By Roger Witherspoon A special inspection of the Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor found that more than a quarter of the stainless steel bolts needed to channel cooling water through active nuclear fuel rods were broken, distorted or “missing”, a finding that calls into question the effectiveness of the long term management of this and other ageing power plants. The inspection, which began March 7, concerned the 832 “baffle-former assembly bolts” which hold special metal plates

Byron Nuclear Power Plant By Roger Witherspoon After four years of increasingly tense internal discussion, seven Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineers have formally petitioned the governing Commissioners to either order the nation’s nuclear power plants to immediately correct a design flaw governing their reactor cooling systems or order them all to shut down. The flaw is in the original design of the electrical system, and has escaped notice for decades. According to the e

By Roger Witherspoon For more than a decade, it has been impossible for operators of the Indian Point nuclear power plant to stop highly radioactive reactor and spent fuel pool coolant from leaking into the groundwater and migrating to the Hudson River. And despite assurances from Entergy that this time will be different, there is no indication that the company has developed the ability to prevent the latest uncontrolled leaks from following the underground waterway into the

By Roger Witherspoon New York State is prepared to close 40 years of intermittent and costly legal wrangling over the annual destruction of billions of fish by the twin Indian Point nuclear power plants in the productive Hudson River estuary if the plant agrees to shut down during peak spawning and hatching seasons for the river’s major fish populations. But such a deal, if ratified, would mean the plants could be shut from 13 weeks to 32 weeks, an enforced idleness which cou

By Roger Witherspoon The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating possibly major lapses in security at the Indian Point nuclear power plants, including the prospect that criminal elements are using parts of the plants’ emergency drills for their own terrorist training. Records show that for more than a decade, officials at Indian Point have largely ignored instances where their internal security communications system was compromised and blocked by outside individuals. W

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article William Holston was obviously exasperated. For nearly two hours he had fielded the brunt of increasingly detailed queries from the three Administrative Law Judges, on the adequacy of a deliberately vague set of guidelines to oversee the operations of the Indian Point nuclear power plants for the next 20 years.  And though Entergy had four of its own experts on the extended witness stand, most of the judges’ queries were direc

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Robert Aleksick was emphatic. “FAC is like roaches,” he said, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of exasperation. “Where you see one, there are bound to be more hidden away.” Aleksick should know about these hidden pests. As president of CSI Technologies, Inc., he is one of the nation’s foremost experts on FACs, or Flow Assisted Corrosion, a condition of degradation on the inside of pipes carrying superheated, radioactive w

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article For the past decade, Entergy and supporters have proclaimed that its twin Indian Point reactors are all that keeps the trains running, the street lights on and school buildings operating throughout New York City and neighboring Westchester County. Entergy, which actually provides about 5 percent of the electricity used in the area, can get away with its misleading advertising for only one more year.  The New York Power Author

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article In a stunning change of position, federal regulators have downgraded by a factor of 1,000 the 31-year-old data assessing the fish killed annually by the Indian Point nuclear power plant. In addition, the regulators assert the plants’ thermal plume causes minimal damage to the Hudson River environment and may fit state requirements for a hot water discharge permit. The direct impact of the change by the Nuclear Regulatory Comm

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article “…EPA’s insupportable assumption that screening technologies are available at nuclear facilities, threaten the viability of existing plants and their daily contribution to cost-effective electricity….” Brief, Entergy Corp v US EPA 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals July 5, 2005 For much of the last decade Entergy Nuclear, the owners of the twin Indian Point reactors in New York, have battled environmental regulators from the state

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Entergy Nuclear has asked federal regulators to override New York State’s weapons law to allow Indian Point guards to carry heavier weaponry on the nuclear site than standard commercial security guards. The request comes ten years after terrorists flew a hijacked plane directly over the twin containment domes on the Hudson River en route to a suicidal dive into the World Trade Center 25 miles to the south. In the interim, Ent

By Roger Witherspoon The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may force the nation’s nuclear power plants to reevaluate their earthquake detection and safety systems and the manner in which they calculate their resistance to earthquakes as a result of unexpected damage to American and foreign reactor complexes caused by recent earthquakes. The agency has been studying the need to upgrade earthquake protections and evaluations since 2005, in partial recognition of the inadequacy of n

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article All six nuclear reactors in the New York/ New Jersey metropolitan area are operating “in a manner that preserved public health and safety” and therefore will receive the minimal oversight during the coming year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared in its annual assessment. In separate reviews, the NRC concluded that New Jersey’s Hope Creek, Oyster Creek, and twin Salem Generating Station plants and the two Indian Point

By Roger Witherspoon In an unprecedented move, the environmental agencies of New Jersey and New York have begun forcing scores of their largest water users to either retrofit their plants with modern cooling systems which won’t kill billions of fish annually or cease operating. Environmental analysts in the two states have found that these facilities kill more than 20 billion juvenile and mature fish annually in New York and another nine billion in New Jersey.  These operati

Q:        How much electricity is generated in the state? A:         According to the New York Independent System Operator, which runs the power grid, total electric power generation in the state is 37,416 Megawatts transmitted over 10,877 miles of high voltage lines. Q:        How much electricity is generated in the New York City/ Westchester power section of the grid? A:         The NY ISO reports there are 11,087 Megawatts of generating capacity in this region. Q:       

Q:        How much electricity do Indian Point 2 and 3 produce? A:         According to Entergy’s annual report for calendar year 2009, Indian Point 2 produces 1,028 megawatts of electricity and Indian Point 3 produces 1,041 megawatts. Q:        How much electricity is used in the New York City / Westchester County service area of the NY State power grid? A:         New York City and Westchester County use 9,000 to about 13,000 megawatts of electricity during peak periods d

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Entergy Corporation’s low key announcement might well have been posted on Craig’s List: For Sale: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Used, unpredictable radioactive leaks, occasional fires, poorly run, financially indebted, locally unpopular, politically shunned and currently not working. $180 Million – Or Best Offer. “Selling an old nuclear plant is like trying to build a new one,” said economist Mark Cooper of the Universi

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article A series of unexplained mechanical failures – including a large hot water leak and the activation of a fire suppression system – triggered an emergency shut down of Indian Point 3 late Thursday night. It is the seventh unplanned shut down between the twin Indian Point reactors in the past two years. The latest mishap comes just one week after failures in the steam generation system forced the shut down of the companion nuclea

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article Federal officials are investigating Entergy Nuclear Corps’ management of its massive steam generators following the latest in a series of mechanical failures which forced six plant shut downs in the last two years. Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors are specifically examining the cause of the Sept. 3 malfunction in a steam generator serving the reactor in Indian Point 2, which triggered an automatic “trip” or shut down.

By Roger Witherspoon Download and/or Print Article The Obama Administration is struggling to decide whether to keep or scrap the key Bush era policy used to stifle new environmental regulations and limit enforcement of existing laws. And despite the professed openness of this administration and its break with a business-oriented, anti-environment past, the new Environmental Protection Agency has so far refused to alter or discuss the issue or any inter-agency analysis of its