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<\/a><\/p>\nThe good\u2014the very good\u2014energy 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\u2019 owner, Entergy.<\/p>\n
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 \u201ctoo great a risk to New York City.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
This comes in the face of nuclear power plant accidents\u2014the most recent the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan\u2014and competitive power being less expensive including renewable and safe solar and wind energy.<\/p>\n
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 and then Oyster Creek in New Jersey and Pilgrim in Massachusetts in 2019 and California\u2019s Diablo Canyon 1 in 2024 and Diablo Canyon 3 in 2025.<\/p>\n
This brings the number of nuclear plants down to a few more than 90\u2014a far cry from President Richard Nixon\u2019s scheme to have 1,000 nuclear plants in the U.S. by the year 2000.<\/p>\n
But the bad\u2014the very bad\u2014energy news is that there are still many promoters of nuclear power in industry and government still pushing and, most importantly, the transition team of incoming President Donald Trump has been<\/a> \u201casking for ways to keep nuclear power alive,\u201d as Bloomberg news reported last month.<\/p>\n 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\u2014with his view of the situation.<\/p>\n The engineer, employed at nuclear plants and for a major nuclear plant manufacturer, wanted to relate that even with the Indian Point news\u2014\u201cand I\u2019d keep my fingers crossed that there is no disaster involving those aged Indian Point plants in those next three or four years\u201d\u2014nuclear power remains a \u201cticking time bomb.\u201d Concerned about retaliation, he asked his name not be published.<\/p>\n Here is some of the information he passed on\u2014a story of experiences of an engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than three decades and his warnings and expectations.<\/p>\n THE SECRETIVE INPO REPORT SYSTEM<\/strong><\/p>\n 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 \u201cwould share information\u201d on problems and incidents at nuclear power plants, he said.<\/p>\n If there is a problem at one nuclear power plant, through an INPO report it is communicated to other nuclear plant operators. Thus the various plant operators could \u201ccross-reference\u201d happenings at other plants and determine if they might apply to them.<\/p>\n The reports are \u201ccoded by color,\u201d explained the engineer. Those which are \u201cgreen\u201d involve an incident or condition that might or might not indicate a wider problem. A \u201cyellow\u201d report is on an occurrence \u201cthat could cause significant problems down the road.\u201d A \u201cred\u201d report is the most serious and represents \u201ca problem that could have led to a core meltdown\u201d\u2014and could be present widely among nuclear plants and for which action needs to be taken immediately.<\/p>\n The engineer said he has read more than 100 \u201cCode Red\u201d reports. What they reflect, he said, is that \u201cwe\u2019ve been very, very lucky so far!\u201d<\/p>\n If the general public would see these \u201cred\u201d reports, its view on nuclear power would turn strongly negative, said the engineer.<\/p>\n But this is prevented by INPO, \u201ccreated and solely funded by the nuclear industry,\u201d thus its reports \u201care not covered by the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and are regarded as highly secretive.\u201d The reports should be required to be made public, said the engineer. \u201cIt\u2019s high time the country wakes up to the dangers we undergo with nuclear power plants.\u201d<\/p>\n THE NRC INSPECTION FARCE<\/strong><\/p>\n 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 \u201ctwo resident inspectors\u201d at each nuclear power plant in the nation, he noted.<\/p>\n However, explained the engineer, \u201cthe 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 \u201cget permission from upper management at the plant.\u201d<\/p>\n The inspectors \u201chave to contact upper management and say they want to inspect an area. The word is then passed down from management that inspectors are coming\u2014so \u2018clean up\u2019 whatever is the situation is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe inspectors hands are tied,\u201d said the engineer.<\/p>\n THE 60- AND NOW 80-YEAR OPERATING DELUSION<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The components in nuclear plants, particularly their steel parts, \u201chave an inherent working shelf life,\u201d said the engineer.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cnuclear 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201crubber-stamped license extensions\u201d of an additional 20 years now to more than 85 of the nuclear plants in the country\u2014permitting 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\u2014to let nuclear plants run for 80 years.<\/p>\n