Court records reveal trouble at Turkey Point

[bananas]

Source: Miami Herald

Court records reveal trouble at Turkey Point

Related Content
* In midst of blackout, a drama unfolded in control room

By JOHN DORSCHNER

When Coleen Ware walked into Turkey Point, she was shocked to see that the indicators showing control rod positions looked like something out of an early '70s sci-fi movie.
...
``So over the years, they developed the habit of pinging them to get them to move. . . . Well, that's not OK in a nuclear plant because you have to have reliable, you know, verification of where those rods are positioned. . . . That's a lesson from Three Mile Island,'' the worst nuclear disaster in American history.

In the hush-hush nuclear world, such insider details rarely, if ever, become public, but now a lawsuit has made public 2,000 pages of testimony that offer a fascinating window into the experiences, thoughts and frustrations of Turkey Point executives, employees and contract workers that reveal myriad problems.
...
Waldron emphasized that the transcripts from 17 people were made in 2008 by an investigator of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of a dispute between FPL and David Hoffman, its former senior licensed operator who quit abruptly, writing a late-night resignation letter saying he couldn't follow executives' demands that he do something he believed was extremely dangerous.
...
Some critics believe NRC strongly favors utilities. Vice President Joe Biden said in a 2007 interview, when he was a Delaware senator, that he had no confidence in the NRC. ``It's like getting homed -- coming into the small town and playing a basketball championship with the local refs.''
...

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/business/business-monday/v-fullstory/story/1407423.html

[BeFree]

1. No, no, no!!

I don't want to read this. Its too scary! Things like this need to be kept secret!






Yeah, sarcasm. Thanks for this.

[defendandprotect]

2. They shut down one of our NJ nuclear plants and another to 80% capacity . . .

We have had temps in the 20's last two or three days -- lots of wind which makes it

feel colder -- and ICE was coming into plant with the water.

hmmmm....

[TroubleMan]

3. Yikes!! That's a little too close for comfort.

I'm only a couple hours away.

[d_r]

4. tapping the indicator needles to get them to move

sounds like some Homer Simpson stuff right there

[madokie]

5. The important thing to remember here is

when done wrong the results can be devastating. Now that we've got that out of the way we can discuss the implications of all this. The fact that the nuclear power industry can not be trusted to tell us the truth sends up red flags for me and always have. I say no more nukes and retire the ones we have when they run out of designed life. This kind of shit I'm reading about turkey point is the reason I feel the way I do about nuke power. I worry that the lucky ones of us are going to wake one day and we'll be missing a sizable chunk of our country due to unlivable conditions due to an accident in one of our nuke plants. The unlucky will be, well, sick from radiation and or dead. I wish that on no one. I hope we continue to work on the alternate ways of meeting our energy needs.