Directly west and upwind of Charlestown, 20 miles away
By Will Collette
Virginia-based Dominion Resources is a major player in
electricity generation in New England. They own the Millstone nuclear power
plant outside of New London just 20 miles west of Charlestown. They also own
the nasty coal-fired Brayton Point plant just over the Rhode Island line in
Somerset, MA.
Dominion is petitioning for permission to dramatically
increase the amount of nuclear waste it stores on site. They currently store
some spent nuclear rods in pools, but also have 19 casks of “dry-storage” waste
as well. They
are asking for approval to increase the number of dry casks to 135. While
it is much safer to store waste in armored casks, compared to pools, this plan
means long-term, on-site storage.
Since the launch of the commercial nuclear energy industry – still one of the most heavily government-subsidized energy sources even after more than 50 years of operation – critics have pointed out the daunting issue of nuclear waste disposal.
In its early years, industry
supporters answered optimistically, saying that by the time the waste started
to accumulate, science and the government would figure out a safe way to handle
the waste.
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| Millstone's current waste storage site |
Fifty years later and we’re still waiting.
Spent fuel from nuclear power plants remains a severe
public health and safety risk for tens of thousands of years.
Right now, most nuclear power plant operators store
their spent fuel rods, some with radioactivity levels as high as 96% of their
original strength, in water-filled pools. These pools provide somewhat safe,
temporary storage, but if those pools are compromised by attack or by accident – as the ones at the Fukashima
reactors in Japan were by the earthquake and tsunami, and water level drops, they can catch fire, creating catastrophic results.
In 1997,
The Brookhaven National Laboratory issued a study on what could happen if
there was a pool fire at the Millstone power plant. They concluded that such a
fire would kill 100 people instantly and another 138,000 people over time.
2,170 square miles of land could be contaminated. That would, of course,
include Charlestown just 20 miles to the east.
In 2002, former top Energy Department official Robert
Alvarez wrote a report, "What About The Spent Fuel?" Alvarez
speculated about the results of a nuclear waste pool fire at Millstone, noting
that “On average, spent fuel ponds hold five to 10 times more long-lived
radioactivity than a reactor core.”
He estimated heightened radiation levels would render 29,000 square miles uninhabitable. That would
include just about all of Connecticut all the way to New York City, Rhode
Island and much of eastern Massachusetts. The economic impact would be
incalculable. When Alvarez wrote that report ten years ago, Millstone had 585
rods stored on-site in pools.
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| Cask storage of nuclear waste |
Clearly, dry cask storage has many health and safety
advantages over storage in pools. Storing the rods in armored concrete and
steel containers 17 feet high provides more security. But plant operators are
reluctant to switch to dry casks, largely because of the costs of between $1
and $1.5 million per cask.
Any plan to store the waste requires planners to
theorize how land masses might shift over very long periods and to come up with
a way of warning humans (or whatever other sentient beings might replace humans
in the future) not to touch this deadly material. Of course, the first
challenge is figuring out how to engineer storage containers that will stay
intact over millennia.
Dominion is submitting its application to the
Connecticut Siting Council. The Council is expected to make its decision 30 to
60 days after it holds a public hearing.
Since Dominion has filled eighteen of its 19 existing
casks – and has partially filled that last, 19th one – there is some
urgency to Dominion’s request. Why they waited until the issue became so
“ripe,” could be a strategic move by Dominion, given that it was only a year
ago, August 2011, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sited Dominion for two safety violations at Millstone.
There are pros and cons in the debate over every form of
energy we generate to power our culture. We all know the arguments over fossil
fuels. And nuclear energy. It has been fascinating to see issues of cost, the
need for subsidies and safety being applied to alternative energy projects – as
if somehow the issues of cost, subsidies and safety don’t apply to conventional
energy sources.
Some Charlestown residents seem more concerned about “shadow
flicker” and the chance a wind turbine might disturb their rustic repose than
what’s just 20 miles down I-95.
Despite Charlestown’s claim of noble environmental
credentials, it seems that we are being left in the dust when it comes to
alternative energy. We care about our land and water, woods and woodland
creatures as we should, but there is more to being an environmentalist than
caring about open space.
Like knowing which way the wind blows, and wondering
what those winds might carry.
