The Tar HeelThursday, July 20, 19787
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Two opinions on nuclear power
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Runoff pours from drainage pipe at
Shearon Harris construction site.
Debate
continued from page 1
Council of North Carolina, the Chapel Hill
branch of ECOS, the local chapter of the Sierra
Club, and the Chapel Hill-based Kudzu
Alliance.
The mo9t recent development in the national
controversy came just last week, when the
Health Research Group, an organization
funded by Ralph Nader's Public Citizen lobby,
cited 40 nuclear plants as the "most unsafe" in
the country. The Nader group ranked the
plants according to the percentage of their
workers exposed in 1976 to 0.5 rem a
scientific measurement of atomic radiation.
Duke Power'9 Oconee plant in Greenville,
S.C. was ranked as the sixth most unsafe in the
country. Carolina Power & Light's H. B.
Robinson plant at Hartsville, S.C. was ranked
13th, and its Brunswick plant in Southport,
N.C. was ranked 36th.
But a number of local experts, in addition to
industry spokesmen, have disputed the Nader
group's findings.
The Health Research Group admitted in its
report that current federal regulations allow
exposure of workers to 5.0 rems per year, but
cited several radiation cancer experts who feel
that the maximum exposure level should be
reduced to 0.5 rems per year.
But Billy Webster, director of environmental
radiation control for CP&L, said the HRG's
standards were accepted by few experts.
James R. Bohannon, associate professor of
nuclear engineering at N.C. State University,
said in an interview that the Nader group was
"simply misinformed," and noted the lack of
citation of scientific verification in its report.
Dayne Brown, chief of radiation protection at
the N.C. Department of Public Health, pointed
out that the 29 plants not cited by the Nader
group may well have been omitted solely
because they employ independent firms to
transport and deliver nuclear fuel. Brown said
that most radiation exposure occurs during
handling of the fuel.
But worker exposure to radiat ion is only one
of a host of extremely complex and divisive
issues which the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has yet to settle. The NRC, which,
unlike its predecessor, the AEC, does not
encourage the development of nuclear power,
must decide on revisions of regulations that
will affect sales of nuclear technology abroad,
and thus the long-range energy policies of the
U.S. and a number of other countries.
The NRC will also be called on to determine
general radiation emission levels, emergency
systems, safeguards against sabotage and theft
of atomic materials, guidelines for
transportation and storage of atomic fuels, and
regulations regarding the environmental
effects of disposal of water used to cool
reactors and generators. Perhaps the most
difficult and controversial issue to be faced by
the commission, however, will be the related
questions of decommission of nuclear facilities
and storage and disposal of the highly toxic and
long-lived radioactive waste materials which
are a by-product of the fission process.'
In recent weeks the focus of local
controversy over nuclear power has been on
Carolina Power & Light's $4.2 billion Shearon
Harris facility, which is now under
construction in southwestern Wake County
near Apex.
It was reported last week that the four 480
foot high cooling towers at the plant will be
built by the same company that is constructing
the cooling towers at a West Virginia nuclear
plant where 51 workers died April 27 when
scaffolding collapsed.
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration cited the company, Research
Cottrell, Inc., for 10 "willful violations" and 10
"serious violations" after the accident at the
Pro
by Pam Claxton
Staff Writer
In the early days of the horseless
wagon, it was required that a man on foot
precede it by 100 yards while waving a red
Hag as a warning. As cars became more
sophisticated ana their acceptance grew,
such precautions were no longer deemed
necessary. The nuclear industry is
reaching such a point, according to James
R. Bohannon Jr., a nuclear engineer and
associate professor at N.C. State.
Bohannon, who has served as ' a
consultant to the U.S. Air Force's nuclear
safety directorate, is publishing a
manuscript on quality assurance
engineering for nuclear facilities, feels
that the degree of safety clamored for by
environmentalists need to be specified.
He expressed complete confidence in
current nuclear plant controls and felt
that there are enough checks and balances
within the nuclear plants so that nothing
could go wrong.
However, safety is a question of
magnitude, and the degree to which a
nuclear plant is safe is an economic
problem. Each incremental unit of safety
Has an incremental cost in terms of
efficiency and these could be increased to
the point of absurdity. Absolute safety is
not conducive to efficiency maximum
safety would entail shutting down the
plant. This is comparable to not driving a
car because people get killed on the
highways.
Long before a company can even
consider scratching the ground to build a
nuclear plant, it must submit a detailed
report containing information on 1) the
design and location of the plant, 2) the
safeguards to be provided and 3)
comprehensive data on the site and its
environment. These must be verified at
six checkpoints to obtain a construction
permit.
Though the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is the primary watch dog,
other groups also have their eyes on the
company's proceedings. Among these are
the North Carolina Utilities Commission,
the Department of Natural Resources and
Economic Development, the N.C.
Environmental Management
Commission, the N.C. Department of
Transportation, the U.S. Army Corp's of
Engineers and the Federal Aviation
Administration which checks out the
height of the cooling towers.
The degree of human error is also
relative in determining plant safety.
According to Bohannon, the workers
must be nighly qualified. "They are an
important investment. If one is
incompetent and the plant must be shut
Monongahela Power Co. plant at Willow
Island, W. Va. Research-Cottrell was fined
$105,000 by OSHA.
William E. Graham Jr., CP&L senior vice
president and general counsel, said Researcl.
Cottrell had received the contract for
construction of the towers because its bid was
considerably lower than other bids. Graham
said CP&L was sure that a similar accident
could be avoided at Shearon Harris.
' It was also reported last week that CP&L has
been charged with pollution of a stream that
runs from the Shearon Harris site to the Cape
Fear River. Charles Gardner, the state land
quality chief, said state inspectors told CP&L
engineers July 12 that the project violated
sedimentation laws. CP&L had not maintained
control devices to keep runoffs from land
clearing and dam construction from muddying
Buckhorn Creek, Gardner said.
Spokesman Mac Harris of CP&L said
however that the inspectors had not proven
that the sediment came from the company's
construction.
And most recently, the Public Staff of the
N.C. Utilities Commission asked the
commission to conduct an investigation into
whether CP&L had bought too much land for
Shearon Harris. CP&L has purchased 22,762
acres for the site, which as now planned will
occupy only 10,723 acres, according to
company officials.
M. A. McDuffie, senior vice president for
engineering and construction, said Tuesday
that the company bought the land in
accordance with an earlier plan for the facility,
which called for a 10,000 acre lake to be used to
cool water from the plant's steam-powered
turbine generators.
But a 1974 Environmental Protection
Agency ruling required cooling towers to cool
the water. McDuffie said CP&L wants to keep
the land it has purchased, however, in hopes
that the requirement will be changed.
McDuffie said the company may not know
whether it will need all of the land until the
facility is finished sometime in 1990.
Con
by Jim Overton
Tar Heel Contributor
The optimistic pronouncements of the
utilities, the nuclear equipment suppliers
and the federal government are being
contradicted by the hard facts of the
situation: nuclear power is an unsafe and
uneconomical form of energy production.
Take for example the report "Nuclear
Power Costs," prepared by the U.S.
House Committee on Government
Operations. After detailing the many yet
unresolved problems with nuclear
technology, the report reaches the
conclusion: "Contrary to widespread
belief, nuclear power is no longer a cheap
energy source. . .It would be foolhardy to
invest such enormous quantities of capital
in one industry that is still so beset with
problems at the expense of other
industries and technologies."
What are the problems confronting the
nuclear industry? First, we are rapidly
exhausting our uranium supplies. The
Atomic Industrial Forum has admitted
that we will exhaust our domestic
down, there would be a loss of $250,000
dollars a day."
Before a plant can go into operation, it
Tiust pass eight checkpoints and obtain an
operating license. Many public hearings
ire held and the process takes so long to
complete' that the environmental report
must be updated before the plant can go
intp pperation.
Bohannon sees the NRC as a competent
and adequately staffed organization. He
said, 'The NRC has matured rapidly and
grown to accommodate increased
regulation. Their inspectors are plain
good snoopers." When the regulations are
not adhered to, the inspectors, he claimed,
"Just raise hell."
Dayne Brown, Chief of Radiation
Protection at the State Public Health
Department, also finds the NRC
inspectors quite competent. He himself is
an inspector, but state jurisdiction of
radiation surveillance does not include
"on site" areas at present. To his
knowledge he said, "There have been no
accidents at any operating nuclear plants
in North Carolina which have had any
potential offsite effect."
Brown finds the low level radiation
emitted from nuclear plants to be
insignificant, particularly when compared
to naturally occuring radiation.
He has found that some local
groundwater has a relative numerical
magnitude of radiation, surpassing the
maximum NRC levels allowed within the
plants. This radiation is a different sort
than that found in the plants, but it is
potentially far more hazardous. Brown
said that nuclear plants have not affected
the radioactivity of local groundwater.
Bohannon terms question of
radioactive wastes a "political problem"
technically it is solvable..
The newer of the nuclear reactors, such
as the Carolina Power and Light
Company's Brunswick facility - near
Wilmington, and the Duke Power
Company's Shearon Harris project near
Raleigh, have access to the most recent
and therefore efficient and safe
technology, according to Bohannon.
The radioactive waste is stored inside
fuel assemblies within the plant. After
about 100 years the radioactivity has
diminished until it is insignificant.
In accordance with this view, Austin C.
Thies, senior vice president of production
and transmission, states in the Duke
Power Company annual report (1977),
'From an engineering standpoint,
permanent storage of these wastes is not
a problem. The technology already exists
for converting these wastes to an
insoluble form and for permanently
isolating them from the environment, '
continued on page 14
supplies of uranium by the start of the
21st century, at which time we will be
dependent on foreign supplies and in
the same cartel situation we find with oil
supplies. Mesnwhile, the price of uranium
has jumped over 600 percent in five years.
So far the nuclear industry has dangled
two solutions to the problem before the
public eyes: the breeder reactor and
reprocessing. Despite the optimism of the
industry, there are still no breeder
reactors and no reprocessing plants. Even
more damning, the Carter administration
is reluctant to push forward with either
technology, fearing the diversion of
plutonium into weapons production and
terrorist activity.
Even if we have enough uranium, it's
not likely we'll be able to afford using it.
For instance, the price tag on the Shearon
Harris plant has jumped from $1.1 billion
in 1971 to $4.2 billion in 1978, and is in
danger of climbing even higher. Such
rapidly escalating costs have forcrd the
utilities to cancel or postpone over half of
the reactors announced since 1372.
Those reactors the utilities have
managed to complete have not performed
as reliably as the industry had led us to
expect, performing at about 55 capacity,
rather than at the expected 70"o mark.
Recent studies have suggested an even
more alarming problem: because of the
continually upgraded safety standards for
nuclear plants and the rapid
disintegration of certain reactor parts,
nuclear plants tend to perform even less
reliably as they age. The studies show that
this poor performance results in nuclear
plants being 30 per cent more expensive
than coal-fired units.
Finally, despite the assurances by the
utilities that there are technical solutions
to the problems of storing radioactive
waste, we still have no national plan for
storing and guarding wastes. In fact, the
White House recently announced that
there will be no solution to the problem
for many years.
More important for the present, the
waste storage problem suggests that
nuclear power is already uneconomical.
We still have no price tag on radioactive
waste storage, or on dismantling old
nuclear reactors (which have a lifetime of
30-40 years). In most cases, such real costs
of nuclear power have not even been
figured into the cost calculations that
"prove" that nuclear power is so cheap.
Once we add these very real costs to the
budget, we find that nuclear power is far
more expensive than its possible
replacements.
All these economic considerations are
compounded by the other crucial danger
in the nuclear industry: its impact on the
environment. Most ominously, there is
the possibility of a major accident, which
by some federal estimates could result in
$17 billion in damages, 30,000 deaths, and
the contamination of an area the size of
Pennsylvania. Although the chances of
this severe a catastrophe are slim, there
are many smaller incidents that can occur.
There have been a numer of accidents
involving the escape of radioactive gases
and substances far in excess of
government standards. Even if one
aceepts the industry's assertions about
the low statistical probabilities of a major
accident occurring, we can expect one
major accident and release of significant
amounts of radiation every 10 years if the
industry builds as maty plans as they
plan.
However, the extensive debate over
these possibilities has obscured one other
important fact:, nuclear plants could
continued on page 13
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