Nebraska Has The Most Fire-Prone Nuclear Plant in the U.S.

While the international community focuses on Japan and its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the safety of which was seriously compromised following a massive earthquake, the United States has a renewed interest in the safety of nuclear power at home.

A probe into the safety of US nuclear plants, using data from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and data visualization software, suggests that America's plants are relatively safe overall, but that some power plants are more prone to incidents than others.


(Click the link to interact with the data on nuclear plant fires in the US on the IBM ManyEyes website)

The Cooper Nuclear Power Plant, near Brownville, Neb., has the worst record in the country when it comes to fire safety. From 1999 to 2009, it reported six significant fires to the NRC. The plant reported two other significant fires in 1996.

The plant makes Nebraska, which only has two nuclear plants (the other being Fort Calhoun, in Washington County), the state with the most nuclear plant fires in the past decade.

Additional NRC fire inspection reports show that the plant had 14 violations between 2000 and 2009. One of those violations included a "white" violation, "an issue with low to moderate increased importance to safety," where plant operators had improper procedures to safely shut down the plant in the event of a fire.

[Download the full spreadsheet of NRC fire inspections for this and all U.S. nuclear plants here]

"Between 1997 and June, 2007, the licensee failed to ensure that two emergency operating procedures which controlled activities affecting quality were appropriate to the circumstances," regulators reported. "Additionally, the licensee failed to properly verify and validate procedure steps to ensure that they would work to accomplish the necessary actions."


Other fire inspection violations included:

2006: Failures to Properly Control Combustibles in the Plant.

2004: Failure to ensure redundant safe shutdown systems located in the same fire area are free of fire damage.

2002: Failure to follow procedure resulting in a fire.

2001: Failure to install fire detectors in accordance with federal regulations.

In one 2009 inspection, NRC regulators made several findings about the safety of the plant, and noted an event where a maintenance tech tried to replace a leaky O-ring in a control valve hydraulic fitting, but used a wrong-sized part. This caused a leak at the plant, forcing operators to take the turbine off-line and shut down the reactor.

"The finding is more than minor because it adversely affected the configuration control attribute of the initiating events cornerstone, and adversely affected the cornerstone objective to limit the likelihood of those events that upset plant stability and challenge critical safety functions during shutdown as well as power operations, in that this finding resulted in a condition that prompted a plant
shutdown from 70 percent power," regulators wrote.

Meanwhile, the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), which owns the Cooper plant, was among 16 nuclear energy providers who sued the Department of Energy (DOE) to stop collection of a nuclear waste fee.

According to the Lincoln, Neb. Journal Star, the DOE currently charges the providers 0.1 cents-per-kilowat to dispose of nuclear waste. But the plaintiffs argue that the DOE hasn't been complying with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, and shouldn't have to pay the fee.

The Journal Star reported that NPPD built a $80 million storage facility at the Cooper plant to store spent fuel rods.

The suit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on March 8. The 9.0-magnitude Japan earthquake happened three days later. The Christian Science Monitor wrote that reports are emerging from international regulatory agencies about lax oversight of the Fukushima plant.


NPPD officials are confident about the plant's ability to withstand natural disasters. A recent Associated Press story quoted the NPPD spokesperson as saying the Cooper plant can withstand 300 mph winds, a 6.0-magnitude quake and a 1 million-year flood.

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS: A FEUD OVER GREEN ENERGY IN THE MIDWEST

[A computer render of the potential Meridian Wind Farm in western Sangamon County, Illinois, courtesy of American Wind Energy Management]

Green energy is marketed by politicians as a solution to an economy in shambles. But when it comes to making those jobs a reality, this national initiative takes a back seat to local politics.

On February 4, the Illinois Times published a story I wrote about a feud between those who want to bring wind energy to Sangamon County, Illinois, and those who don’t want to live next to wind mills. The locals claimed many worries:

Concerned that a potential wind farm would reduce property values, create noise pollution or present a fire hazard, homeowners showed up to three informational meetings held in January.

“We’re not opposed to wind energy, but we’re concerned about the proximity to homes as it relates to property values, health issues and everything else,” said Cindy Bomke at a Jan. 25 meeting in New Berlin. Bomke, cousin of state Sen. Larry Bomke, collected about 450 signatures last year in a petition for more setbacks.

Steve Frank, New Berlin village president, witnessed growth spurts in the towns of Chatham, Rochester and Sherman, and worries that a wind farm could restrict New Berlin’s own progress. “We’re in the growing mode here, and I don’t want to be landlocked if a wind farm comes in within half a mile,” Frank said at the meeting.

Wind farm proponents also had concerns. The contingency of citizens opposed to wind farms were petitioning the Sangamon County Public Health, Safety and Zoning board to increase the setback requirements for turbines. This, green energy advocates feared, could squeeze green energy out of Sangamon County.

Will Reynolds, who is on the board of the local Sierra club and is part of Sierra’s coal campaign, said in an interview in early February, “These are going to be built somewhere, so it’s a matter of whether we want some of those turbines and the jobs to go with it in our county or whether we’re going to watch them go to other counties and other states.”

Reynolds had sharp criticism for the members of the zoning board, writing in his blog that the county gave International Coal Group nearly $1 million in tax abatements to expand a mine in Sangamon county, but offered no such incentives to wind developers.

“Going back to coal mine, had they done any hearings around the county, about the health and safety violations of the coal mine? Did they talk about that, when they consider giving hundreds of thousands of dollars of subsidies to promote a very small number of new jobs,” Reynolds said in the interview.

When Tim Moore, the chairman of the Health, Safety and Zoning Board was asked about this in late January, his answer was that ICG requested a subsidy, and the wind developer, American Wind Energy Management, made no such request.

“I don’t recall what the incentive was for the coal company, other than it was a very competitive coal environment. We probably want [ICG] to stay here in the county… You don’t have to give someone a subsidy who is coming in and saying ‘we want to give this much money to that property owner for that project and we’re going to pay all of these taxes.’ And they’re not asking, and we’re not offering,” he said.

After approving the ICG’s abatements in January, the county zoning board told the State Journal-Register the mine expansion would yield 12 to 18 new jobs. AWEG’s Meridian wind farm could potentially create 20 permanent, full-time jobs, with many additional jobs supported in the initial construction phase (calculated from the company’s plans to install 200 turbines and job estimates from Matt Aldeman, a technical assistant at the Center for Renewable Energy).

Reynolds also noted in his blog that the ICG Sangamon county mine, the Viper mine, had numerous safety violations. He referred to a statement from Illinois senator Dick Durbin, who mentioned the Viper mine had 124 safety violations from 2005-2006.

Regarding the stock photo of a wind farm used for the IT story, American Wind Energy Management sent me a graphic of how the Meridian wind farm might look. AWEM wrote that because of the current ordinances, wind farms “would average one machine per 100-200 acres.” (Click AWEM's image at the top of the post to see it at full-resolution)

The zoning board has not yet convened to discuss the ordinance amendment that could extend wind farm setbacks to 1 mile from non-participating homeowners (the current setback being 1,200 feet). The board was due to discuss the amendment in February, but scheduling conflicts killed the meeting before it took place. The amendment may be discussed in the board’s March 18 meeting.

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