The 23 American reactors in 13 states [out of 104] are GE boiling-water reactors with GEs Mark I systems for containing radioactivity, the same containment system used by the reactors in trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission database that MSNBC accessed. The Mark I has design problems, the NIRS has said. Some modifications have been made to U.S. Mark I reactors since 1986, although the fundamental design deficiencies remain, the NIRS said. The following 23 U.S. plants have GE boiling-water reactors (GE models 2, 3 or 4) with the same Mark I containment design used at Fukushima, according to the NRC online database: Browns Ferry 1, Athens, Ala., operating license since 1973, reactor type GE 4 Browns Ferry 2, Athens, Ala., 1974, GE 4 Browns Ferry 3, Athens, Ala., 1976, GE 4 Brunswick 1, Southport, N.C, 1976, GE 4. Brunswick 2, Southport, N.C., 1974, GE 4. Cooper, Brownville, Neb., 1974, GE 4. Dresden 2, Morris, Ill., 1970, GE 3. Dresden 3, Morris, Ill., 1971, GE 3. Duane Arnold, Palo, Iowa, 1974, GE 4. Fermi 2, Monroe, Mich., 1985, GE 4. FitzPatrick, Scriba, N.Y., 1974, GE 4. Hatch 1, Baxley, Ga., 1974, GE 4. Hatch 2, Baxley, Ga., 1978, GE 4. Hope Creek, Hancocks Bridge, N.J. 1986, GE 4. Monticello, Monticello, Minn., 1970, GE 3. Nine Mile Point 1, Scriba, N.Y., 1969, GE 2. Oyster Creek, Forked River, N.J., 1969, GE 2. Peach Bottom 2, Delta, Pa., 1973, GE 4. Peach Bottom 3, Delta, Pa., 1974, GE 4. Pilgrim, Plymouth, Mass., 1972, GE 3. Quad Cities 1, Cordova, Ill., 1972, GE 3. Quad Cities 2, Moline, Ill., 1972, GE 3. Vermont Yankee, Vernon, Vt., 1972, GE 4. Full list and locations: newsmax/Newsfront/GE-reactors-Japan-UnitedStates/2011/03/... These NPPs were designed to last no more than 30 years. We are now 12 years past their expiration date, and counting. Researcher and reporter Chris Carrington goes back to 1972 to begin exposing the cover-up that led to the 2011 catastrophe in Fukushima. It was in that year that Stephen H. Hanauer of the Atomic Energy Commission called on GE to discontinue its Mark I nuclear reactor design because it, “presented unacceptable safety risks.” Immediately after, Joseph Hendrie who would later become the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, agreed that the Mark I should be stopped. But instead of warning the world about the dangers of the GE design, he warned the nuclear industry that the design was so popular and already in place around the world, a warning of its danger, “could well be the end of nuclear power.” Since then, other experts have warned about the dangers of the GE Mark I design. Their usual concerns are two-fold. First, the reactors were criticized for not being equipped to handle the pressure that would ensue if cooling power suddenly shut off. The second warning was over the design’s spent fuel rod cooling ponds. They are 100 feet in the air near the top of each reactor. In Fukushima’s case, one of the six reactors was installed in 1971, prior to the warnings. But the other five were put online between 1973 and 1979, long after the dangers were well known. The article author cites a number of critics who reportedly believe General Electric should be held partially liable for the disaster in Japan. They insist that GE not only designed the faulty reactors, but built them and has been on-site to run them for the Japanese utility TEPCO all this time. In fact, they suggest that GE is actually profiting from the disaster by outsourcing its knowledge and expertise to the Japanese government in a multi-billion-dollar effort to contain the still-leaking radiation. The report goes on to explain that even if negligence is discovered, on either TEPCO or GE’s part, both corporations are exempt from liability. Apparently, all nuclear reactor operators pay into a general liability fund, just like US banks, in case of large-scale accidents. It’s estimated that each nuclear plant pays roughly $100 million into the fund, which reportedly exceeds $10 billion. For that insurance payment, the reactor manufacturers and operators are exempt from liability. Critics argue that $100 million per site is nowhere near enough money to cover the clean-up of a Fukushima-style disaster. Japanese authorities have already set aside $80 billion to clean-up Fukushima, and there are still 10,000 more years to babysit the contaminated nuclear site. That’s 800-times the amount US authorities have allowed the nuclear corporations to pay for the insurance policy on what could potentially be a $1 trillion-dollar-disaster after all is said and done. Carrington and The Daily Sheeple suggest that President Obama’s silence on the topic is due to his fear that someone might mention the fact that there are currently 23 GE Mark I nuclear power reactors operating in the United States. “Any admission that radiation has spread across the Pacific Ocean and contaminated American soil is an admission that the technology was flawed, and that same flawed technology is being used in the United States,” Carrington says, “The government does not want anyone looking closer at the situation. They don’t want people poking around asking questions about why the radiation got out in the first place - it’s too close to home.” The article goes on to ask, ‘Nothing has been published regarding the increased rates of miscarriage and childhood thyroid cancers. Why is that?’ The author has a point. Hypothyroid disease is a mandatory test in babies here in the US. Test results since the Fukushima disaster show an increase in newborns testing positive for the radiation-induced disease throughout America’s western states. But the scientific community has been eerily silent on the anomaly for three years now while the US President publicly insists it’s untrue. whiteoutpress/articles/2014/q1/23-us-nuclear-plants-use-s... As early as 1971, government regulators knew that the public’s last line of defense against the radiation, the reactor containment, was virtually worthless yet licensed the General Electric (GE) and Westinghouse Ice Condenser reactors anyway. When an Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) staff member suggested that this type of containment design be banned in the U.S. the AEC’s deputy director for technical review responded that it “could well be the end of nuclear power. It would throw into question the continued operation of licensed plants, could make unlicensable the GE and Westinghouse ice condenser plants now in review and would generally create more turmoil than I can think about.” ... In 1986 Harold Denton, former director of NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, again acknowledged this vulnerability while speaking to utilities executives at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Denton noted that, according to NRC studies the GE Mark I reactors had “something like a 90% probability of that containment failing.” (from pages 38-39, The Myth of Containment) greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/dangerous-... In the next 10 years, many of these NPPs will fail, and fail spectacularly. Fukushima is only the beginning, now we are just waiting for the domestic plants to die of old age. Many plants have already been shut down because there is no way to fix whats wrong, no place to send the spent fuel, continuous water cooling needed for a billion years. Within two weeks of the cooling water not running, another Fukushima explosion. There is an NPP in New York running without a license, because no one wants the responsibility of issuing one - its close to blowing. Would you want your name on that, if it takes out the East Coast? In the meantime, every working NPP is producing at full steam, with multi-decade license extensions given by people that know they will blow well before that license expires. Every country on earth knows whats coming. The USA is dying a radioactive death in fits and starts, beginning to wheeze from Fukushima, until the real action starts - and it will start. The bankers are in the process of squeezing every last drop of value out of this country, until the place is littered with exploded nuclear power plants and the US becomes a radioactive wasteland. And thats the best case scenario. If hackers disrupt the electrical grid for more than two weeks to any NPP, itll explode. And dont count on the worthless emergency gensets that are guaranteed to fail at startup. Another corner cut. You can trade, buy gold, land, guns, whatever makes you happy, but there is no stopping the nuclear death of the US in the very near future. And beyond the US, the DNA that makes this planet tick will melt along with them. Life is over within 100 years.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 03:36:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015