Nuclear Plant Has Been Leaking For Four Years
By Thom Hartmann A...
According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Entergy Corp has allowed highly radioactive waste to leak into a contained area at the FitzPatrick nuclear power plant for the last four years.
The FitzPatrick plant is near Oswego, New York, but the NRC has said that the leak "poses no immediate risks to any residents or the environment."
The NRC also reported that Entergy Corp's failures to deal with the leak sooner is of "more than minor significance" and could increase the cost and complexity of future efforts to safely decommission the plant.
But Tim Judson with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service told the Syracuse Post-Standard that "these violations highlight the ongoing dangers posed by the upstate nuclear reactors and the lax enforcement by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Entergy has known that this highly radioactive waste spill is a problem for four years, but the NRC has not imposed any fines or other penalties."
Comments
#2
Elinore, people like you are so ilinformed about why nuclear power is the only form of power generation for the futer. It is the cheapest form of power generation and does not pollute. Wind is nothing short of a joke as they only last 20-25 years and have a payback of 50 yrs. England has committed to phase out their coal fired power plants by 2025 and make nuclear power as their primary source of power. For now, go hug a wind turbine if that makes you feel good.
#3
radster63, It pollutes with high and low level radwaste that will be dangerous to humanity for 10000 years. Will you or anyone be around to manage the waste? Also you are dead wrong that it is the cheapest form of power generation. They have shut down and scheduled the shutdown of a dozen or more reactors because they are too costly to compete in the USA. Great Britain is on the verge of cancelling its Hinkly Point reactor economic disaster and is one of the best users of wind power in the world. Do some research. Go hug some high level radwaste that has no where to go.
#4
Nothing about this is a surprise. Our nation's nuclear power plants and our nuclear weapons programs operate in deep secrecy. The people who monitor them are "in bed" with the people who operate the systems. No one wants to be accountable for safety. I call these systems, "nuclear profit plants." The worst problem with the safe operation of nuclear profit plants is that there is no plan how to handle the dangerous waste materials created during the operation of the plants or weapons construction systems. No plan except to maybe bury them somewhere, sometime. It is a disgrace but no one is paying attention to this issue because the power creating systems make profits for the owners of the nuclear profit plants. The owner operators are given a free pass on the disposal of the waste materials. The entire system is a disgrace and a disaster waiting to occur. We can experience the same issue that Japan did five years ago with the earthquake and sunami. It is only a matter of when our disaster will occur. Sad.
#5
Forget boiling water for watts, it uses the Steam-Age's totally inefficient thermal method.
To get a Watt on-the-wire using steam takes 2-Joules, the Joules are waste-heat, a direct heating of the planet, it's air, soils and water so to understand how bad this is the analog is Arctic sea-ice albedo-loss.
With today's albedo-loss it's worth 25-years of USA power compared to the previous average 1980-2010 sea-ice cover, about 3,800-Terajoule-hours/yr for USA power = 95,000-Twh a year in energy, 1-Watt = 1-Joule.
Global steam capacity is some 18,000-Twh/year so the waste-heat is 36,000-Twh/year of direct heating; to compare: 36000÷95000 = 38% of albedo-loss for impacts.
We have direct control over this waste-heat.
End the Steam-Age close down all thermal power plants burning fuel, there's no excuse to keep them at any level of science.
#6
" "but the NRC has said that the leak "poses no immediate risks to any residents or the environment.""
They built 8 reactors at Fukushima based on (defense in depth) super safety, knowing that worse Tsunamai's had happened within the last 100 years. How can you trust these liars.
#7
Evil rich guy....upfront I'll admit to just being out with extremely progressive anonymous young friends on a Friday night, so I'll try to respect your sincerity and will do my best to not be an ass.
I'll say this about your ideology: you and anyone else so inclined to remove themselves from this country because of unjust taxation can do so at anytime...you have the money to facilitate this. I'm committed to unions and cooperatives which will take up the slack for slackards who refuse to participate in democracy by and for the people. I'm also committed to making sure election fraud doesn't happen!!!!!!!
#8
Greed counteracts common sense
#9
The Titanic was unsinkable!
#10
Elinor roosevelt: So what is your solution to meeting our energy demands in the future? If you eliminate fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, do yoy really believe windmills can pick up all the slack? Or do you want us to without air conditioning, keep the house at 62% in the Winter, and drive tiny little electric cars that have little effective range and are very uncomfortable?
My suggestion is to have the environmental hair-shirters put their money where their mouts are so to speak. Go to town on solar and wind power, increase hydroelectric power where possible, and reduce fossil fuel and nuclear power production "one for one" with "clean' energy production.
Of course, since that won't happen in the near future, or maybe ever, these same environmentalistswill then start talking about significant "lifestyle changes " that they say are "needed" to eliminate fossil fuels and nuclear plants.
I'm all for clean energy, but I'm not willing to completely eliminate fossil fuels and nuclear power until "clean" energy is able to produce supplies adequate to maintain a comfortable existence.
#11
When you compare the number of actual deaths due to petroleum and coal extraction, refining, transportation, and use, versus those caused by nuclear energy (save Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the purpose was different), the numbers vastly favor nuclear energy. There is also the viewpoint that Japan's involvement in World War II was directly related to their desire for oil, much like the USA's involvement in the Middle East since President Pappy Bush. How many lives did all that cost?
#12
There will be another accident at a nuclear power plant. It is a matter of where and when. They completly contaminated a huge government radwaste facility in New Mexico last year. Very little publicity. This will cost at least $2 billion. This is really stupid. They used organic kitty litter instead of mineral in a 55 gallon drum of moist plutonium waste. The kitty litter absorbs liquid. The organic kitty litter fermented. The barrel blew up, spreading the plutonium through the ventilation system. The said that it could not happen at Fukushima. We melted TMI unit 1. We have had 5 other close calls that could have destroyed reactors. We have no place to store or process radwaste. This is after 50 years of commercial operation. Dr J ignored deaths from uranium mining. We are shutting down nuclear and coal plants and you still have your AC. What are you complaining about?
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-mexico-nuclear-dump-20160819-sna...
https://insideclimatenews.org/slideshow/14-us-nuclear-plants-closing-or-...
#13
Legend: If we can still get all the power we need from "clean" sources after eliminating or greatly reducing nuclear power, that is one thing. However, there are environmentalists that want to stop all coal and petroleum use also. I don't believe this can be done without nuclear power sources. At present levels of technology. So far, nuclear power in the US is relatively safe. Reactors need to still be in the grid as part of our energy supply, until new technologies are proven to cost-effective ways to completely replace oli, gas, and nuclear production.
#14
They are being phased out. Now if you want them come up with some solutions for the radwaste, safety, and prohibitive cost that would help. No one else has.
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All of our Nuclear Plants in this country should be taken down and put an end to the abuse of Native American tribal lands from the mining of Uranium that poisons their waterways including aquifers. It is time to stop the sale of oil leases including Fracking which is the worst at heightening Global Warming.
I am an activist who loves our earth & all the people, animals, plants, waterways,etc. & want for our gov't to take a lead in cleaning up our use of fossil fuels which are the culprit for the warming. More & more young people have been taught all about Global Warming & all we need to do to stop it. This movement I belong to is getting stronger everyday and I believe we can stop polluting our earth in my lifetime. I am 66 yrs. old and hopeful for the future.