Inviting atomic catastrophe as NRC looks to run reactors for 80 years
June 5, 2012 
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a meeting this week to consider having nuclear power plants run 80 years - although they were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling metal parts and otherwise causing safety problems. But, as Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman writes, on the Huffington Post and elsewhere this week, "By extending the operating licenses of nuclear plants, the NRC is inviting catastrophe. It's asking for it. The gargantuan problem is that the "it" is atomic catastrophe which, as the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster and last year's Fukushima catastrophe have demonstrated, impacts on huge numbers of people and other forms of life."
As the 23 U.S. GE Mark I BWRs are among the oldest operating reactors in the country, they would be the first to reach their extended 60-year operating license expirations. The oldest operating reactor in the U.S. is Oyster Creek, NJ, a Mark I operating since 1969.
NRC's long list of 73 rubberstamped 20-year license extensions shows that most Mark Is and IIs across the U.S. have already won approval for 60 years of operations. The only ones yet to receive 60-year permits are: the two Limerick Mark IIs in PA; the Fermi 2 Mark I in MI; and the two LaSalle Mark IIs in IL.