"Bathtub Curve for Nuclear Accidents," so named because of its shape, shows aging nukes are at increased risk of safety-significant break downs (graph compliments of Dave Lochbaum, UCS)In yet another of his "Aging Nukes" articles, "NRC and industry rewrite nuke history," Associated Press reporter Jeff Donn reports that decades ago, engineers and regulators were clear that atomic reactors were never meant to operate longer than their original 40 year licenses, if that. Donn reports that "The 40-year license was created by Congress as a somewhat arbitrary political compromise — 'some long period of time, because nobody in his right mind would want to operate a nuclear plant beyond that time,' said Ivan Selin, an engineer who chaired the NRC in the early 1990s." However, since the year 2000, NRC has rubberstamped 66 of the 20 year license extensions, with dozens more in the works. But 60 years of operations isn't risky enough for NRC or the industry -- for several years now, there has been talk of approving 80, even 100, years of operations. Donn appeared on Democracy Now! this morning.