The Indian Point reactors have had numerous problems and near-misses. A close look at Unit 2 would inform the safety status of reactors still running — and ought to prompt their shutdown as well, rather than extending operating licenses to 80 years.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is already allowing six U.S. power plants to extend workers' shifts, to as long as 12 hours a day for two weeks, and more may be coming. That's up significantly from current standards that require people to get two-to-three days off a week when pulling shifts that long. Employees can also work as many as 86 hours in a week now, up from 72 hours.
To curb transmission of the virus, utilities also say they want to delay inspections that require people to work in close proximity. Environmental groups, though, warn the changes could have disastrous results, and worry they could lead to further deviations from safety rules.
Each nuclear facility has a mandated trust fund — known as the Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund, or NDT, and financed with ratepayer dollars — to cover the costs of the decommissioning. Companies such as EnergySolutions and Holtec International, which bought the license of the shuttered Oyster Creek facility in New Jersey, hope to turn a profit by spending less than the dollars remaining in the trust fund to dispose of the radioactive waste.
Eric Epstein, chair of the anti-nuclear watchdog group TMI Alert, opposes the transfer and has petitioned the NRC for a hearing. Epstein argues that the transfer is an illegal taking of public funds.
“TMI-2 Solutions, an investment vehicle based in Delaware, wants to come in and clean the plant up, something that nobody’s been able to do in 41 years, and do it cheaper and faster than anybody else,” Epstein said. “… there’s over $1 billion in public money sitting in the decommissioning fund. And that’s what this is about, them coming in, taking the money, and then getting whatever is left over.”
Indian Point’s Unit 2 shuts down April 30, the first of two working reactors to be powered down before the nuclear power plant in Buchanan closes for good in April 2021. After that, Entergy, Indian Point’s owner, has plans to sell the reactors and the surrounding 240 acres to a subsidiary of Holtec International, a New Jersey-based decommissioning firm. That deal awaits the approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
If nuclear power is a renewable source of electricity, is not coal? After all, coal power can be “renewed” by digging more coal out of the ground. As long as your continuing to mine coal, you will have fuel for the plants.