Many years ago, after a mentally deranged and heavily drugged Congressman named Randall Cunningham (MY Congressman at the time) attempted to commit murder-suicide by smashing the car he was driving head-on into the one my wife and I were in, a friend noted that the assailant had five victories in his F4 Phantom jet while in Vietnam, and that I had thus beaten America's last "ace" pilot in a very deadly "game." (Shortly thereafter the San Diego County Supervisor was injured and the other person killed in a head-on collision.)
In his mind, Cunningham might have thought I was a North Vietnamese enemy pilot or something. (The full details of the event and the aftermath (such as it was) is available online under the title "Seven Seconds in San Marcos.")
After a friend pointed out that Cunningham had been an "ace," I changed my first name to "Ace" but I never thought about changing my last name. My father was a grunt under Patton in the Battle of the Bulge during WWII (he started in the Italian campaign, about six months before D-Day). After telling him the details, I had his permission to change my name, his wife's (my stepmother's) permission, my mother's permission and, of course my wife's permission as well. They all thought it was a reasonable thing to do under the circumstances.
There are far less reasonable circumstances someone might change a name, though. For example, in 1957 the nuclear reactor core caught fire at Britain’s Plutonium production facility, known as Windscale. It was one of the world's worst nuclear accidents ever. Despite massive ongoing cleanup efforts, Windscale is still contaminated, and continues to release radiation into environment.
But it is now known as Sellafield, to hide its horrible past.
There are now plans to rename Three Mile Island (TMI) as Crane Clean Energy Center, in at least as egregious an effort to whitewash America's own worst nuclear accident.
At the same time, they're trying to glorify a nuclear propagandist who made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars promoting nuclear power.
Chris Crane was chief nuclear officer and later CEO of Exelon, the former parent company of CONstellation Energy, which is attempting to restart TMI Unit 1, which as been closed "permanently" due to its poor economics. Crane was also the former chair of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).
What are these organizations?
INPO is a nuclear-industry association formed in the wake of the TMI accident that monitors and evaluates “appropriate safety standards … at nuclear facilities”. Put another way, INPO insures that serious problems are discussed within the industry itself, but NOT among regulators and the public. That includes "problems" such as how to deal with known leakage issues, known deterioration issues, and...known activists who are stirring up trouble about something, be it a simple name change or a serious safety issue they'd rather ignore (such as rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes spawning dozens of tornadoes, cheaper alternative energy sources and so on).
Similarly, NEI is the nuclear industry’s lobbying organization, and its home page unabashedly proclaims: “NEI and its members promote the benefits of nuclear power … and educate lawmakers on industry issues.”
After Chris Crane’s death in April 2024, his legacy of pushing nuclear power is being used as an excuse to rename TMI, the site of one of the biggest environmental disasters in American history.
The authors of an article published by PennLive.com (see link below) think CONstellation has a re-branding problem, when in reality the company is attempting to rewrite history. It’s a CON job. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency describes the partial meltdown of TMI Unit 2 on March 28, 1979 as “the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history.”
No wonder the company wants to change the name!
The TMI accident was an unmitigated disaster caused by poor design, shoddy workmanship, poor training, and poor communication. During the accident, problems suddenly developed from a stuck valve, which ultimately caused a meltdown that didn't have to happen.
The nuclear industry wants people to forget that only a few specifics of the 1979 TMI accident are unique. A different sequence of events could happen at any nuclear reactor, anywhere in the world, any time with similarly catastrophic (or even worse) results.
According a 2019 article in World Nuclear News (WNN), the reasons for closing TMI Unit 1 (the reactor CONstellation is planning to reopen) were: "… economic challenges and the failure of the market to recognize the environmental and resiliency benefits of nuclear generation." (WNN is published by the World Nuclear Association, a nuclear-industry organization with an avowed purpose of facilitating " … the growth of the nuclear sector".)
WNN’s assessment denies the fact that nuclear power offers no net environmental benefit. The nuclear fuel cycle produces massive amounts of carbon effluent and radioactive contamination in every community involved in mining, enriching, and manufacturing reactor fuel. In addition, the reactors are built using massive amounts of concrete (a very carbon-intensive material) and other materials, and constantly release radioactivity into the environment.
Most importantly, nobody has a solution to storing the highly toxic nuclear waste. Whatever is eventually done with the waste, will inevitably also be bad for the environment. The idea that there are ANY "environmental benefits" of nuclear generation is truly ludicrous.
Nor is nuclear power resilient, as shown by the accident which permanently closed TMI Unit 2 a few months after opening, as well as hundreds of other unplanned shutdowns at U.S. reactors lasting from days to years and costing from millions to billions of dollars.
It’s commonly assumed that the accident at TMI is responsible for convincing U.S. corporations to turn away from new investments in nuclear power, at least for a while. However, according to “Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change” by Doug Brugge and Aaron Datesman (copyright 2024), the economics of nuclear power, rather than fear of another accident may actually be responsible for the post-TMI slowdown in reactor orders. Brugge and Datesman suggest that "TMI simply gave the industry cover for its economic failure."
Whatever the reason for the downturn of nuclear power after the TMI accident, or for the recent efforts to revive the nuclear industry, we shouldn’t trust CONstellation to put safety ahead of profits. Nor should we trust the nuclear industry to do the impossible: Operate safely. Accidents will continue to happen, and when accidents happen to a nuclear reactor, radiation contaminates the environment. It's the basic definition of an accident at a nuclear facility.
The nuclear industry (both so-called commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons) has a long history of propaganda – and of covering up accidents rather than cleaning them up. Perhaps the most famous attempt at propaganda is the "Atoms for Peace" program from the 1950s, which spread nuclear reactors (and, inevitably, nuclear weapons) worldwide.
There are thousands of contenders for the title of "most flagrant failure to properly clean up a nuclear accident."
Nuclear energy is not clean, nor is it carbon-free or cheap. It will not solve climate change, and nobody knows how to safely handle and store the nuclear waste -- including the remains of TMI Unit 2. According to the NRC:" “ … the reactor fuel and core debris [from TMI Unit 2] was shipped to the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory." Shipping part of the waste elsewhere doesn’t answer the question of what to do with the waste; it just moves part of the problem from Pennsylvania to Idaho.
Changing the name of TMI is the same sort of shell-game as shipping the waste to a different location. It doesn’t solve anything, it just makes it easier for the nuclear industry, captured regulators, and hoodwinked reporters to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.
Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
Advertisement run by Commonwealth Edison after the TMI accident:
Link to PennLive.com article (subscription required for full text): (
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2024/10/the-site-of-the-worst-nuclear-accident-in-us-history-is-poised-to-get-a-rebranding.html)
Below are my [mostly] unedited notes from the NRC hearing, up until just after some of the "interested parties" were invited to make two-minute comments.
How will the project help Pennsylvania's grid when all of the power is being sent to Microsoft?
The name change has already happened. Criminally. Not formally. They started using it anyway.
All timelines are tentative...
It was shut down for "economic reasons."
They then state they had "over 1,000 "mostly union" workers. (Apparently only 600 were "permanent" jobs). Renewables would higher more per dollar.
No mention of what the alternative energy options might be.
Spent fuel (about 1600 fuel assemblies in 46 casks) the ISFII is at the south end of the island, ready to pollute the entire river downstream.
CON man Liam O'Donoghue:
Reactor coolant removed but not from the reactor itself "for radiological reasons."
The main generators "look good."
A lot of parts were "opened to the atmosphere" so they're going to replace "the main transformers" which they've already ordered for delivery in 2025 / 2026.
When they shut down, they DID NOT expect to restart. Some systems were "abandoned."
The SGs were upgraded and the Alloy 690 they used is supposed to be better.
They tested all the SG tubes that were still available and they all seemed fine.
Some wear, as expected, was found in the SGs, but they felt it was normal wear.
NRC staffer Kerri Kavanagh wants to know who the contractors were for the SG replacement.
Liam has "over 30 years experience, most of that at TMI..." He says more than 100 people who worked there when the plant was running are still there and supposedly know the plant. They have monthly safety meetings and a strong safety culture, he says. And CONstellation has a large fleet to support them. Buried pipe "ISI", fire protection, etc.. they have experts in the company they can contact.
Peach Bottom upgrade was successful so there. CON can do anything. They did a refueling outage in 15 days (so they know how to rush jobs).
"For Three Mile Island excuse me Crane Clean Energy Center..."
"We know how we shut it down and we know how we can restart this."
"We have about eighty-eight system groups that we're evaluating for restarting."
They're walking around the systems and looking at them. "We want to get the plant back running, we want it to be safe..."
"We have an ISFSI now...that will need some changes..."
"Deficiencies due to abandonment...24 inch lines that were crushed...fuel oil tanks... polar crane...a list of things that have to be restored..."
NRC guy asks about abandoned projects that were scheduled to be repaired.
"We're looking at all that..."
NRC guy asks if they've looked at other reactor sites that have tried to restart... "Yes, we've looked at that...we've kept up with the industry...kept up with the fleet...we're absolutely reviewing it..."
One priority is "restoring" the reactor operators: finding, hiring, training... but they can hire back former employees, other people from the rest of CON...they've seen "a lot of interest" from former employees who want to come back, and lots of other CON employees want to come help, they say. Much of the "senior team" has been selected already...
"Indoctrination training...will be implemented throughout the organization..."
Restoration and training is being "done with INPO..."
Restoration of the simulator "is in progress and we're working to get it to certification condition...we're looking at May of next year..."
They invented the RQAP = Restoration Quality Assurance Program and they intend to submit the restoration plan to the NRC.
Mel Gray, NRC: "How to you benchmark your return-to-service process...?...You may have an aging management problem..."
"We have a process...we've been involved with EPRI...we are connected with Holtec and learning from their experience with the Palisades plant and incorporating that into our process..."
Yamir Diaz-Castillo: "What are your QA plans for transition to operation?"
"Our final QA plan will probably be submitted..."
"What you're submitting this month will be a bridging document...?" "Yes..."
...
Michael Norris (NRC) wants the emergency response plans to be turned in as soon as possible.
"We're aware..." "Okay, thank you."
"Decommissioning trust funds will NOT be used for restoration...(except for site restoration to a greenfield status)..." "We are continuing to use our trust fund money for spent fuel security costs..."
...
NRC: "Will Microsoft be your only customer?"
"We're not in a position to knowledgeably answer those questions."
That and the comment about 2009 SG manufacturers are the only "actionable items" the CON men identified from the hearing thus far.
The union guy then "rest assured" them they'd be coming back happily and "committed to seeing this project through." He then said they need nuclear to reach "carbon free" status in Pennsylvania. He then talked about how much generation the state will lose, and claims it will stabilize the grid for "16 states" and enable moving to a "carbon neutral" future. And that they have "confidence" in CONstellation.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments should be in good taste and include the commentator's full name and affiliation.