Oyster Creek nuclear plant kills endangered sea turtles and millions of marine organisms

[jpak]

http://www.environmentnewjersey.org/legislature/testimony/clean-water/clean-water/oyster-creeek-nuclear-generating-station39s-pollution-of-nearby-waterways

Since Oyster Creek was built in 1969, the plant's operation has resulted in far-reaching and long-lasting environmental degradation in the nearby waterways of Forked River, Oyster Creek and Barnegat Bay.

Oyster Creek's once-through cooling system was designed in the 1960s. The system intakes water from Forked River to cool the reactor and the heated water, or thermal pollution, is then discharged into Oyster Creek. The plant intakes and discharges an enormous amount of water—over 1.4 billion gallons—on a daily basis. The water is taken in at a speed of 1-2,000 cubic feet per second, which is the force of a medium-sized river. The chlorine levels in the water are also 20 times the lethal level of many types of aquatic life.

Despite grates over the intakes, the water flushing creates a giant sucking action that brings with it an assortment of aquatic life. Some of this aquatic life is small, flows through the grate, and is killed in process of cooling the reactor. This lethal effect is called entrainment. Larger types of aquatic life, such as striped bass, white perch, and endangered sea turtles, get pinned on the grate and often die from, or are seriously injured by, the rush of oncoming water. This lethal effect is called impingement.

The plant has developed a record of killing threatened and endangered species, specifically sea turtles, over the last ten years. From 1992 to 2000, the plant recorded 17 captures of sea turtles and six sea turtle mortalities. Even though these figures are high, the problem could be much worse. A 2001 Nuclear Regulatory Commission report found discrepancies in the number of kills that Exelon reported to the NRC and the number in the archive, and concluded the "inconsistent and erratic availability of data on sea turtle captures at Oyster Creek underscores a wider unreliability of information supplied to the public."

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Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station: Ecological & Environmental Impacts

http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/index.php?id=323

Oyster Creek Nuclear Generation Station (OCNGS), located in Lacey Township, NJ, is the oldest nuclear power plant in the nation, coming online in 1969, and will operate under its current license until 2009. Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station (OCNGS) seeks to extend its operating license for 20 years after it expires in 2009 and seeks to renew its pollution discharge permit that regulates the cooling water system.

Each day that OCNGS operates without the required cooling towers, 1.3 billion gallons of Barnegat Bay water gets sucked into and passes through its antiquated cooling system. This is 2.2% of the total volume of Barnegat Bay per day and over 790% of the bay per year. The nuclear plant is literally straining the life from Barnegat Bay.

The negative effects of this obsolete (1969) technology are documented:
Massive destruction of shellfish larvae, fish eggs, and plankton
Thermal pollution
Killing of endangered sea turtles
Large fish kills
Biocides released in the Bay.

When the plant automatically shutdowns for safety reasons, fish kills occur during cold weather due to the lack of warm water input to the Bay. In 2002, 5,876 fish were killed and the plant was fined $1 million ($170.18/fish) by the State of New Jersey. In 2006, 80 fish died and in Dec. 2007 another 5,304 were killed. The fine for 2006 and 2007 incidents was a slap on the wrist in comparison: $67,859 ($12.60/fish). In Nov. 2008, 38 more fish died following a shutdown. Cooling towers would prevent these fish kills and reduce the artificially high temperatures near the plant's current discharge area back to normal.

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Oyster Creek Kills

It kills, and kills and kills and kills and kills and kills....

:thumbsdown:

:puke:

[jpak]

1. kick

:D

[Throckmorton]

2. So do all Once Through plants

Oil, Nuclear, coal, NG, biomass.

Close cycle is the answer for these plants, one and all.

Renewables kill too, birds get chopped by wind turbines and smack into solar panels.

Fish get crushed by hydro-turbines.

Our relentless population growth and quest for energy is hard on living things.

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. +1

[NNadir]

3. Let's play "DO MATH!" First let's see if we can tell what units of area are!?!

The Oyster Creek nuclear station is on, um, 820 acres, about 3.2 square km, but the reactor is contained in a single building, um that one can see from the beach.

Here's the reactor, which produces as much energy - not that we have too many "solar will save us" people who have ever been able to comprehend the difference between energy and PEAK power, not that wind or solar systems ever actually reach PEAK power.

Here's a picture of the building that produces as much energy as an entire nation (Denmark) of whirling http://www.taproot.com/wordpress/2008/02/25/windmill-accident/">crashing metal.



Let's see if we can, um, take the square root of 3.2, OK, which, assuming one has passed 4th grade math, will give the distance of any side of a square, even though we understand that most of the property is, um, pristine, and hardly covered with turtle corpses, in the way, say that a wind farm in Texas might be covered by pureed whooping cranes and falcons.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/04/wind-farms-cranes.html">Whooping Cranes Threatened by Wind Farms. Of course, desert tortoises love eating cadmium when the fucking useless solar toys blow apart in the wind.

I mean if we can't just make shit up and be arbitrary, is it fun? Why no? Reality? We don't need no stinkin' reality.

So about that square root problem: The square root of 3.2 km² is, um, 1.78 km, roughly, meaning that one can drive a speeding Tesla car past it in, um, about one minute, if one can convert mph to meters per second.

If one can't, well, one must be taking anti-nuke juice.

The coast line of New Jersey is 703 km, dotted, of course, by dangerous fossil fuel terminals, but also quite a stretch of pristine beach, only disturbed by stupid four wheeling vehicles from the stupid car CULTure that our anti-nukes are always ignoring because they. couldn't. care. less. The, tidal coastline, however is 2,884 km, since New Jersey's coast has something called barrier islands, inlets, etc, etc, not that there is ONE anti-nuke who can understand geometry, since it is a mathematical concept.

http://www.city-data.com/states/New-Jersey-Location-size-and-extent.html

One can swim in the waters off of Oyster Creek, and people actually do this, um, all the time, including the side on Barnegat Bay, which is often traversed by a huge flotilla of speeding speed boats occupied by shit heads who couldn't care less about turtles, and about whom vicious, ignorant anti-nukes couldn't. care. less. either. I mean, when was the last time that an anti-nuke here ever voiced a word against speedboats or any of the other dangerous fossil fuel crap they. couldn't. care. less. about?

Here are the temperatures this week in Barnegat Bay this week:



http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_no=01409125

If one has ever taken a science course in one's life, one can discover whether this is hot or cold, and if one can't, one can join Greenpeace.

Or one can look at photographs taken by turtle conservationists, um, on January 10, 2010 - some 43 years after Amory Lovins told us we would be using 18 quads/exajoules of solar energy by 2000.

http://terrapinstationnj.blogspot.com/



See that floating stuff? It's called, um, ice.

So, as we sit here munching on our delicious pureed whooping crane, contemplating the 36,000 acre (145 sq. km) field of Texas grease sticks in the sky, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-10/huge-texas-wind-turbines-will-be-made-china">made in China, driving trucks over whatever happens to be in the way while we install the big worthless temporary chunks of whirling metal, and driving trucks back to pick up the pieces when they fly apart, catch fire, drip lubricants and whatever else, we'll pretend that we give a shit about wildlife in our selectively attention.

Nuclear power need not be perfect to be vastly superior to all the shit that anti-nukes couldn't. care. less. about.

It only needs to be vastly superior, which, happily, it is.

Have another oblivious, selectively attentive, concern troll evening.

[jpak]

4. Yeah - let's do the math - how many endangered sea turtles has Oyster Creek killed?

How many brazillions of fish and invertebrates kill does Oyster Creek kill each year

Oyster Creek KILLS!!11

IT KILLS IT KILLS IT KILLS IT KILLS!!1111

:rofl:

[Statistical]

6. Per your article slightly more than 1 per year.

From 1992 to 2000, the plant recorded 17 captures of sea turtles and six sea turtle mortalities.

[joshcryer]

7. They're also responsible for major sea turtle conservation.