News

May 2, 2009

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The discovery of water flowing across the floor of a building at the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y., traced to a leak in a buried pipe, is stirring concern about the plant’s underground pipes and those of other aging reactors across the country.

A one-and-a-half-inch hole caused by corrosion allowed about 100,000 gallons of water to escape from the main system that keeps the reactor cool immediately after any shutdown, according to nuclear experts. The leak was discovered on Feb. 16, according to the plant’s owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, a subsidiary of the Entergy Corporation.

By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Writer

Tue May 5, 5:06 pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY – Despite having their own radioactive waste dump, three states have shipped millions of cubic feet of waste across the country this decade to a private Utah facility that is the only one available to 36 other states, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. Department of Energy records.

The shipments are stoking concerns that waste from Connecticut, New Jersey and South Carolina is taking up needed space in Utah, unnecessarily creating potential shipping hazards and undermining the government's intent for states to dispose of their own waste on a regional basis.

By Ken Picard 

In the world of industrial-scale electricity generation, some structures are so large and powerful that the sight of them takes your breath away. Their massive, spinning turbines can generated millions of kilowatt-hours of cheap and reliable energy for years at a time, while contributing virtually nothing to global warming. 

Yet, even these enormous and seemingly permanent structures eventually reach the end of their operational lives. 

To read this excellent story published by Seven Days and used with their permission, use this link: 

 In this March 31, 2009 document, Exelon reports on the status of the decommissioning fund for each of its nuclear power plants, as the company is required to do by federal code. When plants were licensed, it was required that they maintain a fund to close down and clean up a reactor site at the end of its life, or for any other reason. 

To read the report, open pdf titled "Exelon 3-3-2009": 

In a 2007 report, Exelon explains to the NRC how it calculated the costs of decommissioning.

To read this report, open pdf titled "Exelon 11-2007": 

 PPL, in April 2009, requested an exemption from regualations, asking the NRC's permission to withhold from the public reports related to the costs of decommissioning the plant and the "financial assurances" required by federal law; assurances that the company has the funds to decommission the plant. 

In this letter, a PPL officer asks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep the reports "just between the two of them." 

To read the document, open pdf: