Slashdot Mirror
AG Scores Victory In Bid To Shut Down Indian Point (lohud.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from The Journal News: Federal safety regulators used the wrong data to analyze the potential economic impacts of a severe accident at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, a panel of commissioners for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled Wednesday. The ruling, which reversed an earlier finding, will force the NRC to conduct a fresh analysis of the costs of a devastating accident and cleanup at the nuclear power plant in Buchanan, 24 miles north of New York City. The decision was hailed by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, whose office is spearheading the state's challenge to Indian Point's efforts to renew federal licenses for its two reactors. Schneiderman estimates that some 1.5 million workers would be needed in to take part in decontamination efforts in the event of a nuclear mishap, with cleanup costs surging as high as $1 trillion.
The problem is it's New York Real Estate, money, and political capital. You are *sixteen miles* from the Tappan Zee and thirty miles from the West Side Highway. It makes zero sense to have any risk of a meltdown someplace where real estate is that expensive, the population is that large, and a major chunk of the world economy goes through that population's daily business.
Real lawyers write in C++
Much like Vermont Yankee, Entergy is running Indian Point into the ground. The AG also forced new safety inspections an those showed Entergy had let a known problem slide past any other reactor known to date. http://www.lohud.com/story/new...
Who upvotes this FUD?
The very article linked above references the actual report from the NRC. Far from letting a known problem slide past any known to date, NRC article notes that the Indian Point reactor in question was shutdown for routine maintenance. A new check of bolts that had been known to wear from experience revealed that a great many of them needed replacement, so they were replaced before the reactor was brought back online.
The other way to spin the NRC report is that routine and standard maintenance procedures at Indian Point have allowed it to continue it's operating record of zero work place fatalities, zero emissions and zero radiation escaping the plant. How many coal plants can claim ANY of those points let alone all of them?
Seriously, the anti-nuclear crowd is leaping on standard maintenance as proof of 'problems' looks an awful lot like those declaring even more missing links in evolution every time a new link is posted.