pre-surveyed site.

-One reason fins wouldn’t help on reentry is that, as we saw with Iraqi Al Husayn missiles during the Gulf War, the aerodynamic forces on a reentering missile with a range of about 500-km or longer are large enough to tear the empty missile body off the warhead. This process, as well as any rough flanges that may remain on the back of the warhead, can cause the warhead to corkscrew or tumble, which greatly reduces its accuracy. That’s why you expect missiles of this range to have separating warheads.

-The greater accuracy Vahidi talks about may be a combination of better guidance during boost and a separating warhead that is not tumbling or wildly corkscrewing. While this may be an improvement over its past missiles, I expect the inaccuracy of this missile would still be large.

-Unlike speculation in Josh’s post, I think it’s extremely unlikely that Iran has developed a maneuvering reentry vehicle, which is technically difficult if the goal is higher accuracy. It’s one thing to get an RV to maneuver—intentionally or not—during reentry to avoid defenses, but that usually comes at a big cost in accuracy. It is another thing altogether to develop the capability for a maneuvering RV (1) to know where it is so it can maneuver back to the target and (2) for it to have a system on board that allows it to actively do those maneuvers in a controlled way.

You know William Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?” This week the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) tried to prove him wrong by changing the name of “Nevada Test Site” (NTS) to the “Nevada National Security Site.”

I have a couple initial reactions. The first, and probably most obvious, is that this is intended to shift the public’s focus away from any questions about why the United States needs to maintain the NTS even though it has not conducted a nuclear test in twenty years and probably won’t ever again. Also, this is probably an attempt by NNSA to get away from the images of nuclear testing (see above). Some of these images include contaminated land, strontium-90 in babies’ teeth, and thousands of illnesses that resulted from the more than 900 nuclear tests the U.S. conducted at NTS. It’s not a surprise that NNSA would want to change the name. All of these things make nuclear weapons seem unpleasant.

Several colleagues have remarked that this may be the single most boring name change for a historical site in the history of the United States. While this may be true, the new name is not surprising. In fact, several days ago I pretty much guessed what the new name would be.

The name change is consistent with NNSA’s ongoing effort to publicly distance itself from the “image” of nuclear weapons. With the Cold War over and nuclear weapons increasingly being regarded as a liability, NNSA has made a concerted effort to rebrand the industrial infrastructure that maintains and modernizes nuclear weapons. For most of the past 60 years, this group of interrelated buildings that make up this infrastructure has been known as the “Nuclear Weapons Complex.” However, more recently, there has been a strong push to change the name of the nuclear weapons complex to the “21st Century National (or Nuclear) Security Enterprise.”

In one sense, this rebranding reflects the outdated nature of nuclear weapons and the need for the nuclear weapons labs to focus on nonproliferation and the eventual, verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, this effort has not been accompanied by a significant change in the programmatic scope of the nuclear weapons infrastructure. In fact, the process of building a “21st Century National Security Enterprise” further entrenches the nuclear weapons industry by constructing new nuclear weapons production facilities not seen since the end of the Cold War.

This dynamic is also playing out with the renaming of the Nevada Test Site. In NNSA’s press release, it states that the name change recognizes “the expanding, critical and diverse role it plays in our nation’s security.” Despite the statement, it is doubtful that NTS will experience any significant programmatic shift in the near future. While it is true that the NTS requested a large budget increase for its nonproliferation work in Fiscal Year 2011, funding for nuclear weapons activities experienced only a minor reduction, going from $243 million in Fiscal Year 2010 to $227 million. Further confirming this point, the “FY 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan” states that NTS will “will sustain a capability to conduct an underground nuclear test” and continue sub-critical experiments, nuclear explosive operations, dynamic plutonium experiments, dynamic materials properties experiments, and criticality experiments.

In its press release, NNSA accurately points out that Congress requested a report to study potential areas where the Nevada Test Site’s mission can be expanded. In an amendment (SA 2562) offered last year to the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Authorization Bill, Senator Reid required NNSA to submit a plan for:

(A) fully utilizing the inherent capabilities and uniquely secure location of the Site;

(B) continuing to support the Nation’s nuclear weapons program and other national security programs; and

(C) renaming the Site to reflect the expanded mission of the Site.

On the surface one might think that there is nothing wrong with studying these options, but there are two significant problems with this piece of legislation. The first is that it automatically assumes there needs to be a nuclear weapons mission at the Nevada Test Site. With all of the redundancy in the nuclear weapons complex and as part of the ongoing effort by NNSA to consolidate, this study should have looked at whether it was necessary to maintain this mission.

The second problem is that this legislation creates a conflict of interest by having NNSA study the options for “fully utilizing the inherent capabilities and uniquely secure location of the Site.” Right now, the Nevada Test Site is administered by NNSA, but several other government departments, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Energy, and the Department of the Interior, use the land. However, with NNSA leading the study, it is likely that ideas for significantly expanding non-nuclear programs at NTS will not get adequate attention. It should be no surprise to anyone if the study recommends continuing NTS’s nuclear weapons mission without significantly expanding the role of other government agencies.

While this name change accurately reflects that nuclear tests are no longer conducted by the United States, it needs to be followed by true programmatic change at the NTS. Senator Reid’s legislation should have asked for an independent, comprehensive study of all of the future options for the Nevada Test Site.

Despite efforts by NNSA, it seems that Shakespeare’s axiom will hold true. Changing the name of the Nevada Test Site won’t change its historical legacy or the fact that its purpose is to be ready to conduct nuclear tests.

In the late afternoon of March 9, 1988, the Unit 2 boiling water reactor (BWR) at the LaSalle nuclear plant in Illinois was operating at approximately 84 percent of rated power (the point labeled with the green star on the Design Flow Control Line in Figure 1). A technician testing the instruments that monitor the water level in the reactor vessel opened the wrong valve, causing a false indication of high water level. This automatically shut down both of the recirculation pumps that pump water through the reactor. The loss of both recirculation pumps left the BWR operating on natural circulation of water through the reactor core. This caused the reactor power level to decrease, following the cyan line downward on Figure 1 to the purple star on the Natural Circulation Line at approximately 40 percent of rated power.

Figure 1

Power is produced in BWRs by splitting atoms. When atoms spilt, heat is released as are subatomic particles called neutrons. These neutrons can interact with other atoms to cause them to split. The reactor power level in BWRs is primarily changed by two methods: (1) control rods and (2) recirculation water flow rate.

Control rods contain material that acts like “neutron glue,” soaking up neutrons and preventing them from splitting more atoms. Inserting control rods into the reactor core reduces its power level while withdrawing control rods increases the power level.

Recirculation pumps affect the power in a more complicated way. Increasing the amount of flow of water to the reactor vessel by the recirculation pumps increases the reactor power level, while decreasing the recirculation flow rate has the opposite effect. The reason is that water in BWRs moderates, or slows down, the neutrons released by splitting atoms. Slower neutrons are more likely to cause other fuel atoms to split and release energy. When both recirculation pumps shut down at LaSalle, the rate at which water flowed through the reactor core decreased significantly. This allowed more steam bubbles to form in the water flowing through the reactor core. As the volume of steam bubbles increased (i.e., the void fraction inside the reactor core increased), fewer neutrons were slowed down leading to a reduction in the number of split atoms, dropping the reactor power level.

Following the rapid power reduction caused by the shut down of both recirculation pumps, the temperature of the water entering the reactor vessel dropped about 45°F over the next five minutes.  As this temperature decreased, the water flowing through the reactor core became denser. The denser water slowed down more neutrons, causing more atoms to split and reactor power level to rise again.

Approximately five and a half minutes after the recirculation pumps shut down, operators observed additional changes in the reactor power level. In particular, the reactor power level began oscillating by nearly 10 percent every two to three seconds.

The operators recognized that they were in the region of reactor core instability (labeled Unacceptable Region of Operation in Figure 1). This region of high reactor power relative to water flow through the reactor core can be unstable due to steam bubble, or void, feedback. Power increases produce more steam bubbles. Steam bubbles fail to slow neutrons, which reduces the number of atoms spitting and thus reactor power level. The ensuing power reduction produces fewer steam bubbles, which increases the number of atoms splitting and thus reactor power.

The loss of both recirculation pumps put LaSalle inside the region of reactor core instability The decreasing temperature of the water entering the reactor vessel increased the reactor power level, driving the plant farther into the Unacceptable Region of Operation.

The operators attempted to restart a recirculation pump so as to leave the Unacceptable Region of Operation by retracing the path up and toward the right along the Design Flow Control Line on Figure 1. But they were not able to do so since they had not completed all the prerequisite steps, such as closing the pump’s discharge valve, necessary to restart the pump.

Figure 2 shows the actual power fluctuations experienced at LaSalle Unit 2 on March 9, 1988. Right after the recirculation pumps tripped, the reactor power level dropped to about 40 percent of rated. Over the next five minutes, the reactor power level gradually increased to about 50 percent power due to the feedwater temperature reduction. Beginning around five and a half minutes after the recirculation pump trip, the magnitude of the reactor power oscillations increased, meaning the peaks got higher and the valleys got lower. Roughly two and a half minutes later, one of the peaks exceeded 118 percent of rated power, triggering an automatic shut down of the reactor.

Figure 2

The power oscillations at LaSalle surprised only those not paying attention. Power oscillations had been encountered at the Vermont Yankee BWR in 1981, the Caorso BWR in Italy in June 1982, and a handful of other U.S. BWRs in 1983 and 1984. These events prompted General Electric, the vendor for all BWRs operating in the U.S., to issue a warning to all plant owners on February 10, 1984. GE summarized the events and recommended steps to prevent instability events from happening and mitigate them should they occur. GE specifically made the following recommendation should recirculation pumps trip and place the BWR in the Unacceptable Region of Operation:

Immediately reduce power by inserting control rods to or below the 80% rod line using the plant’s prescribed control rod shutdown insertion sequence.

LaSalle’s owners received the warning from GE, but did not implement its precautionary steps.

Two years later, the NRC weighed in on the matter. The NRC issued Generic Letter 86-02 to the owners of U.S. BWRs. The NRC concluded that the GE recommendations were sufficient to manage the reactor core instability risk. Perhaps, but only if actually implemented rather than placed in a file somewhere. LaSalle’s owners also received the reminder from NRC, but still did not implement the precautionary steps.

Following the reactor rollercoaster ride at LaSalle, the NRC issued a flurry of documents upping the ante for BWR owners:

* Information Notice 88-39, dated June 15, 1988

* Bulletin 88-07, dated June 15, 1988

* Bulletin 88-07 Supplement 1, dated December 30, 1988

Only after the LaSalle near-miss did the NRC take definitive steps to prevent yet another reactor core instability event.

But they didn’t work. On December 23, 2004, the BWR at the Perry nuclear plant in Ohio found itself in the Unacceptable Region of Operation. Ignoring the oft-repeated instructions to immediately insert control rods to exit the region, the operators wasted time trying to fix the recirculation pump problem. But practice makes perfect. Two weeks later, the Perry BWR once again found itself in the Unacceptable Region of Operation. This time, the operators immediately inserted control rods to exit the region.

Our Takeaway:

One would risk the worst-ever case of carpal tunnel syndrome trying to type up all the times that safety problems at nuclear power plants were properly communicated from vendors or the NRC to other plant owners trusting them to take the steps necessary to avoid replicating the problems, only to have that trust misplaced when virtually the same problem recurred because the warnings were ignored.

Lightning may strike but once, but stupidity strikes like a jackhammer. It is stupid for the NRC to continue trusting plant owners to heed warnings despite overwhelming evidence that warnings are all too often ignored. The NRC must periodically audit the warnings sent to plant owners to verify that safety recommendations are being implemented.

“Fission Stories” is a weekly feature by Dave Lochbaum. For more information on nuclear power safety, see the nuclear safety section of UCS’s website and our interactive map, the Nuclear Power Information Tracker.

In early July 1981, workers at Nine Mile Point Unit 1 near Oswego, New York faced a problem. All the radwaste system’s tanks were filled to the brim, yet waste water was still being generated. So, they sent the additional water to the basement of the waste building. They deliberately flooded the basement with about four feet of water. Nearly one hundred and fifty 55-gallon metal drums containing highly radioactive solid waste were stored in the basement. The flood water caused many of these drums to float. Several drums tipped over and spilled their radioactive contents into the water. The drums had been stored without their lids to promote evaporation of water. It also promoted spillage.

On July 8, 1981, workers pumped 50,000 gallons of radioactive water from one of the waste storage tanks into Lake Ontario to make room for the water from the waste building basement. Workers tried decontaminating the basement in July, August, and September. In October, these attempts were abandoned with about a foot of water still covering the basement floor. On October 31, 1981, the plant’s owner told the NRC that about the 50,000 gallons of contaminated water were discharged into the lake in July. It did not inform the NRC about the flooded basement and the spilled waste drums.

In 1989, the plant’s owner was harshly criticized by the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), the nuclear industry’s own watchdog organization, for the waste building basement that was still flooded. INPO’s secret scathing report leaked to the media.

After NRC officials watched the story on the TV news, they dispatched a special team to investigate. The NRC inspectors estimated that the radiation fields in the basement near some of the spilled drums were as high as 500 rem per hour. A lethal radiation dose is 450 to 600 rems. Thus, an employee would have received a fatal dose by working in that area for only an hour.

The NRC censured the plant’s owner for failing to tell them about the flooded basement. When the INPO report leaked to the public in 1989, the plant was on the NRC’s “Watch List,” meaning that it received heightened regulatory attention. In addition, NRC inspectors were stationed full-time at the plant from 1981 – the year of the original incident – through 1989. In those eight years, NRC inspectors either never ventured into the waste building basement or noticed that it was flooded with water. What were they watching all that time? Good fortune that it included the TV news.

Unlike NRC inspectors, INPO auditors were not assigned full-time to Nine Mile Point. They showed up every 18 to 24 months. They get a strobe light view of plant conditions compared to NRC’s spotlight view. INPO finding the problem that NRC missed for so many years means one of two things: (1) INPO knows where to look and the NRC does not, or (2) NRC has no clue what it is looking at. And unfortunately, this case is far from isolated.

Our Takeaway:

If accused of being an effective regulator, the NRC would not be convicted. And that’s even if the insanity plea were disallowed.

The public needs for the NRC to oversee, not overlook, nuclear safety. Missing a safety problem at Nine Mile Point for 8 years, or more recently missing a safety problem at Fermi for 20 years (see “Futility at the Utility: Two Decades of Missed Opportunities at Fermi Unit 2”) or ignoring known safety problems for 30 years (see “Regulatory Malpractice: NRC’s Handling of the PWR Containment Sump Problem”) are clear signs of regulatory ineptitude. The US Congress must reform the NRC before that incompetence compromises worker and/or public safety.

“Fission Stories” is a weekly feature by Dave Lochbaum. For more information on nuclear power safety, see the nuclear safety section of UCS’s website and our interactive map, the Nuclear Power Information Tracker.

In the United States, debate about the impact of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is often stifled by highly polarized opinions over whether the bombings were necessary to end World War II. The result is that, regardless of the historic questions that still surround these events, those who work on nuclear weapons policy avoid the topic.

However, occasionally the modern debate on nuclear policy comes face-to-face with the real-life impact of nuclear weapons. This happened last week at an event in Nagasaki, Japan, commemorating the 65th anniversary of the city’s destruction by an atomic bomb dropped by the United States. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon delivered a speech calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and, although the message was not new, the timing, location, and language of the speech made it unprecedented.

As the first U.N. Secretary General to speak in Nagasaki on the actual anniversary of one of the bombings, the event had symbolic significance, drawing global attention to the potential consequences of possessing nuclear weapons. Also, as the former Foreign Minister of South Korea, Ban’s presence at the event could be interpreted as an attempt to draw attention, in a reconciliatory way, to the Korean victims of the atomic bombings. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, more than 600,000 Koreans were forced into labor in Japan, many in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Of the 263,000 people in Nagasaki on the day of the bombing, approximately 12,000 to 14,000 were Korean. Of those people, an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 died. In Hiroshima, where the casualties were greater, an estimated 30,000 Koreans perished.  Following the bombings, Korean victims received little support from either the Korean or the Japanese governments. To this day, most people do not know about the Korean victims. Almost as if his intent was to be reconciliatory, Ban did not distinguish between atomic bombing victims.

In his speech, Ban said that his goal was to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons in his lifetime:

Sixty-five years ago, the fires of hell descended upon this place. Today, one fire burns, here in this Peace Park. That is the Flame of Peace—a flame that will remain lit until nuclear weapons are no more. Together, let us work for that day in our lifetime, in the lifetimes of the survivors. Together, let us put out the last fire of Hiroshima. Let us replace that flame with the light of hope. Let us realize our dream of a world free of nuclear weapons so that our children and all succeeding generations can live in freedom, security and peace.

Ban’s choice of words seemed to be a deliberate reference to President Obama’s previous statement that achieving a world free of nuclear weapons might not happen in his lifetime.

Ban also addressed the United States – as well as the other nuclear weapons states – when he stated that the momentum to eliminate nuclear weapons must not diminish. And he specifically referenced efforts to ratify New START, which was particularly important because Ban was speaking one day after Senator Kerry decided not to vote out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the resolution for ratification of the treaty.

The speech was delivered at the Urakami Cathedral. The Cathedral, located approximately 500 meters from the hypocenter of the explosion, was completely destroyed by the atomic blast. All of the approximately 30 people inside the church were killed. At the time, the Cathedral was the largest Christian church in Southeast Asia. Some people in Nagasaki thought that, because of Nagasaki’s large Christian population and connection to the West, they had been spared from the U.S. aerial bombings that destroyed most other Japanese cities. Of course, the reality was that U.S. war planners wanted to detonate the bombs over unblemished cities to assess their destructive power.

This location has personal significance for me. As a student in Japan, I visited the rebuilt Cathedral and spoke with one of the priests. During our conversation, he removed a cloth wrap covering part of a wood statue of the Virgin Mary. The remaining statue fragment was Mary’s face, scarred from the destruction caused by the atomic blast. It was one of the few items recovered from the church following the explosion.  Even though it was just a statue, looking at it led me to visualize the faces of the victims of the atomic bombs. This experience played a big role in convincing me to come back to the United States to warn people about the destructive power of nuclear weapons.

Whether intentional or not, Ban Ki Moon’s speech served as a powerful reminder. It reminded President Obama of his pledge to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons. It reminded the world about the diversity of victims of the atomic bomb. Finally, as New START takes a back seat to politics in the Senate, it was a reminder to me why this work is needed.