Clarifying Common Questions & Criticisms  

Over the past four years, NC WARN has published scores of documents on the nuclear waste expansion at Shearon Harris.  Because we must always seek to balance clarity with brevity, we issue this Q&A to help our allies and others answer questions and criticisms that sometimes arise about our work.  We’re out in the open, pressing for regional discussion of the issues.  By contrast, CP&L has spent millions of ratepayer dollars to block scientific and public debate.    

Neither Progress/CP&L nor anyone else has ever successfully challenged our facts.   Instead, the company’s public relations squad quietly lobbies local officials, the media, and others, denigrating critics as “extremists” or having “an anti-nuclear agenda.” (We think CP&L has an extremist, pro-nuclear agenda driven by profits and careers.)  It’s remarkable how many people fall for simplistic name-calling instead of substantive debate.  There’s much on our website to substantiate the following points.

QUESTION:  How can Shearon Harris be called the nation’s largest potential nuclear target?  Aren’t there larger amounts of nuclear waste at some of the weapons plants?

NC WARN:  Most of the nuclear materials at weapons sites are in forms other than “spent” rods (waste fuel), such as liquids, that are far less concentrated than waste fuel in terms of radioactivity.  Also, weapons waste is dispersed across many acres and often buried underground, while U.S. reactor waste fuel is stored in high-density cooling pools.  Harris is the only plant with four pools (three in use – all interconnected and in one building); it has the largest approved storage capacity of any nuclear plant.  Due to the import of waste from three other CP&L reactors, Harris will soon become the largest waste stockpile, if it isn’t already.

QUESTION:  Isn’t NC WARN giving domestic and foreign terrorists ideas – and painting a bulls-eye on North Carolina by drawing attention to Shearon Harris?

NC WARN:  Anyone with a basic knowledge of nuclear power knows that waste pools are the largest and most vulnerable targets at most plants.  This has also been widely reported, and information about Harris’ size has been easily available from industry and NRC websites until recently.  Other potential targeting factors, such as proximity to Fort Bragg and RTP, are also well known.  The issue is whether CP&L should be required to reduce unnecessary risks; if critics stand down, it is unlikely the corporation will do so.

QUESTION:  NC WARN simply has an emotional, anti-nuclear agenda – they just want to shut down CP&L’s nuclear plants.  Our nation needs nuclear power as a clean, reliable source of energy.   

NC WARN:  We have not called for the shutdown of CP&L’s plants, and closing plants would not eliminate the greatest risk, the waste pools.  Nuclear plants are here for the foreseeable future; the question is whether they can be maintained safely, and especially whether they can be protected from acts of political malice or from a deranged person.  Our goal is to minimize risks, and eliminate them whenever possible. 

QUESTION:  The comparison to the 1986 Chernobyl accident is dishonest.  Chernobyl was an entirely different reactor design from any in the U.S.; the explosions and fire could not happen here.

NC WARN:  People with radiation poisoning, fleeing from a nuclear release, and losing their homes forever would not care whether the disaster occurred from a reactor meltdown or explosion, or from a waste pool fire.  The amount of long-lived radiation from a waste pool fire could be far greater than that from a reactor release.

QUESTION:  Why do you say that Harris’ pools already contain 10 times the cesium released by Chernobyl?

NC WARN:  During Orange County’s legal challenge, Dr. Gordon Thompson calculated that if filled, Shearon Harris’ four pools would contain over 29 times the cesium-137 (the most damaging material) as released by Chernobyl.  CP&L could not contest that calculation.  The pools are approximately half-filled now.

The NRC now admits that a waste pool fire would likely cause all cesium-137 to be released.

QUESTION:   We have to store nuclear waste somewhere, and it’s irresponsible to complain that it shouldn’t be at Shearon Harris.  Besides, the Yucca Mountain dump in Nevada has been approved.  And won’t it be a bigger target than Harris?                                                                        

NC WARN:  The dump in Nevada, if it ever opens, would be legally filled (in 30 years minimum) before Harris waste would be sent there, because Harris was one of the last plants opened and has excess storage capacity.  Shearon Harris would remain the largest realistic nuclear target for decades.  Also, Yucca waste would be stored inside the mountain and be less vulnerable than Harris’ interconnected pools.

QUESTION:  NC WARN uses fear to further its agenda, and is fueling the government’s “war on terrorism” that threatens our civil liberties.

NC WARN:  We have cited threats against, and vulnerabilities of, nuclear plants for four years.  Recently 27 state attorneys general warned about possible attacks.  The Bush Administration has vigorously promoted the nuclear industry and kept it out of the spotlight as much as possible, despite its obvious link to the terrorism issue (much of the threat information has resulted from leaks to the media), so this can’t be dismissed as hype.

QUESTION:  How can you have a fire in a cooling pool filled with water?

NC WARN:  The fire would occur if water is drained or boiled out.  The NRC and industry now admit that due to tightly packed waste assemblies, if it is exposed to air, the waste’s own heat would cause it to self-ignite and burn.  Radiation inside the waste pool building would be so high (even prior to combustion) the fire could not be extinguished, and it would spread across and between pools. 

QUESTION:  The NRC has sole jurisdiction over the nuclear industry.  The attorney general can’t make Progress/CP&L do anything. 

NC WARN:  The NRC is supposed to regulate CP&L’s nuclear operations, but the agency is dangerously biased in favor of the industry due to corporate money flowing to Congress. But CP&L and parent company Progress Energy are chartered by the State of North Carolina.  The N.C. Constitution grants explicit authority to the People of the State, through our elected leaders, to “modify or amend” its overall corporate operations.  Attorney General Roy Cooper admits he has this policing authority over Progress/CP&L.

Federal elected officials and regulators have refused to require an environmental impact study, scientific hearings, or any consideration of terrorism regarding Harris’ waste expansion.  Thus, the State must take action to protect the public from unnecessary risks of waste transport and vulnerable high-density pools.

QUESTION:  Wouldn’t it cost CP&L more to use hardened, dry storage at each plant?  Isn’t the company already in debt trouble?

NC WARN:  Progress/CP&L is still spending vast amounts on lobbying, political campaigns and image advertising – even though it exists in a monopoly market.  Reducing risks from high-level waste management could be done for far less annual expense than those “public relations” expenses. 

QUESTION:   Aren’t spent fuel rods transported in tough containers on specially designed, heavily guarded railcars?  How could the transport cask be damaged by accident or attack?

NC WARN:  CP&L’s waste canister is transported on a basic flatbed railcar and is open to view.  An attacker with basic munitions knowledge could use a variety of weapons to not only penetrate, but cause radioactive materials to burn and be spewed into the air (CP&L’s trains carry about 1 million curies per shipment). Radioactive contamination could injure or kill people nearby, and contaminate property across dozens of square miles.  A number of independent studies confirm that billions of dollars in damage could be the result.