On October 7, Vermont’s own nuclear watchdog, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, together with other petitioners, presented arguments before the Petition Review Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, concerning the continued operation of GE Mark 1 BWR reactors across the U.S.
It is Arnie’s belief that, with a long history of fundamental design failures and poor bandaid fixes; and in consideration of lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, all twenty-three GE Mark 1 BWR nuclear reactors in the United States (notably including Vermont Yankee) should be immediately shut-down.
In the following video clip of Arnie’s comments to the NRC, he reiterates the four principle issues he has repeatedly raised over the years.
Perhaps the most disturbing piece of all this is the staggering volume of unsecured nuclear waste that these reactors have come to store in over-crowded pools where they are most vulnerable to accident.
It’s a brief but very compelling testimony that was joined by other expert voices. Judging from past history, the urgency of their combined petition seems unlikely to offset the tremendous pull of the industry in maintaining their bottom-line as an NRC priority; but we can hope.
Post Fukushima: All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men… from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Sue, your assessments of Fairewinds’ videos are always better than I write being in the midst of it all! Thank you.
Your comment above is one of the most concerning issues to me. Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island did a thorough study of this issue and concluded that if one of the BWR spent fuel pools would have a fire, almost 200,000 people would die.
This type of data and an accurate assessment of the facts were not available to me when I first worked in the nuclear industry and then went into nuclear PR. So much information is only coming out now, and the NRC has granted so many waivers to many critical regulations, that I really am more concerned than ever. And, the accidents at Fukushima have proven that there are significant industry-wide problems!