2013 August 17 « nuclear-news

Aging Palisades Nuclear Power Plant a worry to Chicago area residents

Residents Express Concern Over Aging Nuclear Plant Feds increase inspections at 42-year-old Palisades Nuclear Power Plant by 1,000 hours this year Chicago-area residents with property at a popular nearby vacation spot are growing increasingly concerned about one of their neighbors: The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.

The South Haven, Mich., plant is a 42-year-old facility that many seasonal neighbors said is showing its age.

“It is a socio-technical system that has failed. That’s extremely dangerous,” said Ann Scott, an Oak Brook resident who also owns a cottage near the power plant. The plant has reported seven leaks since 2012, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Six leaks caused plant shutdowns. A leak in May spilled about 80 gallons of radioactive water into Lake Michigan.

Gail Snyder is another Chicago-area resident who owns property near the power plant.

“I feel that it’s really a risk to this community,” Snyder said. “It’s a risk to the region and it’s a risk to the Great Lakes.”……..

neighbors are concerned by the recent shutdowns and startups at the plant. Critics said that can stress equipment at a nuclear power plant. “It’s just too old to keep going,” said Dillon Reed, a resident of Darien who also owns a cottage near the plant.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nuclear watchdog group that is paying close attention to the situation at Palisades. David Lochbaum represents the group and said nuclear power is a “very enticing technology when you get it right, but a disaster when you get it wrong.”

“It takes a lot of steps or a lot of things to go wrong for a nuclear disaster to occur, but the more pre-existing failures you have, the shorter that path becomes,” Lochbaum said…..

“They have allowed radioactive waste to leak into the water and there is no guarantee that today it isn’t going to happen again on a much greater scale,” Scott said. http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/palisades-nuclear-power-plant-chicago-219870131.html#ixzz2cG5OCRl1

August 17, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Another opinion on the pro nuclear film “Pandora’s Promise”

A Nuclear Submariner Challenges a Pro-Nuclear Film NYT, By ANDREW C. REVKIN, 16 Aug 13 Russell Long San francisco The National Renewable Energy Lab’s study isn’t wishful thinking — it is based on sound science and is backed up by a Blue Ribbon advisory board from many of the U.S.’s top institutions including MIT.

The biggest problem is that utilities around the nation fight like the devil to prevent intrusion onto their turf by renewable providers. One of their methods has been to craft regulatory prohibitions, with the help of state elected officials, against energy entering their states from other areas (especially “green electrons”). Thus, the balkanization of the grid is at it’s core a turf battle to protect corporate profits.

Pandora’s Promise sets up straw man arguments and then knocks them over, but it is all smoke and mirrors. There should be no doubt that the U.S. could wean itself off of nuclear and fossil fuels if obstructionist utilities and politicians would simply get out of the way. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/a-nuclear-submariner-challenges-a-pro-nuclear-film/?

August 17, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment