Nuclear Energy Is Not An  Option

Nuclear Power Clearly Unsafe in an Increasingly Dangerous World
Browns Ferry March 22, 1975

Three Mile Island March 28, 1979

FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant March 2002
The vulnerability of the nuclear industry to terrorism

NRC Suspect Test Drills

Project on Government Oversight Interviews of Nuclear Plant Guards

The Price-Anderson Act

Wind and other Alternative Energies Much Cheaper Than Nuclear

Even More Nuclear Costs to the Public – Decommissioning Costs

Conclusion

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Nuclear Power Clearly Unsafe in an Increasingly Dangerous World
<>The blind momentum towards nuclear power disregards the degree of risk this technology poses in an increasingly dangerous world, while also ignoring the excessive financial costs in comparison to renewable energy. "A world-wide nuclear renaissance is beyond the capacity of the nuclear industry to deliver and would stretch to breaking point the capacity of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to monitor and safeguard civil nuclear power," says the British think tank, Oxford Research Group. (See Oxford Research Study on Greenpeace Website)


Energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal, wave, geothermal, hydroelectric do not carry the hazardous baggage that jeopardizes mass populations, such as reactor meltdowns through terrorism, or by accidents such as Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. The threat to regions downwind from our 103 nuclear reactors is enhanced by a government agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is more influenced by the industry it is supposed to regulate, than the public health and environment it is sworn to protect. One theme runs through the material below: It doesn’t hurt to be lucky.

 

Browns Ferry March 22, 1975

It was March 22, 1975 at Brown’s Ferry Nuclear Power plant in Alabama where workers took a shortcut, looking for leaks in walls. Using a lit candle they searched for leaks in wall openings, where an accumulation of cables weaved their way about the various rooms. Somehow the polyurethane foam used to seal the openings caught fire from the candle, and frustrated all attempts to extinguish it. Within 15 minutes the foam burned through, exposing and shorting out wires that were connected to safety systems. It burned out of control for seven and half hours destroying over 1600 electrical cables including 628 safety-related cable systems, before firemen finally put out the fire. Somehow a catastrophe was averted, and no radiation escaped the nuclear plant.

 

Three Mile Island March 28, 1979

It was the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident on March 28, 1979 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that demonstrated that humans, who are experts in their field, can make mistakes time and time again, tip toeing around the rim of the volcano that is nuclear energy. The power plant was built on a sandbar, in the middle of Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River, not far from the state capitol building, and it was in meltdown mode.

 

CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite, described what the nation faced. "The world has never known a day quite like today. It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age. And the horror tonight is that it could get much worse. The potential is there for the ultimate risk of meltdown at Three Mile Island...."

 

It started when the main feedwater pumps connected with one of the two Unit 2 steam generators shut down, causing an automatic and almost simultaneous shutdown of the Unit 2 turbine. The reactor was automatically shutdown, and the nuclear fission in the reactor core was stopped, however there was decay heat (equivalent to a 55-MW reactor) remaining in the reactor core. As decay heat cannot be shut off, the system would automatically kick in with water and pressure to cool the reactor. However, the operators of the system, not understanding the automatic apparatus, worked against the correct response which was programmed into the system. They shut off one water pump and throttled back another. The water in the reactor core now was boiling. Eventually these actions resulted in a release of 30,000 gallons radioactive water. After two hours, the operators, who at this point included the Superintendent of Technical Support, had yet to figure out what was going on.

 

The upper portion of the core was now exposed. There was a steep increase in temperature, severe damage to fuel and a release of radioactive material. Two hours into the event, a shift supervisor came onto the scene and within 20 minutes made the necessary adjustments to control the operation of the reactor.

 

*******

 

Having watched the drama unfold Bob Long, Supervising Engineer, said “I remember vividly seeing this videotape of a camera coming down into the top of the core...and you hear the voice of the mechanic who's -- who's lowering it saying, "One foot, two foot, we're now two feet into the core, we're now approaching three feet." and as he's going, as I'm watching the tape my stomach churns more and "Five foot. Got something." And that recognition for the first time, five feet of the core was gone. That's when we really saw that the core had been severely damaged.”

 

The meltdown led to a 50% loss of reactor core, said Roger Mattson, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Engineer. Said Mattson, “Well, in a major sense we were lucky at Three Mile Island that it was a -- it was bad luck that kept the operators from recognizing what was going on for so long. And, maybe "luck" isn't the right word. Maybe it's they were poorly prepared. They had a machine that could have had better design. But there were a lot of people at fault in Three Mile Island.”

 

*******

There was the matter of the hydrogen bubble that Mattson thought might explode or burn. Mattson considered the country’s leading expert on emergency core cooling, believed that a hydrogen bubble had formed above the reactor core. In discussing the matter with NRC chief, Joseph Hendrie, Mattson said, "They can't get rid of the bubble. They have tried cycling and pressurizing and depressurizing; they have tried natural convection a couple of days ago; they have been on forced circulation; they have steamed out the pressurizer; they have liquided out the pressurizer. The bubble stays." (10)

 

Victor Stello, an NRC official, was with Mattson at one point waiting for President Jimmy Carter to arrive to tour the facility. While waiting Mattson engaged Stello in an argument, where Mattson was stating that the hydrogen bubble could explode. At the time the President entered the nuclear plant, the potential for the hydrogen bubble to explode, was very much on the mind of NRC engineer Mattson.

 

Later, while Carter was still on the premises, Victor Stello found the proof, which he conveyed to Mattson and his team of consultants that they had been using the wrong formula to determine the risk posed by the hydrogen bubble. Stello concluded that "hydrogen under pressure will prevent water from breaking apart into hydrogen and oxygen because it will tend to suppress the creation of more hydrogen. Without free oxygen, there can be no explosion." The bubble was soon disposed of.

 

*******

 

Harry Denton, an NRC official, who accompanied President Jimmy Carter on a tour of TMI during the event, noted that the President’s dosimeter registered a high exposure to radioactivity. Thinking he had somehow exposed Carter to dangerous radiation, he noted his own dosimeter showed zero. In a PBS interview Denton said, “Turns out the company had gotten so far behind on their ability to recharge dosimeters and hand out fresh dosimeters to everyone, they just noted what they read when they were turned in last and subtracted the difference.”

 

As demonstrated above, in an industry that can devastate a region, people take foolish chances with shortcuts and even experts sometimes do not fully understand this dangerous technology. Also demonstrated is that with this industry, people who live downwind require a lot of luck.

 

Although the town of Harrisburg with a population of about 200,000 was never evacuated, Governor Richard Thornburgh, acting on the NRC’s advice, urged the evacuation of pregnant women and young children. The cleanup has lasted at least 6 years and will eventually cost in excess of $1 billion. 

 

FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant March 2002

FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse nuclear power plant is located in Ottawa County, Ohio. In March 2002, workers at this plant discovered a football size hole, 5 by 7 inches, 6 inches deep, in the head or lid of the nuclear reactor, leaving only a 3/8th inch thin stainless steel lining. This thin metal sheet had begun to crack and bulge, while containing the nuclear reaction inside. Luckily, for FirstEnergy and the people living downwind from the facility, the hole was by chance discovered by workers repairing cracked nozzles. Experts have concluded that if the workers had not happened on the damaged reactor, it could have ruptured within the next year of operation. Davis-Besse’s safety systems may not have been able to stop a nuclear meltdown from occurring. In January, 2006 a grand jury indicted 3 employees. They were charged with withholding evidence from the NRC about the reactor lid, (corroded at first, but later developing the large hole), in order that production would not be halted. FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $28 million fine. Although the largest fine levied on a nuclear energy company, it still represented a mere one percent of the utility’s profit for 2004, said Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

 

<>Congressman Dennis Kucinich released this statement February 3, 2003 about the event at David-Besse: “Because FirstEnergy (1) has admittedly operated the plant in violation of NRC rules and regulations and its own operating license, (2) has admittedly failed to observe safety standards necessary to protect health and to minimize danger to life or property, and (3) has deliberately withheld information from the NRC and fraudulently misrepresented plant conditions in order to continue to operate the plant in an unsafe manner, the NRC, in order to comply with its regulations and guidelines, must revoke First Energy’s license to operate the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.” 

 

“It is very clear that FirstEnergy has placed profits above public safety in operating the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Plant,” stated Kucinich. “Not only has FirstEnergy admitted to violating the rules and regulations of the NRC, it deliberately withheld information from the NRC putting the public at an unimaginable risk. In order to continue to serve public safety, NRC must revoke FirstEnergy’s operating license.”

 

FirstEnergy was able to avoid indictment in a deal with the Department of Justice by paying the $28 million fine and cooperating with Department of Justice in its criminal and administrative investigations. The Toledo Blade reported that the US Attorney, Greg White, expects the cases heard by the end of 2006, if they go to trial. White did not rule out the possibility of a plea bargain negating the need for a trial.

 

The plant went back into operation in March 2004 after FirstEnergy replaced the reactor lid and made staff changes at Davis-Besse. Nothing that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission accomplished in the Davis-Besse episode suggests that those living downwind from nuclear power plants should feel confident that the NRC is watching out for their safety. As Kucinich said in August, 2002, "The NRC has failed in its oversight responsibility… We are going to find out how it happened that the agency received extensive reports mandating the shutdown of Davis-Besse for safety concerns and yet ignored them."

 

One of the three indicted employees, Andrew Siemaszko, plant engineer, is accused of withholding evidence to the NRC about the corroded lid. The Union of Concerned Scientists and Ohio Citizen Action will testify in defense of Siemaszko that he is being punished, because of or in spite of his role as a whistle-blower. David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety engineer, submitted an 8 page rebuttal to the NRC, reporting that FirstEnergy rebuffed Siemaszko, when he stated to them in 2000 that Davis-Besse should not be restarted owing to the need for more maintenance on the reactor lid. Siemaszko also sought rebuilding all four of the reactor's 900-horsepower coolant pumps to replace leaking gaskets. Other staff engineers and the pumps’ manufacturer had also tried to rebuild these pumps, because they had a history of leaking. However, this would have postponed Davis-Besse management’s schedule to put the nuclear plant online.

 

The vulnerability of the nuclear industry to terrorism

It was noted in a General Accounting Office (GAO) Report to Congressman Christopher Shays, Chairman, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations Committee on Government Reform, that the 9/11 Commission Report cited concern that nuclear power plants were among the targets considered in the original plan for the September 11, 2001. The 9/11 report stated that both Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 pilots, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks, "considered targeting a nuclear facility."American Airlines Flight #11 did fly almost directly over Indian Point nuclear facility, before crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

 

A report by Edwin S. Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, states that Indian Point nuclear plant, near New York City, is still vulnerable to such invasions and to air attacks, in spite of “modest security upgrades” ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in response to 9/11. That nuclear plant has the potential in case of an attack to bring about an extraordinary amount of deaths: 44,000 near-term deaths and over 500,000 long-term deaths. For those nuclear plants near large cities, every effort must be made to reinforce the walls that house a nuclear reactor, which contains the radioactivity equivalent of a 1000 Hiroshima bombs. Are the walls of a nuclear power plant, which are supposed to protect against a Boeing 707, strong enough to protect against a 767? The twin towers on September 11, 2001 were engineered to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707, but could not withstand the 767's that crashed into them. In an August 28, 2006 CNN article by Christiane Amanpour, she notes that Osama bin Laden has been given permission by a young Saudi Arabia cleric authorizing al Queda to use nuclear weapons to kill up to 10 million Americans.

 

In a study looking into extreme scenarios, conducted by Sandia National Laboratories, it was reported that in the case of one reactor, releasing all nuclear materials from one of the reactors in Limerick, Pennsylvania, resulted in 75,000 deaths within one year of the accident, about 700,000 injuries in the same period, and about $200 billion in damages.

 

In a Congressional Budget Office report published December, 2004, it was reported that “in 2003, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said there was evidence that terrorists may have specifically targeted the Palo Verde nuclear power plant near Wintersburg, Arizona—the largest commercial nuclear facility in the country. A year earlier, a National Research Council report concluded that nuclear power plants “may present a tempting high visibility target for terrorist attack, and the potential for a September 11-type surprise attack in the near term using U.S. assets such as airplanes appears to be high.”

 

Demonstrating how vulnerable these nuclear plants are, about 50 Greenpeace protestors invaded UK’s Sizewell reactor in January 14, 2003. That day Andy Oppenheimer, Jane’s nuclear expert, wrote for the UK Daily Mirror, that,”If terrorists had been the invaders today, Britain could have faced a Chernobyl-style disaster. Attackers would have been able to disable external cooling systems that prevent the reactor from overheating (which is what happened at Chernobyl). Suicide bombers could simply break in and detonate their explosives. A terrorist attack could release radioactive particles into the atmosphere, at best causing disruption to energy supplies, at worst radioactive fallout, hysteria and mass fatalities……To cause a core meltdown and disperse radioactive material, attackers would have to defeat the security systems and destroy or disable its multiple safety systems simultaneously……Terrorists could have wrought havoc. Explosives could cause a massive radiological release. Small truck bombs could damage vital reactor systems and lead to a core meltdown.”

 

Testifying on April 4, 2006, before a House subcommittee, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent nonprofit that monitors federal agencies, told committee members that the NRC is conducting its test drills in accordance with what the nuclear industry desires, but are unrealistic for purposes of protecting public safety. For example, the drills do not include commonly used weapons such as rocket propelled grenades, 50-caliber rifles with armor-piercing rounds and other weapons. POGO testified that the NRC “also reduced the size of the truck bomb necessary to defend against, and minimized the impact of an active insider helping the terrorists, because industry claimed it was too expensive for them to protect against such a threat.” The NRC is allowing the industry, concerned with costs, to dictate the parameters of test drills. The safety of a region-wide population hinges on the bottom line. 

 

In its testimony POGO went into detail as to how suspect the test drills were:

 

POGO citing the above report to Congressman Christopher Shays by the General Accounting Office (27) (which observed the test exercises) said that drills at one nuclear plant showed that some or all of the invaders were able to reach the protected areas, while in two of the test scenarios, invaders succeeded in reaching target areas.

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NRC Suspect Test Drills - Excerpt from 2004 GAO Report GAO-04-1064T

Finally, although NRC is taking action—as we recommended in our September 2003 report—to establish an adversary force trained in terrorist tactics, NRC is not establishing the force in a manner that provides confidence that the force will be independent and highly trained, and will endeavor to find weaknesses in the facilities’ security. NRC delegated the task of establishing the adversary force to an organization—the Nuclear Energy Institute—that represents the licensees of nuclear power plants.

 

The company the Institute selected currently provides security guards to about half of the nuclear power sites to be tested. The company’s relationship with the industry raises questions about the force’s independence. Of further concern, this company was recently involved in a controversy over similar tests. During a June 2003 Department of Energy (DOE) force-on-force exercise at a nuclear site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, security guards working for this company received uncharacteristically high scores. A subsequent investigation by DOE’s Office of the Inspector General indicated that the guards might have cheated on the test and perhaps on many other tests at Oak Ridge, dating back to the mid-1980s. It was alleged that the guards had studied plans for the simulated attacks before they were carried out, had disabled the laser sensors they wore during tests to determine when they were “shot” by mock enemies, arranged trucks and other obstacles to help foil simulated attacks, created special, nonstandard plans to help them perform better on tests, and put more guards on duty at the time of the tests than would normally have been present.

 

By the NRC delegating the formation and maneuvers of adversarial forces, representing the terrorists, to the Nuclear Energy Institute, is like getting a baseball team to choose umpires from its management. Once again the NRC lacks the scruples or good judgment to conduct a force on force drill in a competent and ethical manner. Why is the NRC allowing the use of a company, already suspected by DOE, that has been shown to use underhanded and unprincipled methods in conducting test drills? The NRC is not qualified to be responsible for oversight of an industry they seek to promote and expand.

 

Project on Government Oversight Interviews of Nuclear Plant Guards

In interviews of over 20 nuclear plant security guards, protecting 24 nuclear plants, conducted in 2002, POGO discovered that only one in four guards are confident that they could defeat a terrorist invasion of a facility. Most guards interviewed say that they neither have the armament or manpower to defeat an armed assault.

 

Before 9/11 nuclear plants required about 5 to 10 security guards to maintain security, but after 9/11the NRC called for plant owners to add more guards. POGO in their interviews of over half the guards found that the nuclear plants mainly increased overtime, not the number of guards. Only a few guards say that their facility brought in more guards, while most of those interviewed said that the security force is inadequate to defend their plants.

 

According to POGO the nuclear industry has claimed that they were responsible for training security guards: 270 hours training per guard prior to being posted, an annual 90 hours to requalify for use of their weapons and a yearly 30 hours in antiterrorist tactical drills. POGO says none of the claims were true, and that the guards received only several hours each year to requalify on their weapons. Also, most of the guards interviewed had received no training shooting at moving targets. Again it appears that the profit motive has been the dominant constraint severely limiting the training of guards, a necessary component in maintaining a high level of security. POGO discovered in their interview that the guards are paid less than janitors, severely inadequate, considering their lives would be on the line, defending a nuclear plant.

 

The Price-Anderson Act Limits Liability of Nuclear Plant in Case of Accident

One reason the nuclear industry is able to say that certain test drills are too expensive to conduct, is that their liability is limited with the existence of the Price-Anderson Act. This act provides that in the event of an accident, nuclear plant owners are limited in their liability to $10 billion, US taxpayers being responsible for the rest of the costs, which could soar into the 100’s of billions.

 

Wind and other Alternative Energies Much Cheaper Than Nuclear

Wind energy is cheaper than nuclear energy. It can be even more inexpensive if mass production economies come into play.  The following table was provided in testimony to a subcommittee of the House Ways & Means Committee on May 25, 2006 by Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy:

 

                                    National Average Levelized* Generation Costs for New Plants in 2010

 

Technology

Levelized Costs

(2003 cents per kilowatthour)

Pulverized Coal

4.3

Geothermal

4.4

Natural Gas Combined-Cycle

4.7

Wind

4.8

Open-Loop Biomass

5.1

Nuclear**

6.0

Solar Thermal

12.6

Photovoltaic

21.0

 

*Levelized costing - The present value of the total cost of building and operating a generating plant over its economic life, converted to equal annual payments. Costs are levelized in real dollars (i.e., adjusted to remove the impact of inflation).

**The time required to license, permit, and construct a new nuclear plant makes it impossible to bring one on line by 2010.  The costs shown are for a plant beginning operation in 2013.

 

Even More Nuclear Costs to the Public – Decommissioning Costs

When it comes time to shutting down a facility after long use, decommissioning costs are those costs pertaining to making use of the site for another purpose. It involves dismantling of the facilities and the subsequent cleanup and removal of radioactive material. These costs may be too much for plant owners and may deflect to American taxpayers. In May, 2006 the General Accounting Office said that some plant owners have not set aside enough shutdown funds. Plant owners are required to pay into a trust account, over the lifetime of a facility, sufficient funds to meet the costs of shutting down a nuclear plant. The GAO determined in testimony before a US Senate subcommittee that about 42 nuclear plants (almost half the facilities in the US) have not saved enough funds to meet their decommissioning costs.

Conclusion

The NRC has abandoned its role and its mission as the watchdog agency in the nuclear industry. The NRC promises that, “The mission of the NRC is to license and regulate the Nation’s civilian use of byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety, promote the common defense and security, and protect the environment.” If the foregoing is any indication of the NRC protecting public safety and environment, then it’s time to search for an agency that will decline to put nuclear plant owners ahead of the public.

 

Too much is at stake in lives and property to allow the defense of nuclear power plants to reside in the hands of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They’ve demonstrated too often that they exist for the promotion and expansion of nuclear energy, and will cater to the owners of nuclear plants as called upon. Region-wide areas in this country are made all the more vulnerable, because this agency chooses to ignore its mission to protect the American public and the environment.

 

Instead of depending on nuclear plant owners paying for suspect security guards, it may be wise to employ something similar to protections offered by the United Kingdom. The UK has developed what they call the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, a stand-alone armed force that patrols within a 3 mile radius of nuclear plants at Sellafield and Dounreay and has the authority to search people and vehicles and make arrests.

 

An attack on a nuclear power plant would bring about destruction to such a degree as to possibly kill ten’s of thousands, injure 100’s of thousands, leave a city or region uninhabitable for generations and economically devastated, and deal a demoralizing  blow to the entire country. All of this would further motivate terrorists to continue this line of destruction.  

 

Those who were culpable in the Davis-Besse case, which is scheduled to go to trial later this year, may not see jail time or heavy fines. As mentioned above, US Attorney Greg White did not rule out a plea bargain.

 

Accidents will happen, but they cannot happen in an industry possessing such unforgiving technology. People take shortcuts. They get bored. They don’t do their job. They ignore the rules. They bend regulations. It's the bottom line before safety. Somehow they make mistakes. But nuclear energy technology has a low tolerance for such foolishness. But people are people. That's the problem.

 

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