nuclear-news

So while Florida Power & Light (FPL) proposes expanding Turkey Point and building two more reactors there, Miami state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez is asking for safer measures to prepare for sea-level rise and major hurricanes — or for FPL to drop the expansion plans altogether. This past August 23, Rodriguez sent the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates nuclear power plants, a letter demanding that FPL add greater sea-level-rise protections to its development plan.

Rodriguez made the letter public this week because the NRC had scheduled a hearing today to move forward with Turkey Point’s expansion plans; Hurricane Irma delayed the meeting, but it’s still expected to happen by the end of December. Rodriguez is asking the NRC to continue to delay ruling on the plan’s approval until FPL addresses the concerns of environmentalists and activists.

“They’re only taking into account one foot of sea-level rise in the future,” Rodriguez tells New Times. “Some projections — we’re hopeful those projections are wrong — but some projections are orders of magnitude higher than that.”…….

n his August letter to the NRC, Rodriguez laid out three specific concerns, which clean-energy activists opposed to FPL’s expansion plans have voiced repeatedly: First, Rodriguez said Turkey Point’s Combined Operating License application (COL) accounts for only a foot of sea-level rise by 2100 even though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned last January that the seas could rise as much as 8.2 feet in that time period.

Second, Rodrigeuz said he was upset the plan covered only the new reactors — Units 6 and 7 — that FPL plans to build and does not propose any changes for the existing reactors. Those are the same reactors attached to cooling canals that leak low-level radioactive waste into Biscayne Bay and salt water into Miami’s drinking-water aquifer. Environmentalists have long complained that Turkey Point sits too close to protected parks and drinking-water sources.

Third, the lawmaker added he thought FPL’s applications did not properly account for what might happen to spent nuclear fuel rods that the plants produce. ….

“That also is obviously a huge concern all over the country,” Rodriguez says. “There really isn’t a plan for how these nuclear facilities store their waste.”

Anti-nuclear activists argue that if safely storing spent rods is this difficult, nuclear plants simply should not be built. Investigative comedian John Oliver earlier this yrar devoted a long segment on his HBO show Last Week Tonight to the nuclear-waste storage problem:

FPL recently won the right to store low-level radioactive waste from the expansion site underground in a rocky zone, but some environmental activists worry the waste might leak into Miami’s largest source of drinking water, the Biscayne Aquifer. Lawyers for the City of Miami asked the NRC to force FPL to rewrite its plan, but NRC regulators say FPL has done enough to mitigate those concerns.

Rodriguez’s latest letter comes amid scrutiny of FPL following Hurricane Irma. On September 11, Newsweek reported that FPL had not yet finished reinforcing Turkey Point against the elements before Irma arrived. According to NRC documents Newsweek obtained, Turkey Point’s own operators told the NRC that the plant is still working to seal doors and improve floodwater-drainage mechanisms…….. http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/turkey-point-miami-nuclear-plant-sea-level-rise-plan-inadequate-miami-lawmaker-warns-9722390