Who knew? Miami has a nuclear power plant. Miami has a nuclear power plant that's right on the waterfront, a few feet at best above normal sea level. Miami's Turkey Point nuclear power plant is owned by Florida Power and Light, FPL. The utility has applied to expand Turkey Point by adding two more reactors. Okay, you can probably see where this is going.
FPL's Turkey Point expansion plans are based on estimated future sea level rise of - wait for it - one foot. One foot. Twelve inches. 30.48 centimetres.
FPL says there's no problem. The new reactors will be situated 26 feet above sea level. Yet the company resists calls to somehow raise or relocate the existing reactors which will be at worsening risk.
6 comments:
Well, no-one can accuse them of having anything in the way of foresight.
The other issue I didn't mention, Tal, is the spent fuel-rod problem. Fukushima had loads of spent rods on site when the tsunami hit. Nobody wants this hazmat transported through their territory and even fewer want to host a proper spent rod storage site. As opposition mounts plans are shelved and the rods are left at the reactor site.
I'm less worried about Turkey Point than about Florida's other operating plant, St. Lucie. Turkey Point sits 26 feet above sea level and has already survived a Cat. 5 hurricane when Andrew hit it in 1992 causing $90 million in damage, but no reactor breach.
St. Lucie, on the other hand, sits on Hutchinson Island, further up the Atlantic coast. Hutchinson Island is only 7 feet above sea level. It survived a couple of Cat. 2 hurricanes in 2004 unscathed and appears to have also weathered Cat 3 hurricane Irma without damage.
What worries me most about St. Lucie is that it kept operating through Irma, despite FPL protocol that dictates a plant be shut down 24 hours before winds are forecast to reach Cat. 1. That fact is thoroughly buried in this article on the aftermath of Irma. St. Lucie also shut one of its reactors the following day over concern about the electrical system supporting the plant. The loss of power to the nuke plants at Fukushima was one of the contributing causes of that disaster. You may be interested to know that the NEI reports 3,330 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in storage in Florida.
Cap
Don't worry about it!
Should the worst happen the taxpayer will pick up the tab.
TB
If there are any left alive!
It's dispiriting to watch how the public interest has been subordinated to the private/special interest to the point it's been suffocated.
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