"Warning was issued in ’70s on GE-designed reactors" by Tom Zeller Jr., New York Times / March 16, 2011
NEW YORK — The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a Mark 1 nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment.
Now, with one Mark 1 containment vessel damaged at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and other vessels there under severe strain, the weaknesses of the design — developed in the 1960s by General Electric — could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe in Japan....
Oh, I'm seeing LAWSUITS in that CLOUD, folks!!!!
In the United States, 23 reactors at 16 locations use the Mark 1 design, including Pilgrim 1 in Plymouth, Mass.; Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt., and the Oyster Creek plant in central New Jersey.
My jaw just dropped because that place is 20 miles upriver!!!
GE began making the Mark 1 boiling-water reactors in the 1960s, marketing them as cheaper and easier to build — in part because they used a comparatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.
Yup, ju$t like BP cutting corner$ in the Gulf!
You $EE what is IMPORTANT to these people, right?
US regulators began identifying weaknesses very early on....
And HERE WE ARE 40 YEARS LATER!!!
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And that shred of silver?
"Vermont Yankee license on hold; NRC says delay result of agency’s staff shortage" by Beth Daley, Globe Staff / March 16, 2011
Vermont Yankee, in Vernon near the Massachusetts border, has suffered a series of problems in recent years that have frayed the public trust, including the collapse of a cooling tower and leaks of tritium into groundwater from underground pipes that company officials initially said were not there....
That went INTO the SOIL and CONNECTICUT RIVER, folks!!!
Related: Around New England: No Veracity in Vermont
Around New England: Vermont Votes Yankee Down
The Boston Globe Can Not Say a Lie
But they sure can tell 'em!
Yesterday, Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith said it was his understanding the delay was merely a temporary one and the license would be issued soon.
The timing of the Japanese crisis couldn’t be worse for the nuclear industry, as it attempts a broad rebirth as a green energy source to combat global warming; the reactors do not emit greenhouse gases that cause the atmosphere to warm.
After the last few winters we have been through (and one year with no summer, just rain)?
But don't let that stop the pro-nuclear, agenda-pushing paper and its promotion of poison:
Vermont Yankee provides roughly one-third of the Green Mountain State’s electricity, for the most part inexpensively.
Yeah, the CANCER-CAUSING CHEMICALS in the soil and water are WORTH IT -- especially when the cancer won't show up for years and can be disputed in the courts for years after.
That low cost, and the more than 600 jobs the plant provides, has won it some support in the state.
Yup, $ome $upport it, sigh.
Still, antinuclear sentiment, always an undercurrent in this liberal state because of the dangers of radioactive releases and waste, grew stronger in 2006 after the plant received NRC permission to increase its power output by 20 percent.
The Globe always saves the best for last!
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