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EDITORIAL / Closing Indian Point Wouldn't
Ease Terrorism Risk
05/10/2002
Newsday
(Copyright Newsday Inc., 2002)
The possibility of a Sept. 11-type terrorist attack on the
Entergy Corp.'s two nuclear power plants at Indian Point,
less than 30 miles up the Hudson from Manhattan, has ignited
new demands that the plants be shut down for safety's sake.
On balance, that's a bad idea: The cost of a shut-down - in
lost electricity supplies, in the increased cost of power
and in new air pollution from other plants - is far greater
than the entirely speculative risk of an assault.
But while the reactors, by design, may be substantially shielded
from an airliner attack, the spent fuel that has been removed
from the plants and stored in water-filled pools on the site
is not. Transferring as many of the old fuel rods as feasible
from the pools, where they cool down for a few years after
removal from a reactor, and dispersing them in super-strong
shipping/storage casks would make them less of a target for
an attack.
Because Indian Point's pools are near full, Entergy wants
to move some of the fuel into casks anyway, to make room for
newly spent fuel rods coming out of its reactors. The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission should encourage it to remove from the
pools as many of the rods as are sufficiently cooled, to reduce
the quantity stored in the more vulnerable cooling pools.
With the right kind of casks, the fuel would be all the readier
for shipping to a short- or long-term storage site. The House
helped bring that day closer Wednesday, when it approved using
federal land at Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent nuclear-waste
depository.
Entergy insists the spent-fuel pools are secure and, being
relatively small, difficult targets. But with Indian Point
adjoining a major population center, extra precautions are
in order.
Closing the plants is not. The reactor buildings are designed
to survive extreme stresses and, even if shuttered, the spent
fuel would still be there. Replacement power sources would
burn oil or gas, degrading the region's air. And New York
can ill afford to lose the low-cost power from Indian Point
at a time when summer supplies are already perilously tight.
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