For Immediate Release                                                

April 21, 2005                                                                                     

NRC Says Harris Nuclear Reactor Doing Better

Progress Might Build New Reactor; Annual Report Card Ignores Vulnerability of Largest U.S. Waste Pools and Reactor Design Flaws

DURHAM, NC –  In the midst of a growing national controversy over nuclear waste storage pools, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission came to Apex, NC today to report that during 2004, the Shearon Harris nuclear facility operated overall in a manner that “preserved public health and safety.”  Earlier today, Progress Energy revealed that it might seek to build another reactor at the Harris site.

The controversial Harris reactor was removed from an NRC watch list in 2004 because its rate for emergency shutdowns dropped from an industry-worst level over the two previous years.  But the plant remains plagued by design flaws that increase the risk of reactor core meltdown.  NRC has not required the problems – involving fire protection and the emergency cooling system – to be corrected.

The annual performance report did not address safety of the “spent” fuel pools, although the industry has been under heavy fire since the National Academy of Sciences released a report on April 6 confirming that waste pools at U.S. nuclear plants are vulnerable to a variety of feasible attacks that could unleash enormous amounts of gamma radiation.  Although NAS warned that cooling pools make desirable targets, NRC excludes domestic or foreign terrorism as a safety performance issue accountable to the public. 

“NRC is doing some heavy-duty grade escalation,” said NC WARN director Jim Warren.  “How can an annual report card on safety ignore the greatest risk factor – the high-density cooling pools?”  He added that NRC’s denial about the pools, and its relaxed approach to reactor flaws, points to the hazard of the agency’s coddling of the industry.

With the nation’s largest high-level waste pools, Shearon Harris makes a curious site for a proposed new reactor.  “This is already one of the nation’s most dangerous nuclear plants,” stated Warren.  He said that if  Progress Energy really pursues a new reactor, it will be extremely controversial.  “The people of North Carolina are too smart to allow this corporation to take the state in such a wrong direction.”

NC WARN is helping lead a national coalition pressing for emergency action to lower risks at nuclear cooling pools through measures NAS deems “relatively simple.”  The industry is distorting the NAS findings about the severity of risk and the urgency of action called for by NAS, the nation’s top scientific panel.  The Coalition charges that the industry is suppressing the nuclear pool issue to protect its efforts to obtain billions more in public subsidies to fund new nuclear plants.  

Warren said the watchdog group will soon have much more to say about possible new reactors.  “Atomic energy plants are more dangerous than ever – for technical and security reasons,” he said.  “Nuclear power cannot solve global warming, and can’t be revived without soaking taxpayers even more.”  He said existing technologies for smart energy usage can cut demand sufficiently to speed the transition to readily-available clean electricity generation.  “The only things lacking are public awareness and political will.”