SAFETY OF THE IRRADIATED (“SPENT”) FUEL RODS AND POOLS

Closing Indian Point eliminates an obvious target and significantly reduces the potential for and consequences of a radioactive release in the event of an accident or successful terrorist attack. Just days after shutdown, Indian Point’s reactor core inventory of short-lived radioisotopes is substantially reduced through half-life decay, thus significantly reducing the potential incidence of early health effects and thyroid cancers in surrounding populations if a release occurs. According to the Nuclear Control Institute, after a shutdown of twenty days the number of acute fatalities (within a 10-mile radius) from a core meltdown and breach of containment would be reduced by around 80 percent and the number of long-term cancer deaths (within a 50-mile radius) by about 50 percent.

The cessation of Indian Point’s operation immediately puts a stop to the production of dangerous irradiated fuel rods. Coupled with reactor shutdown, Entergy must delay no longer in immediately implementing superior security measures for the 1500 tons of irradiated fuel stored at Indian Point. The plant’s current method of storing its irradiated fuel is vulnerable to terrorist attack. Both the irradiated fuel pool storage buildings and the dry casks must be fortified to repel entry or penetration via air or ground attack. Currently, no containment structures exist over Indian Point’s storage pools. Therefore, Entergy must act responsibly and fortify or “harden” the facilities that house the pools to the maximum extent possible to repel an attack and contain a release of radiation.

In addition, all irradiated fuel that has been in the storage pools for more than five years must be moved out of the pools and into hardened dry cask storage, which is much less vulnerable to a spent fuel fire triggered by accident, sabotage or terrorist attack. The hardened dry cask system involves proper concealment and adequate spacing. Finally, the remaining spent fuel assemblies in the pool must be reconfigured so that there is more space in between each assembly.

Within six months, through the process of radioactive decay, even the youngest, most radioactive fuel rods have reached a stage where reduced radioactive inventory poses a lesser threat to public health and safety.

The current process of jam-packing irradiated fuel rods in cooling pools is not the safest way to protect the public from dangerous isotopes and radionuclides that could be released in the event of an accident at or attack on the irradiated fuel pool. At Indian Point alone, there is approximately 1500 tons of irradiated spent fuel. A spent fuel fire disaster at Indian Point could release up to 20 times the amount of cesium-137 that was released from the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. Cesium-137 is a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 30 years and gives off highly penetrating radiation and is absorbed in the food chain as if it were potassium. This isotope accounts for most of the offsite radiation exposure that is attributable to the 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident, and for about half of the radiation exposure that is attributable to fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere. Cesium is a volatile element that would be liberally released during a pool fire.

Experts in the field of nuclear science and homeland security are calling for a new method of securing the fuel rods. In his study, “Robust Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security,” Dr. Gordon Thompson, Institute for Resource and Security Studies (IRSS), recommends that each fuel storage module be encased in layers of concrete, steel, and other materials. This “hardening” of materials would remain onsite and disbursed uniformly across the site.

This spring, a study by Frank von Hippel of Princeton University and other researchers concurred with Dr. Thompson, arguing that the US needs to better protect the spent fuel rods and pools at nuclear power plants in this post-9/11 era. According to the Princeton University study, terrorists targeting the poorly protected, high-density irradiated (“spent”) fuel storage systems used at nuclear power plants could cause contamination problems “significantly worse than those from Chernobyl.” According to the report, the consequences of such a spent fuel fire would be the release of a radiation plume that could contaminate eight to 70 times more land than the area affected by the 1986 Chernobyl accident and the cost of such a disaster would run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The upper range value is the equivalent of an area approximately three-fourths the size of New York State.

IPSEC RECOMMENDATIONS

Ø Governor Pataki calls for the immediate closure and orderly decommissioning of Indian Point;

Ø Governor Pataki calls for the hardened onsite storage of all nuclear waste material five years and older currently being held at Indian Point;

Ø Governor Pataki demands that the remaining spent fuel assemblies in the pool must be reconfigured so that there is more space in between each assembly; and

Ø Governor Pataki demands that the irradiated fuel pools and the future dry casks are fortified to repel entry or penetration via air or ground attack.

IDENTIFYING AN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCE

Currently, Indian Point 2 & 3 have the capacity to provide 2000 Megawatts (MW) of energy. This amount is in constant flux, as the plants go offline for inspections, refueling, and accidents.

There are short-term options and long-term options for replenishing the 2000 MW’s to the reserve margin that Indian Point currently provides.

Short-term Options:

Ø A common sense public education campaign for energy efficiency and conservation and

Ø Importing power from neighboring grids.

During the summer of 2001, California implemented a statewide energy conservation and efficiency program that reduced peak electricity demand by as much as 14%, thereby averting a single brownout or blackout. According to a recent independent study by Komanoff Energy Associates, implementing similar policies in the downstate New York region could reduce energy use by as much as 17%. If we simply achieved demand reductions equal to the midpoint of the scenarios analyzed in the study, just over 2,000 megawatts, we could do away with the need for Indian Point’s 1,950 megawatts with energy conservation alone.

A recent study, conducted by Cambridge-based Synapse Energy Economics (http://www.synapse-energy.com/publications.htm), concluded that if we permanently close Indian Point 2 & 3 tomorrow there would be adequate electricity generation and transmission capacity to power New York City, Westchester County, and New York State as a whole. Taking both Indian Point units off-line would not lead to rolling blackouts and brownouts.

Using published information from the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), which is an independent, not for-profit-organization established and regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Synapse researchers proved beyond a doubt that there is more than sufficient energy to serve expected peak loads and provide reasonable capacity reserves. In addition, the study identified additional energy sources which will raise the energy reserve margins to well above what NYISO deems necessary to protect the region from blackouts in summer months. The NYISO currently predicts that peak demands in New York City will be just over 11,000 Megawatts (MW) during the summers of 2003 and 2004. Even if Indian Point were retired, New York City still would have more than 13,100 Megawatts (MW) of electric generating and transmission import capacity available to meet these projected peak demands while providing adequate system reserves to meet unexpected plant outages or higher than normal summer temperatures. This includes approximately 5,000 MWs of available transmission capacity (in 2003, with more being planned) which enables the City to import the necessary power from plants in the Hudson River Valley, Upstate New York, Canada, New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Since there is considerable excess capacity in the region – including 30% in the New England Power Pool and 35% in PJM (the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland system) – power would be available even if Indian Point were retired.

Long-term options:

Ø Bringing the environmentally-friendliest of the 11 state-certified power plants online, bearing in mind the goal of selecting those power projects that have the least impact on the communities in which they are placed;

Ø Utilizing technology to draw power from transmission lines between New Jersey and upstate New York to New York City; and finally,

Ø Investing in renewable energy sources such as wind farms upstate and solar power.

Eleven proposed power plants, representing over 7,000 MWs of new generating capacity, have already been approved by New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment. Some of these plants have financing and are already under construction. As the Enron scandal fades and accounting requirements sort out the viable companies from the unviable, financing for the other approved plants, as well as for the several proposed plants currently in the application stage, will be forthcoming. The state must ensure that only the most environmentally-friendly power plant proposals – especially those projects that involve the refueling and retrofitting of older, dirtier plants – move forward. Westchester County Executive Spano and other elected officials are examining the practicality of a mid-sized natural gas plant at the Indian Point site which is supplied by the Algonquin natural gas pipeline. In fact, Indian Point’s owner is seeking a permit from the NY State Public Service Commission to construct a 330 MW power plant at the site.

IPSEC RECOMMENDATIONS

Ø Governor Pataki takes an aggressive statewide, energy conservation and efficiency education program in order to maintain the current and predicted reserve margin needed to ensure continued electrical supplies to those living in New York City and the Lower Hudson Valley;

Ø Governor Pataki works with NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) and the Public Service Commission (PSC) to expand their New York Energy $mart^SM Program;

Ø Governor Pataki implements a statewide initiative that would give suggested temperature controls of 71 degrees in the summer months, in order to decrease the extreme and energy-wasting cooling of public spaces;

Ø Governor Pataki continues productive discussions with neighboring states that have a surplus of electrical supplies and are willing to sell electricity to New York State; and

Ø Governor Pataki continues to work closely with NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) as it conducts its initial feasibility study of a Statewide renewable portfolio for electricity generation.

RESOURCES

For a copy of Dr. Thompson’s study, “Robust Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security,” visit: http://www.nukebusters.org

The Princeton Paper was recently published in: Science and Global Security: Alvarez,R., Beyea, J., Janberg, K., Kang, J., Lyman, E., Macfarlane, A., Thompson, G., and von Hippel, F.N. “Reducing the hazards from stored spent power-reactor fuel in the United States.” Vol 11, 1:1-51.)

For a copy of the Synapse report, Indian Point Retirement Reliability Assessment, visit:

http://www.synapse-energy.com/publications.htm

For a copy of the Komanoff study, Securing Power through Energy Conservation and Efficiency in New York. Profiting from California’s Experience, visit: http://riverkeeper.org/document.php/39/2002_May__Koman.pdf

To review the power plant projects approved by the New York State Public Service Commission, visit:

http://www.dps.state.ny.us/articlex.htm

Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC)

IPSEC is a coalition of fifty-nine civic, environmental, health and public policy organizations that formed in response to a flood of citizen concerns about the safety of Indian Point nuclear power plants after the terrorist attacks on 9.11.01. Our goal is to ensure the safety and security of our neighborhoods by bringing about the immediate closure of Indian Point and its safe and orderly decommissioning. For a list of member organizations, please go to: www.IPSECinfo.org.