Demonstrators in Union
Square, NYC, April 2, 2011
2011 News and articles
about Indian Point, Westchester CountyÕs nuclear energy plant.
In our Reading
Room, you can find links to articles from 2001 to 2010.
Indian
Point opponents disrupt NRC safety forum
12:53 AM, Jun. 3, 2011 |
Joe O'Brien, representing Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, reads a
statement during the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public briefing Thursday
on the Indian Point safety assessment at the Colonial Terrace catering facility
in Cortlandt. / Joe Larese/The Journal News
.
Written by
CORTLANDT
— More than 400 people turned out to hear about Indian Point's
most recent safety record, but the opponent-dominated crowd not only wouldn't
listen to Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials, they forced the regulators
to turn the format into a raucous question-and-answer session.
The NRC's traveling road show, designed to go
over Indian Point's operation in 2010, almost shut down a few minutes into the
agency's presentation, when boisterous members of the overflow crowd at the
Colonial Terrace catering hall shouted down the safety report details.
NRC officials told the crowd that Indian Point
had operated in 2010 "in a manner that preserved public health and safety
and met all cornerstone objectives."
"Liars," more than one audience
member shouted. "Lap dogs."
Karl Farrar, the agency's moderator for the
two-hour meeting, tried to control the shouting.
"This won't work," Farrar said.
"If you don't allow them to speak, you won't be allowed to speak."
A few minutes later, NRC officials said they
would have to close the meeting and called for a five-minute break, coming back
to say they would suspend their presentation and open up the floor to questions
— or statements, based on what a string of speakers, projected to reach
nearly 100 people, had to say to the regulators.
With the specter of the Japanese nuclear crisis
on many people's minds, the evening became a louder-than-usual battle between
plant opponents and supporters.
Steve Greenfield, a school board member from
Orange County, talked about security around the plant in an age where average
people can buy military aircraft on the Internet.
Greenfield cited a March incident in which a
podiatrist from Clermont, N.Y., crashed a military jet he was flying in the Hudson
Valley and died in the accident.
"From
a security perspective," Greenfield said, "if a podiatrist from
upstate New York can buy a supersonic fighter jet and É crash it into the
Hudson River at any time that he so pleases, why do you feel comfortable that
the plant itself is actually safe from external threat?"
NRC officials said the plant was safe and was
built to withstand attacks, with security operations tested regularly.
The largest applause in the early part of the
evening was for Rockland Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern, who quoted Gov.
Andrew Cuomo's call to close the plant and reminded the audience that the
Assembly had just adopted a nonbinding resolution to make license renewal of
the plant be done as if the plant were new.
Indian Point officials have applied to extend
its 40-year operating license by 20 years, and the NRC is looking at how the
company can manage an aging plant in its review.
Relicensing criteria do not include emergency
planning or earthquake potential, which the agency says is monitored
continually.
"There is a crisis of confidence with your
agency," Jaffee told the regulators. "Relinquish your resistance to
the findings of highly qualified and credentialed experts. É It's your job to
protect the public, not the industry."
Members of the business community spoke in
favor of the plant's operation, which has received top marks from the NRC for
seven consecutive years despite dealing with radiation leaks, emergency siren
mishaps and continuing opposition well before Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi crisis
galvanized new legions of opponents.
Jerry Connelly, a retired business manager from
Boilermakers Local 5 who started working at Indian Point in 1968, turned the
microphone around and addressed the audience.
"I support the relicensing," Connelly
said. "It is unfortunate that we live in a state that the elected
officials are unwilling to tackle any kind of problem that we have. É We have
some of the oldest (electricity) generating equipment in the United States,
some the oldest transmission lines. Unless the state is willing to invest
billions of dollars, we are going to have to use Indian Point."
###
Two from
WNYC:
The Point at
Indian Point
Last night a hearing was held to
discuss the future of Indian Point. WNYC reporter Bob Hennelly, discusses
what's in store for the power plant, located 40 miles from New York City.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/jun/03/point-indian-point/
Regulator and regulated: nuclear
bedfellows?
http://www.wnyc.org/articles/its-free-country/2011/jun/03/future-indian-point/
Opposition is mounting to federal
relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. With more and more New
York politicians coming out of the woodwork, and debate far from dead in the
public square, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a hearing last night
about the plant's 2010 safety review.
WNYC's Bob Hennelly said there was a
range of opinions expressed, but the overall mood was of a very particular
stripe—not least because concerns are fresh after the disaster at Japan's
Fukushima nuclear plant, and how it happened despite regulation.
The meeting was dominated by people
who really feel Indian Point should never have opened. And what happened in
Fukushima—this is where the New York Times has done a great job
really calling into question over there the relationship between industry and
regulator. There's a lot of questions by people like Congressman [Edward]
Markey saying really, we're not so dissimilar; there's a sense that the NRC and
the atomic industry are very much linked. How else to explain the perfect
batting record when it comes to these relicensing extensions?
Passing the energy buck
Earlier in the day, Hennelly had been
at a press conference regarding "Coptergate," a mini-scandal
surrounding New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his using a helicopter to
get to his son's little league baseball game. He told Jami Floyd that when he
got to the Indian Point hearing, he estimated that the media presence was a
paltry 10 percent of what it had been at the Christie conference. The U.S.
media may have been distracted, but the Japanese ended up covering an event
that went largely unreported by domestic outlets.
Whether or not you're for or against
Indian Point, we're at a major crossroads in this country about energy, and I
think it says something about the media that Japanese national television was
there, and we had such a lack of showing from the mainstream media.
The problems are there, we're just
not talking about them or thinking about them as much as we should be, Hennelly
said. As our energy demands grow and change, time may be running out before
we're forced to deal with our problems in painful ways.
We've let the licensing law lapse and
we have this architecture for a 21st century circumstance where we're dependent
more and more upon electricity, what with cell phones and computers. We have
not invested in that. We've not had a collective buy-in about what we're going
to do about energy. We're dealing with a legacy of conflict-avoiding.
Seismic review
One of the problems with gauging the
effectiveness of regulation is that technology is so complicated and shrouded.
Hennelly said that because nuclear operations are, for the most part, kept out
of the public focus, many of the reforms and improvements touted by regulatory
agencies can only be taken at face value. Are we actually safer? Hard to tell.
The NRC basically says, we've
upgraded, and you have to take their word for it that they've put in place
overlaying security that would prevent something from happening.
The Fukushima disaster reignited
interest in New York's plate tectonics; earthquakes in the region are highly
unlikely, but what if? Hennelly said that while most experts have dismissed the
likelihood of a significant seismic disaster, there's no reason to rely on old
science. Things change.
When you have a technology with such
high stakes, if something goes wrong, you have to continue to have it informed
by new science. I'm not a seismologist, I don't even play one on the radio, but
clearly qualified people got the ear of Governor Cuomo and he set into motion
an expedited seismic review.
###
Indian Point
nuke plant lacking firefighting equipment, officials say public doesn't
understand
BY Douglas
Feiden
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, May 22nd 2011, 4:00 AM
Huge areas of the accident-prone Indian Point
nuke plant lack essential firefighting equipment like sprinklers and fire
extinguishers, the Daily News has learned.
The aging plant 24 miles from the city is missing
basic smoke-eating tools, even as it sits on an earthquake fault and has
suffered two fires since 2007.
Such safety shortcuts, approved for years by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, face new scrutiny in the wake of the March 11
earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuke plant.
Indian Point's two active reactors are divided into
275 fire zones, of which 198 lack automatic fire suppression systems, according
to records that plant owner Entergy gave the NRC in 2009.
That means 72% of the facility lacks things like
sprinklers and automatic deluge water sprays.
One vulnerable hot spot is the spent-fuel pool at
Indian Point 3, where radioactive and superheated fuel rods are kept cool. A
spent-fuel pool triggered Japan's nuke accident.
Records also show:
There are no manual fire suppression systems such
as hydrants or fire extinguishers in 111 fire zones - 40% of the plant.
Fire detection systems common to most major office
buildings such as smoke, heat or flame detectors are unavailable in 173 zones -
63% of the plant.
The data is contained in a little-noticed
March 28 petition from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to the NRC alleging
that most of the plant's 275 fire zones violate minimum federal fire safety
regulations.
"Indian Point's ongoing failure to comply with
federal fire safety requirements is both reckless and unacceptable," he
told The News.
The NRC approved the current status of fire safety
in the 1980s, but in 2006 it told Entergy to justify in writing why it should
keep the exemptions.
That plan, submitted in 2009, is still pending as
the plant seeks a 20-year renewal of two operating licenses that expire in 2013
and 2015. Gov. Cuomo opposes relicensing and has called for the plant to be
closed.
Schneiderman says Entergy's application indicates
Indian Point wants to water down its precautionary measures.
His staff claims Entergy wants to renew 275
exemptions from the NRC, one for each fire zone.
The exemptions would let workers shut the plant
manually in case of a fire, instead of automatically via fire detection and
suppression systems.
Schneiderman say the exemptions let the plant
breach federal fire safety regs.
Entergy insists it's only seeking 51 exemptions
through manual workarounds, none of which compromises public safety.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency has not
"identified any issues that rise to the level of an immediate safety
concern."
Schneiderman said the feds are too cozy with the
industry.
"For years, the NRC has looked the other way
as Indian Point ignores the most basic safety standards. With nearly 20 million
people living and working within 50 miles ... that's a risk we simply cannot
afford," he said.
In a tour of the plant, Entergy executives said the
fire safety performance is "second to none," noting the firm invests
millions to minimize fire hazards and keep a 50-person fire brigade on site.
"Public safety is our No. 1 priority,"
said Fred Dacimo, vice president of operations. "Nothing is more
important."
Still, he acknowledged the absence of fire
detection and automatic suppression equipment in dozens of the reactor's fire
zones, saying, "It's hard to explain that to John Q. Public."
Dacimo said several fire zones include large
expanses of concrete and steel that can't burn. Some have open space; others
hold few combustible materials.
Plant operators argue that such zones don't require
sprinklers or fire detectors, or even hoses and extinguishers in some cases,
because they're next to zones with firefighting equipment.
Environmental advocate Riverkeeper says failing to
deploy critical firefighting tools in sensitiveEntergy areas of a nuke plant
makes no sense in a post-9/11 world.
"As we saw on Sept. 11, steel and concrete are
susceptible to intense fires and structural failures," said Phillip
Musegaas, the group's Hudson River program director. "The potential
radiation release is much greater than it was in Japan."
Entergy executives say they have safety measures in
place in case of a terror attack.
###
BRENNAN SAYS PUBLIC IS OPERATING IN THE DARK ABOUT THE COSTS OF
CLOSING THE INDIAN POINT NUCLEAR PLANTS
April 19, 2011
State Assemblymember Jim Brennan (D-Brooklyn), Chair of the New York State
AssemblyÕs Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, supports
Governor CuomoÕs call for closure of the two nuclear power plants at Indian
Point because of safety concerns. In the course of researching EntergyÕs
claim that the closure would be devastating to the economy of the State, his
office has determined that Entergy is being allowed to operate its plants
without providing an annual financial and operating report to the Public
Service Commission, despite a state law that requires all electric corporations
that sell power to file an annual report. The Commission confirmed that it is
not requiring the reports.
In a letter to Chairperson Garry Brown of the Public Service Commission, Mr.
Brennan said the Commission should immediately order the electric power
producer industry, including Entergy, to file all required reports. ÒThe Public
Service Commission abandoned its fundamental statutory duty to oversee and
assure just and reasonable rates, and it needs to immediately enforce the law,Ó
Mr. Brennan said. ÒMr. Brown was not the Chairman of the Commission when this
decision was made, and he should take this opportunity to reverse this gutting
of basic consumer protection,Ó he continued.
The Public Service Commission,
in a 1990Õs Pataki-era decision at the beginning of deregulation, gave
exemptions to several cogeneration companies on the grounds they were
competitive. As deregulation continued and independent power companies bought
the utility industryÕs power plants and built new ones, the Commission never
ordered them to file. The StateÕs independent power producers, which own
anywhere from one to 75 power plants, include many of the nationÕs largest
corporations. Brennan also indicated he would submit legislation ordering the
Public Service Commission to obtain the reports.
ÒInvestigation of EntergyÕs finances, operations and costs is the first step in
a plan to address the possible closure of the nuclear facilities,Ó Mr. Brennan
said. Brennan has called on Entergy to provide immediate and full
disclosure in a letter to the company president. Mr. Brennan said,
ÒWe need to know to whom Entergy is selling power, at what price, how much it
is making, what its costs are, and how the power can be replaced and at what
price.Ó
Mr. Brennan has also sent a letter to the City of New York and several other
governmental entities that are large recipients of EntergyÕs power, through
contracts with the State Power Authority, calling on them to prepare for the
possible closure of the plant and produce new power with cogeneration, solar
and other renewable energies. Demand in the public sector in the
metropolitan area is roughly equal to the output of the two nuclear plants.
###
Indian Point plant should be closed
Updated 11:36 a.m., Monday, April 18, 2011
Albany Times-Union
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Indian-Point-plant-should-be-closed-1341246.php
As I see it, states can close nuclear reactors
within their borders under the 1983 Supreme Court
ruling, Pacific Gas and Electric vs. Energy Resources Commission.
The court declared: "To the present day,
Congress has preserved the dual regulation of nuclear-powered electricity
generation: The Federal Government
maintains complete control of the safety and 'nuclear' aspects of energy
generation; the states exercise their traditional authority over the need for
additional generating capacity, the type of generating facilities to be
licensed, land use, rate-making, and the like."
New York could close nuclear plants, particularly
Indian Point, and justify it by asserting that, in the event of a large or
immense radiation release, the state could not afford the cost of evacuating
huge numbers of people and/or "spent" fuel pools, nor could it afford
to care for those people. The state could not absorb the huge loss of economic
activity and tax revenues that would result from an enormous
radiation release.
The state Department of
Environmental Conservation could revoke pollution discharge permits
it has granted to nuclear stations operators and/or terminate variances granted
to regulations.
Indian Point should be closed for many reasons.
Like Dai-ichi in Japan, it has multiple reactors: a natural or other disaster
impacting one reactor would likely impact the other.
Indian Point is only one-fifth the distance from
New York City that Dai-ichi is from Tokyo, and is located near the intersection
of active earthquakes faults.
If the millions of people who live in the New
York City region had to flee, where would they go? What would happen to their
jobs if they could never return?
TOM ELLIS
Albany
###
Liz Kruger: Close Indian Point
http://bayridgejournal.blogspot.com/2011/04/liz-kruger-close-indian-point.html
State Senator Liz Kruger, a Manhattan Democrat
who has called for the closure of the Indian Point nuclear facility in
Westchester since 2003, has raised the alarm, in the wake of the Fukushima
nuclear crisis, about the risks the aging nuclear facility poses to the 20
million people -- most of them New Yorkers -- who live and work within a 50
mile radius of the facility.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is evaluating
renewal applications for Indian Point's two reactors, whose licenses expire in
2013 and 2015.
Governor Cuomo and Lieutenant Governor Duffy have
addressed concerns over Indian Point with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), but that's not enough, said Kruger.
The State has no plan to develop capacity and
reduce consumption in order to take Indian Point offline.
Indian PointÕs location would mean that, in the
event of an earthquake, 20 million people would be trapped in the contamination
zone, because there is no quick way to evacuate that many people.
Indian Point officials argue that the plant can
withstand the Òstrongest earthquake anticipated in the area,Ó but as the Indian
Coast Tsunami, the Gulf Coast Hurricane, and the Haiti and Japan earthquakes
have proven, we can no longer accurately predict the scale of natural
disasters.
And so, in an increasingly unstable global
climate -- both natural and geopolitical -- we are effectively playing Russian
Roulette with the lives of the 20 million people who live near Indian
Point.
Kruger's full statement in
PDF.
The legacy of Indian Point: used fuel
rods with no place to go [CBS Local.]
###
New York CityÕs Deadly Game of Nuclear Roulette
Apr. 16 2011 - 4:56 pm By WILLIAM PENTLAND
http://blogs.forbes.com/williampentland/2011/04/16/new-york-citys-deadly-game-of-nuclear-roulette/
ÒOf all the places in all the world where no one
in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be
pretty near the top of the list,Ó concluded Leuren Moret, a radiation
specialist trained at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory in
Berkeley, Calif., in an op-ed piece that appeared in The Japan Times in 2004.
One of the other places that may rank near the
top of that list: New York City.
A growing number of scientists and emergency planners are calling on federal and
state regulators to shut down the Indian Point nuclear reactor about 40 miles
north of New York City, on the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York. While many
of Indian PointÕs critics have expressed concerns about safety at the nuclear
plant for years, the nuclear crisis in Japan has caused their ranks to swell
over the past several weeks.
In 2003, James Lee Witt, former director of the
U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, assessed the U.S. governmentÕs
emergency-response plan for a nuclear power-plant disaster at Indian Point. The
conclusion: there was no government plan adequate to respond to a disaster at
Indian Point, which is surrounded by more than 20 million people on any given day.
A month before
the 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan triggered the crisis at the Fukushima
nuclear power reactors, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued the
federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for approving a regulation that
would allow radioactive waste to be stored at Indian Point for at least 60
years after closure. Shockingly, the NRCÕs new policy would allow the long-term
storage of nuclear waste without requiring any review of the potential safety
and environmental risks posed by such storage. The lawsuit asked the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to invalidate the NRC rule for
failure to comply with environmental laws.
ÒWhether youÕre for or against re-licensing
Indian Point, we can all agree on one thing: Before dumping radioactive waste
at the site for at least 60 years after itÕs closed, our communities deserve a
thorough review of the environmental, public health, and safety risks such a
move would present,Ó said Schneiderman in a press release announcing the
lawsuit.
To put this in perspective, the U.S. government
has invested $9 billion developing a storage site for reprocessed nuclear spent
fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which is perhaps the most studied geological
structure in the world. Despite this enormous investment in building an
underground, secure storage site, NevadaÕs less than 3 million residents have
refused to endorse the project as a result of safety and environmental
concerns. If storing spent nuclear fuel in deep inside a mountain surrounded on
all sides by about 100 miles of empty desert is unsafe, it seems odd that the
NRC would endorse a plan to store the same nuclear fuel within a stoneÕs throw
of roughly 15% of the nationÕs entire population.
In March, Schneiderman filed a petition with the
NRC. The petition asked the federal agency to do its job and pursue an
enforcement action against Indian Point, which is owned and operated by New
Orleans, La.-based Entergy Corporation, for a laundry list of
safety regulation violations that could compromise the plantÕs safety during an
emergency. Schneiderman said Indian Point had failed to comply with several
fire safety regulations. Specific violations alleged in the petition included:
.
The plant has not strengthened electrical cables
to withstand fire damage for one to three hours, a regulation established to
provide necessary plant security in the event of an emergency.
.
Rather than installing automatic response systems,
the plant would rely on employees to perform a series of complex manual
actions, which the NRC has not authorized as a means of adequately protecting
nuclear facilities in the event of a fire.
.
The plant has not installed required fire
detectors or fire suppression systems in various locations.
ÒIn the wake of JapanÕs crisis, our countryÕs
nuclear facilities should be bolstering their safety measures, yet Indian Point
is looking to weaken its precautionary measures,Ó Schneiderman said.
Fires at nuclear facilities are often the trigger
for nuclear catastrophes. The possibility that terrorists or hostile foreign
states could take advantage of Indian PointÕs vulnerabilities is keeping many
of Indian PointÕs most vehement critics awake at night. The
vulnerability results from Indian PointÕs current method of storing irradiated
or ÒspentÓ nuclear fuel. Rather than speculate on specific scenarios, it is
enough to say that starting a fire at Indian Point – whether by accident,
sabotage or terrorist attack – could lead to a Fukushima-grade crisis.
Given the demographic context in which such a
crisis would occur, the consequences would almost certainly be catastrophic.
###
Rockland County Executive: It's Time To Shut Indian Point
http://nyack.patch.com/articles/rockcland-county-executive-its-time-to-shut-indian-point#c
C.
Scott Vanderhoef says the risks of the nuclear plant are not worth the rewards.
By Melissa Siegel | Email the
author | April 13, 2011
Rockland
County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef said Tuesday that while he is confident in
the governmentÕs Indian Point evacuation plan, he still believes the nuclear
plant should ultimately be closed.
ÒMy
own personal belief is that no matter how good your plan is É thereÕs always a
hiccup, thereÕs always a problem, thereÕs always something behind something
else that creates problems, and that we live in too densely a populated area to
assure the safety and health of every single resident,Ó Vanderhoef said while
participating in Rockland County Government Day at Rockland Community College.
ÒAnd if I canÕt do that, then the question becomes is nuclear power at that
site, in this densely populated area, worth the cheap electricity it produces.
And my response is no, that it should be closed. Not because IÕm opposed to
nuclear power, but because itÕs in the wrong spot.Ó
The
discussion began when Vanderhoef was talking to RCC faculty and students, along
with other government officials, about what the County ExecutiveÕs office does.
The talk was part of Rockland County Government Day, where various booths were
set up to teach locals about what each department in the county government
does. VanderhoefÕs speech was one of several Òbreak-outÓ sessions during the
event, where local officials talked to a small group about their specific role
in the government.
Vanderhoef
began by talking about the different jobs that a county executive has, one of
which is serving as the chief emergency officer for Rockland. However, he noted
that the one exception to this was in the case of a disaster at Indian Point,
when the executives for Westchester, Orange, Putnam and Rockland would have to
come together to decide the next course of action.
After making this clarification Vanderhoef moved on to discuss other topics, specifically how and why he chose to keep Rockland schools open the day after the September 11th terrorist attacks. But when Vanderhoef opened the floor up for a question-and-answer session, the focus quickly switched back to Indian Point.
One
woman asked if the four county executives ever get together to discuss a
possible evacuation plan. Vanderhoef said that they in fact practice such plans
at least twice a year, each with different hypothetical scenarios. He noted,
however, that a question has now come up about whether the evacuation radius
should be 10 miles — as it is now — or 50 miles. This has mainly
become an issue because officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
recommended that Americans staying within 50 miles of the Japanese nuclear
power plant impacted by the countryÕs recent earthquake should evacuate the
area. Vanderhoef assured the crowd that the 10 mile radius would remain and
that it was sufficient for evacuation.
ÒWhat
NRC was they made a decision, in the Japanese plants, to tell Americans to
evacuate within 50 miles of those plants,Ó Vanderhoef explained. ÒThe reason
they did that was because they could not get enough information from the
Japanese authorities and the Tokyo Power authority, and they were fearing the
worst, so they made a very conservative judgment to do 50 miles. [É] So the
question that is now is everybodyÕs mind is, ÔIs it 10 miles or is it 50
miles?Õ The answer is going to be itÕs 10 miles, but the NRC is going to have
to explain themselves [É] and then explain it to the public as to why the 10
mile limit is scientifically appropriate for purposes of getting out. Ò
Vanderhoef
later pointed out that the 10 mile radius is in effect throughout the country,
not just for the area surrounding Indian Point.
But,
Vanderhoef said, no matter how often they practice these plans, something could
still go wrong, especially in an area with so many people. Thus he stated that
we must discuss whether alternative means of creating electricity might be
better for this community, even if they are more expensive. He also suggested
perhaps moving the plant to an area that is less densely populated.
ÒI
just think thereÕs too much of a risk,Ó he said of Indian Point. ÒWhy not
biomass? Wind power? Different natural gas power? I understand it may be more
expensive. Build a nuclear plant somewhere else, just not there.Ó
A
final questioner asked Vanderhoef what they could do about this issue.
Vanderhoef responded that people could write to different government officials,
and the main topic they should discuss is the criteria by which the NRC decides
whether or not to recertify existing nuclear plants.
ÒWhen
you recertify a plant, you should recertify the plant based on whether you
would build that plant today in that same location,Ó he concluded. Ò[É] Base it
on those criteria, and I would suggest to you Indian Point would not be
recertified. But the NRC doesnÕt do that. The rules and the law say that they
recertify based only on reviewing whether thereÕs an enormous environmental
damage that might take place if it were recertified and to assure that itÕs
fundamental operations are continuing and theyÕre not too old. [É] So if you
write [to the government tell them to], ask the NRC, or pass a law at the
federal level that requires the NRC recertifying any plant to review as if it
were a new plant.Ó
###
Riverkeeper warns lawmakers of risks at Indian Point
Written by
WHITE PLAINS — It wouldn't take a tsunami
to dangerously damage the Indian Point nuclear reactors, an environmentalist
group told Westchester County legislators on Monday.
Speaking one month after an earthquake and
tsunami set off a crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, Hudson Riverkeeper
Paul Gallay also told a county board committee that radioactive spent fuel
pools at the Buchanan reactors are Indian Point's "Achilles' heel."
"All of these issues do not require a
tsunami, which is one of the things that Indian Point says, and says that we
should be easy in our minds because we won't have a tsunami," Gallay said.
"Well, if this plant is not equipped to handle an earthquake without a
tsunami, we could be in the situation we find ourselves in in Japan."
"There are issues associated with the age
of the plant that have to do with corrosion of piping, that have to do with
metal fatigue in the containment dome, that have to do with embrittlement of
the containment dome," he said.
The public meeting, held at the Michaelian
Westchester County Office Building in White Plains, is the last in a series
held by Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers, and Legislator Martin Rogowsky,
D-Harrison.
Kaplowitz chairs the board's Committee on
Environment and Energy ; Rogowsky chairs the Public Safety and Security
Committee.
"Whether Indian Point is open or closed,
we're going to need an evacuation plan because of the spent fuel that is at
Indian Point," Kaplowitz said Monday.
"So we're going to deal with this issue
for as much as 10,000 years, the scientists tell us," he said. "And
certainly dry cask as much as 100 years in the current format, and the spent
fuel as it currently exists for some period of time."
Kaplowitz said the continuing nuclear crisis at
Japan's Fukushima plant warrants close scrutiny of Indian Point, which sits
near an earthquake fault.
Federal and state officials have also made
nuclear safety a priority, prompting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
assure that Indian Point will top the list when the agency conducts more
thorough seismic assesments of the nation's nuclear plants.
###
Indian PointÕs danger threat is real
Thursday, 07 April 2011 00:00
To the Editors:
In J. D. PiroÕs last column he reports that Nan
Hayworth and Robert Castelli agree that Òwhile safety is their paramount
concern, the likelihood of a Japan-style tragedy at Indian Point is fairly low,
since a tsunami hasnÕt hit the North Atlantic coast since, well, never.Ó A
simple googling of Ònuclear accidentsÓ will yield a seemingly endless list of
disturbing events from just scary to breathtaking.
Major failures donÕt have to involve a tsunami.
Recent studies by Columbia University seismologists have revealed that fault
lines near Indian Point have the potential to give rise to magnitude 7
earthquakes, higher than the design criteria used for the plant. The more basic
fallacy here is that there could be some acceptable level of risk we are
willing to take against worst-case scenarios for the metro region. No private
company has the right to foist this unlimited risk on us. Ms. Hayworth is very
free with references to the wonders of liberty and free markets as solutions
for just about everything, yet we hear nothing from her about the corporate
socialism represented by the legislative cap on liability provided to the
nuclear industry by the Price Anderson Act (effectively making you their
insurer).
Area towns, including Lewisboro (2004) and
officials at all levels have demanded that we not relicense Indian Point. Mr.
Castelli has been supportive of green energy initiatives; I hope he will come
out clearly against Indian Point. Ms. Hayworth has a much larger leap to make
to join her constituents.
DAN WELSH
South Salem, April 4
###
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/science/05lett-reactions.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y
Nuclear Reactions
To the Editor:
ÒIdioticÓ would be a more accurate than
ÒprobabilisticÓ as a characterization of the risk model used by the nuclear
industry.
The Indian Point nuclear power plant, 24 miles
from New York City, exemplifies the defiance of common sense. The plant has an
extensive history of safety problems, including fires, explosions, cooling
system malfunctions, backup generator failures, emergency communication system
breakdowns, pipe breaks and radiation leaks.
A few years back, testing revealed that a fire
protection system for critical electrical cables was defective, subject to
rapid disintegration and a potential threat to safe reactor shutdown in the
event of fire. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission simply
recalibrated potential fire duration to 24 minutes and gave Indian Point an
exemption to federal fire safety rules. (The nuclear plant fire
which had led to the rules, by the way, had lasted nearly seven hours.)
Michel Lee
Scarsdale, N.Y.
###
Japan's
nuclear crisis reshapes landscape for Indian Point's relicensing
BUCHANAN — Indian Point faced more hurdles
on its way to extending its operating license than any other nuclear plant in
the nation before the Fukushima meltdown — now the course ahead appears
even tougher.
"The longer the plant in Japan keeps spewing
radiation, the worse it is for the nuclear industry," said Phillip
Musegaas, a policy analyst for the environmental group Riverkeeper. "If I
were on the other side, I would say we have to work very hard to get this off
the news cycle and get back to business as usual."
The landscape for relicensing nuclear plants for
an additional 20 years of operation was a pretty friendly environment prior to
March 11, when the worst recorded earthquake in Japan's history and a huge
followup tsunami knocked out the Fukushima reactors.
Subsequent fires sent radioactive fallout soaring
into the atmosphere and across the Pacific Ocean as far as the United States.
Until Fukushima, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's record when it came to relicensing had been a perfect 63 and 0
— none of the atom plants that applied had been turned down.
Now that it's Indian Point's turn —
regardless of events in Japan — officials from the plant's owner, Entergy
Nuclear, don't believe the relicensing review should change four years into the
process.
Entergy wants to extend the plant's right to
create electricity through 2035 rather than see its daily $2 million production
cut off by the end of 2015.
"With the focus appropriately on aging
management, there should be no reason that what we're witnessing in Japan
should have any impact on relicensing," said Indian Point spokesman Jim
Steets. "That doesn't mean it shouldn't have any regulatory impact."
Steets said all the issues dominating the
televised reports from Fukushima — including spent fuel pools overheating
and releasing radiation, evacuations and earthquake risk — are part of
ongoing regulations and plants could shut down in a day if regulators felt one
wasn't safe.
NRC officials have long said they don't look at
those issues during a relicensing review because those factors are part of
day-to-day operations.
"There is no active discussion regarding
changing our regulations on license renewal. They were developed over many
years," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. "Dozens of plants have gone
through it, and we believe it focuses on aspects of plant operation that are
most important: environmental issues and managing aging."
Indian Point already has plenty on its
relicensing plate, including:
¥ more official arguments against relicensing
than any other U.S. plant.
¥ New York state opposing the extension, the only
state in 50 to do so.
¥ a water-use permit from the state that may
require the construction of new cooling technology costing up to $1 billion.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for a safety review
of Indian Point after the Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Eric Schneiderman, Cuomo's successor as state
attorney general, has petitioned the NRC to consider potential earthquake
damage before renewing the operating licenses for the local plant as well as
the nation's 102 other commercial reactors.
"The safety review of Indian Point should be
rigorous, and if there's new information that comes along, such as seismic
concerns, this would be an appropriate occasion to factor those in," John
Sipos, the assistant attorney general who has been working on Indian Point
issues for nearly five years. "This site was selected back in 1955 by the
federal government and (former owner) Con Edison, before there were many siting
regulations at all, seismic-wise or population-wise."
Sipos said there is little chance the site would
have been approved today.
"It is important for real-world facts, as
they take place, to be factored in," Sipos said.
With the Fukushima crisis fresh in people's
minds, opponents such as Riverkeeper are getting phone calls from former
activists energized with new concern and organizing anti-plant meetings in New
York City.
"The people who have been concerned about
Indian Point had kind of dropped off," Musegaas said.
"All of a sudden there's a swarm of
activity. And there's a lot of interest from our members who weren't so
concerned about the plant before," Musegaas said.
He said a recent meeting in Manhattan drew 40 to
50 residents, many concerned about being included in an evacuation for a
50-mile radius of the plant.
Steets said the danger concerns were overblown
and would abate as the industry is able to show it is prepared for natural
disasters.
NRC officials have long said they don't look at
those issues during a relicensing review because those factors are part of
day-to-day operations.
"There is no active discussion regarding
changing our regulations on license renewal. They were developed over many
years," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. "Dozens of plants have gone
through it, and we believe it focuses on aspects of plant operation that are
most important: environmental issues and managing aging."
Indian Point already has plenty on its
relicensing plate, including:
¥ more official arguments against relicensing
than any other U.S. plant.
¥ New York state opposing the extension, the only
state in 50 to do so.
¥ a water-use permit from the state that may
require the construction of new cooling technology costing up to $1 billion.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for a safety review
of Indian Point after the Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Eric Schneiderman, Cuomo's successor as state
attorney general, has petitioned the NRC to consider potential earthquake
damage before renewing the operating licenses for the local plant as well as
the nation's 102 other commercial reactors.
"The safety review of Indian Point should be
rigorous, and if there's new information that comes along, such as seismic
concerns, this would be an appropriate occasion to factor those in," John
Sipos, the assistant attorney general who has been working on Indian Point
issues for nearly five years. "This site was selected back in 1955 by the
federal government and (former owner) Con Edison, before there were many siting
regulations at all, seismic-wise or population-wise."
Sipos said there is little chance the site would
have been approved today.
"It is important for real-world facts, as
they take place, to be factored in," Sipos said.
With the Fukushima crisis fresh in people's
minds, opponents such as Riverkeeper are getting phone calls from former
activists energized with new concern and organizing anti-plant meetings in New
York City.
"The people who have been concerned about
Indian Point had kind of dropped off," Musegaas said.
"All of a sudden there's a swarm of
activity. And there's a lot of interest from our members who weren't so
concerned about the plant before," Musegaas said.
He said a recent meeting in Manhattan drew 40 to
50 residents, many concerned about being included in an evacuation for a
50-mile radius of the plant.
Steets said the danger concerns were overblown
and would abate as the industry is able to show it is prepared for natural
disasters.
###
Activists Call For Indian Point Nuclear ComplexÕs Closure
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/02/activists-to-call-for-indian-point-nuclear-complexs-closure/
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The
ongoing disaster in Japan has renewed efforts by activists to shut down the
Indian Point Nuclear Complex.
Roughly 20 activists gathered at Union Square on
Saturday afternoon to call for the plant to be shut down.
Operators of
the plant, which is located 40 miles north of New York City, said their two
nuclear reactors are safe from all types of dangers. What happened
in Japan wonÕt happen here, they said.
But some people
say Indian Point is a disaster waiting to happen.
ÒThe Indian Point Power Plant is located near the
intersection of two earthquake faults. Nuclear energy cannot be safe. Plutonium
can contaminate the environment for hundreds of years. Studies show that New
York City could not be evacuated in time,Ó protester Tom Syracuse said.
One person said on a YouTube post that the plantÕs
frequent siren tests are leading residents to believe that everything in the
future could just be a test and not a real emergency.
ÒIf you have to test them so much to see if they
work right, how will people react when thereÕs an actual problem?Ó the man
said.
One of the problems people fear
could be an earthquake like the one in Japan.
There are some fault lines near the plant, but
geological experts say the chance of a earthquake happening hear are slim.
Some people also worry about the plant being a
target for terrorists.
###
Indian Point nuclear plant is far from fail-safe
Written
by Gary Shaw
10:48 PM, Apr. 2, 2011|
The nuclear
tragedy still unfolding in Japan should serve as a wakeup call for residents of
this region that there is no certainty with nuclear power plants.
Indian Point 3 has just been named by the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the nuclear reactor in the U.S. that is most
likely to suffer reactor core damage due to an earthquake and the stated odds
of that happening in any given year are higher
than the odds of winning $100 in the Powerball
lottery. The plant was built in close proximity to the intersection of two
seismic faults, but only one was known when it was built. It was not built to
withstand the earthquake magnitude that scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory of Columbia University say is possible.
Another potential complication is the high pressure
natural gas lines that sit almost directly under the plant. If they ruptured
and ignited because of an earthquake, imagine the challenge to control them
while trying to maintain the safety systems for the
nuclear plant, especially since the NRC recently
changed fire protection requirements. Insulating fire wrap that protects safety
system wires were required to maintain integrity for one hour, but they reduced
the requirement to 24-minutes because they discovered that the wrap will not
withstand an hour of fire.
We also have a stockpile of 35 years of radioactive
waste at Indian Point. Entergy has said the reactor containment building was
built to withstand a 6.1 earthquake. The spent fuel buildings were not built to
the same standards. They have the same
type of steel roof that WalMart has in the
Cortlandt Town Center.
If the electricity flow to the necessary water
pumps was interrupted, backup diesel generators are supposed to kick in.
However, during the 2003 blackout, one of their generators that would have
powered their communications did not work, so if an emergency had occurred,
they would have had difficulties coordinating efforts with first responders. If
the generator that pumps cooling water were to stop, we could see the same
problem that Japan is experiencing right now. There is a lot more radioactive
material in the spent fuel pools than in the reactors. Now imagine that the
electricity was interrupted and the gas line ruptured simultaneously. Do you
believe that can't happen in an earthquake?
Nuclear generating plants can and do have very high
impact events like the one we are seeing now, and the ones we have seen
periodically over the last 30 years. Advocates for Indian Point will say things
like, "we simply can't have a tsunami like Japan did."
That may be correct, but there was no earthquake or
tsunami when Chernobyl exploded or when Three Mile Island had a core meltdown
or when the Davis-Besse plant outside Toledo came within a quarter of an inch
of breach of containment because of reactor dome corrosion in 2003.
Advocates for nuclear energy tell us that Indian
Point can't have the same kinds of scenarios as Chernobyl, and that we learned
from the misjudgments made at Three Mile Island and Davis Besse. Those
statements are true. But no amount of training or learning or design
modification will make the plants fail-safe, and that is the reason why I was
told by Hubert Miller, the then-Regional Director of the NRC, in a public
meeting, that "no one can ever guarantee that there will not be a
radiation release event at any nuclear plant."
In fact, Indian Point has had numerous radiation
releases, including the steam pipe explosion in February 2000 that sent
radioactive steam into the atmosphere and irradiated water into the Hudson.
That took IP2 offline for a year. We all know about the numerous leaks of
radioactive water. IP is the only plant known to have leaked the highly carcinogenic
Strontium 90 into the environment. Cancers from radiation exposure can show up
soon or may not show up for decades.
I am not saying that a catastrophic event will
definitely occur. I am saying that it could. And if the worst case happens, the
consequences are simply too awful to imagine. Former Westchester County
Executive Andy Spano listened to both sides for two years after Sept. 11 and
finally recognized that there were potential scenarios that simply could not be
accepted. That's when he called for plant closure. Is that the risk we want to
take for 2100 megawatts of electricity, of which Con Edison has contracted only
560 megawatts? Do we want 20-more years of operation to see if we are still
lucky?
The writer, a resident of Croton-on-Hudson, is
a member of the Steering Committee of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition
###
Activists Call For Indian Point Nuclear ComplexÕs Closure
April 2, 2011 7:19 PM
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/02/activists-to-call-for-indian-point-nuclear-complexs-closure
Protesters
gathered at Union Square on Saturday to call for the Indian Point Power Plant
to be shut down. (Credit: Sophia Hall/WCBS 880)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The
ongoing disaster in Japan has renewed efforts by activists to shut down the
Indian Point Nuclear Complex.
Roughly 20 activists gathered at Union Square on
Saturday afternoon to call for the plant to be shut down.
Operators of the plant, which is located 40 miles north of New
York City, said their two nuclear reactors are safe from all
types of dangers. What happened in Japan wonÕt happen here, they
said.
LISTEN: WCBS 880′s Sophia Hall reports on the protest
But some people say Indian Point is a disaster
waiting to happen.
ÒThe Indian Point Power Plant is located near the intersection of
two earthquake faults. Nuclear energy cannot be safe. Plutonium can contaminate
the environment for hundreds of years. Studies show that New York City could
not be evacuated in time,Ó protester Tom Syracuse said.
One person said on a YouTube post that the
plantÕs frequent siren tests are leading residents to believe that everything
in the future could just be a test and not a real emergency.
###
WPIX on Indian PointÕs
Evacuation Plan
Call it
FEMA's version of show and tell: its evaluation of Indian Point's evacuation
plan... is out. And it's not good. Lolita Lopez has the story from Buchanan in
Westchester County.
###
Editorial Spotlight: Indian Point
http://www.LoHud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011103300306
11:59 PM, Mar. 29, 2011
What information don't regulators consider when relicensing nuclear power plants,
including the two reactors at Indian Point?
The answers from Drs. Lynn Sykes and Klaus
Jacob of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades
might surprise you.
In an Editorial Spotlight interview on Tuesday,
they discussed earthquakes, the concepts of hazard and risk, and other issues
related to the future of Indian Point.
To watch the interview, visit www.lohud.com/editorialspotlight;
click "videos" and select the interview from the menu.
###
Should Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant Be Shut Down?
by Sarah Laskow
Monday, March 28th, 2011
http://www.thirteen.org/stateroom/indian-point-nuclear-energy
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has long opposed the
nuclear power plant at Indian Point and has been speaking since the Japanese
nuclear crisis about the possibility of closing it for good. For New Yorkers
who agree that the nuclear power plant at Indian Point should cease operations,
there is a simple way to further that goal: stop buying the plantÕs
electricity.
Most residents of New York City are Con
Edison customers, and Con Edison depends on Indian Point for power. Con Edison,
though, is primarily a transmission company. It buys the electricity and brings
it to consumers. Those who depend on Con Edison to keep their lights on can
choose to accept the energy mix (and the price) that the company offers. But
they also have the option of buying their power elsewhere and having Con Edison
deliver it.
Which means that itÕs possible for an
individual to cut ties with Indian Point now. NYPIRG has put together a list of
alternative energy options: in the New York City area, consumers can choose to
buy energy generated from wind and hydropower. These
options are a bit more pricey: They cost an additional one or two cents per
kilowatt-hour, and plans that contain 100% wind power are more expensive than
those that draw from a mix of renewable sources. Over the course of a year,
these additional costs total about $50 to $100 extra dollars for the average
customer.
As a state, New York has been cementing
its commitment to these alternative energy resources: The stateÕs current goal
is to have 30% of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2015. According to
the latest figures available from the New York ISO, which helps run and monitor
the stateÕs electricity system, 22% of all electricity generated in the state
comes from renewable resources. The vast majority of that (19% of all
generation) comes from hydropower.
Right now, the majority of Indian
PointÕs spent fuel is stored in the same sort of cooling tanks that proved a
problem at Fukushima. If the plant was decommissioned, the fuel would likely be
stored differently, in dry casks.
But while the state — and the
city — depend heavily on nuclear power for electricity, Con Edison is
decreasing the amount of power it is contracted to buy from Indian Point over
the next few years, from 1000 megawatts in 2009, to 850 MW in 2010, to 350 MW
this year and next. The company still says, however, that approximately 30% of
the power it delivers to New York and Westchester County comes from the plant.
And in New York State as a whole, 32% of electricity generated relies on
nuclear power, according to NYISO. (There are four other reactors in the state,
the majority of them clustered outside of Oswego, NY, near Lake Ontario.)
Shutting down Indian Point would mean
finding a different source for that portion of the electricity New Yorkers use.
The NYISO, in a report published near the close of 2010, wrote that if Indian
Point were to close, it would create reliability problems for the New York area
electricity grid — in other words, the likelihood of blackouts and
brownouts occurring would exceed acceptable limits.
CuomoÕs office reiterated last week
that the governor believes the state will be able to find enough new sources to
make up the gap.
But where will it come from? Although
the thought of a nuclear meltdown 20 miles from New York City can be unnerving,
nuclear does have certain advantages over other fuel sources for electricity
generation. New York CityÕs fuel mix produces emissions of nitrogen oxide,
sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide significantly lower than the national
average. Carbon dioxide emissions, for instance, are 54% of the national
average emissions rate. The better carbon emissions rates are one of the
reasons that national leaders, including President Obama, have been staunch
nuclear supporters.
In New York, the alternatives to
nuclear come with their own baggage. Wind power only accounts for a tiny slice
of the stateÕs electricity, and new wind projects cannot account for the amount
of electricity Indian Point generates. And wind power doesnÕt necessarily
account for most new growth in this sector, either. ÒCurrently most of the
larger generators coming online are high efficiency combined cycle natural gas
generators,Ó Ken Klapp, a spokesman for NYISO, told State Room. Closing Indian
Point could mean relying more heavily on natural gas, extracted by controversial
hydrofracking techniques.
Even if the state does succeed in
finding replacement sources for Indian Point, closing Indian Point wonÕt mean
that New York City is immediately safe from the hazards of nearby nuclear
materials. The process of decommissioning a nuclear plant takes years. Indian
Point hosts three nuclear reactors; one is already inactive, but Entergy, which
owns all three, has delayed decommissioning it until a second reactor ceases
operations.
Decommissioning doesnÕt necessarily
require Entergy to move the nuclear materials left over from the generation
process from the decommissioned site. ThereÕs still no national facility for
storing used nuclear material, and itÕs common for nuclear materials to remain
on the site of a decommissioned plant.
The federal government requires
companies that own nuclear reactors to set aside funds to decommission their
plants and draft a plan to decommission them, so in theory, Entergy should be
prepared to shut down the plant, should its bid to renew the reactorsÕ licenses
fail. In 2009, however, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission discovered that
EntergyÕs fund for decommissioning one Indian Point reactor fell short. In
2010, the company and the NRC agreed that Entergy could store nuclear materials
onsite until 2063, under conditions that safely allow the radioactivity to
decay.
Right now, the majority of Indian
PointÕs spent fuel is stored in the same sort of cooling tanks that proved a
problem at Fukushima. If the plant was decommissioned, the fuel would likely be
stored differently, in dry casks. In this storage method, the spent fuel is
placed in steel casks, which are in turn stored in ventilated concrete
capsules. Since 2008, Entergy has stored some of its spent fuel in dry casks,
which the NRC says would keep the materials safe during an earthquake.
ÒTheyÕre designed to not move during
earthquake activity,Ó Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC, said. ÒUnlike the
spent fuel pools, they donÕt use water, pumps or valves. They donÕt use
electricity. TheyÕre very self-sufficient.Ó
###
Closing NY nuclear power plant would hike bills 6%
By Steve
Hargreaves, senior writer
March 28, 2011: 5:45 PM ET
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/28/news/economy/nuclear_indian_point/index.htm
New York (CNNMoney) -- Closing the
much-criticized Indian Point nuclear power plant just north of New York City
would add an additional 6% to monthly utility bills, according to area utility
Consolidated Edison.
That translates into an extra $65 a year for the
typical New York City resident, based on numbers provided by the utility.
"That's really cheap insurance to make sure
we don't have a catastrophic release of radiation," said Marilyn Elie, who
lives two miles from
the plant and has been trying to get it closed for the last 17
years.
If Indian Point is shut, Con Edison would buy the
lost electricity on the open market, most likely from the cheapest possible
energy source. The utility said that would probably be a mix of electricity
generated from coal and natural gas.
Calls to shut the power plant, located 25 miles
north of the city, have grown louder in recent weeks as the crisis at Japan's
quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi
facility continues.
Find the nuclear
power plant closest to you
The operating licenses for Indian Point's two
reactors expire in 2013 and 2015. The utility that owns the plant, New
Orleans-based Entergy (ETR, Fortune 500),
has applied to extend the licenses for another 20 years, but opponents of the
plant are hoping the tragedy in Japan will highlight the dangers of nuclear
power here in the United States.
What's next for
nuclear power?
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a longtime critic
of the plant who has in the past called it "a catastrophe waiting to
happen," has reiterated his position in recent days that it should be
shut.
Cuomo is joined by other governors who want
plants shut in their states, including the governor of Vermont.
Unlike New York state, which relies on the
federal government's Nuclear Regulatory Commission and has no authority over
relicensing, Vermont law gives the legislature a say in the decision.
The Vermont legislature recently voted to deny
the license extension for its only nuke plant, Vermont Yankee, although the NRC
approved it. The plant is the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi facility.
A court showdown now looms.
In New York, the chief concern at Indian Point is
that it's an aging plant located so close to a major population center -- some
20 million people live within the plant's 50-mile fallout zone. Critics say
evacuation would be impossible, and that its proximity to all those people
makes it an inviting target for terrorists.
The plant is also built on an active fault line.
Entergy, which bought the plant from Con Edison (ED, Fortune 500)
in 2001, says it can withstand an earthquake of 6.1 in magnitude, larger than
that largest quake to ever hit the area. But a recent Columbia study says
magnitude of 7.0 tremor is possible.
"Indian Point is now considered the most
dangerous plant in the country when it comes to the risk of meltdown due to
earthquake," the environmental group Riverkeeper wrote on its Web site.
"It is our position that until Indian Point is proven safe, it should be
closed."
Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the plant
meets all the criteria imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
He believes the plant could even withstand a 7.0
quake, which is about twenty three times more powerful than one of 6.1
magnitude, because it was built with so many redundancies in mind. (See correction)
Plus, it's got a containment system comprised of
steel-reinforced concrete four to six feet thick, built on solid bedrock.
The emergency plans the plant has in place are
effective, he said, adding that "the industry always plans for the
worst-case scenario."
Where will the power come from?
If Indian Point is closed, the main question is
where the power to replace it will come from.
The facility generates some 2,000 megawatts of
electricity, most of which is sold into the New York City area. About 30% of
the region's power comes from Indian Point.
In a letter advocating keeping the plant open,
Con Edison said 1,400 megawatts of power would have to be replaced if Indian
Point is shut.
Most of that power, the utility said, would come
from building new natural-gas fired power plants or importing electricity
produced by burning coal.
Both of those options come with their own
environmental risks -- namely air and water pollution.
Closing the plant would also result in a less
diverse energy mix, potentially resulting in more price volatility for
consumers, Con Edison said.
The utility also questioned whether new
generating capacity would be built in time to avoid a power disruption if
Indian Point was closed.
But there's nothing saying the new power must
come from natural gas or coal.
Electricity from wind is another option.
Wind would be more expensive, although how much
more is difficult to say.
While power generated from new wind farms is
about 30% more expensive than power generated from new gas-fired power plants,
it's only marginally more expensive than electricity from new coal plants,
according to the Energy Information Administration.
Energy imported from existing coal-fired plants
might be far cheaper than wind power.
But besides cost, there are other issues with
wind -- it doesn't blow all the time and finding enough suitable sites to
locate 1,400 megawatts worth of wind turbines may be difficult.
For Elie, the activist living near Indian Point,
a solution can be found.
There are many companies producing electricity
that would welcome the chance to sell 1,400 megawatts of power to Con Edison.
"It would be a business opportunity for the
people who generate it," she said, pointing to the massive new offshore
wind proposals backed by Google (GOOG,
Fortune 500)
and others. "The market will figure it out."
Correction: An earlier version of this article
stated that a 7.0 magnitude earthquake was about 100 times more powerful than a
6.1 magnitude quake. The 7.0 quake is actually 23 times more powerful.
###
Indian Point 50-mile evacuation plan unrealistic
Published 25 March 2011 http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/indian-point-50-mile-evacuation-plan-unrealistic
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/indian-point-50-mile-evacuation-plan-unrealistic
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/indian-point-50-mile-evacuation-plan-unrealistic
Secretary
Chu also said that the plantÕs evacuation plans were under review.
Current
New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently called for the plant to be
shut down.
He
said, ÒIt should be closed. This plant in this proximity to the city was never
a good risk.Ó
Cuomo
expressed concern over the fact that the reactor was located near a
fault line.
Inside
New York's Indian Point nuclear power plant
March 24, 2011|By Allan Chernoff, CNN
Senior Correspondent
Plant
managers spend lots of time thinking about potential emergencies and how to
avert them.
Experts:
Indian Point Evaucation Impossible
Updated:
Wednesday, 23 Mar 2011, 12:19 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 23 Mar 2011,
11:57 AM EDT
Located
along the Hudson River, the reactor also sits on a seismic fault line.
An
evacuation would be only one of the many problems people in the Tri-State
Region would face.
RiverkeeperÕs Paul Gallay vs. Entergy's Jim Steets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqpop3D3inU&feature=channel_video_title
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqpop3D3inU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqpop3D3inU
Dr
Michio Kaku on the David Letterman Show (video), March 21, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqpop3D3inU
What
are the best-and-worst-case scenarios for the nuclear crisis in
Japan?
Theoretical physics professor and author Dr. Michio Kaku
shares
his opinions on Fukushima and Indian Point in New York.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqpop3D3inU
http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=n1AcQtAmhQHkFC0kU5sbz37XRoDcir_z
http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=n1AcQtAmhQHkFC0kU5sbz37XRoDcir_z
http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=n1AcQtAmhQHkFC0kU5sbz37XRoDcir_z
http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=n1AcQtAmhQHkFC0kU5sbz37XRoDcir_z
Energy secretary wants closer
look at Indian Point safety
http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20110321-1.html
Indian
Point Discusses Safety Concerns with Cortlandt Officials
http://rye.patch.com/articles/cortlandt-town-board-questions-indian-point-on-safety
By
Liz Giegerich | Email the author | 2:00am
Here
is a summary of the presentation and discussion:
ÒThis
is a concern because things change,Ó Puglisi said.
ÒAnd
our understanding of things change too,Ó added Councilman Frank Farrell.
Emergency
and Severe Accident Procedures and Guidance
ÒIt
was a worst case type calculationÉwe donÕt know if assumption was reasonable or
really extreme.Ó
The
question prompted him to address the politics of nuclear energy.
ÒThis
is not about safety, it is about trying to shut down an industry and choke it,Ó
Dacimo said.
ÒThe
evacuation plan as it exists wonÕt work,Ó said Becker.
New York,
NRC to Meet About Indian Point Nuclear Plant Safety
By
Dan Hart and Edward Klump - Mar 21, 2011
To
contact the editor responsible for this story: Theo Mullen at tmullen11@bloomberg.net
mailto:tmullen11@bloomberg.net
Fukushima,
Indian Point and Fantasy
Try
evacuating that on short — or long — notice.
The
Manhattan Meltdown Scenario
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595580670/thedaibea-20/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595580670/thedaibea-20/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595580670/thedaibea-20/
Fukushima,
Indian Point and Fantasy
Try
evacuating that on short — or long — notice.
Video:
Riverkeeper's Paul Gallay on Indian Point's vulnerability to earthquakes
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/03/report-finds-indian-point-has-highest.html
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/03/report-finds-indian-point-has-highest.html
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/02/lamont-doherty-scientist-says-region-is.html
Watch
the segment with Gallay here:
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/02/lamont-doherty-scientist-says-region-is.html
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/03/video-riverkeepers-paul-gallay-on.html
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/03/video-riverkeepers-paul-gallay-on.html
http://www.lefthudson.com/2011/03/video-riverkeepers-paul-gallay-on.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/03/17/2011-03-17_gov_risky_indian_point_should_be_shut.html
It's
too risky to keep Indian Point nuclear power plant open: Gov. Cuomo
BY
Douglas
Feiden and Brian
Kates
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
"It
should be closed. This plant in this proximity to the city was never a good
risk."