I have already written a post about decommissioning nuclear reactors. In that previous post, I ending it by writing about concerns I had with the funding of the decommissioning. In this post, I want to drill down into that subject a bit more. The NRC requires nuclear power companies to maintain sufficient funds to dismantle nuclear power reactors and decontaminate the land where the reactor was located. Recently, the NRC reported that companies operating eighteen of the one hundred and four nuclear reactors in the U.S. do not have sufficient funds to satisfy the decommissioning requirements.

           The cost of constructing nuclear reactors is currently in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The projected cost of decommissioning a nuclear reactor can be over one billion dollars. In the past few years a reactor sold for ten million dollars. It is interesting that the cost for decommissioning a non-functioning reactor can be five times the cost of building a new one and a hundred times the cost of buying an existing functioning reactor. I believe this is a unique situation for major electricity producing power plants.

           One problem that may increase the cost of decommissioning could be the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. government will not have a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel before 2040 at the earliest. That being the case, any spent nuclear fuel at a shut down nuclear power plant would have to be stored on or off site in temporary storage which could be an additional expense that would have to be added to the general decommissioning cost.

           Another problem that comes to mind is the cost of the actual decommissioning work. Decommissioning a reactor is a difficult and time consuming task requiring special equipment and special expertise. Most of the 100 reactors in the U.S. are nearing the end of their projected lifespan. Some are being relicensed for an extended period but some are just too old to keep operating safely and must be shut down soon. As more and more reactors are shut down and decommissioned, there will be less and less call for decommissioning and there may be fewer and fewer companies with that capability. This could lead to an increase in price for the services of the remaining companies.

          The length of the process is also troubling. Companies in the U.S. have up to sixty years from the date of shut down to decommission a nuclear power plant. If the market for nuclear power becomes less lucrative, some companies may go bankrupt and cease to exist. If a company owning a reactor fails, then what happens to the decommissioning fund is a critical question. If it goes into the bankruptcy proceeding and is divided up between credit

           If the cost estimate of the decommissioning is too low, then what will happen if the company closing the reactor cannot afford the extra cost? The U.S. government and tax payers will have to pay the extra.

         The general health of the U.S. economy is also a concern. Recently a nuclear power company assured that NRC that they had sufficient funds because they had invested the funds and the stock market was doing well. What happens if the decommissioning funds are invested in the stock market and the market crashes, wiping out the invested funds? In this case, there might not be enough tax revenue for the U.S. government to cover decommissioning costs.

          Recently the U.S. government instituted the Sequester which required across the board cuts in government programs. New leaks at the Hanford Nuclear reservation have been in the news recently and there is pressure on the Federal government to do something about them. It has been reported that the cuts from the Sequester may slow down the cleanup work at the Hanford facility. If there are government budget problems in the future and more cuts in government programs, any nuclear decommissioning work that the government is committed to could also be slowed down or canceled.

        Problems with the nuclear decommissioning funds maintained by nuclear power companies are not usually among the top issues discussed when the viability of nuclear power being considered but, in the long run, they may prove to be very important.

Estimates of Vermont Yankee decommissioning costs and available funds from a fairwinds.org report:

Decommissioning gap.PNG

               The Clinton Nuclear Generating Station is located near Clinton, Illinois. It is a General Electric Generation II boiling water reactor with a one thousand megawatt generation capacity. It was built by Illinois Power and put into operation in 1987 with a forty year operating license until 2026.The plant owners also own a five thousand acre cooling reservoir, most of which is open for recreational use. In 1999, Exelon bought the power plant from Illinois Power for forty million dollars.

             The population in the NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about fifteen thousand people. The NRC ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about eight hundred thousand people. The estimated risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant is very low.

            In April of 1996, failure of an electrical transformer caused an automatic shutdown of the reactor. The reactor was maintained in what is known as a hot standby condition because that would reduce the time that the reactor would have to be offline. This put a severe strain on a seal in the recirculating pump. In June of 1996, the reactor was shut down again and placed in a hot standby mode. They could have used this shutdown to find and fix the seal in the pump but they did not. Consequently, in September, the plant operators had to work to fix the pump seal which was leaking. The measures that they took deviated from the correct and safest procedures required in such circumstances. The reactor was allowed to operate for several extra hours even though its condition mandated a shutdown which was eventually accomplished.

             When the NRC sent in a team of inspectors to investigate the improper responses to the problem with pump seal, many other problems were found. The operators of the plant worked on fixing the list of problems and notified the NRC that they were ready to restart the reactor in August of 1997. The next day, a circuit breaker broke down at the reactor. The NRC which had been ready to grant the restart cancelled permission, partly because they had just fined the operators of the plant for having problems with the circuit breakers. A major finding of the NRC was that there was not a sufficient focus on safety at the Clinton reactor. The problems at Clinton and six other reactors in 1997 prompted the NRC to change their processes for plant inspections.

            In 1997 and 1998, there were multiple repairs, attempts to restart the reactors and multiple inspections by and fines by the NRC. The NRC found numerous violations of proper procedures, many necessary repairs and changes at the reactor, serious problems with staff training and insufficient concern with safety in general. It took two more years of work on the reactor before the NRC was ready to grant permission for a restart. Finally in 1999, the operators at Clinton had cleared the backlog of changes required by the NRC and the reactor was restarted after been out of service for over two year.

Clinton in Illinois.PNG

             The Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station is located in Plymouth, Massachusetts and draws its cooling water from Cape Cod Bay. It is a General Electric boiling water reactor built in 1972 by Boston Edison with a six hundred and ninety megawatt generation capacity. It was sold to Entergy Corporation in 1999. The original license expired in 2012. In 2006, Entergy applied for a twenty year extension which was granted.

           The population in the NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about seventy six thousand people. The NRC ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about four million eight hundred thousand people. The estimated risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant is moderate.

            In 1983, the plant was shut down for ten months to replace cracked recirculating piping that had only lasted for ten years when it was supposed to last for forty years.  In 1986, the plant experienced a series of forced shutdowns due to recurring equipment problems. Repairs and replacements of equipment were made over the next couple of years and the reactor was restarted at the end of 1988. It was shutdown do to the fact that the equipment monitoring the core was not functioning. The problem was fixed and the reactor was restarted. It was shut down because of inoperable breakers for the drywell vacuum. The problem was fixed and the reactor was restarted. It was shut down because of a leak in the instrument air system. The problem was fixed and the reactor was restarted. It was shut down after a failure of the main transformer. The transformer was replaced and the reactor was restarted and reconnected to the power grid. The plant was shut down for two and one half years and the owners had to spend over a billion dollars to correct the series of problems.

           The NRC had told the operators that the reactor had serious problems in 1986 but had not insisted that the reactor be shut down to correct the problems. The reactor automatically shut itself down due to problems after the NRC notification. The operators restarted the reactor and two days later it automatically shut down again. This time the NRC insisted that the problems all be addressed before the reactor was started again. Critics are concerned that the NRC did not require a shutdown when the problems were known and waited until two automatic shutdowns before insisting that the problems be fixed.  An internal report at the NRC said that some staff had not provided accurate information on the problem but they were not fired or disciplined.

           When Entergy filed for the license extension in 2006, local activists challenged the renewal on the basis of all the problems that the plant had had. The NRC voted to grant the extension anyway. The state of Massachusetts filed suit to prevent the license extension. Ultimately the federal courts denied the legal challenge and the license extension was granted.

          Once again we have a case of poor design, ignored warnings, problems with repairs, incompetence of NRC staff and poor oversight on the part of the NRC. In addition, this is another case where a state did not want a trouble reactor to be relicensed but the federal courts overruled the state authorities.

Pilgrim Massachusetts.JPG

          The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station is fifty miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and draws cooling water from the Susquehanna River.  Unit One was an experimental reactor that only operated for eight years and was shut down in 1974. Unit Two and Unit Three are General Electric boiling water reactors rated at one thousand two hundred megawatts each. The Philadelphia Electric Company built and put the two units into operating in 1973 and 1974.  Unit Two was licensed until 2003 and had the license renewed in 2003 for an additional twenty years until 2033. Unit Three was licensed until 2004 and had the license renewed in 2004 for an additional twenty years until 2034. The Philadelphia Electric Company eventually became Exelon.

          The population in the plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about forty seven thousand people. The ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about five and a half million people. The estimated risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant is moderate.

           In 1987, the NRC ordered the shutdown of Unit Two and Unit Three because of “operator misconduct, corporate malfeasance and blatant disregard for the health and safety of the area.” The NRC reported that security guards were overworked and that one guard had been found sleeping on duty. Thirty six thousand gallons of mildly radioactive water were leaked into the Susquehanna river. The operators claimed to have mislaid data on radioactive waste classification which resulted in the shipment of radioactive waste assigned to the wrong category. There was a major fire in March 0f 1987 in Unit Three. In May of 2000, a valve failed which caused a leak of contaminated coolant outside of primary containment. The valve was not replaced and another leak occurred in August of 2000 resulting in a shutdown of the reactor.  In 2007, a former employee at Peach Bottom videotaped guards sleeping while on duty. There were also reports of workers slowed down the testing of reactor control rods in order to evade NRC regulations which would have required a shut down. It was found later that the NRC knew about the deception but failed to deal with it in a proper and timely manner.

          In the case of Peach Bottom, we have major leaks of radioactive water into the environment, breakdown of equipment that was not repaired after it had been found, staff sleeping on duty, dishonesty on the part of the operator to avoid shutdowns, misclassification of nuclear waste that may have posed a public health problem and incompetence on the part of the NRC in holding the operators to account for blatant disregard of regulations.

Peach Bottom.PNG

          The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station is fifty miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and draws cooling water from the Susquehanna River.  Unit One was an experimental reactor that only operated for eight years and was shut down in 1974. Unit Two and Unit Three are General Electric boiling water reactors rated at one thousand two hundred megawatts each. The Philadelphia Electric Company built and put the two units into operating in 1973 and 1974.  Unit Two was licensed until 2003 and had the license renewed in 2003 for an additional twenty years until 2033. Unit Three was licensed until 2004 and had the license renewed in 2004 for an additional twenty years until 2034. The Philadelphia Electric Company eventually became Exelon.

          The population in the plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles around the plant contains about forty seven thousand people. The ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant contains about five and a half million people. The estimated risk of an earthquake that could damage the plant is moderate.

           In 1987, the NRC ordered the shutdown of Unit Two and Unit Three because of “operator misconduct, corporate malfeasance and blatant disregard for the health and safety of the area.” The NRC reported that security guards were overworked and that one guard had been found sleeping on duty. Thirty six thousand gallons of mildly radioactive water were leaked into the Susquehanna river. The operators claimed to have mislaid data on radioactive waste classification which resulted in the shipment of radioactive waste assigned to the wrong category. There was a major fire in March 0f 1987 in Unit Three. In May of 2000, a valve failed which caused a leak of contaminated coolant outside of primary containment. The valve was not replaced and another leak occurred in August of 2000 resulting in a shutdown of the reactor.  In 2007, a former employee at Peach Bottom videotaped guards sleeping while on duty. There were also reports of workers slowed down the testing of reactor control rods in order to evade NRC regulations which would have required a shut down. It was found later that the NRC knew about the deception but failed to deal with it in a proper and timely manner.

          In the case of Peach Bottom, we have major leaks of radioactive water into the environment, breakdown of equipment that was not repaired after it had been found, staff sleeping on duty, dishonesty on the part of the operator to avoid shutdowns, misclassification of nuclear waste that may have posed a public health problem and incompetence on the part of the NRC in holding the operators to account for blatant disregard of regulations.

Peach Bottom.PNG

          The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant is located in Vernon, Vermont. It has  a six hundred and twenty megawatt General Electric boiling water reactor that draws cooling water from the reservoir pool of the Vernon Hydroelectric Dam on the Connecticut River. It was put into operation in 1972 and was licensed for forty years until 2012. Entergy Nuclear currently owns and operates the power plant.

          Vermont Yankee was built by a group of big utility companies. In 2001, the utilities tried to sell Vermont Yankee to AmerGen for sixty one million dollars but the Vermont’s Public Service Board said that an auction was necessary if they wanted to sell the power plant. In 2002, the utilities sold the plant to Entergy Nuclear for one hundred and eighty million dollars. Entergy and Vermont agreed that they would abide by the decision of Vermont’s Public Service Board on the question of whether Vermont Yankee should continue to operate after their original license ran out in 2012. In 2006, the Vermont legislature passed a law that required the Public Service Board to obtain the approval of the legislature before considering the extension of the plant’s license past the expiration of the original license.

          The population in the plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles around the plant is about thirty five thousand people. The population in the ingestion pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles around the plant is about one million five hundred and forty thousand people. The risk of a seismic event that could threaten the plant is rated as very low.

           In 2007, part of the west cooling tower collapsed due to corrosion in steel bolts and rotting lumber. Non-radioactive water was spilled into the environment. The NRC review of the accident said that they considered this to be an industrial accident that did not pose a threat to the reactor. A Vermont study concluded that Vermont Yankee was being operated in a safe manner and did not pose a public threat.

          In May 2009, the special oversight committee appointed by the Vermont legislature heard testimony from plant operators that there was no radioactive contamination of ground water from leaking underground pipes. However, in October of 2009, it was confirmed that there really was radioactive contamination leaking from underground pipes at the plant. Entergy was accused of making misleading statements and was told that they would be liable for some legal expenses relating to the leak.

           By 2010, the level of radioactive tritium in ground water around the plant had risen above the federal limit for safe levels and ultimately reached one hundred times the limit for safe drinking water. Eventually, the leaks were traced to a pair of steam pipes in a pipe tunnel and the leaking pipes were repaired. Later in 2010, a water leak caused by a faulty weld caused a short shut down of the plant for repairs.

        In 2011, more tritium was detected in ground water but the source has not yet been identified.

        In early 2010, the Vermont legislature voted to instruct the Vermont Public Service Board to reject the request of a license extension of Vermont Yankee beyond 2012. The NRC ultimately issued the license extension in 2011. Entergy sued the state of Vermont to overturn the ban of a license extension passed by the state legislature. In 2012, the U.S District Court ruled that Vermont did not have the authority to deny the new license and that such matters were the exclusive province of the NRC.

         Vermont Yankee had design problems that led to serious leaks of tritium and the owners lied about the leaks. The state of Vermont tried to prevent the plant from continuing to operate but the U.S. District Court said that they did not have the right to shut down a nuclear power plant in their state that they considered to be a danger to their citizens.

Vermont Yankee.jpg

              The Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station (BNGS) is located in northeastern Illinois near Joliet and draws it water from the Kankakee River. It was originally built by Commonwealth Edison and ultimately transferred to Exelon Corporation, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison.  The Station contains two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors. The Unit 1 reactor was put into operation in 1987 and is licensed by the NRC to operate until 2026. The Unit 2 reactor was put into operation in 1988 and is licensed by the NRC to operate until 2027. The total generating capacity of the BNGS is two thousand two hundred forty two megawatts. It supplies power to Chicago and other consumers in northeastern Illinois.

             The population in the NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a ten mile radius is about thirty four thousand people.  The population in the NRC plume ingestion pathway zone with a fifty mile radius is about five million people.   The risk of a seismic event that could threaten the BNGS is rated as very low by the NRC.

               In March of 2011, it was discovered that an alarm was not functioning because of faulty wiring and that there was a problem with back-up pipes. Over a period of years, six million gallons of water containing tritium were leaked into the water table under the BNGS without any notification of the people who live in that area. Both Exelon, owner of the BNGS, and the NRC have claimed that there was no public health threat from the leaking tritium but people in the area are claiming that the leaking tritium has cause severe health problems. With the revelation of the leak, the value of real estate around the plant has dropped and some people are unable to sell their property.

              The NRC has stated that Exelon has repaired the problems with the alarm system that should have warned that tritium was leaking. Exelon has also replaced flawed back-up pipe. In May of 2011, the NRC held an unprecedented public meeting to allay public fears about the leaking tritium.

             Power plants that use water for cooling such as nuclear, coal and oil are designed to run at lower power output during the summer months because of higher temperatures of cooling water. In July of 2012, the BNGS had to ask special permission from the NRC to continue operating after the water temperature in the cooling pond rose above 102 degrees. The plant is supposed to shut down completely in six hours if the water temperature of the cooling pond rises above 100 degrees, an event which had been extremely rare until recently. It would have been disastrous to have to shut down a two thousand megawatt plant right in the middle of the worst heat wave in thirty years.

            At the BNGS, they had an improperly installed alarm and faulty piping resulting in a huge leak of water contaminated with tritium. This caused great fear and concern on the part of the people living around the plant. The rising temperatures of global warming will continue to interfere with the proper operation of the plant and it may have to be shut down completely if the temperature increase continues, a likely eventuality.

Picture from Northwestern University.

Braidwood, Illinois.PNG

             The nuclear industry is in serious trouble these days. It if was not so huge and tightly involved with national governments, it would have collapsed long ago.  I got this list of problems for the nuclear industry off the Nuclear-News website and have added a few comments of my own.

1. Widespread assumption that another major accident is inevitable.  Regulatory agencies are not doing their job in many cases because they have been “captured” by the industry. Nuclear corporations are cutting corners, ignoring regulations, making unauthorized design changes and not insuring that staffs are sufficiently trained.
2. Many of the world’s commercial nuclear power reactors are nearing the end of their design lifespan and require repairs that are too expensive to continue to function.
3. Very few nuclear reactors have been built in the past few decades to take advantage of design improvement and lessons learned.
4. Competition for a shrinking international market in reactors has been increasing as nuclear companies that cannot sell new reactors in their home countries are trying to survive and new designs are frantically hyped.
5. Climate change threatens nuclear reactors with rising ocean temperatures, dropping water levels in rivers, and mega storms that can damage or floor reactors.
6. Nuclear weapon inventories are being reduced by treaty. Even an exchange of a few hundred warheads could bring a nuclear winter that would destroy our civilization. Global conflicts are now asymmetrical with major countries fighting terrorist groups in the third world. Nuclear deterrence is no longer a reasonable way to deal with international tensions if it ever was.
7. The world consumption of electricity has been dropping as conservation measures are being implemented and industries are being idled by world financial problems.
8. The cost of renewable energy is dropping as the cost of nuclear power is rising. It is only a matter of time before nuclear power is simply no longer competitive in the marketplace.
9. The entire nuclear fuel cycle from mining to refining to transporting to burning to storing waste is vulnerable to accidents or terrorist attacks. Other forms of energy are just not as dangerous as nuclear power for this standpoint.
10. Public opinion has been turning against nuclear power recently, especially since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

None of these problems is going to go away and many of them are only going to get worse with the passage of time. All of these problems add up to make the further use of nuclear energy for electrical power generation less and less attractive. Another major accident or a terrorist use of nuclear materials could be the fatal blow that brings down the house of cards that is the nuclear industry.

Nuke Ambulance.PNG

            The Palisades Nuclear Plant is located on Lake Michigan near South Haven, Michigan. The reactor is a Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor that was put into operation at the end of 1971. It can generate up to seven hundred and fifty megawatts of electricity. It was owned by CMS Energy Corporation and operated by the Nuclear Management Company prior to April of 2007 at which time it was purchased by Entergy. The reactor was originally licensed to 2011. A twenty year extension was applied for in 2005 and granted in 2007.

            The NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles contains about thirty thousand people. The NRC ingesting pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles contains about one million three hundred thousand people. The risk of an earthquake that could damage the reactor is extremely low according to the NRC.

            There are twenty one dry storage casks on the grounds that contain a total of six hundred and thirty tons of spent fuel. The casks were intended to be temporary storage until the Yucca Mountain Repository was opened. However, the Yucca Mountain Repository project was cancelled and the spent fuel will remain at the site until an alternative permanent storage facility is developed.

             The Palisades Nuclear Plant has been rated as one of the three most unsafe reactors in the whole United States by the NRC. In the past two years, it has had dozens of leaks and been shut down seven times. However, the NRC announced at the end of 2012 that the reactor is no longer unsafe because they have increased in the number of inspections at the plant. The most recent shutdown took place in the middle of February, 2013. After a week was spent tracking down a leak in the cooling system, the reactor was restarted.

              Local critics want the plant shut down permanently. They say that it is one of the oldest plants in the country and is disintegrating. They complain that the NRC has been focusing on staff and safety culture and that that is not enough. I would have to agree. It sounds like the plant and it’s equipment are falling apart. It is all very good and well for the NRC to make sure that the staff is following proper safety protocols but if the plant is just too old to maintain, all the inspections and safety protocols in the world will not prevent another problem with the physical plant.

             The problems at this power plant appear to involve aging components and bad safety practices. The second is easier to correct than the first. And, the NRC would seem to be a little too optimistic in stating that the plant is now safe. Even with the best staff in the world, the NRC should not have granted a twenty year extension of the license. At best, there will be additional leaks, shutdowns and expensive repairs. The plant may fail completely and have to be shut down long before the twenty year extension has run out. And, of course, the worst case would be for a major accident to occur.

Palisades Michigan.JPG

             The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generation Station is located in Lacey Township of New Jersey. It is a General Electric Type 2 boiling water reactor that generates  six hundred forty five megawatts. It gets cooling water from Barnegat Bay, an estuary that empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is the oldest operating reactor in the United States.             Around 1990, it was discovered that the drywell lining of the reactor containment vessel was corroding. The exterior of the drywell shell was cleaned of corrosion and a new coating of epoxy was applied. There has been no further report of corrosion problems.

              The NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a ten mile radius contains about one hundred thirty thousand people. The NRC ingesting pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles contains about four and a half million people. The biggest concern about the safety of the plant has to do with the possibility of flooding.

             The Oyster Creek reactor was put into operation in 1969 with a forty year license. Jersey Power and Light owned by General Public Utilities merged with Free Energy in 2001 and sold the plant to AmerGen for ten million dollars in a transaction that was challenged by the NRC who feared that AmerGen was not competent enough to successfully and safely run the reactor. Exelon purchased AmerGen in 2003 and currently owns and operates the plant.

              In 2005, Exelon applied for a twenty year extension of the operating license which was eventually granted after contentious hearing. Both Exelon and the NRC were criticized because they used environmental studies that were thirty years old in considering environmental impacts of the extended license. During the relicensing hearing, anti-nuclear groups complained that the metal in the core of the reactor had not been tested for brittleness that often results from long exposure to super hot water and intense radiation. The license was granted in 2009.

             Shortly after the new license was granted a tritium leak was found in two buried pipes that had not been insulated correctly in 1991 when the pipes had been worked on. Then a second tritium leak was discovered in August of 2009. For the last twenty years tritium has been contaminating the ground water and has flowed into Barnegat Bay. The tainted water has spread to an aquifer in the area and will reach public wells within ten years. They are working on dealing with the problem.

            In late 2010, Exelon stated that it would be closing and decommissioning the Oyster Creek reactor in 2019, ten years before the expiration of its new license. If they continued to operate past 2019, they would have to build expensive new cooling towers. There are also the cost of repairs and remediation due to the contaminated water to consider.

           When Hurricane Sandy hit last year, the rising water threatened the reactor and it was shut down. There is speculation that if the water had risen a few more feet in the estuary, the reactor site could have been flooded.

           The Oyster Creek situation includes lack of regulator vigor on the part of the NRC, siting issues, poor original design, and incompetent contractors causing damage that leads to leaks of radioactive water.

Oyster Creek.JPG