Hurricane Season and Atomic Power Reactors
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Hurricane Season and Atomic Power Reactors
By Maggie Gundersen & Ben Shulman-Reed
Hurricane Harvey and the South Texas Project
All of us at Fairewinds are saddened and dismayed about the suffering and long cleanup facing Texans with the severe impact of Hurricane Harvey.
The Fairewinds Crew has been inundated with questions about Hurricane Harvey and the nuclear power plant in Texas. Here’s our latest info:
The South Texas Project (STP) is a two-unit atomic power reactor located near flooded Houston in Bay City, Texas right on the coast near where the Hurricane has hit. Incredibly, throughout Hurricane Harvey and its ensuing floods, STP has continued to operate. Pro-nukes are claiming two things: First, that the electricity from STP is desperately needed, which is not true. And, second that this ‘feat of operating during the Hurricane’ proves how rugged atomic power reactors are to withstand the gale force winds from the hurricane.
Fairewinds believes that STP should have shut down as the storm approached, and certainly still should be closed right now until the complete impact of the aftermath is understood.
With all of Fairewinds ongoing work studying the aftermath of the Japan earthquake and tsunami and the ongoing radiation releases from the Fukushima Dai-ichi atomic power reactors, we are very cognizant of the risks involved in the ongoing operation of nuclear power plants in the midst of a hurricane as malevolent as Harvey. See our recent peer-reviewed journal article here!
There is no doubt that the South Texas Project (STP) is being threatened by the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Water levels at surrounding rivers continue to rise creating a risk that power lines into and out of STP may collapse in rain soaked soil. Rather than face a sudden shutdown from uncontrollable forces, why not have a planned, orderly temporary closure that also helps to keep the fuel cooler?
The final line of defense at a nuclear plant is its emergency plan. Anyone who has viewed the devastation in Texas can clearly see that evacuating from southern Texas is a lengthy process that is already under-financed with FEMA cuts and lack of critical emergency services. If STP began to have an operational or radioactive crisis, it would be impossible for any emergency responders or additional operators and engineers to arrive and assist with the calamity. Furthermore, how would an evacuation occur if it were needed? Remember “radiation knows no borders”, it is not going to stop at the site boundary, the county line, or stay within Texas, it will migrate wherever that weather front sends it.
And at this time of year in Texas, there is no need for the excess electricity that STP is currently providing. So why take any more risk by allowing STP to continue to operate when other sources of electricity are available?
The Fairewinds Crew cannot answer these questions. Only the people of Texas, already beleaguered by Hurricane Harvey, can answer those questions and demand action by their state government and regulators. There is only one reason why STP continues to operate during this hurricane and its aftermath: its owner STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) continues to make money by sending the electricity it generates to the grid.
Who owns STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC)? The national energy corporation NRG Energy owns 44 percent, and two local Texas utilities own the remainder: San Antonio municipal utility CPS Energy owns 40 percent, and Austin Energy owns 16 percent. As the rivers continue to rise and the threat of another hurricane hitting Texas is eminent, the possibility of a flooding debacle causing an immense radioactive plume to migrate with the weather through Texas and other states is ever present in our minds at Fairewinds Energy.
By the way, don’t count on the federal government Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to do anything to close STP. During Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, while houses floated across evacuation routes, the storm surge threatened its emergency cooling systems, and 80% of its emergency sirens had already failed. There was not a peep from the NRC. Luckily for the East Coast, the Oyster Creek atomic power plant had already shut down one week earlier for its routine refueling!
Texans are already facing real environmental issues, like leaking chemical plants causing toxic flood waters as well as the heat and dirty water creating a breeding ground for e-coli and typhoid. Hospitals are either closed or maxed out. We hope sound minds will prevail to close the South Texas Project (STP) while it is still possible, especially with rising rivers, ongoing flooding, and the possibility of Hurricane Irma hitting the same location.
Reminder:
Last chance to download Arnie Gundersen and Marco Kaltofen’s peer-reviewed journal article at no cost!
Since its release, the peer-reviewed journal article by Arnie and Marco has been phenomenally well-received online, and now awaits its physical print release. In less than one month, Altmetric, a software tool that tracks scientific journal reads has noticed the article’s incredible reach.
Altmetric has tracked 8,157,279 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
About the Paper: Since the meltdown six years ago, Fairewinds and Dr. Marco Kaltofen with WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) have conducted detailed analysis on crowd-sourced scientific samples for this cutting edge research. The samples analyzed showed that radioactive hot particles from the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns are still contaminating Japan. This month Arnie and Marco will return to Japan to continue their radioactive research and educational work with scientists in Japan who are organizing and conducting this scientific sampling effort.
Here is the link to this fundamental study conducted by Arnie and Marco: http://www.fairewinds.org/newsletter-archive//press-release-radioactively-hot-particles-in-japan You may also follow links on this press release to the actual Journal article and to the Fairewinds Energy Education website for all supplemental materials as well as an interactive map.
Fairewinds would not be where we are today without your past support, please help us move into tomorrow and beyond by donating today so that we may continue this vital work. You may donate to our general educational efforts or specifically to the Japan Project. Detailed science like Fairewinds Japan Project needs ongoing funds to continue its research, analysis, and educational programming.
Reuters - Florida nuclear plants to shut ahead of Hurricane Irma
With Hurricane Harvey recently behind us, and the even larger Hurricane Irma about to make landfall on the East coast of Florida, we are relieved to see electricity generator Florida Power & Light (FPL) announce early that they will close both Turkey Point and St. Lucie atomic power reactors in Florida due to the impending Hurricane Irma.
As Fairewinds said in our Facebook response to the destruction in Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, natural disasters like hurricanes can have long-lasting and severe impacts to cities and affected communities, which would be made even more devastating if radioactivity is released.
In 1992 Hurricane Andrew, another Category 5 storm, followed a similar path to that anticipated by Irma, directly hitting the southeast coast of Miami where the Turkey Point atomic power reactors are located. This storm was dramatically smaller than Irma, and Turkey Point ultimately survived the storm, yet suffered over $90 Million dollars of damages. Thanks to our friend Dave Lochbaum with the Union of Concerned Scientists, we can take a closer look at the massive damage this plant suffered from that smaller Category 5 storm.
Atomic power plants add yet another element of risk to disasters due to their radioactive components and often, large quantities of highly-radioactive stored fuel on site. With our Japan Project researching the ongoing radioactivity in Japan due to the nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors in Japan, the Fairewinds Crew is ever mindful of the number of people in Japan who are still unable to return to their homes more than 6-years since triple meltdowns. We hope that all the people impacted by these U.S. hurricanes will be able to safely return home without being confronted by toxic radioactivity like those in Japan or the chemical contamination in and around Houston from Hurricane Harvey.
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