But I wouldn't want to live here for the next 20 years, which is the duration of the operating license extension sought by Pilgrim's owner, Entergy.
The odds of a natural disaster of Fukushima-like proportions at Pilgrim are admittedly Lottery-esque. A few of the doomsday scenarios, such as a strong hurricane striking Plymouth this summer or fall, carry odds in the range of 1-in-several thousand. The chances of other potential catastrophes are 1-in-several million. But if you played the Lottery every day for 20 years, wouldn't you expect to hit big at least once?
Like most of the commercial-scale nuclear reactors in the world, the reactors at Fukushima and Pilgrim are boiling water reactors. In the Science Photo Library image above, the reactor vessel is housed inside a containment building, left, and generates steam to spin turbine-driven generators in the powerhouse side of the plant, right. The yellow components inside the reactor vessel represent the radioactive fuel rods, which heat water to a boil and produce steam to run the generators. Water in the reactor vessel is an essential part of the cooling system for the fuel rods.
Keeping the fuel rods immersed in water prevents them from becoming so hot that they melt or catch fire. Meltdown events increase pressure in reactor vessels as radioactive material is released from the fuel rods. The more fuel that melts, the bigger the radioactive mess and the higher the risk of a Hindenberg-like hydrogen gas explosion.
Hydrogen gas from melting fuel rods triggered the most destructive explosions at the Fukushima reactor containment buildings.
I've followed the nuclear industry since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. My introduction to the field was the Carter administration's investigative report on the damage to reactor No. 2 at Three Mile Island, which is located 10 miles from the Pennsylvania capital, Harrisburg. It was easy and appropriate to blame human error for the series of events that led to the top of reactor No. 2 melting, which released radioactive gases and material into the reactor vessel and the reactor's massive, reinforced-concrete containment building. There was a potentially explosive buildup of hydrogen gas in the reactor vessel, which engineers were able to control. After the Three Mile Island incident, there was a lot of speculation about the potential for destruction from a hydrogen explosion at a boiling water reactor. After the Fukushima disaster, it's clear that hydrogen blasts can reduce reinforced-concrete containment buildings to dust and twisted metal, and crack reactor vessels.
If there's no electricity, a nuclear plant can't pump water into the reactor vessel, which is a recipe for disaster.
The reactor at Pilgrim is based on the same General Electric design as the reactors at Fukushima. The loss of electricity played a key role in the Fukushima reactors overheating and hurtling out of control. I fear three potential natural disaster risks at Pilgrim: earthquake, tsunami and hurricane.
In March, an msnbc.com investigative report ranked Pilgrim No. 2 out of 104 nuclear power plants in the United States on the possibility that it could be damaged during an earthquake. The annual odds of such an event were calculated at 1 in 14,493.
There is a history of tsunami activity in the Atlantic Ocean. The possibility of a mega tsunami hitting the U.S. East Coast resulting from the collapse of the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma, Canary Islands, is well documented. Cumbre Vieja last erupted in 1971. The Maine Geological Survey describes Cumbre Vieja as "a possible ticking time bomb for large tsunami creation in the Atlantic Ocean."
There is also a lengthy history of hurricane activity in New England. Although Hurricane Earl, the last Level 4 storm to threaten the region, was a near miss in 2010, the apparent global trend toward more powerful tornadoes and hurricanes should raise alarm about Pilgrim.
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