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New Jersey Spotlight reports
Three Mile Island may be the next nuclear power plant to be shuttered by its owner unless it gets financial help to keep the facility afloat.
Exelon Corp., the owner of the Pennsylvania generating station, announced yesterday it will retire the plant by or about September 30, 2019 absent any change in that state's policies dealing with nuclear power.
The announcement is the latest by an owner of a nuclear plant to threaten or close its facility unless given financial assistance to make the facility profitable, a drama that could play out soon in New Jersey with its three nuclear units operated by the Public Service Enterprise Group in South Jersey.
If Exelon follows through on its threat, it would mean the Oyster Creek plant in Lacey Township, also owned by the Chicago energy giant, could outlast TMI, the site of the nation's biggest nuclear accident when it had a partial meltdown in 1979.
Oyster Creek, the country's oldest commercial nuclear plant, agreed to shut down at the end of 2019 under a settlement worked out with the Christie administration in 2010.
[...] Environmentalists oppose extending the incentives renewable sources obtain to nuclear, because unlike solar, wind, and water, the former is not sustainable. “It’s not renewable; you have to keep buying the fuel,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday June 04 2017, @02:13PM (3 children)
That's what I've been saying. Yes, nuclear power plants can be operated safely. Problem is, they won't be. Fukushima showed that. Management was told the walls needed to be higher, but they wanted to save a few cents and gamble that a big tsunami wouldn't happen. They reassured themselves with flawed reasoning based on a supposed lack of knowledge. Recall how they tried to say they were innocent because the tsunami was unprecedented in its size? Except, there had been tsunamis that big before. Even then, the walls being topped need not have been a disaster, had they not also skimped on design and maintenance in other areas.
Apologists like to use the number of deaths as a measure of danger, as if property damage that lasts centuries doesn't matter. By that scale, a bad bus accident could be rated a bigger disaster than a major hurricane. Lives are important, but they aren't the only thing.
Is talk of shuttering 3 Mile Isle a threat or a promise?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday June 04 2017, @02:55PM (2 children)
The Fukushima management should have designed the diesel generators and pumps to be submersible and designed the reactor with a external water cooling loop option.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @10:10PM (1 child)
I think the larger problem is that many of the nuclear power plants in current operation are VERY old.
New designs have a much stronger safety emphasis. We should retire the old reactors and build modern ones to replace them.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 05 2017, @12:28AM
The next question becomes why this isn't done..
I think there's talk about a plant in south-west Britain. But it seems to be stuck.