nuclear-news

COVID Infects World Nuclear Plants, May 27, 2020, by Alex Smith,  Radio Ecoshock,”………..PANDEMIC STRIKES NUCLEAR WORKERS IN AMERICA – GRANT SMITHAmerican nuclear plant workers are being overworked, some crowded in conditions ripe for spread of the Coronavirus. By late April, multiple reactors reported employees infected with COVID-19. The Trump version of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reacted to the crisis by dropping key safety rules and inspections. Grant Smith is Senior Energy Policy Advisor for EWG, the Environmental Working Group, headquartered in Washington D.C…….

The Nuclear Resource Information Service has complained the NRC is not holding required public hearings and community consultations. Instead, citing the virus, the regulator and the operators are making critical decisions on their own, now in secret. We all know American reactors are very old. Most were built in the 1960’s and 70’s. They are running well beyond their original design life. That means they need specialize replacement parts all the time. But can we count on that supply chain when the pandemic has closed down so much business and industry?

With offices and factories closed down, there is a glut of electricity in the United States. Reactors have shut down during other emergencies. These old units down should at least power down during this pandemic, when workers are showing up sick with a dangerous communicable disease.

The industry claims they are under a sustained cyber-attack during the pandemic. Some of their computer systems use decades old technology that cannot be accessed from the Internet, so I suppose that is a safety feature. But what happens when hundreds or thousands of workers are asked to work from home computers?

We are also concerned about communities near reactors. Workers are going back to their families and communities. The industry admits they have backup plans to keep workers on site 24/7 – providing them with cots and pre-packaged food. Now that America has over a million and a half cases, over 100,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, has that emergency plan been implemented anywhere? The nuclear industry has announced they will not say what plants have staff quarantined inside.

There are American-designed nuclear reactors all over the world. Four General Electric Mark I reactors blew up at Fukushima Japan following the tsunami in 2011. But now most Americans were flown home during the pandemic. This disease raise worries about other U.S.-type reactors in other countries.

If America experiences a second or third wave of disease, worse than this first one, and this pandemic drags on for months or even a couple of years, can the nuclear power industry hold out? Can they just keep training replacements for their sick and dying workers? I know the American public doesn’t really want to hear about anything nuclear. It’s complex and scary to think about. We feel there is nothing we can do about it. The nuclear industry is happy with that, content to run reactors in the shadows, or even in secret. We aren’t handling the pandemic well, we are failing to stop horrible climate change. Can we revive a movement to shut nuclear down and using safe green energy instead?….. https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/05/covid-infects-world-nuclear-plants.html