When "FirstEnergy says PUC vote assures Davis-Besse operation for several years," Beyond Nuclear begs to differ

This still images comes from a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission video. The yellow arrow shows a sub-surface crack in Davis-Besse's concrete containment Shield Building wall. The cracking was revealed during an October 2011 reactor lid replacement. The cracking grows by a half-inch, or more, in length, every time it freezes out, due to Ice-Wedging Crack Propagation, due to water locked in the walls by FENOC's 2012 "White Wash" weather sealant of the Shield Building exterior, 40 years too late.In an article entitled "FirstEnergy says PUC vote assures Davis-Besse operation for several years," Nucleonics Week reporter Michael McAuliffe quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

A coalition of anti-nuclear and environmental groups including Beyond Nuclear was also critical of the PUC decision.

“PUCO’s $4 billion bailout to FirstEnergy will mostly go towards padding the pockets of company executives and shareholders, not to critically needed repairs of safety systems, structures, and components,” Beyond Nuclear spokesman Kevin Kamps said in a March 31 statement.

[FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, FENOC, spokesman] Colafella said “there are currently no major capital improvements needed at Davis-Besse.” But the coalition said that among needed plant maintenance is repairing a shield building which has a multitude of cracks. The shield building protects the reactor from impact by external objects.

Kamps questioned whether Davis-Besse will be able to remain in operation for the eight years covered by the plan and said in an April 4 interview that FirstEnergy does not “plan on plowing much of their bailout back into maintenance, and the NRC didn’t require it.” More.

Piling on yet more catastrophic risks at Indian Point

As reported by the Guardian, a 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline under construction within 105 feet of the emergency diesel generator fuel storage depot, and within 400 feet of the electrical switchyard, is but the latest potentially catastrophic risk at Entergy Nuclear's Indian Point twin reactors. 

20 million people live or work within a 50-mile radius.

As quoted in the article, nuclear engineer Paul Blanch said:

“I’m not anti-nuke or anything like that. I’ve been in the business for 50 years and I’ve never seen anything as egregious as this.”

Oil industry veteran Richard Kuprewicz, who conducts risk analyses through his company Accufacts, and sits on PHMSA’s [the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] own hazardous liquid pipeline safety standards committee, had this to say:

Kuprewicz performs assessments of that kind regularly and his own assessment of a rupture next to the switchyard where the pipeline will run is blunt. Were a pipeline to rupture, “the heat radiation and the impact zones are so great that with high heat flux they would actually melt the power lines”, he said.

If both the power lines bringing primary grid electricity into Indian Point to run safety and cooling systems were to be disabled, in an explosion or fire, and the backup emergency diesel generators too, the reactors would be plunged into station blackout. In such a Fukushima-like scenario, the reactor cores could melt down with hours.

As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has asked, what would New York City residents do then, swim to Jersey? The impossibility of quickly evacuating 20 million people from the metro New York City region is a primary reason why Cuomo has long advocated for Indian Point's permanent shutdown. Both reactors are currently operating on expired licenses.