(New Jersey's) Oyster Creek liner a near catastrophe, group says

[jpak]

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/5899021p-5913549c.html

— A coalition formed to fight the renewal of the Oyster Creek Generating Station's license claims that portions of a steel liner designed to prevent radioactivity from contaminating the community have nearly eroded through.

The group, made up of environmental activists and Ocean County homeowners, cited a Jan. 31 conference call during which technical experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission named Oyster Creek, in Lacey Township, as one of four nuclear reactors in the country with corrosion problems that need to be examined through ultrasonic testing. The Stop the Renewal of Oyster Creek Coalition also retained its own expert who determined that erosion of the containment liner has left the 90-foot tall nuclear reactor in danger of collapsing.

They held a Statehouse news conference Thursday to announce their findings, call for a hearing and lobby the support of Gov. Jon Corzine.

“I've come to the governor's house to ask the governor to help us,” said Janet Tauro, a Brick Township resident who joined the coalition after she submitted the baby teeth of her two children for testing and high levels of radiation were found.

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Radiation barrier tests inadequate, critics say

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060801/NEWS02/608010312

A plan by Oyster Creek nuclear power plant officials to measure the thickness of a corroded radiation barrier is inadequate because the work would cover only about 1 percent of the damaged area, plant opponents said Monday.

But Oyster Creek spokeswoman Rachelle Benson said the intended procedure to measure 19 square-shaped areas, the thinnest sections, would provide sufficient data to determine whether the 100-foot-tall structure is safe.

Thus, the debate continued over whether Oyster Creek's plan to monitor the barrier, otherwise known as the drywell liner, would be effective enough to spot degradation in a part of the plant that's both extremely radioactive and hard to reach.

What the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission thinks of the monitoring plan is what matters most to both sides.

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Corzine says he's against relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant for another 20 years

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060803/NEWS/60803018

NEPTUNE — In his most decisive statement on the issue to date, Gov. Jon Corzine said today that he is against the federal government relicensing the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey for another 20-year term.

"I don't think this should be relicensed for 20 years under any circumstances, just
because there's been too much concern about breakdowns,'' Corzine said. "I don't think you can give assurances about anything.''

"We have to be safe first, and intellectually honest,'' he said. "I would like to know what the status of that plant is.''

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Danger at Oyster Creek plant could bring disaster

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060713/OPINION/607130388

Two dangerous conditions at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey, combined with an unworkable evacuation plan, could spell disaster not only for the Jersey Shore but the entire state.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have recently acknowledged what former Department of Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell had said for years: Some areas around the reactor are inaccessible, making it impossible to test for safety or corrosion.

The metal container around the reactor has rusted since Oyster Creek began operations in 1969. That much we know. If corrosion eats through enough of the liner, NRC officials have acknowledged that it can buckle and collapse on itself, destroying a complex system of pipes, valves and electrical circuits that protect the atomic reactor from a meltdown.

How much of a risk should we ask the public to tolerate?

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Oyster Creek environmental impact argued

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060713/NEWS/607130376

DOVER TOWNSHIP — A positive report on the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant's effect on the environment was labeled Wednesday as "irrelevant" by a Rutgers University marine science professor who said some key data used are more than 25 years old.

Michael J. Kennish, a research professor regarded as an expert on the bay near the Lacey plant, questioned why federal nuclear safety regulators would cite 1970s data about Barnegat Bay marine life populations and not ask for a new survey.

"You send the report out to my peers at Penn State and other universities, and it would be rejected so quickly," said Kennish, speaking at a Quality Inn ballroom during a public hearing on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission report.

The comments collected from Kennish and others will help regulators decide whether to renew Oyster Creek's operating license for an additional 20 years.

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If cooling towers are required, plant (Oyster creek) might close

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060215/SPECIAL06/60215003

Can the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant afford to install costly cooling towers, or would the plant close to avoid the expense?

State environmental officials want towers to be built to preserve aquatic life from Barnegat Bay, but the plant's operator, AmerGen Energy Co., said they are costly and unneeded.

At a state Department of Environmental Protection public hearing in October, Oyster Creek technician Dave Most said he believed AmerGen will close the site if the state requires cooling towers. "It's not viable as a business case," he said.

Most is a newly elected township committeeman in Lacey, where the plant is located.

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Oyster Creek evacuation plan debated

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060712/NEWS/607120358

DOVER TOWNSHIP — While stuck in the Lacey High School parking lot after her daughter's award ceremony, Cheryl Borowski hoped that she would not hear the sirens that would signify an emergency at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant.

It took Borowski more than an hour to reach her Dover Township home that Saturday in March, a trip up Route 9 that would take about 20 minutes under normal traffic conditions.

The delay, during a time of year without much tourism, worried Borowski about what would happen during an evacuation prompted by a severe accident at the Lacey plant.

On Tuesday night, Borowski told state emergency preparedness officials about her traffic nightmare and explained it as a reason why the plant should be shut down.

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Let its license expire in 2009. New Jersey's RPS is 20% renewables by 2020 - no need to relicense this wheezing dinosaur...

[soothsayer]

1. nuclear power is such an untenable idea.

[msongs]

2. put all nuke plants on dick cheney or W's ranches nt

[jpak]

3. Relicensing the OC would endanger hundreds of thousands of NJ residents

It's no wonder NJ's Democratic governor is against it.

[hunter]

4. The goal here is to make the bullshit too thick to swim through.

Coherent answers to specific engineering problems don't matter so much.

But a rat's nest of clippings is not an intellectually honest form of argument.

It seems these sorts of intellectually dishonest arguments have prevented Gov. Jon Corzine from knowing what the true status of the plant is, doesn't it?

[jpak]

5. A corroding 36-year-old nuclear plant that regularly causes fish kills

in an area that has undergone a huge population growth and massive development over the last 4 decades is not a problem????

Intellectually dishonest indeed...

[hunter]

6. I didn't state my take on the problem, did I?

The sort of arguments you are trying to make could easily discredit you if public opinion sways the other way.

Here's how it's probably going to go down: natural gas shortages will cause the lights to go out, and the public will quickly embrace nuclear power. As an anti-nuclear activist how do you expect to maintain your credibility? If you have no credibility, then government regulation of the nuclear industry will be less adequate than it might have been.

This reminds me very much of the situation at Rancho Seco. Very much was wrong with this plant, but by far the most political hay was made from the "precious bodily fluids" argument, the idea that this specific plant, rather than the toxic swamp of ag chemicals surrounding it, was the cause of "cancer clusters" and other social miseries.

Most of the arguments for closing this plant down were irrational. The rational arguments for closing this plant got drowned in the bullshit.

If the general public decides to embrace nuclear power, and they might if their air conditioners stop working, or their ports are closed, they will be quick to view other rational arguments against nuclear power as bullshit.

[jpak]

7. Why am I not concerned about this????

When the gas goes down, people will not clamor for new nuclear power plants (that would take a better part of a decade to build under the rosiest scenario).

They will be falling all over themselves trying to buy PV systems, solar hot water heaters and pellet stoves (and new Energy Star windows and doors and more attic insulation).

Those things can be done far more rapidly than building new nuclear plants.

Also, Rancho Sucko was a real dog in the reliability dept. It was down more often than it was producing power and maintenance costs were more than a little pricey.

That was the real reason why SMUD shut it down (SMUD, the nation's leader in solar and renewable energy).