indian point nuclear power plant meltdown

#Indian point nuclear power plant meltdown how to#

Pipe being laid near by energy company Spectra near the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester County, New York Photograph: Sam Thielman ‘The gas company sends out its stuff about accidents saying they’re like unicorn farts’ A Spectra spokesman said the company believes the pipeline is safe. A spokesman was not allowed to discuss its details but said it was safe to assume the investigation pertained to the pipeline. The NRC’s office of the inspector general, its internal watchdog, confirmed to the Guardian an open investigation into the NRC’s conduct at Indian Point. “That’s a big fucking deal,” Blanch said. Since then, Entergy admitted that some of the bolts holding together the interior of one reactor suffered “degradations” and were, in some cases, missing.

Last week, the Guardian published an assessment of the ageing reactors’ worsening safety record. The plant is in poor condition, and two Spectra gas pipelines predating its original construction already run underneath. The route is planned to pass within 105ft of the fuel oil supply tank for the Indian Point switchyard’s emergency generators. The 42in-diameter natural gas pipeline is an integral part of Spectra’s plan to transmit gas from controversial fracking sites throughout Appalachia’s Marcellus shale deposits all the way up the eastern seaboard to an export terminal in Nova Scotia, where they will be shipped overseas and sold.

#Indian point nuclear power plant meltdown how to#

“There are guidelines about how to do a high-hazard risk assessment they’re totally ignored.” Ferc’s environmental impact report cites “consultations with the NRC”. “We have a risk assessment for the turtles in the area and the one-eyed bats but we don’t have a risk assessment for the humans,” Blanch said. He scoffs at the document Entergy produced – the environmental impact survey concerned with nearby wildlife is enormous, especially by comparison. What frustrates Blanch, who has worked around nuclear technology since he was a 21-year-old in the navy, is what he sees as the regulator’s refusal to do a more thorough risk assessment. New York governor Andrew Cuomo asked Ferc to review the assessment more thoroughly, but Ferc refused, saying it had already dealt with objections. Indeed, few concerns outside those of the industry have attracted attention from regulators. Indian Point nuclear power plant’s containment silos rise along the Hudson River in Buchanan, N.Y., 35 miles north of New York City Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP “We verified the accuracy of their computations,” said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC. Its brevity has some worried that risks have been overlooked. The safety of the pipeline is addressed in an eight-page document that includes a hand-drawn diagram of the property. The town of Yorktown was paid $1.5m by Spectra for the easement on its lands Westchester County received $2m the town of Buchanan, where Indian Point is located, received $700,000.Įntergy’s assessment itself also has some experts worried. The NRC said the amount of the compensation paid for the easement was “out of our jurisdiction”. Entergy’s primary regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), required Entergy to assess the safety of Spectra’s pipeline on its property.

The payment creates a potential conflict of interest. Entergy said its “compensation from Spectra is nominal and in line with industry practice” but declined to give a dollar figure. Spectra has paid Entergy to build the pipeline on its property.

The gas company has used eminent domain laws to acquire adjoining chunks of property in the countryside just north of New York City to place its pipes and compressor stations. The area’s residents are unhappy with the project, which began construction in late 2015, and they have tried to keep it from continuing – objecting in court, in meetings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) and in the trees themselves as the protests grow more aggressive and construction continues unimpeded. And he believes Entergy and Spectra have not fully considered that worst-case scenario. In the worst case, he said, the reactors could melt down. Blanch, who has previously consulted for Entergy and now assists an organization calling for the pipeline to be stopped, said that assertion is a best-case scenario. Nuclear engineer Paul Blanch is not so sure. Entergy, which runs the Indian Point power station, said the plant could be quickly shut down in such an event. If that pipeline leaks or breaks, say experts, its contents could detonate and destroy the switchyard that sits 400ft from the gas line. The flags trace the eventual path of the gas pipeline that the energy giant Spectra is building through the area, escorted at times by police and harried by local residents worried by its proximity to a decaying nuclear power plant. Across a narrow swath cut by bulldozers and chainsaws through the woods of Westchester County, New York, triangular yellow flags are clotheslined between pairs of trees.