Why This Nuclear Engineer Says Every Nuke Plant in the US Should Be Shut Down Yesterday

The good--the very good--energy news is that the Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City will be closed in the next few years under an agreement reached between New York State and the plants' owner, Entergy.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has long been calling for the plants to be shut down because, as the New York Times related in its story on the pact, they pose "too great a risk to New York City." Environmental and safe-energy organizations have been highly active for decades in working for the shutdown of the plants. Under the agreement, one Indian Point plant will shut down by April 2020, the second by April 2021.

"If the general public would see these secret 'red' reports, its view on nuclear power would turn strongly negative."They would be among the many nuclear power plants in the U.S. which their owners have in recent years decided to close or have announced will be shut down in a few years.

This comes in the face of nuclear power plant accidents--most recently and prominently the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan--and competitive power being less expensive including renewable and safe solar and wind energy.

Last year, the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska closed following the shutdowns of Kewanee in Wisconsin, Vermont Yankee in Vermont, Crystal River 3 in Florida and both San Onofre 2 and 3 in California. Nuclear plant operators say they will close Palisades in Michigan next year; Oyster Creek in New Jersey and Pilgrim in Massachusetts in 2019; and the closure of California's Diablo Canyon 1 in 2024 will be followed by Diablo Canyon 3 in 2025.

This will bring the number of nuclear plants down to a few more than 90 -- far cry from President Richard Nixon's scheme to have 1,000 nuclear plants in the U.S. by the year 2000.

But the bad--the very bad--energy news is that there are still many promoters in industry and government still pushing nuclear power. Most importantly, the transition team of incoming President Donald Trump has been "asking for ways to keep nuclear power alive," as Bloomberg reported last month.

As I was reading last week the first reports on the Indian Point agreement, I received a phone call from an engineer who has been in the nuclear industry for more than 30 years with his view of the situation.

The engineer, employed at nuclear plants and for a major nuclear plant manufacturer, wanted to relate that even with the Indian Point news--"and I'd keep my fingers crossed that there is no disaster involving those aged Indian Point plants in those next three or four years"--nuclear power remains a "ticking time bomb." Concerned about retaliation, he asked his name not be published.

Here is some of the information he relayed - a story of experiences of an engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than three decades and his warnings and expectations.

The Secretive INPO Report System

Several months after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in March 1979, the nuclear industry set up the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) based in Atlanta, Georgia. The idea was to have a nuclear industry group that "would share information" on problems and incidents at nuclear power plants, he said.

If there is a problem at one nuclear power plant, an INPO report will communicate the incident other nuclear plant operators. Thus the various plant operators could "cross-reference" happenings at other plants and determine if they might apply to them.

The reports are "coded by color," explained the engineer. Those which are "green" involve an incident or condition that might or might not indicate a wider problem. A "yellow" report is on an occurrence "that could cause significant problems down the road." A "red" report is the most serious and represents "a problem that could have led to a core meltdown" and could be present widely among nuclear plants and for which action needs to be taken immediately.

The engineer said he has read more than 100 "Code Red" reports. What they reflect, he said, is that "we've been very, very lucky so far."

If the general public would see these secret "red" reports, its view on nuclear power would turn strongly negative, said the engineer.

But this is prevented by INPO, "created and solely funded by the nuclear industry," thus its reports "are not covered by the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and are regarded as highly secretive." The reports should be required to be made public, said the engineer. "It's high time the country wakes up to the dangers we undergo with nuclear power plants."

The NRC Inspection Farce

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is supposed to be the federal agency that is the watchdog over nuclear power plants and it frequently boasts of how it has "two resident inspectors" at each nuclear power plant in the nation, he noted.

However, explained the engineer, "the NRC inspectors are not allowed to go into the plant on their own. They have to be escorted. There can be no surprise inspections. Indeed, the only inspections that can be made are those that come after the NRC inspectors "get permission from upper management at the plant."

The inspectors "have to contact upper management and say they want to inspect an area. The word is then passed down from management that inspectors are coming so 'clean up' whatever is the situation is."

"The inspectors hands are tied," said the engineer.

The 60- and Now 80-Year Operating Delusion

When nuclear power plants were first designed decades ago, explained the engineer, the extent of their mechanical life was established at 40 years. The engineer is highly familiar with these calculations having worked for a leading manufacturer of nuclear plants, General Electric.

The components in nuclear plants, particularly their steel parts, "have an inherent working shelf life," said the engineer.

In determining the 40-year total operating time, the engineer said that calculated were elements that included the wear and tear of refueling cycles, emergency shutdowns and the "nuclear embrittlement from radioactivity that impacts on the nuclear reactor vessel itself including the head bolts and other related piping, and what the entire system can handle. Further, the reactor vessel is the one component in a nuclear plant that can never be replaced because it becomes so hot with radioactivity. If a reactor vessel cracks, there is no way of repairing it and any certainty of containment of radioactivity is not guaranteed."

Thus the U.S. government limited the operating licenses it issued for all nuclear power plants to 40 years. However, in recent times the NRC has "rubber-stamped license extensions" of an additional 20 years now to more than 85 of the nuclear plants in the country permitting them to run for 60 years. Moreover, a push is now on, led by nuclear plant owners Exelon and Dominion, to have the NRC grant license extensions of 20 additional years to let nuclear plants run for 80 years.

Exelon, the owner of the largest number of nuclear plants in the U.S., last year announced it would ask the NRC to extend the operating licenses of its two Peach Bottom plants in Pennsylvania to 80 years. Dominion declared earlier that it would seek NRC approval to run its two Surry nuclear power plants in Virginia for 80 years.

"That a nuclear plant can run for 60 years or 80 years is wishful thinking," said the engineer. "The industry has thrown out the window all the data developed about the lifetime of a nuclear plant. It would ignore the standards to benefit their wallets, for greed, with total disregard for the country's safety."

The engineer went on that since "Day One" of nuclear power, because of the danger of the technology, "they've been playing Russian roulette, putting one bullet in the chamber and hoping that it would not fire. By going to 60 years and now possibly to 80 years, "they're putting all the bullets in every chamber and taking out only one and pulling the trigger."

Further, what the NRC has also been doing is not only letting nuclear plants operate longer but "uprating" them allowing them to run "hotter and harder" to generate more electricity and ostensibly more profit. "Catastrophe is being invited," said the engineer.

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