While these cost overruns have made national headlines, no one seems to be asking the important question: are these atomic power plants – first designed more than 20-years ago –even safe to operate if they should ever be completed.  For the past eight years, Fairewinds chief engineer Arnie Gundersen has worked with environmental groups all around the southeaster US in their campaigns that prove this AP1000 reactor design simply is not safe.  Bottom line:  Not only is Vogtle too expensive, but the AP1000 reactor is simply not be safe to operate if it is built. 

On May 9, workers discovered a 20-foot-diameter hole where the roof had collapsed on a makeshift nuclear waste site: a tunnel, sealed in 1965, encasing old railroad cars and equipment contaminated with radiation through years of plutonium processing. Potential radiation levels were high enough that some workers were told to shelter in place while others donned respirators and protective suits as they repaired the hole.