Part Two of Four Parts (Please read Part One first)
4) There may be a lack of decommissioning funds. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission required the owners of nuclear power plants to maintain a fund sufficient to pay for the decommissioning of a nuclear power reactor when it reaches the end of its operational life. The NRC has been pressuring about the owners of about twenty U.S. power reactors to increase the amount of money that they have in their decommissioning funds. Some companies have funds invested in the stock market which could be wiped out if the market crashed. Even for those companies which the NRC says have sufficient funds, it has been found that the estimations of the cost of decommissioning are often too low. If the companies that own the reactors cannot pay to have them decommissioned, they will have to be paid for by the tax payers. If there are not sufficient federal funds to do the job, the plants will be mothballed and fenced. This leaves the danger of deteriorating containment being breached by storms, earthquakes, and/or terrorists which would contaminate the surrounding countryside and ground water.
5) There may be a lack of trained nuclear technicians in the future. Many of the technicians at nuclear power plants are nearing retirement. Uncertainties in the future of the nuclear industry have resulted in fewer students studying and graduating in nuclear technology at the world’s universities. If there are not enough graduates in the future to fill the posts being emptied by retirements, then either the power plants will have to be shut down or they will have to risk operating with less competent technicians which would increase the risk of serious accidents.
6) There is a lack of replacement parts for nuclear power reactors. Although there are standard designs for nuclear reactors, the details of the actual construction vary from site to site. A lot of components are either modified or custom made for a particular power reactor. This makes replacing worn out parts difficult. Sometimes used parts are salvaged from decommissioned reactors or reactors which have replaced those parts. Sometimes new parts are purchased that have to be modified before use. Sometimes custom parts have to be manufactured. In all these cases, the possibility of problems and/or the costs increase. Some power reactors have had to be permanently shut down recently because it became too expensive to keep repairing them. With many of the worlds power reactors reaching the end of their original design lives, more and more replacement parts will be needed.
7) Jellyfish are clogging the water intakes for nuclear power reactors. Jellyfish used to be a dominant life form in the oceans millions of years ago. Then increases in oxygen and decreases acidity allowed other forms of aquatic life to flourish and replace the jellyfish. Now that there are large areas of the oceans which are losing oxygen and becoming more acidic, jellyfish are making a comeback. Jellyfish have already forced the temporary shutdown of nuclear power plants from Sweden to Japan by clogging their cooling water intake systems. Jellyfish are multiplying in the world’s oceans and this problem will just get worse.
(See Part Three)
Common moon jellyfish which clogged cooling water intakes of Swedish reactor.
