Michigan's dead old nuke is Diablo's early warning

Christina Macpherson

May 28

https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/michigan-s-dead-old-nuke-is-diablo-s-early-warning-by Harvey Wasserman, 27 May 22,

Michigan's Palisades nuke has just shut early for the same reason California's two reactors at Diablo Canyon must now go down-- immediate safety concerns at a badly deteriorated reactor. Safe energy activists fought for decades to close Palisades. Opened in 1971, it was costly, wasteful and grew increasingly dangerous as it inevitably decayed. Finally scheduled to close on May 31, Entergy-- one of America's biggest nuke operators-- stunned the world by taking it down on May 20, reducing the US reactor fleet from 93 to 92.

Cause for shut-down was a defect in the plant's vital control rod mechanism. The alarm bells were global. Simply put: with 11 days left on the clock, the deeply entrenched Entergy Corporation was worried enough about its most bitterly contended reactor's rotted internals to pull the plug early.

With a 51-year-old reactor now in the graveyard, what else are they not telling us? And what have they admitted about the rest of the nation's reactor fleet, which averages 39 years of age?

Such safety concerns are equally vital at Diablo Canyon, whose two reactors opened in the mid 1980s. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's own senior resident inspector, Dr. Michael Peck, has warned that Diablo's twin nukes might not survive seismic shocks from the dozen-plus fault lines surrounding the site. The San Andreas is just 45 miles away; the shock that destroyed the four reactors at Fukushima was twice that distance. That quake may itself have set Fukushima I melting even before it was ever hit by a tsunami.

The energy industry and its shoot-from-the-hip supporters have long assured the world its uninsured reactors at Diablo must be safe because it's regulated by the NRC. But Dr. Peck worked in his official capacity on a daily basis at the Diablo site for five years, and knew its dangers as well as anyone.

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