(Asheville, NC) — Citing nuclear security, reactor aging, and other concerns, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) November 29th filed a legal challenge to Duke Energy's application to renew and extend the operating licenses of their McGuire and Catawba nuclear power stations for up to twenty more years.
NIRS contends that Duke has not addressed key issues in their application, including nuclear security, impacts on the environment and community, technical concerns about aging of reactor components and climate change. No reactor in the United States has yet operated for even the initial 40-year license period, due to the degradation of time and intense heat and radiation.
Further, NIRS challenges Duke's attempt to simply ignore their plan to use plutonium fuel derived from nuclear weapons during the review of extending these operations. Under this plan, the McGuire and Catawba reactors would use an experimental fuel called MOX (mixed oxide) derived from plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.
"Many concerns of people in North and South Carolina about these nuclear reactors would not be considered at all if Duke Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were left on their own" said Mary Olson, Director of NIRS's Southeast Office in Asheville. "Security is the top issue. NRC admits that they have never analyzed a jumbo jet hit to a reactor site, and the International Atomic Energy Agency tells us that no reactor in the world is built to take such a hit. Then consider Duke's plans to bring weapons grade plutonium to this area — this compounds the security situation and must be addressed," Olson urged.
"Duke's license extension application does not evaluate Catawba and McGuire for the clear and present danger from widespread radioactive contamination we now face post-September 11," said Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for NIRS. "Specifically, unanswered government studies continue to point out a reluctance on the part of the NRC and Duke Energy to tell the truth about reactor vulnerability by explosion and fire following a commercial jet airliner delivered as a weapon of terrorism," continued Gunter. Gunter was referring to a now suppressed 1982 Argonne National Laboratory study prepared for the NRC recommending that the agency pay more attention to the vulnerability of reactor structures and components by fire from a jetliner crash.
Long time NIRS member Jess Riley drafted two of the points NIRS raised about components subject to reactor aging. Jess was active in challenging Duke in the original licensing of these reactors.
"We also find it very curious that while Duke Energy says nuclear energy is a good answer to the big problem of global climate change, they never once consider the impact that climate change in the next decades would have on their own operations," said Olson. "Even if it were possible to cut carbon emissions to zero today, experts agree that past carbon emissions will continue to create unpredictable and more severe weather for the next several decades. This could be catastrophic since the biggest vulnerability Duke's reactors have short of a direct terrorist strike is station black-out," Olson concluded. Station blackout results when off-site power is lost (possibly from severe weather) and there is a concurrent failure of emergency back-up power. Commercial reactors were not designed to power on-site electrical systems, so cooling of the reactor core and control room operations depend on external power sources. If cooling is lost, nuclear fuel melts can melt within two 2 hours.
All reactors are vulnerable to station blackout, but these four Duke reactors are a rare ice-condenser design that has been found by NRC to be 100 times more vulnerable to reactor containment failure in the event of a core accident. NIRS charges that Duke has not adequately assessed the increasing severity of weather, nor all of the alternatives to mitigate this situation. "Duke Energy is denying the people of this region adequate protection from nuclear catastrophe, whether caused by a malicious action, or by severe weather the loss of electric power could be devastating," said Mary Olson. "Next to each of these reactor sites are hydroelectric generating facilities, also owned by Duke Energy. Duke should provide a dedicated electric link from the hydroelectric to the reactors so that they always have emergency electric power, as long as the dam is there."
"Another issue we find that Duke has not considered are the impacts on the communities on and around Lakes Norman and Wylie were Duke to close these lakes to public access for security reasons," said Paul Gunter, NIRS Reactor Watch Dog. "The Exelon Corporation has closed Lake Clinton in Illinois as part of its high security alert for the Clinton reactor. We are not sure why Duke is not offering this level of security to the Charlotte region, but certainly think they should analyze both the impact of lake closure, and also lake loss, in the event that an attack on the dams were successful," concluded Gunter.
All of the license renewal issues raised by NIRS would be compounded by the use of experimental plutonium fuel (MOX). NIRS has argued that MOX must be considered in license renewal.
NIRS also filed a Motion to Suspend the proceedings, which are taking place before an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, charging that since the NRC has made many documents pertaining to reactors, including Duke's, unavailable to the public in the wake of the events of September 11, the license renewal process should be shelved until those documents are available. The national organization's Southeast Office, based in Asheville, NC took the lead on these actions.
NIRS filed a Petition for Hearing and Motion to Intervene on behalf of our members in Duke's application to the NRC for license renewal on September 14, 2001, and a series of Motions pertaining to the lack of access to documents that may be sensitive for security reasons. NIRS supports a Motion to Dismiss and the Petition to Intervene on the Duke license renewal case by Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (www.bredl.org). BREDL also filed contentions on November 29th.