The Associated Press has just spent a year looking at how nuclear power plants get licensed. The conclusion is that history is being rewritten and regulations are industry driven, not safety driven.
America gets about 20% of its energy from nuclear power plants. Most of the plants were built in the 1960’s, with an expected lifespan of 40 years. Simple math: 1960 + 40 = 2000. The existing plants should be dead and buried by now. But they aren’t. They are getting reauthorized with very little input from the public and very little oversight by regulators.
This appears to be another profit over people scheme. With an expected lifespan of 40 years, the original investment has been fully recaptured through depreciation tax breaks, leaving only operating costs on the books of the utilities. Just as it is a lot easier to make a family’s budget balance if there is no mortgage to support, a fully paid-for nuclear power plant is way more profitable than one that has just been built. The cost of building a plant has no doubt increased over the past 40 years.
One would assume that regulation would have toughened over the intervening decades, also. But one would be wrong. Just as emergency plans in the oil and gas industry, especially on deep water drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, were cut and paste documents that all read the same--including making plans to save animals that hadn’t been seen in the Gulf for about a million years--emergency plans in the nuclear power industry are cut and paste documents. They all said 40 years ago that the lifespan of a nuclear power plant was 40 years. Now they all say that same plant can live another 40, or even 60 years, despite original engineering anticipating 40 years.
I have a scary personal story to tell you. My second ex-husband was an engineer on a nuclear power plant. He was living in New Orleans at the time, where bars are open most of the night. He was an alcoholic. He drank himself into oblivion every night, and then on about two hours of sleep, he would go to work designing a nuclear power plant. I don’t know that every engineer was that irresponsible, but one was, and it only takes one major engineering mistake to cause a lot of trouble.
So far my excursion into trying to understand nuclear energy has led me to discover that aging power plants are being rubber stamped for reauthorization, with little or no safety reviews. At least two of them, near Omaha, were built in a known flood plain. What other hazards are out there for me to discover?
Homework
Regulatory Capture in Nuclear Power Plants
Officals Say Power Plants Near Omaha Are Safe
America gets about 20% of its energy from nuclear power plants. Most of the plants were built in the 1960’s, with an expected lifespan of 40 years. Simple math: 1960 + 40 = 2000. The existing plants should be dead and buried by now. But they aren’t. They are getting reauthorized with very little input from the public and very little oversight by regulators.
This appears to be another profit over people scheme. With an expected lifespan of 40 years, the original investment has been fully recaptured through depreciation tax breaks, leaving only operating costs on the books of the utilities. Just as it is a lot easier to make a family’s budget balance if there is no mortgage to support, a fully paid-for nuclear power plant is way more profitable than one that has just been built. The cost of building a plant has no doubt increased over the past 40 years.
One would assume that regulation would have toughened over the intervening decades, also. But one would be wrong. Just as emergency plans in the oil and gas industry, especially on deep water drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, were cut and paste documents that all read the same--including making plans to save animals that hadn’t been seen in the Gulf for about a million years--emergency plans in the nuclear power industry are cut and paste documents. They all said 40 years ago that the lifespan of a nuclear power plant was 40 years. Now they all say that same plant can live another 40, or even 60 years, despite original engineering anticipating 40 years.
I have a scary personal story to tell you. My second ex-husband was an engineer on a nuclear power plant. He was living in New Orleans at the time, where bars are open most of the night. He was an alcoholic. He drank himself into oblivion every night, and then on about two hours of sleep, he would go to work designing a nuclear power plant. I don’t know that every engineer was that irresponsible, but one was, and it only takes one major engineering mistake to cause a lot of trouble.
So far my excursion into trying to understand nuclear energy has led me to discover that aging power plants are being rubber stamped for reauthorization, with little or no safety reviews. At least two of them, near Omaha, were built in a known flood plain. What other hazards are out there for me to discover?
Homework
Regulatory Capture in Nuclear Power Plants
Officals Say Power Plants Near Omaha Are Safe
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