Article: Demolition of Nuclear Plant Illustrates Problems Involved

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Demolition of Nuclear Plant Illustrates Problems Involved



May 14, 2002

By MATTHEW L. WALD 



WISCASSET, Me., May 10 - Power company executives,

environmentalists and state government officials fought for

most of the 80's and 90's about whether the Maine Yankee

nuclear power plant was safe and economical. But once the

owners agreed that the plant should close, the debate

turned really complicated. 



Suddenly, said Ray Shadis, who had fought for years to shut

down Maine's only reactor, "there were a lot more things to

argue about." 



How much radioactive building material could safely be left

at the site? Should nonradioactive concrete and concrete

structures below the ground be removed? What should happen

to the highly radioactive spent fuel, which the federal

government is supposed to take, but, for the next few years

at least, has no place to put? 



Now, more than five years after Maine Yankee split its last

atom, the cumbersome process of decontamination and

demolition gives a hint of what lies ahead for the 103

power reactors still operating around the country - whether

economic problems close them, as happened here, or fear of

terrorism shuts them, a threat faced by Indian Point in New

York, or whether they run for years to come and retire at a

ripe old age. 



First comes the argument over how much radioactive material

can be left. Some experts have described as excruciatingly

tough the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's standard, which

says the annual extra dose of radiation of the person most

heavily exposed should be no more than 25 millirem. People

who do not work with radiation are exposed to about 350

millirem a year, counting cosmic rays, radon gas and

radiation from medical procedures and naturally radioactive

rocks and minerals. 



In the regulatory commission's calculation, the individual

is assumed to live 24 hours a day at the site. That is

unlikely at many reactor sites that will remain industrial

- as will probably be the case here - where workers

typically spend eight hours a day. Maine Yankee, one of the

first big reactors to be shut, has rail service, town water

and sewerage, access to the electric grid, and a river full

of water for barge traffic or cooling, all of which

contribute to its industrial appeal. 



The commission's calculation also assumes the individual is

a subsistence farmer who drills a well in the most

contaminated spot and uses its water for drinking and

irrigation. Coastal Maine has no such farmers, and the

water under the site is brackish, company officials say,

making it unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. 



But after protracted debate, the state decided that the

commission's standard was too loose; it imposed a standard

of 10 millirem a year. That standard is so low that

technicians have difficulty determining whether dirt or

concrete has enough radioactivity above natural background

that it will contribute to extra exposure. So hundreds of

tons of material are being shipped out to other states on

the presumption of being slightly radioactive, because

shipping is cheaper than testing. 



Not all environmentalists are convinced that this is sound.





"Parts of this can be depicted by others, outside the state

of Maine, to be pretty selfish," said W. Donald Hudson, who

is the president of the Chewonski Foundation, an

environmental educational institution a mile from the

plant. 



Moving the material does not make it any less radioactive,

although it may end up somewhere with a lower population

density and less rainfall, reducing the likelihood that

contaminants will be washed into drinking water. 



Mr. Hudson said plants decommissioned in the future might

not be able to ship out so much material, because states

designated to receive the waste might "put their foot

down." 



Nationally, only three low-level waste dumps are operating,

and one, at Hanford, Wash., accepts material only from the

Pacific Northwest. The other dumps are in Barnwell, S.C.,

and at a desert site about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City,

which is expected to receive most of Maine Yankee's

contaminated concrete. Thus one certainty of

decommissioning is a long trip. 



About 65,000 tons of radioactive waste from the plant will

require shipment off site. More highly radioactive

materials will go to Barnwell. About 50,000 tons of

material that is not radioactive will go to an ordinary

industrial landfill in Niagara County, N.Y. About 75

trainloads of radiaoactive and nonradioactive waste have

already been shipped. 



If all goes as scheduled, it will take eight years to

demolish the plant, which took four years to build. The

construction was easier, because at that point all the

material was clean, said Wayne A. Norton, president of the

company. 



Demolishing the plant and shipping the waste will cost $500

million, more than twice the $231 million the plant cost to

build (although that was in 1972, when a dollar bought more

concrete than it does today.) The job is 61 percent done

and on budget, managers say. 



Maine Yankee is a single-unit plant, about two-thirds the

size of Indian Point 2 or 3 in New York, which suggests the

cost of decommissioning a plant the size of Indian Point

could well exceed $1 billion, 



Another factor in deciding how thoroughly to clean up the

site is radiation exposure to workers performing the

decommissioning. The more exhaustive the operation, the

more that level will rise. Maine Yankee has a "budget" of

no more than 1,150 rem of exposure to all of its workers

collectively during the entire cleanup, although the actual

exposure will probably be somewhat lower. In contrast, 200

rem to 400 rem was typical for a year in which the plant

was operating. 



But neither Maine Yankee nor any other power reactor can

really be fully decommissioned now because there is no

place to put spent fuel. So a major policy issue that

remains is how to store the fuel, which is now kept mostly

in spent fuel pools around the country. 



At Maine Yankee, workers are preparing to put the fuel into

60 giant stainless steel canisters, which will be dried out

and filled with an inert gas to prevent rust. Each will be

loaded into its own giant concrete cylinder, with holes to

allow air circulation. Those will go on concrete pads,

surrounded by razor wire, motion detectors and armed

guards. The casks are licensed for 20 years by the

regulatory commission and guaranteed by the builder for 50

years, but their stay at the site could be a lot longer. An

application by the manufacture to license the casks for

shipping is pending. 



The fuel must be loaded into the canisters under water,

because in open air, the radiation it gives off would be

lethal. But the plan is that after loading, workers will

dismantle the pool, so the site will lose the ability to

repackage the wastes if something goes wrong with a

canister in a few years. 



State officials say the casks may be vulnerable to

terrorist attack.



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/national/14NUKE.html?ex=1022390472&ei=1&en

=458044b8250b1425



Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

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