Biden's Bailout?! DE's Old Reactor Risks

NRC file photo of Salem Units 1 and 2 in southern NJ, 18 miles from Wilmington, DEPresident Biden reportedly supports $195 billion in subsidies for 93 dangerously age-degraded atomic reactors across the U.S., as supposed climate emergency mitigation. Ironically, Biden's long-time political power base, Wilmington, DE, is very much in harm's way if a breakdown phase disaster occurs 18 miles away, at the three-reactor Salem/Hope Creek nuclear plant in southern NJ. According to NRC's 1982 CRAC-II report, if "just" the 45-year old Salem 1 reactor melted down, 100,000 "peak early fatalities" (acute radiation poisoning deaths) could occur, the worst figure for any U.S. reactor. 70,000 radiation injuries, 40,000 latent cancer fatalities, and 367 billion Year 2020 dollars in property damage could also result. Urge Biden to change course!

If Salem Unit 2 also melted down, casualties and property damages would double. (Hope Creek began operations in 1986; no figures for Hope Creek were included in the 1982 CRAC-II report, but a third meltdown at the site could reasonably be assumed to triple the casualties and property damages described above.)

Fukushima Daiichi in Japan did suffer a triple meltdown beginning on March 11, 2011.

CRAC-II refers to both a computer code (titled Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences) and the 1982 report of the simulation results performed by Sandia National Laboratories for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The report is sometimes referred to as the CRAC-II report because it is the computer program used in the calculations, but the report is also known as the 1982 Sandia Siting Study or as NUREG/CR-2239.

In his June 2011 four-part series "Aging Nukes," Associated Press investigative journalist Jeff Donn reported that populations have soared around nuclear power plants like Salem/Hope Creek, meaning casualties would be even worse in 2021 than in 1982.

And although CRAC-II's property damage figures can be inflation-adjusted, from 1982 dollar figures to present day dollar figures, what is still not accounted for is economic development since 1982, that accompanied the population growth mentioned above.

As shocking as these reactor catastrophe casualty and property damage figures are, they would be dwarfed by a indoor wet storage pool for irradiated nuclear fuel fire. See, for example, the study by Von Hippel et al. This would also be true at the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear power plant, so dangerously close to Wilmington, DE.