Nuclear power plant flood risks need to be addressed with urgency

Dec. 20, 2012 — [In response to “Nuclear power plant flood risk: Sandy was just a warm-up,” which cites the fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s deadline for the first stage of its post-Fukushima recommendations is not until 2017]:

Five years? I live on Long Island, where the intake pipe to the defunct Shoreham plant collapsed twice when being tested.

We were hit with Irene last year; Sandy this year. How could anyone think that it won’t be a Category 2 or 3 next year along this coast or some other? That might be an inconvenient future, but we just got [hit by a hurricane] along the Northeast Coast; shall we plan on being [hit by a tsunami] next year? In that case, no plan is as good as your plan.

Five years! What do people use for brains when they oversee matters as serious as this?

Fix it now!

What does anyone in the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] say when asked: “when one reactor [undergoes a disaster similar to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant] on the coast, what will we do when we have to shut down all of the other reactors of that design until they aren’t a danger? And what shall we do with the 20 million people living around me?”

There has to be a redundant pump backup power system upland (and I do mean up) that is waterproof, weatherproof, and has a buried 10-day fuel supply, as well as a buried, waterproof, and backhoe-proof conduit [connected] to sealed switchgear[s] in the reactor dome(s).

What will that cost, a [tenth of a cent] per kWh on the monthly bill? Just do it, don’t talk about it any more.

— Michael Kujawa, East Setauket, N.Y.