Cross-posted at dailykos.com)
What would its destruction look like, if, somehow, the worst happened? Would it all end in a flash of light or perhaps the classic mushroom cloud? I’ve often wondered as I pass the Indian Point nuclear facility twice daily during my trip to and from work. You see, I live just a few miles away With my wife and my 6 year old child.
I can see the domes as I pass the facility both at the beginning and end of my day. The setting is actually quite spectacular, more appropriate for a resort hotel than a power plant. Indian Point was built directly on the Hudson river at a point where it is surrounded by the steep Hudson highlands, the same scenery that gave rise to the well-known Hudson river school of painters.
According to Riverkeeper, it is estimated that more than 20 million people live within a 50 mile radius of of the power plant. http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaign.php/indian_point Included are the 5 boroughs of New York City and surounding suburbs, northern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut. These are some of the most densely populated areas in the nation. Perhaps most disturbing of all, residential neighborhoods are within a few minutes walk of the plant.
The facility was built almost 30 years ago at a time before the problems now associated with at least some nuclear power plants were fully appreciated, both from environmental and safety standpoints. It was also a time when terrorism was considerably less of a threat.
Perhaps you might think that I’m a bit of an alarmist. Riverkeeper has much to say about these issues starting with the facility’s poor safety record:
IP-2 AND IP-3 AFFLICTED WITH UNPLANNED SHUTDOWNS AND ELECTRICAL SYSTEM DISTURBANCES: On August 12, 2003, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission launched a special inspection of Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear power plant to assess why there have been nine unplanned shutdowns and electrical system disturbances at both reactor units during the past 18 months. The national average for the 103 operating reactors is less than one unplanned shutdown per reactor. …
Recent studies prepared for the NRC by the Los Alamos National Laboratory concluded that that the chances of a reactor meltdown increase by nearly a factor of 100 at Indian Point because the plant’s drainage pits (also known as containment sumps) are “almost certain” to be blocked with debris during an accident. The Los Alamos study rejected the possibility that clogging in the event of a loss of coolant accident at Indian Point could be prevented by other safety measures. “The indicated outcome is almost certain,” the report said. “Consideration of all identified uncertainties has been made, and none has been found to have a credible effect on the outcome.” In an accident at a nuclear plant, water and steam rushing out from a broken pipe can blow insulation and coatings off of equipment. The water can carry this debris to the containment sump and clog the mesh screens that cover the sumps. When this happens, the emergency pumps cannot get the water needed for sustained cooling of the reactor core. It becomes only a matter of time before the reactor core overheats and releases a radioactive cloud to threaten people downwind of the plant.
There is much more on the Riverkeeper site and I would recommend going there to read all of it. With respect to dangerous radioactive emissions there is this (in part):
5) Accidents Will Happen. Radioactive releases result from plant accidents. On February 15, 2000, IP-2 suffered a ruptured steam generator tube that released 20,000 gallons of radioactive coolant into the plant. The incident was the result of poor plant maintenance by the plant operator and lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The accident, a stage 2 event, triggered a radioactive release to the atmosphere. The NRC gave the plant its worst rating because of the previous plant operator’s failure to detect flaws in a steam generator tube before the February 2000 leak. It was later revealed that a week after the accident, 200 gallons of radioactive water was accidentally released into the Hudson River.
Another concern with Indian Point is the potential for earthquake damage based upon its location adjacent to a fault line. Again, Riverkeeper has this to say, in part:
In the wake of 9/11 there have been renewed concerns regarding Indian Point’s susceptibility to terrorist attack. Apparently little has changed since before that time. Riverkeeper has much to say about this. Here is a small portion:
The primary concern is the fuel within the nuclear reactor and the spent fuel stored onsite after its removal from the nuclear reactor. The fuel, whether inside the nuclear reactor or not, must be cooled to prevent damage from overheating. If the fuel is damaged, government studies report that the radioactive material released from either the reactor or the onsite irradiated “spent” fuel can kill and injure tens of thousands of people living within 500 miles and render large regions uninhabitable for long periods. …
Severe core damage could result from one of several situations: loss-of-coolant, station black-out, interference with the reactor controls, or elimination of the capability to cool the core of a shut-down reactor (loss of the heat sink). Structures on site including containment domes, irradiated spent fuel pools, and control rooms are not designed to sustain a crash from a large airplane or a smaller plane loaded with explosives.
There is much that Riverkeeper has to add about Indian Point’s vulnerability to aircraft. One would think that this would be an area receiving appropriate attention. Apparently not. Here, again, is a small portion:
No defenses exist to intercept an attacking aircraft. …
Indian Point nuclear power station has three spent fuel pools, one for each reactor unit. (The reactor at unit 1 was shut down in 1974, but its “spent” fuel pool still contains irradiated fuel assemblies, approximately 100 tons.) The pools for the operating units, 2 and 3, each contain approximately 600 tons of irradiated fuel. Each of the spent fuel pools is housed in buildings that contain less than 18 inches of concrete in the walls and approximately 6 inches of concrete in the roof. …
A February 2001 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, Technical Study of Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk at Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants (NUREG-1738), estimated that “1 of 2 aircrafts is large enough to penetrate a 5-foot-thick reinforced concrete wall.” Furthermore, “the conditional probability that a large aircraft crash will penetrate a 5-foot-thick reinforced concrete wall is taken as 0.45 (interpolated from NUREG/CR-5042).” The report “further estimated that 1 of 2 crashes damages the spent fuel pool enough to uncover the stored fuel.” …
The above-mentioned report has significance not only for the spent fuel pools at Indian Point, but for the concrete containment domes at units 2 and 3, which are 6 to 7 feet thick at the base and 3 1/2 feet thick at the top of the dome. …
According to the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, the offsite consequences of a pool fire at Indian Point Unit 2 could include the rendering uninhabitable of a land area of about 95,000 square kilometers, and a pool fire at Unit 3 could render uninhabitable a land area of about 75,000 square kilometers. For comparison, the area of New York State is 127,000 square kilometers.
Riverkeeper cites this cheery little episode showing the failure of security after 9/11:
Indian Point or Disney, which is more secure? Riverkeeper has the answer:
Of course, Indian Point does not have a monopoly on these problems. Furthermore, New York is not the only place “blessed” with a nuclear facility. And it is possible that we will see greater use of nuclear power in the future as our dear leader has made this part of his energy “plan”. But when I put my son to bed at night and look in his eyes just before I kiss him good night, I would like to have some sense of security. I would like to remove at least this one danger from our midst. Close it down!
