Healing Our World Commentary: Nuclear Plants Relicensed

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Under Our Radioactive Noses - Nuclear Plants Relicensed

grandmother
you were silenced before you could
finish telling me the stories
i am coming home
i am listening everywhere
for your voice.
-- Jeanetta Calhoun

Many environmentalists have assumed that most of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants would have trouble getting relicensed when most of their 40-year licenses come up for renewal in the next few years. With the stricter building codes and earthquake hazard rules, many of these plants could not be legally built today.

Also, considerable proof exists of the flaws in the construction of many of these plants and along with the growing popular opposition to nuclear power since Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, few thought we would have to live with this threat much longer.

But the Bush administration has created a new reality that we all must face: most of these nuclear plants, whether they would be judged unsafe by today's standards or not, will likely be relicensed, bringing us all closer to another nuclear disaster.

So far, five reactors on two sites in South Carolina and Maryland have been relicensed, and more are in the works.

Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant 45 miles southeast of Washington, DC is owned and operated by the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company. (Photos courtesy Nuclear Regulatory Commission)

New Clinton administration rules include generic approval for particular types of reactors and a process that allows site approval in advance of an actual plant license.

Because of the 40 year maximum license, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) tell us that many nuclear plant components were engineered to 40 year lifetimes to cut costs! This aging equipment will be allowed to continue to operate when these licenses are renewed.

About 20 percent of all the electric power produced in the United States comes from nuclear power plants. The first operating license will expire in the year 2006. About 10 percent of the country's reactor licenses will expire by the end of the year 2010, and more than 40 percent will expire by the year 2015.

A nuclear power plant owner decides whether or not to seek renewal of its license. The company then has to satisfy NRC requirements for safety and criteria that determine whether license renewal is a cost effective venture. In today's power hungry environment, license renewal will surely be considered cost effective.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reminds us that the U.S. nuclear energy industry is an accident waiting to happen. UCS says, "A severe nuclear accident has the potential to do catastrophic harm to people and the environment. A combination of human and mechanical error could result in an accident killing several thousand people, injuring several hundred thousand others, contaminating large areas of land, and costing billions of dollars."

The UCS believes that the nuclear reactor risk assessments conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are really not risk assessments at all because potential accident consequences are not evaluated. The assessments merely examine accident probabilities, which is only half of the risk equation. Union of Concerned Scientists also believes that accident probability calculations are seriously flawed and have found many irregularities in NRC reporting and the facts.

Here are a few examples:

• The risk assessments assume nuclear plants always conform with safety requirements, yet each year more than a thousand violations are reported.

• Plants are assumed to have no design problems even though hundreds are reported every year.

• Aging is assumed to result in no damage, despite evidence that aging materials killed four workers.

• Reactor pressure vessels are assumed to be failure proof, even though embrittlement (reactor walls becoming brittle due to radiation exposure) forced the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant to shut down.

• The risk assessments assume that plant workers are far less likely to make mistakes than actual operating experience demonstrates.

• The risk assessments consider only the threat from damage to the reactor core despite the fact that irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pools represents a serious health hazard.

Also, the NRC has failed to establish any minimum standards for the accident probability calculations, all of which are conducted by plant owners, each with their own assumptions. Union of Concerned Scientists' research has shown the fallacy of conducting studies in this way with a number of case studies done on plants that were built identically, but operated by different owners.

For example, the Indian Point 2 and 3 nuclear plants share the same Westinghouse design and sit side by side in New York, but are operated by different owners. On paper, Indian Point 3 is more than 25 percent more likely to experience an accident than her sister plant.

Owned and operated by the Union Electric Company, the Callaway nuclear plant is 10 miles southeast of Fulton, Missouri. (Photo courtesy NRC)

To make matters worse, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is allowing plant owners to cut back on tests and inspections of safety equipment, further increasing risks. The NRC approves these reductions based on the results from the incomplete and inaccurate accident probability assessments.

Surprisingly, one of the NRC risk assessments that is assumed to be 100 percent controlled is fire suppression. It is shocking that in this day and age, fire control is actually a concern at nuclear facilities, facilities that could kill tens of thousands of people in the event of a disaster.

A few years ago, a worker at the Waterford nuclear plant, near Taft, Louisiana, reported heavy smoke in the turbine building. The plant's fire alarm was not sounded for 29 minutes so workers could search through heavy smoke for the source of the flames.

During this time, fire detector alarms in the control room were ignored by operators who were busy directing workers who searched for the fire. When the plant's fire brigade finally responded, the fire brigade leader did not allow water to be used because of the electrical equipment. As a result, the fire blazed for over an hour. When use of water was finally allowed, the fire was put out within four minutes. Another comedy of errors like this could have disastrous consequences.

The list is very long of disasters in the making. For example, nine U.S. nuclear power plants were shut down for all of 1997 while their owners made extensive repairs to emergency equipment that were long overdue. Each of these plants had operated for years with emergency systems that would not have functioned as required in event of an accident.

We have to stop this madness before it escalates. We must demand that safe, alternative forms of energy be developed rather the dirty nuclear and fossil fuels that represent the personal interests and investments of the U.S. Presidential administration. The people must demand that reason return to energy policy.

The "American Way" that President Bush seeks to protect is unsustainable and has disastrous consequences for the ecosystem and every woman, man and child alive.

RESOURCES

1. See the license renewal process described at the NRC website at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/REACTOR/LR/

2. Get involved and make your voice heard! Demand that these old plants be forced to close or rebuild their aging components. Visit the NRC Public Involvement website and put in your comments at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/public.html

3. Learn how to oppose the Bush energy scheme with the help of the Union of Concerned Scientists at http://www.ucsusa.org/act/act_scheme.html

4. Check out Daily Events from the NRC Operations Center at http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/DAILY/der.htm. Be prepared to be scared.

5. For a list of all U.S. nuclear reactors and their license expiration dates, visit http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/SR1350/V12/part11.html.

6. See the a list of nuclear reactors worldwide at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/SR1350/V12/part19.html

7. Visit the Nuclear Guardianship Library to learn of what we should be doing with the tragic legacy of nuclear waste at http://www.nonukes.org/ngl.htm

8. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Demand that they stop the rubber stamp relicensing of dangerous nuclear plants. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found wondering how many devastated areas that once were nuclear reactor sites his new son will know of when he grows up. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his website at http://www.healingourworld.com}