Exelon Nuclear has added seven mobile, high-volume diesel-driven pumps at its nuclear energy facilities, among thousands of equipment purchases, upgrades, and validations completed at Exelon’s 10 plants in the year following the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Exelon technical experts have verified readiness of more than 1,700 other pieces of equipment; inspected more than 1,900 flood barriers and seals; and invested more than 43,000 worker hours checking and testing equipment and procedures that might be needed in an emergency.

“We have a responsibility to communicate what we are doing as a company to learn from the lessons following the tragedy in Japan and we take that responsibility seriously. Our top priority is to assure the continued safe and reliable production of electricity at our nuclear facilities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey,” said Mike Pacilio, president and chief nuclear officer of Exelon Nuclear.

“Since last March, we have taken the learnings from Fukushima, critically assessed our operations and taken immediate actions,” he said. “We have additional safety measures planned for Exelon and the entire U.S. nuclear industry in the months ahead with additional guidance being issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is critical that we always be a learning organization dedicated to the safety of our facilities.”

The completed actions represent just a portion of the inspections, upgrades, and other work undertaken by Exelon Nuclear following the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster. The company operates the largest fleet of commercial nuclear facilities in the U.S., with 17 reactors at 10 sites.

Within a week of the March 11, 2011, events, teams of engineers and technical experts from Exelon Nuclear and others in the industry traveled to Japan to provide expertise and to begin understanding as many lessons as possible from the experience. The primary lesson: expect the unexpected, and prepare for the unimaginable.

Learnings from Fukushima have translated into extensive reviews of equipment, structures, and procedures; purchases of additional backup emergency equipment; updates of emergency procedures; and additions to emergency training. At Exelon, the overriding goal is to reaffirm that its nuclear facilities and the professionals who operate and maintain them are prepared to deal with even the most severe unpredictable events.

Among other tasks completed over the past 12 months, Exelon Nuclear engineers and experts have:

• Revised more than 1,300 safety procedures and guidelines, and created new ones, based on Fukushima lessons.
• Verified the capability of all sites to withstand the most severe floods for their areas, and are in the process of re-evaluating base assumptions about maximum historical flooding.
• Broadened operator training to incorporate lessons from Fukushima.
• Inspected and validated the seismic supports and restraints for thousands of pieces of equipment and pipes.

Beyond the actions listed, in February of 2012, Exelon and the other U.S. nuclear operating companies unanimously agreed to purchase or order additional safety equipment for their plants by March 31. This includes emergency and portable equipment such as diesel driven pumps, electric generators, hoses, fittings, communications gear, and other equipment.

Well before the events at Fukushima, Exelon Nuclear facilities had multiple physical barriers and layers of backup safety systems to ensure safe operations even in extreme events, including floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Equipment purchases and work over the past year has strengthened those barriers and systems, and enhancements will continue for years.

All Exelon Nuclear facilities are protected from flooding by watertight doors, elevation of equipment above flood levels and specially engineered flood barriers. All sites can automatically and safely shut down and keep the fuel cooled even without electricity from the grid, using massive backup power generators that have second, third and fourth layers of backups. Reactors and other critical components are protected by concrete walls up to five-feet thick. All facilities undergo frequent emergency training and exercises involving government emergency response agencies at all levels.

Exelon Nuclear’s emergency operating procedures are constantly tested, challenged, and simulated to ensure that they will work properly when needed. Such drills are overseen by the NRC with NRC inspectors stationed at all U.S. nuclear facilities on a full–time basis.

Over the last twelve months, the U.S. nuclear industry has pooled resources to ensure the lessons fromJapan are systematically gathered, analyzed, and implemented. The process identified short and long-term actions that further increase the margin of safety at U.S. nuclear facilities.

“Exelon Nuclear is dedicated to full transparency,” said Pacilio. “We know that the more the public knows about the safety of the U.S. nuclear industry, the more confident they feel about nuclear power as a source of safe, abundant, and clean energy.”

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The nation’s premier professional society for the nuclear community, the American Nuclear Society (ANS), is finalizing plans to unveil its “Special Report on Fukushima” in conjunction with the one year anniversary of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, ANS Special Committee Co-Chair and former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Dale Klein, Ph.D., announced on March 2.

The report will be unveiled at a special press conference in Washington, DC on March 8 which will be broadcast live via a webcast at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=85244.

In discussing the upcoming release of the report Klein said, “To prepare this report we gathered from our membership some of the world’s leading figures in the nuclear science and technology community. The report will look at all aspects of the events at the Fukushima plant after the earthquake and tsunami, and will include recommendations for the nuclear community, for citizens, and for policymakers as a result of the lessons we learned.”

The press conference will be held Thursday, March 8 at 10:00 a.m. EST at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Topics include Risk-Informed Regulation, Hazards from Extreme Natural Phenomena, Multiple-Unit Site Considerations, Hardware Design Modifications, Severe Accident Management Guidelines, Command and Control During a Reactor Accident, Emergency Planning, Health Physics, and Societal Risk Comparison.

For more information about the press conference call Jackie Clark at (301) 987-7113.  To participate in the webinar visit: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=85244.

Committee Co-Chair Michael Corradini, Ph.D., Wisconsin Distinguished Professor Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin, concluded, “This report will also serve as an historical document for reference by those who wish to know what really happened, from a scientific and technically informed perspective, and we thank all of our Committee members for their dedication, time and service creating this report to help us understand these events and better plan for our future.”

For more information about the American Nuclear Society, please visit www.ans.org.

Established in 1954, ANS is a professional not-for-profit organization of engineers and scientists devoted to the peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology.  Its 11,600 members come from diverse technical backgrounds covering the full range of engineering disciplines as well as the physical and biological sciences.

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An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services.

This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.

Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.

The IJHS article is available at http://www.radiation.org.

Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores.  Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S.  The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water):  Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200);Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).

Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: ”This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal.  It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world.  Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”

Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.

Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: ”Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.”

Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of ”Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” published by the NY Academy of Sciences in 2009, and author of ”Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life’s Delicate Balance – Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S.  In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000.

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A Taiwanese blogger is under suspicion for conspiring to defraud people by predicting that a natural disaster will hit Taiwan and split the country in two. The self-proclaimed prophet, identifying himself as “Teacher Wang”, has predicted a magnitude-14 earthquake on 11 May and his message has caused panic on the Island. This could be another example of malicious exploitation of the anxiety caused by the high-profiled natural disasters of 2011 – namely Christchurch and Fukushima.

In February, the New Zealand Herald could report the surfacing of several fake emails and websites inciting people to donate money to relief funds. One scam in particular was highly sophisticated, mimicking the Red cross and directing people to a fake website where they could enter their credit card details. Another used the face of a legitimate UK-based charity called Donate4Charity NZ. The fraudulent email asked New Zealanders to accept overseas donations for Christchurch earthquake victims, and to manage a bogus branch of the charity in return for financial compensation.

The same pattern emerged after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami disaster. The security firm Symantec, could by mid-March, report that scammers were appealing for donations to fraudulent charities through a so-called ‘419-style fraud scam’. A “419” scam is a con that tries to persuade its victims to advance funds in hopes of realizing a much larger sum. The name originates from its related section in the Nigerian criminal code. In a company blog post, Samir Patil, a security researcher at Symantec warned: “Within the first few hours of the earthquake and tsunami, Symantec researchers observed more than 50 domains with the names of either ‘Japan tsunami’ or ‘Japan earthquake.’ These domains are either parked, available for sale, or are linked to earthquake sites. Don’t be surprised if you see these domains being used in phishing and spam attacks.”

Virtual criminals were reportedly unusually quick to exploit the disaster. To reporter Gregg Keizer of online magazine Macworld.co.uk, Chet Wisniewski, a security researcher with Sophos explained; “What’s surprising this time is how quickly they picked up on the news. We knew [scams] were coming, but they started appearing in record-breaking time, less than three hours after the earthquake.”

With these instances in mind, the prophecies of the Taiwanese blogger “Teacher Wang” could be another elaborate example of fraudsters, preying on people in the Asia-Pacific region’s fear. Wang advised people to live in containers if they wanted to survive the disaster, but local police are investigating if the blogger is working with a container business to defraud worried citizens. As of May 1, more than 100 cargo containers had been discovered in Nantou county, and were in the process of being fitted with doors, windows and air conditioning, according to the BBC’s correspondent in Taipei.

Despite the fact that Taiwan is in a quake zone, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau has stated to the BBC that there is no basis for the doomsday prediction and that quakes cannot be reliably predicted. A weather bureau spokesman added in the Pretoria News that “Issuing unauthorised forecasts on earthquakes is punishable by a fine of up to Tw$1 million ($35000).” So far, the police have been unable to trace “Teacher Wang” but his message has been deleted from the web.

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Unusually intense radioactivity has been measured in the ocean outside of the nuclear plant Fukushima Daiichi. The test was made 330 m from the plant and found the level of radioactive iodine to be 3.355 times over the normal level.

However, a range of experts as well as the Japanese government are expecting that the ocean currents will spread out the particles, diluting the concentration so much that it will not present a risk to fish and other maritime life. Still, the numbers have been the cause of some concern to people who have bought or consumed fish from the area. In Hong Kong, restaurants check the sea food for radioactivity before serving it while some consumers in Denmark have invested in Geiger counters to make sure their food is clean. However, despite reports that European countries have introduced testing of Japanese food products, experts have said that Europe should generally not be concerned.

In the meantime, while the level of radioactivity in the area around Fukushima is still on the rise, intensive work is done to isolate the source. Previous measurements have suggested that the activity can be traced to the second reactor. The fear is that the fuel source at the core of the reactor is partly destroyed.

The last few days had otherwise shown a decrease in nuclear exposure in the rest of Japan – in the period between March 25-29, no residue of radioactive iodine was found in for example broccoli, spinach and milk. There had also previously been a ban against letting infants drink tap water which was effective in 21 places across four prefectures. Now the ban is only effective in four places – all limited to the Fukushima-prefecture.

The situation at Fukushima Daiichi is still delicate. A few weeks back, the owner of the plant, Tepco, told a press conference that four of the reactors at the plant are so damaged that they need to be taken out and disposed off. The fourth and fifth reactor can still be used but it is unclear if Tepco is planning to actually do so. The owner also promised at the press meeting to improve the conditions of the around 580 workers still working at the plant. A security inspection had revealed that the workers have been sleeping on lead mats in stairways, conference rooms and corridors to protect them against the massive radioactivity in the area. It was also made public that the men only received two meals per day – sometimes consisting of a pack of crackers and a juice box for breakfast.

The company representative also explained that the president of Tepco, which has been highly unpopular and harshly criticized since the earthquake, was recently hospitalized with symptoms of stress and heightened blood pressure. The 71-year-old Masataka Shimuzu has not shown himself in public since March 13.

Soon after the press conference, the government of Japan asked of all the remaining nuclear power plants to adopt new security procedures immediately. As an example, new rules for the emergency supply of cooling systems have now been put into force while it has become a requirement that measures for catastrophe management has to be available at all plants.

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