-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Vesperman <
To: <
Date: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 7:31 AM
Subject: The nuclear power industry doesn't make mistakes, right?

Hello Downwinders!
In the past two weeks, I found the downwinder group's emails interesting, informative, and sometimes sad reading. My heart goes out to all you victims. Back in the early 1970's, after reading several thousand pages and months of investigation, I had concluded that nuclear power was a terrible mistake. In fact I understand that nuclear power plants are now being decommissioned, at great cost, faster than they are being built.
For example, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Clemente, California is reportedly slated to be closed down, I believe, in 2002. All of the spent fuel it ever used is stored on-site.
I have camped on San Onofre State Beach that is just south of the San Onofre nukes. One of their control rooms was built on the wrong side of the reactor vessel. The vessel was too heavy to turn
around. So the control room was torn down and rebuilt on the other side. The nuclear industry is very careful not to make stupid mistakes, right? Wrong!
Some time ago, I figured out that the proposed Yucca Mountain dump would ultimately contain the radioactive equivalent of around 50,000,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. The Hiroshima bomb killed, and is still killing, about 300,000 people. Chernobyl released the radioactive equivalent of several hundred Hiroshima bombs and caused about $300,000,000,000 worth of damage in the old Soviet Union and Europe. I remember reading that Italy alone had to dispose of $750,000,000 worth of radioactivity-contaminated food. I still try not to buy food imported from Europe. The nuclear industry is very careful not to make mistakes, right? Wrong!
A typically sized 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant operating at full power for two years before it is shut down for refueling accumulates the radioactive equivalent of 4,600 Hiroshima atomic bombs. One third of the spent fuel is replaced, and about 3,000 Hiroshima bombs of radioactive fuel is left behind. I wasn't aware that ALL of the waste nuclear fuel ever produced by the San Onofre nukes are still stored on site. I remember one is 200 MW, one is 800 MW, and isn't there a third nuke? Let's try multiplying 30 years times 2,300 Hiroshima bombs per year to equal approximately 70,000 Hiroshima bombs of radioactive materials. The nuclear industry is very careful not to make mistakes, right? Wrong!
My home state is Wisconsin. I got my electrical engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So I was glad to read a couple of years ago the Genoa nuke near LaCross was shut down. When the Genoa nuke was being built, a drinking water fountain was mistakenly connected to a pipe of radioactive water. The nuclear industry is very careful not to make stupid mistakes, right? Wrong!


Every time another nuke is shut down, and they only last for about 20 to 40 years, we can be a little more relieved. The biggest nuclear power plant complex in the world also happens to be the nuclear power plants closest to Las Vegas. Palo Verde is about 50 miles west of Phoenix and has three 1270-megawatt reactors. They are cooled with treated sewage water from Phoenix which is just wonderful for corroding pipes, circulating pumps, etc. They probably have accumulated between the three reactors and spent fuel storage pools I would guess in the neighborhood of around 100,000 Hiroshima bombs of radioactivity. Palo Verde would be a dandy target for Iraq or the Taliban to blow up with a smuggled suitcase fission bomb. The best targets though are facilities for reprocessing waste nuclear fuel rods from dozens and dozens of nukes. Not to worry though. The nuclear industry is very careful not to make mistakes, right? Wrong!
Back in the 1970's, I wrote a short fictional piece about a terrorist attack on the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant east of Sacramento, California. It was a chilling story. My point was that nuclear power plant safety regulations, the Rasmussen study of accident probabilities, and security
safeguards don't mean a thing in case of a bombing attack. Yet nuclear power plants do take sufficient security precautions to prevent disastrous terrorist attacks? Wrong!
The old Atomic Energy Commission back in the 1960's had a $40,000 contract to build a truck for transporting radioactive materials strong enough to withstand an "insignificant armed attack or a significant unarmed attack, but not a significant armed attack". The nuclear power industry is very careful about securely transporting radioactive materials, right? Wrong!
There are two other paths to disaster besides the infamous loss-of-coolant accident. One is the power mismatch, which I am unable to remember how it goes. The other is the power excursion
accident where the control rods can't be jammed back into the fuel to absorb neutrons and shut down the reaction. I do remember that the tons of water in the reactor vessel would flash into steam. The sudden overpressurization would blow up the reactor with an explosive force of several hundred tons of TNT. We shouldn't worry, however. The nuclear industry is very careful not to make mistakes, right? Wrong!
Operating nuclear power plants need reliable power to operate cooling pumps, etc. Each nuke is supposed to have two diesel fuel-operated generators to provide backup power in case of widespread power failure caused by, for example, the peak solar flare activity due to start March 2000. There have been cases recorded where neither diesel generator was able to start upon test because of negligence such as failure to add lubricating oil. There also has been a recorded instance where the same tornado took out four of the five power lines into a nuclear power plant, thought to be statistically impossible. However, the nuclear industry is highly regulated and is very careful not to make mistakes, right? Wrong!
I have or had a DOE document which projects the Yucca Mountain dump's life-cycle cost at $150,000,000,000. In spite of this cost to present and future generations, nuclear power is justified by some people as being a cheap source of electricity, right? Wrong!
I have an old e-mail which lists and describes about two dozen methods of reducing radioactivity with wildly varying degrees of credibility. What should be done is for the DOE to do an honest, thorough review of all methods of neutralizing nuclear waste. And how many dimes has the DOE spent proactively reviewing these methods in a sincere effort to find a safer, cheaper alternative to geologic storage inside Yucca Mountain? I understand not one dime!
Over the past few years, I have corresponded with several nuclear experts on the subject of neutralizing radioactive waste. One of my email correspondents has a company which owns a patent on a new type of waste nuclear fuel container which is supposed to be safer, stronger, and cheaper than casks the DOE currently uses. However, the nuclear power industry is very careful to use the most advanced technologies for safely transporting waste nuclear fuel, right? Wrong!
(They also have worked out the engineering of handling the fuel rods. But he didn't know of a method of actually neutralizing the waste fuel until he met me.) The Department of Energy spends billions of dollars on research and development of hot fusion. Does it reasonably expect a commercially practical hot fusion-based electrical generator by 2010? After all, just like it has been doing with nuclear power plants, the DOE doesn't make mistakes, right? Wrong!
Attached is my compilation of advanced technologies which includes over three dozen proposed new sources of energy and a discussion of candidate technologies for an advanced self-powered electric vehicle. Is the Department of Energy spending millions of dollars on developing them since it ought to be proactively supporting commercialization of clean, cheaper new sources of energy as quickly as possible? As with nuclear power plants and hot fusion, the Department of Energy doesn't make mistakes honestly evaluating and supporting new sources of energy without dragging its feet, right? Wrong!
The nuclear power industry and its overseers in the federal government have been fair and quick to compensate workers who have been injured and even died from exposure to radiation and toxic materials, right? Dead wrong!
Gary Vesperman
Boulder City, Nevada