<http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17667-nuke-power-s-collapse-gets-ever-more-dangerous>
Saturday, 01 December 2012 14:06
Nuke Power's Collapse Gets Ever More Dangerous
HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
In the wake of this fall's election, the disintegration of
America's rust bucket reactor fleet is fast approaching critical
mass. Unless our No Nukes movement can get the worst of them shut
soon, Barack Obama may be very lucky to get through his second term
without a major reactor disaster.
All 104 licensed US reactors were designed before 1975---a third of a
century ago. All but one went on line in the 1980s or earlier.
Plunging natural gas prices (due largely to ecologically disastrous
fracking) are dumping even fully-amortized US reactors into deep red
ink. Wisconsin's Kewaunee will close next year because nobody wants
to buy it. A reactor at Clinton, Illinois, may join it. Should gas
prices stay low, the trickle of shut-downs will turn into a flood.
But more disturbing are the structural problems, made ever-more
dangerous by slashed maintenance budgets.
* San Onofre Units One and Two, near major earthquake
faults on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, have been shut
for more than nine months by core breakdowns in their newly
refurbished steam generators. A fix could exceed a half-billion
dollars. A bitter public battle now rages over shutting them both.
* The containment dome at North Florida's Crystal River
was seriously damaged during "repair" efforts that could take $2
billion to correct. It will probably never reopen.
* NRC inspections of Nebraska's Fort Calhoun, damaged
during recent flooding, have unearthed a wide range of structural
problems that could shut it forever, and that may have been illegally
covered-up. As many as three dozen US reactors may be vulnerable to
flooding from upstream dams.
* Ohio's Davis-Besse has structural containment cracks
that should have forced it down years ago and others have been found
at South Carolina's V.C. Summer reactor pressure vessel.
* Intense public pressure at Vermont Yankee, at two
reactors at New York's Indian Point, and at New Jersey's Oyster Creek
(damaged in Hurricane Sandy) could bring them all down.
Projected completion of a second unit at Watts Bar, Tennessee, where
construction began in the 1960s, has been pushed back to April, 2015.
If finished at all, building this reactor may span a half-century.
Two new reactors under preliminary construction in South Carolina
have been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Faulty components and
concrete have marred two more under construction at Vogtle,
Georgia, where builders may soon ask for a new delay on consideration
of proposed federal loan guarantees.
This fall's defeat of the very pro-nuclear Mitt Romney is an industry
set-back. The return of Harry Reid (D-NV) as Senate Majority Leader
means the failed Yucca Mountain waste dump will stay dead. A number
of new Congressionals are notably pro-green, in line with Obama's
strong rhetorical support.
The move toward renewables has been boosted by Germany's shut-down of
eight reactors and huge investments in wind, solar and other
renewables, which are exceeding financial and ecological
expectations. Despite pro-nuke nay-sayers,Germany's energy supply of
energy has risen while prices have fallen.
The Department of Energy has confirmed that US solar power continues
to drop in price. US employment in the solar industry has surged past
118,000, a rise of more than 13% over last year.
Despite a wide range of financial problems, including uncertainty
over renewal of the Production Tax Credit, the green energy industry
continues to expand. Along with marijuana, Colorado has now legalized
industrial hemp, opening the door for a major bio-fuel that will have
strong agricultural support.
At some near-term tipping point, the financial and political clout of
the green energy industry will fly past that of atomic power.
But at Fukushima, a spent fuel pool crammed with some 1500 hugely
radioactive rods still sits atop a deteriorating shell that could
collapse with the inevitable upcoming earthquake. As the Earth hangs
in the balance, the pool may or may not be emptied this coming year,
depending on the dubious technical and financial capabilities of its
owners, who are in a deep fiscal crater. Meanwhile, fish irradiated
by the huge quantities of Fukushima emissions are being consumed here
in the US.
Overall, the "nuclear renaissance" is in shambles. So is an industry
now defined by a rust-bucket fleet of decayed reactors in serious
decline.
Solartopians everywhere can celebrate an election that seemed to show
some progress toward saving our beleaguered planet.
But our survival still depends on shutting ALL these old reactors
before the next Fukushima contaminates us with far more than just
radioactive fish.
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