"Security Issue at Fermi Probed"

NRC file photo of Fermi 2, located on the Lake Erie shore in Monroe Co., MI.The Monroe Evening News has reported that Detroit Edison's Fermi 2 atomic reactor was found to have a security breach earlier this year, which could have allowed access to the "Protected Area" (including the reactor and control room). Detroit Edison claimed the vulnerability was corrected that very day. Security-related matters are almost always cloaked in secrecy, post-9/11, so the public can not know exactly what is being described.

Beyond Nuclear is part of an environmental coalition, including Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario (CEA), Don't Waste MI, and the Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter officially intervening before NRC's Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) against a proposed new reactor targeted at the same site, Fermi 3. The proposed new reactor's design is a GE-Hitachi, so-calleed "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor," which has been built nowhere in the world before. Even the ESBWR design certification has experienced major problems, such as 6,000 Requests for Additional Information by NRC itself, and a legal settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over fraud and falsifications regarding the ESBWR steam dryer design.

Fermi 2 could apply to NRC for a 20-year license extension as early as this year. Fermi 2 is the largest General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor in the world. It is nearly as big as Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 and 2 -- of identical design -- put together.