Did Turkey Point again take Florida to the radioactive brink?
- From: "Blue" <rainbowblue_rfoll@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:52:28 -0800
Did Turkey Point again take Florida to the radioactive brink?
February 27, 2008
As many as two million Floridians were blacked out yesterday by a series of
grid malfunctions that forced shut two old atomic reactors south of Miami
and renewed nightmares of a radioactive catastrophe. The chain of events
should serve as yet another serious warning to those who would build still
more atomic reactors in Florida and elsewhere.
The wide-ranging blackout apparently started with an accidental trip at a
substation. That sabotage has been ruled out may not be all that reassuring.
Countless homes and businesses were affected from the Florida Keys to as far
away as Tampa, Gainesville and Daytona Beach. Frightened Floridians were
trapped in elevators or abandoned offices by making their way down dark,
sweltering stairwells. In Miami-Date along at least forty traffic accidents
piled up as signals went dark.
This blackout's reach was limited by steps taken since a 2003
reactor-related grid failure in Ohio led to a massive blackout that left 50
million people without power.
But the two large reactors at Turkey Point did trip from the loss of
off-site power. (For safety reasons, vital cooling systems and other
critical components rely on electricity coming from sources other than the
reactors.)
A far more tense shut-down came when off-site power was lost during 1992's
Hurricane Andrew, whose eye passed directly over Turkey Point. At the height
of the storm, communication from the control room was also dangerously lost.
Tools and equipment valued at around $100 million were destroyed or simply
blown away.
Andrew's epic devastation made it clear that south Florida could never be
evacuated in the wake of a melt-down amidst a hurricane. After the 1979
accident at Three Mile Island, the NRC adopted specifications for evacuation
procedures that were simply shredded by Andrew.
But Turkey Point re-opened three weeks later. To this day, no procedures are
in place that could reliably evacuate south Florida's burgeoning human
population if radiation releases occurred even under optimum weather
conditions, let alone amidst a major wind event.
Nonetheless, Florida Power & Light now wants to build two more reactors at
Turkey Point, at a cost of some $20 billion. The generators could not come
on line until sometime between 2020 and 2025.
A request for "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP) is now before the
Public Utilities Commission. CWIP would force state ratepayers to cover the
cost of the reactors as they are being built. The PUC could make a decision
within a month.
FPL may also seek federal loan guarantees, $18.5 billion of which were
noticed in the federal Appropriations Bill passed in December, 2007. The
Lieberman-Warner Global Warming bill, soon to be debated in the US Senate,
may also come with hefty subsidies for projects like this one. Two more
reactors have been proposed by Progress Energy for a site near one reactor
already operating at Crystal River, near Tampa.
Little if any private financing is likely forthcoming for the proposed
Florida reactors. But if CWIP or federal loans come through, they may be
hard to stop.
New reactor construction at Turkey Point would have substantial
environmental impacts on the nearby Everglades National Park. Serious
questions remain about pressure put on water supplies, damage to nearby
wildlife habitat, and much more. A wide range of local and national
environmental groups have begun to intervene against the project.
This blackout and reactor shut down happened on a clear, calm Florida day.
Had the state been getting its power from solar panels installed on
buildings, a blackout like this one could never have occurred.
But with still more reactors on the drawing board, it may be only a matter
of time before Florida's reactors finally do take the sunshine state into
the radioactive abyss.
Harvey Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth
(www.solartopia.org)
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2008/1636
--
Leo Burt - Where are you?
Come home now - That war is over.
.
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