The Brunswick Nuclear Generating Station is located near Southport, North Carolina on the Atlantic coast. It draws cooling water from the Cape Fear River and discharges the heated water into the Atlantic Ocean. The plant contains two nine hundred and ninety megawatt General Electric boiling water reactors. The plant was built by Carolina Power & Light Company. Eighty two percent of the plant is currently owned by Progress Energy which also operates the plant. North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency owns the remaining eighteen percent. The plant was put into operation in 1975 with a forty year license. The plant was granted an extended license in 2006 to 2035.
The population in the NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about thirty six thousand people. The NRC ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about four hundred and sixty eight thousand people. The NRC estimates that there is a moderate risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant. The plant is vulnerable to hurricanes coming in from the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1992, the NRC proposed a fine for Brunswick because of problems with air intake valves and poor maintenance of emergency diesel generators. The NRC had known about problems at the plant for years but had allowed it to continue to operate. The building housing the emergency generators had not been constructed properly and could not withstand an earthquake. Eight five percent of the bolts in the walls were either substandard or fakes. The operators had known about the problem since 1987 but had not taken any steps to fix it. The reactors were shut down to fix the structural problems in 1992. Unit 1 was shut down for two years while NRC mandated repairs were performed. Unit 2 required a year for repairs.
There were also severe management problems at the plant with inadequate training, poor oversight and frequent changes of management and staff. Equipment at the plant was allowed to deteriorate and corrode without proper maintenance. Many necessary repairs were not performed. Funds were not always provided for critical repairs.
We have blogged about other reactors that had problems with construction but this is the first time I have encountered a situation where outright fraud was perpetrated during construction. Heads of bolts were cut off and attached to the walls to make it look like there were bolts that attached the walls to the steel supports. Once again, the operators of a reactor ignored warnings from the NRC and their own people about ongoing problems. Once again the NRC failed to halt operations of a plant that had serious long term problems. The management was incompetent and concerns of the staff were ignored. Routine maintenance was not carried out, repairs were not made and funds were not available to deal with difficult problems. Given the wretched history of this nuclear plant, the NRC should not have granted an extension of the license in 2006.
Photo by Jonathan Hass:
