The nuclear industry LIES to you about reliability in winter weather conditions

Scott Stapf of the Hastings Group has tweeted:

The #nuclear industry LIES to you about reliability in winter weather conditions. Entergy's Pilgrim plant near #Boston just shut down when weather knocked out incoming power line.

Stapf linked to a Platt's article, "Entergy's 728-MW Pilgrim shuts due to loss of a transmission line."

Stapf also included a graphic where, with a little dab of blue virtual paint, he was able to add a little truth-in-advertizing, to what otherwise would be a very dishonest Nuclear Energy Institute PR deception!

The Boston Globe has also reported on this story:

The storm also hit the power grid in Plymouth.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a statement that the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station “manually shut down (scrammed) the reactor after one of the two 345-kilovolt lines that provide power from the grid to the facility became unavailable” shortly after 2 p.m. “Off-site power from the second 345-kilovolt line and a 23-kilovolt line is still in service.”

So too did CapeCod.com.

Update on January 8, 2018 by admin

CapeCod.com has reported on "Anti-Pilgrim Activists Rallying at State House After Unplanned Shutdown."

The article reports: The Cape Downwinders and 3 other organizations are calling on Gov. Charlie Baker to demand the station be closed immediately.

The article contains excellent quotes: “More and more, Pilgrim makes The Simpsons seem like a documentary on nuclear power plants,” said Ed DeWitt, the retired Executive Director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod."

and

“To be pacified with the promise of Pilgrim’s closure in 2019 is clearly wishful thinking,” said Chatham resident Mary Conathan “The risks we are asked to accept are anything but acceptable. Poor maintenance, systemic mismanagement, cyber security violations all indicate to me we must pull our heads out of the sand and demand the plant be closed now.”

The Human Toll of the Nuclear Age

The Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) takes a look at the human toll of the Nuclear Age from Fermi to Fukushima. This program was recorded by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).

“Where Are the People? A look at the human toll of the Nuclear Age, from Fermi to Fukushima,” featured powerpoint presentations by Arnie Gundersen (chief engineer, Fairewinds Energy Education) and Norma Field (professor emerita, U. of Chicago, East Asian studies), hosted by Dr. Yuki Miyamoto of DePaul University, Dept. of Religious Studies.

Watch the full 2 hour 21 minute event on YouTube.

The event took place in Chicago on Dec. 2, 2017, 75 years to the day, after Enrico Fermi created the first nuclear chain reaction, during the Manhattan Project.

CAN TV also hosted and broadcast “The Human Toll of the Nuclear Age: Fermi to Fukushima,“ a half-hour in-studio show featuring Gundersen and Field, interviewed by NEIS director Dave Kraft.

News of the Atom, from Harry Shearer on Le Show

Mr. Burns in a radiation suit hands out chunks of radioactive waste (well, Atomic Fireball candies) to Radioactive Man and other participants in a protest against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Nuke Waste Con Game session in Perrysburg, OH in late 2013.Harry Shearer, the voice behind Mr. Burns in The Simpsons (and many of the other characters too; see photo, left), regularly reports on "News of the Atom" on his weekly Le Show.

This week's News of the Atom is regarding Diablo Canyon -- the twin reactor nuclear plant built on a web of earthquake fault lines in San Luis Obispo, CA. Plant owner Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), in a historic agreement with environmental groups (NRDC, FOE, Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility) and labor unions, has decided to not seek a 20-year license extension for the two reactors. PG&E determined this would be un-economic, in the face of ever more affordable efficiency and renewables such as wind and solar. Thus, Diablo Canyon Unit 1 and Unit 2 will permanent shut at the end of their 40-year operating licenses, in 2024 and 2025, respectively. At that point, CA will be atomic reactor-free, although there are many thousands of tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel still stored on-site at several closed reactors (San Onofre 1, 2, and 3 in s. CA; Rancho Seco in Sacramento; Humboldt Bay in n. CA).

Harry Shearer's Le Show "News of the Atom"

Harry Shearer, voice of Mr. Burns on The Simpson's, reported on Tokyo Electric Power Company's decision to scrap more than a thousand vehicles radioactively contaminated during the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. He also reports on thousands of gallons of radioactively contaminated water poured onto the ground at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, near the Columbia River, just this past August.

"Our Friend the Atom" report by Harry Shearer on Le Show

Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns on The Simpsons, reported on an emergency diesel generator mishap at the Catawba nuclear power plant in South Carolina, during his "News of the Atom" on his radio program Le Show.