Beyond Nuclear presses its case against Fermi 2 license extension and Fermi 3 new reactor!

NRC file photo of Fermi 2 on the Lake Erie shore. Fermi 3 would be built immediately adjacent to Fermi 2 -- ironically enough, on the very spot where Fermi 1 had a partial core meltdown in 1966!U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rulings regarding the proposed Fermi 2 license extension, and the proposed Fermi 3 new reactor combined construction and operation license application (COLA), have been coming fast and furious in recent days. And Beyond Nuclear, along with its environmental coalition allies, stands ready to press its case in both proceedings. The Fermi nuclear power plant is located on the Lake Erie shore near Monroe in southeast Michigan (see photo, left).

Fermi 2 proposed 20-year license extension

On Feb. 6th, the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) overseeing the Fermi 2 license extension proceeding issued its ruling on environmental coalition contentions against DTE's premature application. (Fermi 2's current 40 year license doesn't even expire until 2025!)

The ASLBP only admitted a small fraction of the numerous contentions filed last August.

Fermi 2 is the last of 22 operating U.S. General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors in the U.S. to have not yet had its 20-year license extension rubber-stamped by NRC. Fermi 2 is identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4, only super-sized: Fermi 2 is nearly as large as Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 and 2 put together!

A coalition consisting of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, and Don't Waste Michigan, represented by Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge, had filed four contentions. Only a part of one was admitted for a hearing. The admitted contention has to do with the risks of Fermi 2's and Fermi 3's (see below) connections to the off-site electrical grid (essentional for running the reactors' and high-level radioactive waste storage pools' safety and cooling systems) all sharing a single, narrow transmission line corridor. This puts both units at risk of common mode failures due to the vulnerability of the transmission lines.

The ASLBP, however, dismissed another of Beyond Nuclear et al.'s contentions -- this one on the need for radiological filters on "new and improved" hardened vents, to be required as a post-Fukushima nuclear catastrophe "lesson learned." Several weeks ago, despite NRC Fukushima Near-Term Task Force recommendations in July 2012, that such radiological filters be installed at GE BWR Mark Is, as well as at Mark IIs (very similar in design; there are 8 in the U.S.), the NRC Commissioners last year voted, 4 to 1, to not require such filters. (NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane cast the sole dissent, calling for filters.) The NRC staff has now cut off any further consideration of its own previously recommended safety upgrade.

The ASLBP also dismissed two Beyond Nuclear et al.'s radioactive waste contentions, including concerns about NRC's current Nuclear Waste Confidence policy disregarding the risks of irradiated nuclear fuel storage pool fires and leaks, as well as the risk that a permanent repository for high-level radioactive waste disposal will never open. In doing so, NRC has flagrantly flouted orders from June 2012 issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in New York v. NRC.

A second environmental group, Citizens' Resistance at Fermi Two (CRAFT), had also filed 14 contentions against Fermi 2's license extension last August. The ASLBP admitted only portions of two: "...the Board admits portions of two contentions—one alleging negative impacts on tribal hunting and fishing near Fermi 2 (Contention 2) and the other asserting that Canadians living within 50 miles of the facility were excluded from the SAMA analysis (Contention 8).

The Walpole Island First Nation lives on an island in the St. Clair River, on unceded territory between the U.S. and Canada. It was not contacted by NRC about its right to take part in the Fermi 2 license extension proceeding.

Similarly, even though Fermi 2 is only 8 miles across Lake Erie from Amherstburg, Ontario, DTE has not included impacts on Canadians in its Severe Accident Mitigation Alternaties (SAMA) analyses, as if catastrophic radioactivity releases from Fermi 2 would magically stop at the Canadian border!

The ASLBP will schedule evidentiary hearings in the near future, likely to be held in Monroe, MI -- as were the oral argument pre-hearings last November 20th.

The Toledo Blade has reported on the environmental coalition's winning a hearing against the Fermi 2 license extension. The Blade article was in response to CRAFT's Feb. 8th press release.

Fermi 3 proposed new reactor combined Construction and Operating License

On Feb. 4th, the four U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners (there is currently an open seat on the five member Commission) held its "Mandatory, Uncontested Hearing" on DTE's (formerly Detroit Edison) combined Construction and Operating License Application (COLA) for the proposed Fermi 3 ESBWR (General Electric-Hitachi, so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor"). Required by the Atomic Energy Act, the day-long session was token, perfunctory, self-congratulatory, and a rubber-stamp formality, making short shrift of the countless risks that Fermi 3 would create. The hearing was one of the very last steps remaining before NRC grants COLA approval.

The environmental coalition (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and Sierra Club Michigan Chapter) that has been intervening against Fermi 3 for six and a half years issued a press release, vowing to appeal NRC's rubberstamp of the Fermi 3 COLA to the federal courts. The legal challenges will focus on "Nuclear Waste Confidence," quality assurance (QA), and NRC's violation of NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) by excluding Fermi 3's transmission corridor from the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement). All told, the coalition -- also represented by Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge, as well as expert witness Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer of Fairewinds Associates (on the QA contention) -- filed some three-dozen contentions in this proceeding.

Lodge said: “Once all administrative remedies are exhausted at NRC, we plan to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on multiple environmental and safety-related fronts.”

Gundersen, at the time of Halloween, 2013 ASLBP hearings in southeast Michigan, said: “Given Detroit Edison’s violations of quality assurance requirements, the geological borings and soil samples are suspect. Fermi 3’s building structures would be very heavy, so the geotechnical data has to be verifiable, so that the atomic reactor’s foundations are rock solid, and seismically qualified.”

And coalition coordinator, Michael Keegan of Don't Waste MI in Monroe, said: “In addition to ducking a transmission corridor EIS, DTE and NRC are attempting to duck the laws of physics. The corridor as currently configured will not meet NRC recommended design vulnerability protections, including its susceptibility to many single failure events that could remove all three lines from service. This is made significantly worse by being part of the same transmission corridor as Fermi 2, a Fukushima Daiichi twin-design.”

On Feb. 12th, Lodge filed a "place-holder" contention, on behalf of Beyond Nuclear, with the Fermi 3 ASLBP regarding Nuclear Waste Confidence concerns. It will seek to apply any U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit environmental coalition legal victory against NRC's current, bogus reincarnation of Nuclear Waste Confidence (now renamed Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel by the agency) in the Fermi 3 proceeding. That is, Beyond Nuclear et al. will call for the blocking of Fermi 3's license, or its revocation if already granted, until the Nuclear Waste Confidence concerns have been addressed. Beyond Nuclear member Michael Keegan, a longtime watchdog on the Fermi nuclear power plant, who resides within the 10-mile radius Emergency Planning Zone, has provided standing for Beyond Nuclear.

In addition to the coalition's legal appeal, opponents to Fermi 3 are gearing up to resist any attempts by DTE to secure public subsidies for the construction of Fermi 3. DTE could request the Michigan Public Service Commission to approve ratepayer-funded "Construction Work in Progress" subsidies for building Fermi 3. And DTE could apply to the U.S. Department of Energy for $12.5 billion in federal taxpayer-funded loans and loan guarantees, to finance construction.

Thom Hartmann hosted Beyond Nuclear on his television program "The Big Picture" on Feb. 9th to discuss Fermi 2 and 3 -- as well as the "We Almost Lost Detroit" Fermi 1 partial core meltdown of 1966. Fermi 3 would be built immediately adjacent to Fermi 2 -- ironically enough, on the exact spot where the Fermi 1 experimental plutonium breeder reactor meltdown occurred!