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Growing concern over safety of aging Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant

Aging Alabama nuclear plant worries critics, Al Alabama,  Dec 25, 2019; By The Associated Press Critics are raising alarms over the age of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, which opened 46 years ago on the banks of the Tennessee River and is still operating.

Some say equipment at the three-reactor plant is being forced to generate power longer than originally intended and that the storage of spent nuclear fuel is a growing problem, The Decatur Daily reported……..

The first reactor at Browns Ferry opened on Dec. 20, 1973 as the U.S. nuclear industry was growing. The plant has had major problems since, including a serious fire in 1975 and poor operating reviews in 2010.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called the age of the plant “a huge issue looming on the horizon.”

“TVA is making the equipment and the plant work longer and harder than it was originally designed for,” said Smith, who also serves on a council that advises TVA directors. “People need to be very concerned about this.”

The Washington-based Union for Concerned Scientists said that having 46 years of spent fuel stored onsite in pools could be a threat to the entire region.

“Our main concern is that creates an unacceptable higher risk for fire,” said Edwin Lyman, acting director of nuclear safety projects for the group. Lyman said “a terrorist attack could reach a cooling pool with an explosive device and could breach the liner of the cooling pool.”

He favors transferring used fuel into dry storage. …… https://www.al.com/news/2019/12/aging-alabama-nuclear-plant-worries-critics.html

December 28, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Ohio court to weigh group’s effort to block nuclear plant rescue

By: Associated Press December 27, 2019  The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments from a group attempting to overturn the roughly $1 billion financial rescue of Ohio’s two nuclear power plants…. (subscribers only) https://journalrecord.com/2019/12/27/ohio-court-to-weigh-groups-effort-to-block-nuclear-plant-rescue/

December 28, 2019 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Faith leaders, heed pope’s call on nuclear weapons 

  https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/commentary-faith-leaders-heed-popes-call-on-nuclear-weapons/   Washington state’s legacy is tied to nuclear weapons; its religious leaders have a duty to oppose them. Sunday, December 22, 2019   By Carly Brook / For The Herald

Just a few weeks ago, Pope Francis called for the global abolition of nuclear weapons while paying homage to the victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan. Nagasaki was destroyed by atomic weapons with plutonium produced in Washington state’s Catholic Diocese.

The Holy Father declared: “With deep conviction I wish once more to declare that the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home. The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral, as I already said two years ago. We will be judged on this. Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth. How can we speak of peace even as we build terrifying new weapons of war?”

Washington state has the largest collection of deployed nuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on Hood Canal, just 20 miles from Seattle. This nuclear weapons installation, added to Washington state’s large city centers and many other military installations, makes our state a primary target in the event of a nuclear exchange.

Washington state is also home to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere, and the Midnite Mine, a former nuclear weapons uranium mine located on the Spokane Tribe of Indians Reservation, and it hosts one of the largest communities of Marshall Islanders in the United States, whose home was the site of67 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War.

The legacy of nuclear weapons and their production in Washington has — and continues to — disproportionately affect communities of color and indigenous people, none of whom has been adequately compensated for the environmental and health consequences of nuclear weapons activities pursued by the United States government during the 50 years of the Cold War.

Congress recently approved funding to deploy a new kind of nuclear weapon: the W76-2 warhead. This gateway nuke, which is being called “useable” will be deployed on Trident nuclear submarines just 20 miles from Seattle in the coming months.

As a person of faith, and coordinator of the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition, we call on religious leaders in Seattle, especially the Seattle Archbishop, to heed the words of Pope Francis in Nagasaki. We call on faith leaders to join other faith-based members of the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition and actively preach to your congregants that the continuing possession and so-called modernization of nuclear weapons is immoral.

As the pope said, “Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth.” I respectfully suggest that Seattle Archbishop Paul Etinne and other faith leaders should act accordingly.

Carly Brook is a member of the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition

December 28, 2019 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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