Re-Opening a Permanently Shut Nuclear Reactor is a Dangerous Gamble
Palisades Nuclear Generating Station on the shore of Lake Michigan, 1974. Photo: US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Forty U.S. nuclear power reactors have shut permanently. But for the first time, an attempt is being made to re-start a closed reactor – the Palisades reactor in southwest Michigan.
The American experience with nuclear power began as Cold War fears of nuclear war and health hazards from bomb test fallout were widespread. President Eisenhower’s 1953 “Atoms for Peace” speech to calm these concerns included using radioactive uranium atoms to generate electricity. It was advertised as cleaner than other sources like coal, and cheaper (most famously described by Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss as “too cheap to meter”).
The federal government’s massive efforts to encourage nuclear power were met with problems. Grassroots movements concerned about health dangers damaged its public profile. Reactors also took an excessively long time to plan and construct, at costs far above initial expectations. Banks stopped lending money to build reactors in 1978, and reactor startups ended in the mid-1990s.
As the years passed, reactors aged, and a total of 40 closed (including 13 since 2013). Others threatened to close, but were saved by multibillion-dollar infusions from governments in several states. The recent opening of two reactors in Georgia – which took 18 years and cost $35 billion, far above the $14 billion expected – are likely the last new reactors ever built in the country.
Aging reactors will only get older and require more maintenance. Government bailouts will not last forever. Safe, renewable sources such as wind and solar power are growing rapidly, and now account for 25% of the nation’s electricity – at costs well below nuclear. Nuclear reactors are fading into the sunset.
But in the past year, a new idea has circulated to halt the inevitable–to bring permanently closed reactors back to life. Of the U.S. reactors that have shut, none have ever been re-started. The concept is now being pilot-tested at the Palisades nuclear plant, in southwest Michigan.
Palisades is one of the oldest U.S. reactors; only 7 of 94 reactors now operating are older. It was not a large reactor, with just over half of the capacity of later models, and never generated more than 6% of Michigan’s electricity. Entergy Nuclear, which operated Palisades, closed it in May 2022, as it faced with operating losses and huge costs for mechanical necessities and repairs. Entergy sold the plant to Holtec International, with the stated intention of decommissioning the plant.
As Palisades was closing, lobbyists were swarming the halls of Congress, in a desperate attempt to revive the sagging nuclear industry. Lobbyists presented nuclear as 1) “emission-free”; 2) needed to meet energy demands; and 3) safe. Their efforts were rewarded by Congress and President Biden, who signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August, 2022. The Energy Act contained billions of dollars for nuclear power, including funds to restart closed reactors.
While political leaders went along with lobbyist talking points, each point is misleading:
“Emission-Free”. Reactors produce some carbon (e.g., carbon-14), albeit less than coal or gas plants. Preparing uranium for reactors, through mining, milling, fabrication, enrichment, and purification, requires much greenhouse gas. And the term “emission-free” ignores routine environmental emissions of radioactive gases and metals from reactors.
Needed to Meet Energy Demands. Reactors have never produced more than 22% of U.S. electricity, and now produces 19%. Conversely, renewable sources produce 25%, a number that grows sharply each year. Given the extremely long time needed to build new reactors and the aging of the current fleet, renewables are much better poised to meet future needs.
Safe. Reactors generate over 100 radioactive isotopes – the same mix of chemicals only created in nuclear weapons explosions. Each can cause cancer, and is especially hazardous to infants and children. Most is contained as high-level waste at each plant, but some is routinely released into the environment, and can enter human bodies through breathing, food, and water.
Any possibility of bringing Palisades back to life would not have happened without massive government bailouts. In mid-2023, Michigan legislators provided $150 million towards restarting the reactor, and designated another $150 million just last month. This $300 million is contingent on the $1.52 billion pledge by the Energy Department under the Inflation Reduction Act, which in turn is contingent on the reactor restarting. Some believe that the eventual amount for a Palisades restart is upwards of $8 billion.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must go through a review process before making any decision on Palisade’s future. While Holtec is requesting a Nuclear Regulatory Commission final decision by August 2025, legal challenges could delay, or even block, a second life for Palisades.
Regulations governing the NRC review are complex, but the definition of safety has been a point of contention for decades. Government officials have set “permissible” limits of routine emissions and environmental levels of toxic chemicals. Companies operating reactors must measure and publicly report these levels released and levels; if they are below “permissible” amounts – which they always are – officials pronounce reactors to be safe, and pose no threat to health, without conducting studies of local health.
Van Buren County, Michigan is the site of Palisades. Its population is about 75,000 – a number unchanged for decades – and consists of small towns and farming areas. The county is on Lake Michigan, making it a popular tourist site in the summer.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website on mortality statistics includes each U.S. county, for each year from 1968 to 2023. In the period just before and after Palisades started operating, the Van Buren County cancer death rate was 8% below the U.S. However, in the most recently available period (since 2005), the county rate was 15% above the U.S. Thus, Van Buren has shifted from a low-cancer to a high-cancer county (see below). If the Van Buren rate had remained 8% below the U.S. after 1978, about 1,000 fewer cancer deaths would have occurred.
More importantly, the county’s cancer death rate for people who died by age 35 shifted from 39% below to 52% above the U.S. rate, a dramatic change. The fact that those most affected by radiation exposure during infancy and childhood raises a red flag – whether early-life exposure to radioactive emissions from Palisades posed harm to young residents of Van Buren County.
Palisades is being watched by nuclear reactor owners across the country; a re-start of Palisades may lead to attempts for similar actions. Already, reports have surfaced that re-start is being considered for several reactors recently closed permanently. Among these is the Duane Arnold reactor in Iowa. Another is reactor 1 at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, which shut in 2019. Constellation Energy, which owns the plant, has begun talks with state lawmakers about potential restart.
Three Mile Island is an important name in the U.S. nuclear power story. In 1979, reactor 2 (which only had been in operation for three months) suffered a meltdown that destroyed half of its core. Governor Dick Thornburgh recommended that pregnant women and young children evacuate the area. It took 15 years to ship the parts of the stricken reactor to permanent storage. Nuclear power was already skidding, but the meltdown only accelerated the skid.
The nuclear power industry has failed to live up to original expectations. Of the 1,200 reactors predicted by the Atomic Energy Commission during the Nixon Administration, only 131 ever opened. For years, it has been in decline, and has scrambled to find various ways to halt the fall. Its latest scheme is to try and bring closed reactors back to life – buoyed by large amounts of taxpayer dollars. The outcome remains to be seen, but it appears that Palisades will be a seminal point in the U.S. nuclear odyssey.
Photo by Unsplash+ and Getty Images.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is the world’s leading epicenter of toxic radioactive water released into the ocean. Yet, these activities are no longer closely monitored by mainstream media. As it happens, Tokyo Electric Power Company is the electric utility that manages the decommissioning of the collapsed nuclear reactors. This controversial ongoing release of radioactive water is mostly unopposed by the nations of the world. No problem, dump it!
But there is another side to this story.
“This is a time bomb.” (Robert Richmond, Ph.D. Kewalo Marine Laboratory)
A nationwide symposium on Zoom entitled: Radioactive Contamination of US Food and Water and What Congress Can Do About It, August 15, 2024, discussed several aspects of Fukushima’s dumping scheme. The details are disturbing and maybe horrifying.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (“TEPCO”) with the blessing of the government of Japan commenced dumping treated radioactive water into the ocean August 24th, 2023. Since 2011, TEPCO has been wrestling with one of the most recognizable industrial accidents in human history, three nuclear power plants still in a difficult to define meltdown thirteen (13) years after the initial meltdown.
It’s important to note that subsequent to the meltdown in March 2021 five ex-Japan prime ministers called for an end to nuclear power. In sharp contrast to those five former PM’s opposition, as of August 2022, current PM Fumio Kishida (2021 -) went all-in for nuclear power reactors, build, build, build.
Beginning in 2023 TEPCO commenced dumping treated radioactive water used to cool sizzling hot highly radioactive corium within the core of the crumpled reactors into the Pacific Ocean. Essentially, TEPCO unofficially christened the ocean “an open sewer.” It’s free! Yes, it’s free but not free for abuse. And why would anyone authorize broken-down crippled nuclear power plants to release toxic radioactive wastewater into the ocean?
According to TEPCO and several experts quoted in a BBC article, the low level of tritium radiation released is acceptable risk. One expert said he’d drink it. Well, can somebody please arrange for him to receive a supply of TEPCO’s radioactive wastewater to drink for one year. That’d be comparable to the ocean’s experience of one year. According to Emily Hammond, Ph. D., an expert in energy and environmental law with George Washington University: “The challenge with radionuclides (such as tritium) is that they present a question that science cannot fully answer; that is, at very low levels of exposure, what can be counted as ‘safe’? (Source: The Science Behind the Fukushima Waste Water Release, BBC, August 25, 2023)
But seriously, are there really, truly tolerable levels? According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. “Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.”
TEPCO’s dumping is a testament to human frailty, not strength, endangering its own, and it’s difficult to stomach. There’s nothing positive about it, not one positive. Instead, it’s a boldfaced insult and slap in the face. Intuitively, logically, ethically, it’s impossible to justify turning the world’s oceans into open sewers. Oh, please!
The International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) greeted the TEPCO/Japan government dumping scheme with open arms, as did the G7. But, in the process, IAEA violated its own stated principles, see: TEPCO’s ALPS-Treated Radioactive Water Dumping Plan Violated Essential Provisions of IAEA’s General Safety Guide N0. 8.
Indeed, IAEA’s endorsement begs a critical question of whom the public can trust when the IAEA overstates well-known facts about the dangers of tritium while violating its own policies for nuclear safety.
The July 15th symposium discusses the risks of Fukushima that are generally ignored by society at large. Some highlights of that exposé follow:
Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Focus on tritium, Exploring Tritium Dangers to Protect Future Generations and Ecosystems, Congressional Briefing, 2024-07-15:
Tritium found in Fukushima’s wastewater, when exposed in humans is detrimental to the basic core of a person’s internal energy system, aka: the mitochondrial DNA, a bodily function that allows people to walk to talk to blink to process food, etc. This significant aspect of human DNA is very susceptible to damage by tritium. And the risk is identical for plants and animals.
A little tritium goes a long way. One teaspoon of tritiated water can contaminate 100 billion gallons of water (equivalent to 150,000 Olympic pools), a calculation that is based upon US drinking water standards. “Tritium turns water radioactive, so our most crucial ‘stuff of life’ becomes radioactive.” How many teaspoons will Fukushima produce?
The risks of internal exposure to tritium: “There’s clear evidence of neurological damage, according to the International Commission on Radiological Protection.”
Congress needs to address tighter regulations of tritium exposure for both humans and ecosystems.
Robert Richmond, research professor Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii, Achieving Healthier Oceans and People, Dumping of Nuclear Waste Undercuts Progress: A marine biologist viewpoint.
Already, the state of the ocean is in serious decline because of anthropogenic stressors. We need to reduce stressors, not add radionuclides to a very fragile marine ecosystem. Radionuclide effects are transboundary and transgenerational issues in addition to the complication of PFAS or “forever chemicals” starting to show up in alarming quantities. Compounding these dangers, the Fukushima discharge program will take 30+ years.
Fukushima’s discharge, according to Richmond: “This is a time bomb… Once the radionuclides are detected in fish, it will be too late to act. There’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle.”
The way the plumes of radionuclides are modeled for Fukushima dumping, they’ll reside in major Pacific fishing grounds for 7-12 years at peak levels of impact. Tritium is not evenly distributed throughout the ocean. Statements that tritium will be widely dispersed/diluted do not hold up at all. Tritium ends up in fish that people eat, bio-accumulating within human bodies that have no defenses against organically bound tritium.
(Footnote: As tritium moves up the food chain it bioconcentrates and biomagnifies. Pro-nuclear advocates claim tritium passes thru the body within days, no harm done. This is not true. It bioaccumulates in living organisms. Numerous studies have proven this, e.g., Benedict C. Jaeschke, et al, Bioaccumulation of Tritiated Water and Trophic Transfer, etc. National Library of Medicine, January 2013.)
Additionally, “the Fukushima discharges violate numerous international protocols and established principles (1) the Precautionary Principle, and IAEA GSG-8 (2) ALARA principle – nobody should be exposed to radiation unless it is as treatment for cancer (3) UNCLOS (4) London Convention and Protocol (5) the newly passed High Seas Treaty (6) PIF 2050 Blue Continent Strategy (7) the spirit of the UN Ocean Decade.” Fukushima dumping violates all seven of these internationally recognized principles against dumping toxic substances into the world’s oceans.
Why is Fukushima given a pass on seven (7) internationally recognized violations?
Accordingly, new approaches and alternatives and regulations for toxic ocean dumping must be researched and established. Congress needs to address this as soon as possible.
James Gormley – Editor-in-Chief, Better Nutrition magazine, award-winning journalist, pioneer of science-centered coverage and a member of the US trade delegations in Paris and Rome for FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius.
A multinational approach is required for assessment and radioactivity mitigation. We need a “whole-of-government approach” in the US inclusive of EPA, NOA, DOE, FDA, and Fish and Wildlife Service all-in tackling issues such as Fukushima’s radioactive ocean dumping. Congress needs to bring all federal assets together in unison to tackle this understudied and largely ignored risk to marine and human health.
Kimberly Roberson – Founder and executive director Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (“FFAN”) est. June 2011.
A citizen’s petition regarding the risks associated with Fukushima was filed with the FDA on behalf of FFAN in 2013. Even though the FDA is required to respond to a citizen’s petition, to date, 11 years later, the only response has been a letter stating: “More time was needed.”
Meanwhile, according to Roberson: “TEPCO struggles to get Fukushima under control, and there is no end in sight. They say it will take 30 or 40 years, but nobody really knows for sure. In August of 2023, TEPCO began systematically dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific, but it is only partially filtered. TEPCO filled over 1,000 tanks with wastewater, and more water is added every day, and there are hundreds of thousands of gallons contained in each tank… tritium is difficult to filter, and TEPCO is not currently attempting to filter it. Cesium is the radionuclide at the center of the FDA petition… where one radionuclide is detected, others are found as well.” (Footnote: High levels of radioactive cesium cause nausea, vomiting, bleeding, coma, and death.)
At present the US has the highest levels allowable for manmade radiation from nuclear accidents at 1200 Bq/kg for all citizens. By comparison, Japan’s allowable level for adults is 100 Bg/kg and 50 Bg/kg for children.
“Food that is too radioactive for Japan can legally be exported to the US…. It has been reported that food, including seafood, that Japan would ordinarily export to countries that have instituted food bans of Japan’s radioactive food products is now being sold and served to US military service members and their families in Japan. The National Academy for Sciences biologic effect of ionizing radiation states there is a linear relationship between ionizing radiation and the development of solid cancers.” (Roberson)
(Footnote: Because ionizing radiation has enough energy to break an electron away from an atom, it certainly has enough umph to change the chemical composition of any material it connects with. A human body is defenseless.)
The FDA should monitor for cesium in foodstuff, as stated in the FFAN petition. Additionally, food imported from Japan should adhere, at the least, to Japan’s own standards of 100 Bg/kg for adults and 50 Bg/kg for young children before export to the United States.
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Germany suggest 8 Bg/kg for children and 16 Bg/kg for adults as safe tolerable levels.
Congress should start the process to establish adequate testing and establish a viable limit.and verification that food imported from Japan does not exceed Japan’s own restrictions. Other nations have banned Japan’s exports.
The public has a right to information. FFAN is asking Congress to direct the FDA to do its job. It’s in the public interest to know what people are putting in their mouths. If imported foodstuff exceeds Bg/kg limits set by the exporter in Japan, the public should be informed that they are purchasing food from Japan that exceeds Japan’s allowable levels of radioactivity for its own people.
“The myth is being perpetuated that discharges are necessary for decommissioning. But the Japanese government itself admits there is sufficient water storage space in Fukushima Daiichi. Long-term storage would expose the current government decommissioning roadmap as flawed, but that is exactly what needs to happen. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station is still in crisis, posing unique and severe hazards, and there is no credible plan for its decommissioning,” Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia.
As for Fukushima discharges, Greenpeace claims that the radiological risks have not been fully assessed, and the biological impacts of tritium, carbon-14, strontium-90 and iodine-129 – to be released with the water – “have been ignored”. (Source: Fukushima: Why is Japan Releasing water and is it Safe? Reuters, Aug. 24, 2023) That statement should be a gamechanger, but most likely it won’t.
Nuclear Lunacy Down Under
Photo by Mick Truyts
Politics and facts are not necessarily good dinner companions. Both often stray from the same table, taking up with other, more suitable company. The Australian opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has never been discomforted by facts, preferring the chimera-like qualities demagoguery offers. His vision for Australia is admirably simple and simplistic.
In foreign policy, he supports US interventions in any theatre of the globe without question. Ditto such allies as Israel. To the distant north, the evil Yellow Horde is abominated. Domestically, matters are similarly one dimensional. Irregular boat arrivals are to be repelled with necessary cruelty. And then there is a near pathological hatred of renewable energy.
Needing to find some electoral distraction to improve the Liberal-National coalition’s chances of returning to office, Dutton has literally identified a nuclear option. Certainly, it is mischievous, throwing those wishing to invest in the problematic Australian energy market into a state of confusion. The business of renewables, as with any investment, is bound to also be shaken.
Last month, Dutton finally released some details of his nuclear vision. Seven nuclear projects are envisaged, using sites with currently working or shuttered coal fired power stations. These will be plants up to 1.4 gigawatts (GW) to be located at Loy Yang in Victoria, Liddell in NSW’s Hunter Valley and Mt. Piper near Lithgow, Tarong and Callide in Queensland. Small modular (SMR) reactors are planned for Port Augusta in South Australia and Muja near Collie in Western Australia.
The SMR gambit is particularly quixotic, given that they have yet to come to viable fruition. Besides, the entire reactor venture already faces glaring legal impediments, as nuclear power is prohibited by Commonwealth and state laws. (The ban on nuclear energy was, with sweet irony, legislated by the Howard Coalition government a quarter of a century ago.)
Already, the handicaps on the proposal are thick and onerous. Ian Lowe of Griffith University witheringly describesthe proposal as “legally impossible, technically improbable, economically irrational and environmentally irresponsible.”
The greatest of all handicaps is the fact that Australian governments, despite tentatively flirting with the prospect of a civilian nuclear sector at points, have never convinced the citizenry about the merits of such power. The continuous failure of the Commonwealth to even identify a long-standing site for low-level radioactive waste for the country’s modest nuclear industry is a point in fact.
Aspects of the proposed program also go distinctly against the supposedly free market individualism so treasured by those on Dutton’s side of politics. If nuclear power were to become the fundamental means to decarbonise the Australian economy by 2050, it would entail crushing levels of debt and heavy government stewardship.
By its very nature, the Commonwealth would have to take the reins of this venture, given that private investors will have no bar of it. Tom Dusevic, writing in the otherwise pro-Dutton outlet The Australian, put it thus: “There is no other way because private capital won’t go anywhere near this risky energy play, with huge upfront costs, very long lead times and the madness that has pervaded our energy transition to meet international obligations.”
The extent of government involvement and ownership of the proposed nuclear infrastructure made The Age and Sydney Morning Herald search for a precedent. It seemed to have an element of “Soviet economics” to it, directly at odds with the Liberal Party’s own professed philosophy of “lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative”.
It would also further add to the already monstrous AUKUS obligations Australia has signed up to with the United States and United Kingdom, a sovereignty shredding exercise involving the transfer and construction of nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra costing upwards and above A$368 billion. The Smart Energy Council has been good enough to offer its own estimate: the seven nuclear plants and reactors would cost somewhere in the order of A$600 billion, securing a mere 3.7% of Australia’s energy share by 2050.
While draining the treasury of funds, the nuclear-in-Duttonland experiment would do little to alleviate energy costs. The CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, along with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), have concluded that nuclear power in Australia would not be prudent in terms of cost relative to other sources of power. The obstacles noted in their 2023-4 report are impressively forbidding.
Australia, for instance, lacks existing nuclear power projects. “Therefore, although it is true that all technologies have extensive pre-construction development times, nuclear is unique in that it has an empty development pipeline in Australia.” Throw in the layers of legal, safety and security steps, any pioneering nuclear plant in Australia would be “significantly delayed”, rendering nuclear power’s role in achieving net zero emissions by 2050 a nonsense.
The Dutton plan is scratched of all empirical shape. Estimates are absent. Numbers, absent. Capacity, absent. Figures, if supplied, will be done immediately prior to the next election, or while in government. Such moves teeter on the edge of herculean stupidity and foolhardiness, at least in Australian conditions. The exercise is also, quite rightly, being seen as an attempt to stealthily retain coal fired stations while starving continued investment to the renewable sector.
Dutton’s junior partner, the Nationals, have also shown much candour on where they stand on renewable energy projects. Party leader David Littleproud nailed his colours to the mast on that subject early last year. By August 2023, he was explicitly calling for a “pause” to the roll out of wind and solar and transmission links, calling the Albanese government’s pursuit of their 82% renewables target a “reckless” one. His implicit suggestion: wait for the release of the nuclear genie.
The Coalition opposition’s nuclear tease continues the tendency in Australia to soil climate policy with the sods of cultural conflict. On any matter, Dutton would be happy to become a flat earther were there any votes in it. The problem here is that his proposal might, on some level, be disruptively attractive – in so far as the voters are concerned. With Labor dithering in office with the smallest of majorities, any disruption may be one too many.
