Driving along the I-75 corridor between Detroit and Toledo, you can catch a glimpse of the double curved silos of the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Power Station (called Fermi 2) on the shores of Lake Erie. Fermi 2 is owned by DTE Energy and has generated more than 200 billion kilowatt-hours (KW) annually since it was put into operation in 1988-enough to light up a city with a million people at any given time.
When Fermi 2 was driving along I-75, some people were amazed, and some even left comments on Google Maps. Some people believe that silo is a reliable, carbon-free power source, which is much cleaner than coal. In fact, since 2001, Fermi 2 has met the state environmental management requirements for the protection of wetlands and wildlife.
But for others, the vision of these islands is reminiscent of the terrible lessons of the three major nuclear disasters in history and the problem of how to deal with nuclear waste.
Michigan’s four operating nuclear reactors-Fermi 2, DC Cook Units 1 and 2, and Palisades provide nearly 30% of Michigan’s total power supply.
The controversy over the license transfer may delay Michigan’s plan to shut down the Palisades nuclear power plant in 2022, but other nuclear power plants in the state will not be eliminated in the next few decades.
In general, according to state environmental and nuclear industry officials, Michigan will become a viable fuel source in the future due to the large amount of nuclear power that is free of charge.
In 1979, the United States had its worst nuclear accident on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. At that time, partial melting released a small amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Although it has no detectable health effects on factory workers or the public, its consequences have brought changes in comprehensive safety and emergency response at the federal government level, and reduced the public’s desire to build more reactors.
Decades after the explosion and explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear core in Ukraine in 1986, there is still a 1,000 square mile radioactive exclusion zone around the site where the reactor melted and caught fire. This area will always be an area inhabitable by humans. According to the “Science” magazine, Ukrainian scientists have recently been overwhelmed and discovered that the level of activity found in the remaining nuclear fission fuel in the inaccessible area of the enclosed factory has increased.
Ten years after the 2011 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the subsequent 40-foot tsunami destroyed three of the four reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, Japan is still struggling to deal with the long-term effects of displaced persons who have never returned, an unwelcome item The proposal is to dump millions of gallons of treated but still radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean through clean-up work.
Although the possibility of a large-scale nuclear disaster in Michigan is unlikely, if a core collapse or a radioactive cloud escapes, tens of thousands of people live within a 50-mile radius of Fermi 2 or anywhere in the state. Other nuclear power plants need to be evacuated for an indefinite period of time.
Michigan has seen its share of environmental violations and nuclear accidents. In 1963, the Fermi 1 core partially melted, and then it was permanently shut down in 1972. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fermi 2 is the site of the country’s longest nuclear fuel refueling and maintenance interruption in 2020, lasting from March to August.
Although DTE Energy won permits and design approvals for the new small Fermi 3 reactor in Newport, Monroe County in 2015, it has never been built.
State experts working in this field said that the nuclear power plants in Michigan have had enough accidents and persistent structural problems to discourage any future plans to build nuclear power plants.
Since 1979, since Triple Island, every state operating a nuclear power plant must be included in a nuclear emergency plan in accordance with the procedures handed over by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Radiological Protection Division of the Materials Management Division of the Department of Energy and Environment (EGLE) of the Great Lakes District of Michigan.
Wentworth said the desire for nuclear energy has faded, depending on how long the major nuclear disaster stays in the news.
Wentworth said: “Since the late 1990s, Michigan and the rest of the United States have experienced a nuclear renaissance.” “As the end of the coal-fired power plant is clearly visible, several presidential administrations have promoted research on nuclear and renewable energy. And development, with a view to reducing carbon emissions by 32% of the 2005 level by 2030.”
Wentworth said: “Nuclear reactors can produce a lot of energy with very few raw materials, thereby achieving zero carbon emissions.” “Michigan is in the stage of increasing the design of new generation nuclear reactors, but the Fukushima disaster and Japan are still going on. The fact that the cleanup work lasted ten years has hindered the implementation of any new nuclear reactor program. In addition, the low price of natural gas fracturing has exceeded public opinion’s desire to build or locate any new nuclear power plant site.”
Wentworth said that in the event of a nuclear accident, EGLE will coordinate on-site teams with federal authorities to monitor any radioactive plumes and advise on shelter-in-place orders and evacuation within a radius of 10 or 50 miles. , Depending on the situation. accident. The state also regularly monitors the radioactivity levels of agriculture, livestock, and water samples.
He said: “Every year, we take turns conducting exercises on the reactor site in the state, and these exercises are also coordinated with the local emergency response teams of the fire and police departments.”
Wentworth distinguishes radioactive waste containing contaminated building materials and other garbage from spent nuclear fuel, which contains uranium pellets that can be reprocessed and reused later. Although no new reactors are online in Michigan, Wentworth pointed out that other parts of the country, such as Georgia, are building smaller and more efficient reactors, and China, which is in the process of building new reactors to meet its power needs. leading position.
Wentworth said that before the country had a permanent repository or made industrial innovations to reprocess and recycle it, the spent fuel was the country’s long-term 800 pounds of radioactive gorillas.
Wentworth said: “The country will run out of spent fuel. This is an unresolved monster in our country.” “I think unless we have a specific national strategy on where and how to store spent fuel, the development of nuclear power will not It will be too attractive.”
At the front end, if managed safely, nuclear power has been touted as one of the cleanest, emission-free and abundant sources of electricity, and nuclear energy can be obtained from the least amount of material fuel.
In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. nuclear energy was valued as a reliable driving force to meet the ever-increasing needs of the United States after the war. By the 1970s, this was seen as a way to liberate the country from the oil-rich but turbulent Middle East and its OPEC oil embargo.
As a branch of the Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S. Congress established the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 1974 as an independent oversight entity for the country’s growing nuclear power plant fleet. An NRC spokesperson said that, taking into account existing and new nuclear power plant licenses, 3,000 scientists, engineers and technicians have concentrated on thorough supervision, strict regulations, and regular, evidence-based updates to emergency response and safety procedures. Most importantly, the NRC pointed out that transparency and communication with the public are at the core of all NRC activities.
By the 1990s, driven by the threat of climate change and the search for emission-free energy to meet global electricity demand, more than 100 commercial power reactors had been commissioned across the country.
In recent decades, due to fears of catastrophic nuclear accidents and due to the cost of building wind and solar materials that have fallen by 75 and 25, respectively, the cost of building new reactors has reached billions of dollars, so the industry has experienced stagnation and Get started. The percentage since 2011.
Even so, the founder and president of Environmental Progress, Michael D. Shellenberger, in his testimony to Congress in March 2021, concluded that the country’s fragile power grid cannot withstand the burden of shutting down nuclear power plants because nuclear power plants can reliably produce large capacity. Electricity without emissions.
But most of the country’s nuclear power plants will exceed their 40-year life cycle expectations. According to the Energy Information Administration, almost all nuclear power generation capacity in the United States comes from reactors built between 1967 and 1990. As of May 1, 2021, there are 55 commercially operating nuclear power plants in 28 U.S. states, including 93 nuclear reactors.
Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee is the latest nuclear reactor to be put into operation. It was put into commercial operation in October 2016. As of May 2020, only two nuclear power plants built by the United States in Georgia are under construction. Globally, China and India are leaders in the construction of new nuclear power plants.
In Michigan, the Whitmer Administration (Whitmer Administration) is seriously concerned about how to best manage the state’s remaining three operating plants and the spent nuclear energy they generate, all of which are located on the shores of the Great Lakes.
Entergy Corporation is headquartered in New Orleans and hopes to close the Palisades nuclear power plant in the troubled South Haven by May 2022. The company is working to transfer its operating license at the site and the Big Point nuclear storage facility, which closed in Charlevoix, and will be headquartered in Holtec International, New Jersey by December 2021.
Palisades, built between 1967 and 1970, was approved to operate at full power in 1973 and can generate 800 megawatts of electricity at any given time, enough to power 800,000 homes in southwestern Michigan. According to the Sierra Club, it is the oldest operating nuclear power plant in the world, and it is the least structurally sound. Since 2007, it has been the site of many workplace accidents and has leaked radioactive water into Lake Michigan. Although the NRC confirmed that the accident did not pose a public health threat to 1,326,618 people living within a 50-mile radius of the site, according to the 2010 Census, this matter is still worrying. The proposal for a permanent closure has been postponed seven times since 1995. The Palisades was filled with the last fuel rod in September 2020 and is currently scheduled to be closed in May 2022.
Although Entergy has set aside $550 million in the taxpayer’s trust fund to fund work stoppages and clean-ups, Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel, with the support of environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, gave Holtek The record remains vigilant, and in February 2021, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was asked to conduct a full hearing and stop Entergy’s business transfer in Michigan, unless it can be guaranteed that Holtec will conduct due diligence on the project and do not allow Michigan to bear any excess The liquidation cost of the trust fund amount.
Holtec is a company with the most contracts in the United States to clean up and decommission old nuclear power plants. According to reports, in the early 2000s, Holtec was involved in a bribery scandal. An undisclosed Holtec employee transferred $54,000 to the personal account of the manager of the Tennessee Valley Authority and transferred travel and luxury agencies to the manager and his wife. In 2007, TVA manager John L. Symonds pleaded guilty to federal charges because he failed to disclose the money in accordance with the financial disclosure form provided by Holtec.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Press Secretary Lynsey Mukomel said: “As to whether Entergy or Holtec is the better company to handle decommissioning, AG has not yet taken a position.” “On the contrary, Nessel reviewed Holtec’s transfer license application. , Discovered issues related to licensing, and then submitted a petition to seek a hearing on these issues and further improve the record.”
Mukomel said Nessel was concerned that Holtec did not have the financial qualifications or guarantees needed to complete such a high-risk project.
Mukomel said: “The petition shows that Holtec has greatly underestimated the actual cost of decommissioning, thereby threatening the health and safety of Michigan residents.” “The petition also questioned Holtec’s exemption requirements, namely the use of decommissioned funds for site repair and spent fuel management. , Without providing evidence of other funding sources.”
Palisades senior government affairs manager Nick Culp said that Entergy’s focus remains on Palisades’ safe, reliable and reliable operations until the permanent closure on May 31, 2022. The company said that it will continue to promote sales plans after the suspension of production. In order to speed up the decommissioning, the wooden grids were shipped to Holtec.
Culp said: “Holtec’s submission to the NRC details its plan to complete Palisades retirement by 2041.” “The 19-year schedule is 40 years earlier than Entergy continues to own Palisades and chooses the largest NRC schedule option. Over the years, this can make 60 years of decommissioning. The safety and timely decommissioning of the site is particularly important for the local community, which can benefit from the re-use of the site decades ago.”
The Michigan Mountains Club supported Nessel’s decision to request an NRC hearing to further investigate Holtec’s capabilities. To confirm this suspicion, they pointed out that the company has not been cautious enough in its records of employees suspected of bribery and kickbacks to other nuclear power plant officials.
Sierra Club Non-nuclear Michigan State President Mark Muhich said: “Holtek’s past work is out of place and not serious enough.” He was referring to the 2011 Tennessee Valley scandal and the alleged Shady business transactions in the decommissioning of new power plants in Jersey, Ohio and New York.
Muhich said: “We hope that the NRC will be very diligent in reviewing this license transfer.” “Michigan should conduct a thorough hearing before the NRC to express its concerns and should consider alternative companies for decommissioning.”
Muchich added that the Sierra Club is also concerned that the funds raised by Entergy to retire these two locations will be used up before the work is completed, making Michigan unaffordable.
Muhich said: “The NRC pointed out that (Palisades and Big Rock Point) decommissioning costs are about 400 million U.S. dollars, but the decommissioning plants in Massachusetts and Vermont are as high as 1 billion U.S. dollars.” “Our main concern is that Entergy allocates. Funds will run out, and Holtec is not prepared to buy bonds to assume financial responsibility to raise funds to complete this work.”
Although Viktoria Mitlyng, Senior Public Affairs Officer for the Midwest Region of the NRC was unable to dispute the potential license transfer between Entergy and Holtec, she said that the NRC has never seen a case where decommissioned bonds are included in receivables. Before the work was completed, the energy was completely exhausted. She said that the NRC will conduct a thorough review to ensure that the company responsible for the decommissioning of the Palisades plant will have the financial resources to conduct a thorough and thorough cleanup, which means that there should be no level of cleanup at the end of the process. Harmful radiation has been detected.
Mitlin said that anyone responsible for Palisades and Big Rock Point must submit an annual report to the NRC to ensure that the project proceeds on schedule and meets the budget. The NRC also inspects decommissioned nuclear power plants every two years.
The NRC conducted routine rotating emergency drills at all nuclear power plants across the country, and conducted a radioactive plume drill on Fermi-1 on May 18. If it is unlikely that the Fermi 2 core will melt or the radioactive plume escapes today, the coordinated efforts of the federal, state, and local emergency agencies will continue to carry out any emergency, appropriate shelter or evacuation.
The NRC plans to evacuate from the shadow within the 10-mile contingency plan area, and from the boundary of the 10-mile contingency plan area to the shadow area about a 15-mile radius from the Fermi plant.
DTE Energy estimates that there are 101,913 people living within a 10-mile radius, and 20% of them must be evacuated in a radiological emergency.
Post time: May-27-2021