In the first of a series of video reports, we'll be letting you know what we're working on and address breaking news and other developments as we continue our campaign to abolish nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Beyond Nuclear issued a press release today urging against the granting of license extensions to Duke Energy's 11 reactors --which could see them operating as long as 80 years. At least five --Catawba 1 & 2 (SC), Shearon Harris (NC) and McGuire 1 & 2 (NC) -- are the same design as the Indian Point 2 reactor shutting permanently tomorrow (April 30.) Indian Point 2 should be "autopsied" said Beyond Nuclear, to provide real time information on the condition of the Duke's reactor, information that would almost certainly disqualify them from continued operation on safety grounds.
The press release begins:
Plans by Duke Energy to extend the operating licenses of its Catawba, McGuire and Shearon Harris nuclear plants should not go ahead until their operating safety margins are fully known, said Beyond Nuclear, a national environmental watchdog organization today.
The permanent shutdown this Thursday, April 30, of the Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) at Indian Point, NY, provides the ideal opportunity to examine the safety conditions at Catawba 1 & 2 (SC), Shearon Harris (NC) and McGuire 1 & 2 (NC) before granting operating license extensions, the group says.
Duke announced its intention in September 2019 to seek second license extensions for its eleven reactors, all of which operate in southern U.S. states. The second license extensions would allow the plants to run for as long as 80 years.
“The three Duke reactors potentially in the queue for second license extensions should not be licensed to operate as long as 80 years without the requirement of an ‘autopsy’ on the Indian Point 2 reactor of the same design,” said Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight at Beyond Nuclear.
Beyond Nuclear issued a press release on April 28, 2020 commenting on what now should happen to the Indian Point Unit 2 reactor after it closes on April 30. Some excerpts:
Beyond Nuclear argues that, with the Indian Point Unit 2 nuclear reactor in New York set to close down permanently, the opportunity again arises to analyze real time aged materials strategically harvested from systems, structures and components during decommissioning.
Effectively, closed reactors should be autopsied as a requirement of the NRC license extension review process.
“An autopsy must become an essential and required feature of the decommissioning of closed reactors,” said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear.
“It is increasingly risky to run aging atomic reactors, originally licensed to operate at most for 40 years, for as long as 80 years, without knowing how the reactors’ harsh operational environment is affecting reliable operations and safety margins in components that, should they fail, could jeopardize the health and safety of millions of Americans,” Gunter said.
“There is already a scientifically acknowledged but critically missing link between the decommissioning of aging, uneconomical nuclear power plants and the nuclear industry’s aggressive extension of operating licenses of the country’s dwindling nuclear power fleet,” Gunter added.
A laboratory analysis of aged materials would scientifically inform projected reactor safety margins for the current reactor operations and reactor license extensions. These materials can be strategically sampled from hundreds of miles of electrical cable, concrete containments and reactor pressure vessel walls. Read the full press release. (Headline photo,©David M. Grossman, shows a visit with Shut Down Indian Point Now!, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, and Westchester County Citizens Awareness Network activists, from Japanese activists, including Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action Kyodo, Hokkaido anti-nuclear activists, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe survivors (Sachiko Sato, and her children), in the fall of 2011. The visit was co-organized by Beyond Nuclear, whose staffers are also in the photo. The Fukushima disaster had begun just six months earlier. The Indian Point nuclear power plant is visible in the background on the Hudson River.)
The Indian Point Unit 2 nuclear reactor in New York closes down permanently on April 30. Unit 3 will close a year from now. The closure this week is a moment replete with good news and golden opportunities that should not be wasted.
While other reactors continue to operate, the Indian Point shutdown — along with its predecessors — delivers an essential opportunity; and that is for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to deny any and all license extension requests for existing nuclear power plants without first materially examining the condition of those closing.
The Indian Point reactors have had numerous problems and near-misses. A close look at Unit 2 would inform the safety status of reactors still running — and ought to prompt their shutdown as well, rather than extending operating licenses to 80 years.
In other words, Indian Point 2 should be "autopsied." That would mean a close and detailed technical analysis of actual aged components extracted from Indian Point 2 and the other shuttered reactors as they begin the decommissioning process. This would provide scientific information — as opposed to computer modeled conclusions as is the current practice — about the reactor safety margins at the still operating reactors. In other words, “dead” reactors should be autopsied to shed light on the safety status of the “living”.
Needless to say, such a suggestion has thus far fallen on deaf ears. Neither the NRC nor the economically foundering nuclear industry want to see their flimsy safety margins exposed. They do not want the public to know that so far, and from hereon out, catastrophic accidents are averted by luck rather than precaution. They will continue to bury the bodies whole while the diseased operating fleet keeps right on fissioning, potentially to a fatal outcome. Read the full article on Beyond Nuclear International.
April 29, 2020