Thanks to nTodd for pointing us toward this choice piece of perspective on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and it’s pas de deux with the power industry.
Tom Zeller, writing on Huffington Post draws our attention to a 1992 document entitled “Perspectives on the License Renewal Process.” Sent to the NRC by Northern States Power Company, the paper advocated an extremely lenient approach to relicensing:
In a nutshell, the document argued that the NRC examined aspects of plant operation beyond the scope of what was necessary for license renewal, and the agency therefore ran the risk of making license renewal uneconomical.
Mr. Zeller points out that three years later, in 1995, the NRC changed its rules so as to eliminate entirely the part of the relicensing process that looked at whether or not a facility was in fact, operating in full compliance with it’s current license!
Precipitating the 1992 document and subsequent change in NRC rules was a development in the 1980’s when a nuclear plant in Monticello, Minnesota that was seeking renewal was found on examination to be so grievously out of compliance that it was forced to close even before its current license had expired.
a result, Monticello’s operators — and the wider industry — went on the offensive.
Now here is where Mr. Zeller really caught my attention because he linked that last phrase to a NY Times article that used a photo of the collapsed tower at Vermont Yankee to illustrate the point that perhaps the NRC is now entirely too cozy with the industry. While this hardly is news to us, it gives some satisfaction to see others connecting the dots.
It would appear that the NRC has effectively taken the extraordinary step of mandating that a blind eye will be turned on any issues of current use. The only remaining criteria are the plans the applicant offers for future operation! Furthermore, it has taken this step soley for the economic advantage it gives to the industry.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster how can this betrayal of the public trust be tolerated?
A disturbing but not surprising part of Zeller’s full article in the New York Times is the incestuous relationship between the NRC and the industry it is supposed to regulate. One critic describes the it this way :
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05…
Did it strike a nerve?
It’s interesting that it was not Mathew Wald the NY Times usual nuclear industry reporter who wrote this piece. Angwin at the YesVY online continuous feedback loop complained about that, all but saying “he wasn’t one of our reporters”.
“the NRC changed its rules so as to eliminate entirely the part of the relicensing process that looked at whether or not a facility was in fact, operating in full compliance with it’s current license!”
Well, yeah. If the NRC were to actually enforce the regulations, then no plant would be renewed. It is far better to renew a license for a decrepit and degenerate nuclear plant without any review because the alternative is to shut down these aged plants for safety violations – and nobody (that matters) wants that!
And as BP points out in his excerpt, “They’re not going to do anything to jeopardize that.”
The NRC is a perfect example of a well functioning Republican regulatory agency: controlled by the industry it is regulating, run by industry personnel, rubber stamping everything they see, and only sometimes reluctantly enforcing the bare minimum of regulations only when publicly humiliated into doing so.
http://www.democraticundergrou…
The nuclear industry and its regulators have lied to the public for years and continue to do so about Fukishima and VT Yankee. And now we have a new generation of so called environmentalists who have drunk the industry’s new kool-aid that we must have nuclear power because coal is so dirty. What a ridiculous argument! Both are filthy sources of energy in their own ways.
We need renewable energy and a new study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that renewables can meet global demand. There is no reason to boil water with nuclear reactors and there is no place on earth as yet for nuclear waste. This has been a huge and horrific technological boondoggle that has permanently damaged the gene pool and serves only to enrich the industry and its military backers. We are at an end game for life on earth and the enemy is the corporatocracy in all its nasty forms; nuclear, coal, Monsanto’s destruction of the seed base, fracking. When will the public wake from its dreams of electing a savior to demand an end to the destruction of the commons?