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On Feb. 11, 1985, the cover editorial of Forbes thundered, “The failure of the US nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”
Fourteen months later, Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4 in Ukraine exploded and burned for 40 days, spreading radioactive fallout across the Northern Hemisphere, depositing cesium-137 in Minnesota’s milk (Duluth News Tribune, May 22, 1986). The likelihood of equally catastrophic or worse reactor accidents was cold-bloodedly admitted by Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) member James Asselstine, who testified to Congress later in 1986: “We can expect to see a core meltdown accident within the next 20 years, and it … could result in off-site releases of radiation … as large as or larger than the releases … at Chernobyl.” Still, nuclear power wasn’t phased out.
Fukushima’s triple reactor disaster of March 2011 began 25 years later, but involves three meltdowns that are still causing massive radiation releases. Mr. Asselstine’s prediction was a major understatement. A core meltdown every eight years, on average, is what’s happened, and the chances of accidents increase as reactors age. It’s scientific.
There are 23 Fukushima copies — identical General Electric Mark-I Boiling Water Reactors — operating in the United States. One near us is the rickety Monticello unit, 39 miles northwest of Minneapolis. In 2006, this rattle trap was granted permission by the NRC to operate until 2030 — 20 years past its original 2010 retirement date. Official license extensions are common, even though a year-long Associated Press investigation in June 2011 found that no US reactor was ever designed to run over 40 years.
One year later, in Jan. 2007, decades of deafening vibrations caused a 35,000 pound “control box” to break loose from steel I-beams and smash down on a large steam pipe. Inside the box, the crash caused malfunctions that opened large valves in other steam pipes. The loss of pressure triggered a reactor shutdown.
In 2008, an electrical fault shut off the transformer that supplies electricity to the whole reactor complex, causing a loss of off-site power. The reactor automatically shut down. Emergency back-up generators need off-site power during such accidents to circulate cooling water in the reactor core. The loss of off-site power is what caused Fukushima’s meltdowns.
Shockingly, GE Mark-I cooling pools, which hold hundreds of tons of fiercely hot and ferociously radioactive waste, are not required to have dedicated backup generators to circulate cooling water during loss-of-power emergencies. (Some have ad hoc, fire-hoses ready to return cooling water but only after it’s been boiled off — a worst case scenario.)
Power “uprates” run retirement-age reactors harder and hotter, pushing their luck
“Power uprates” increase the amount of steam, pressure and electric output produced by reactors — beyond what their licenses first allowed. To pack in more fuel rods and run harder, power uprates often require giant new pipes, pumps, valves, transformers and generators so the additional heat, pressure and steam can be controlled.
The NRC’s record of approving these uprates is alarming. Since 1977, the agency has approved 149 and has denied one. Nick DiFrancesco, project manager at the NRC — where the cookie cutter evidently meets the rubber stamp — told Nukewatch Jan. 7, “We don’t’ have a lot of denials.”
Add to this racing of the engines at dozens of “expired” reactors this frightening detail: Fifteen of our 23 Fukushima clones have been granted power uprates, and five of these 15 have been granted a second power uprate. (See chart) Monticello was 43 years old when it was granted a second uprate. It’s the oldest reactor in the US to be pushed to this extreme.
All this risk-taking brings to mind Dirty Harry, pointing his empty gun at a wounded bank robber, saying: “I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire 6 shots or only 5? You got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?” With Monticello, the chamber is over-loaded — and with more than bullets.
Maybe you’ve replaced the tires, breaks, alternator, starter and radiator, but does your 1971 Caprice run well with the original motor? How do you feel about Fukushima clones running past their due dates and stomping on the accelerator?

— Source: NRC, “Approved Applications for Power Uprates,”  HYPERLINK “http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/power-uprates/status-power-apps/approved-applications.html” http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/power-uprates/status-power-apps/approved-applications.html; & “Freeze Our Fukushimas,” Fact Sheet by Beyond Nuclear, May 2012