| All three
Millstone
nukes have been off-line
|
Northeast Utilities has restarted its Unit 2,
a nuclear reactor that can produce 846 megawatts of electricity.
Units 1, 2, and 3 were taken off line three years ago over what are called
"safety concerns." Mostly, the existing paperwork did not correctly
describe the existing system after years of modifications had taken place.
Numerous retrofits were also performed, all in the name of safety.
Safety? Nobody has ever been harmed, nor was there any likelihood of anybody's being harmed by operations at any of the nuclear power plants. However, while the nukes were off line, electricity was generated by other means, primarily by burning coal and oil, each of which is somewhat harmful to humans. For every 1 billion watts of electricity produced for one year from a coal-burning plant, somewhere between 50 and 100 human deaths result. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) pays no heed to the deaths caused by not using nukes. Unit 3, about 1.5 times the capacity of Unit 2, has been back on line for nearly a year, and is now down for refueling. Unit 1 will eventually be dismantled. Meeting NRC's continually changing requirements has made restart financially impossible. It's better to kill people with alternative power, goes the reasoning. |
