Arnie Gundersen: "REPAIRS AT FOUR NUCLEAR REACTORS ARE SO EXPENSIVE THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE RESTARTED"
January 18, 2013
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Fairewinds' nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen

While nuclear utilities such as Dominion have been forced to admit that even operating reactors such as Kewaunee in Wisconsin no longer make economic sense to keep running, several reactors long idled for safety reasons may also be facing permanent shutdown.

In the most recent Fairewinds Energy Education weekly podcast, "REPAIRS AT FOUR NUCLEAR REACTORS ARE SO EXPENSIVE THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE RESTARTED," Fairewinds' nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen (photo, left) lays out the case as to why the atomic reactors at Fort Calhoun, Nebraska on the Missouri River, Crystal River in Florida, and San Onofre Units 2 & 3 in southern California should all be permanently shutdown.

(In the second half of the program, Arnie also discusses a recent letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and an accompanying press release, from U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), which expressed strong opposition to U.S. Department of Energy plans to "recycle" radioactive metals and other materials from its nuclear facilities (such as nuclear weapons complex sites, uranium enrichment facilities, national labs, etc.) into consumer products.)

See Arnie's own expert analysis of the situation at San Onofre 2 & 3

Also, see updates on the situations at Crystal River, FL and Fort Calhoun, NE.

Update on January 24, 2013 by Registered Commenteradmin

Fairewinds Energy Education has just posted its latest podcast. It is entitled "The Games People Play." The podcast is an audio recording of last week's U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Petition Review Board (PRB) public meeting to hear Friends of the Earth's (FOE) emergency enforcement petition regarding San Onofre 2 & 3's dangerously degraded steam generator tubes. Fairewinds' nuclear engineer, Arnie Gundersen, serves as FOE's expert witness.

Fairewinds Energy Education has described the podcast's NRC PRB recording this way: 

"THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

In this week's podcast, Fairewinds looks at how difficult it is for the public to meaningfully participate in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing process.  Arnie Gundersen was retained by Friends of the Earth to assess major problems at the San Onofre nuclear plant in California that have caused a year long shutdown.  Arnie met with the NRC this week concerning his analysis of what went wrong and how the problems were foreseeable.  In this podcast, Arnie discusses how Southern California Edison deliberately withheld information to make his technical analysis more difficult to accomplish. Fairewinds taped the meeting, so our podcast listeners can hear for themselves the difficulties Arnie encountered and the games the nuclear industry plays to prevent public participation."

Article originally appeared on Beyond Nuclear (https://archive.beyondnuclear.org/).
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