by Laura Galmot

Visiting the Indian Point Nuclear Facility has given me a far more nuanced and complex view of nuclear power than I had anticipated. While the visit significantly improved my attitude towards it in some ways, it has made me question other aspects of how nuclear power is managed in the United States. Though I have come to believe that nuclear power is vital to our future energy policy, I think improvement is needed in outreach and education, so that the public has a realistic understanding of both its risk and benefits. To explain my views and how I arrived at them, I will go through my experience of touring the plant, and my subsequent research and reflection on it.

To start with, when we arrived at the plant, our tour guide, Patrick, gave us a very informative presentation about the Indian Point that covered the physics and technology of the plant as well as the history and political issues surrounding it.

He gave us an overview of the plant’s history, starting in August of 1962, when Indian Point’s first nuclear reactor began operating. It had a unique design that originally ran on Thorium-based fuel and was half oil. However, it was shut down in little more than a decade because new federal regulations would have forced the plant owners to spend $28 million to retrofit the equipment. This exceeded the initial building costs of 26 million, and in 1974, unit 1 was decommissioned. However, some equipment in unit 1 is needed to keep the other units operating, so the building remains intact.

Now there are three separate plants on the site, but only 2 are operational. Units 2 and 3 were built by ConEd in the early seventies from a standard Westinghouse design for a Pressurized Water Reactor and are nearly identical. This design has a reactor core made up of fuel rods filled with pellets grouped into fuel assemblies. Pat explained that the fission reaction in the rods is controlled by managing the neutron “population.” 53 of the 193 fuel assemblies have control rods that act as “neutron sponges”, but these are only used to shut down and start up the plant. Usually, the reaction is self-sustaining and is controlled by boric acid, known as a chemical shim.

Learning about the plant’s design made nuclear power much more approachable because it was easy to see that nuclear fission was just the means for heating water to create the steam that moves the turbines that power the generator. Basically, it that spins a magnet in a coil of wire. Also, I was surprised at how simple the concept behind nuclear power is. While the general perception is that it’s extremely complicated, it’s essentially using the heat created by fission to make steam to turn a magnet in a coil, just like any other power plant.

It was also interesting to learn about spent fuel storage. Pat explained that once the fuel rods are spent they are now submerged under over twenty feet of water and boric acid to contain the nuclear waste. However, the underground pool they are stored in is nearly full because it was built under the assumption that Indian Point would recycle its nuclear waste. Indian Point used to reprocess its nuclear waste and reconvert waste into new fuel rods, and so waste storage was not initially a problem because it reduced waste by 80%.

However, after SALT negotiations of the seventies, the U.S. banned reprocessing because of a perceived risk that nuclear waste could be stolen during transport and used for weapons purposes. Congress is now considering lifting this ban on reprocessing because most other countries allow it, and the U.S. even reprocesses waste for other countries.

Crucially, Pat pointed out why Indian Point has to be close to New York City, which is a common bone of contention between anti-nuclear advocates and the operators of the plant. As a principle of physics, lots of energy is lost over the wires that carry the electricity and the farther any source of power is from its destination, the more inefficient and expensive it will be.

Our tour guide then mentioned the statewide controversy to relicense the plant. The 40-year operation license for unit 2 had expired the month before and unit 3’s license is due to expire in 2015. He claimed that the 40-year license term was initially decided based on calculated tax reasons, but no real scientific ones. He told us that the plant had been on the list of the nation’s most safe nuclear facilities for the past five years and had met all the federal requirements for recertification. The only problem was that at the state level, it needed a water license to operate, and so far this had been denied for mostly political reasons.

Pat explained that New York state is currently demanding that Indian Point build cooling towers to replace the cooling canal it currently has in order to meet the state standard of using the “best available technology” to prevent the disruption of the surrounding ecosystems. Currently, the water that exits the plant is about 1.5F above the temperature of the surrounding river and the plant current system of traveling screens ensures a 98% fish survival rate, but state claims that cooling towers must be built to prevent larvae and fish egg suction.

Indian Point engineers have proposed an alternative “wedgwire system” that would prevent 89% of egg suction and would take 4 years to build, meaning they would be operational for 16 years of the 20-year extension to their license. However, the state maintains that Indian Point should build cooling towers, which would take 16 years to build, would only be in use for four years, and would release a large amount of particulate into the air. However, the issue of cooling the water that exits that plant is not specific to nuclear plants – a power plant of any kind would deal with the same wildlife suction problems and water cooling, but are never subjected to these kind of unattainable standards. This reveals that the state’s real objection cannot be motivated by actual environmental concerns, but is probably rooted in elected officials bending to anti-nuclear public opinion.

While the presentation was undoubtedly informative, I kept wishing we had had more of an introduction to some background about Indian Point  — its design, history, and past and present controversies – before we had gone so that we could critically evaluate the information we were given. Also, I think not having much prior knowledge made it difficult to ask specific questions or engage in the kind of robust debate that could have made the experience much richer. Instead, I found myself taking copious notes and just trying to absorb a barrage of facts.

I also had a nagging feeling that the information we were being given was rather one-sided, and had the urge to independently check some aspects of what he was saying or at least. Pat’s 20-plus years experience as a employee of Entergy, the owner of Indian Point, sometimes made it feel more like we were speaking to a company spokesperson than the independent education contractor he described himself. While a lot of this information boosted my opinion of nuclear power, I also couldn’t help feeling a little suspicious Entergy’s management.

After the Presentation and discussion, we went to tour the actual plant. Pat pointed out the black towers encircling the facility with security guards armed with automatic weapons.  He also explained that they go through annual mock assaults planned by the U.S. special forces and green berets as part of their anti-terror security program. At this point I should probably mention the multiple screenings (including a physical pat-down and fancy pressurized air detector) we went through on site, as well as having to go through background checks before being allowed to visit. Overall, their security seemed very impressive.

Then, in order to gain access to the generator building on the other side of a barbed wire fence, our tour guide pointed out combination lock with the combination (1-2-3-4-5) posted right above it. Though it initially seemed like a trick question, our tour guide explained that it was yet another a strategic safety measure designed to slow down intruders, while allowing workers to move freely. Then he pointed out the plant’s back-up generators as we entered the generator building. He mentioned that this was the crucial problem at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility. The tsunami submerged the back-up generators and the plant completely lost power, causing the fuel rods to melt there. In hindsight, I wish I had asked if Indian Point could possibly be susceptible to a similar problem.  For example, I wonder is there might be a danger if the adjacent Hudson River flooded as the result of a hurricane similar to or worse than Irene, which caused massive flood damage in parts of upstate New York.

Then we entered unit 2 and mostly walked around the generator. I’m not sure it really affected my opinions to see the generator in person, but in a way it did make me appreciate for the first time how much energy and effort it takes to create the electricity that we waste on hairdryers and iphones. Also, seeing the generator in person was an experience because it was rather remarkable to realize that it was a relatively simple scientific concept but enacted on a gargantuan scale.

When we emerged from the generator building, we were led to cooling canal to watch where the hot water from the plant filtered out into the Hudson River and could see first hand that no visible wildlife was caught in it. Then went toured an exact replica of unit 3’s control room that is used for training purposes. It was surprising how simultaneously complicated and simple the control board for the reactor seemed. It was all analog knobs and buttons, with old-school switches and lights that summoned up visions of mission control from NASA’s Apollo Era. It almost seemed to match that level of complexity too, covering two walls and requiring a team of operators and supervisors at all times.  Learning about the extensive multi-year training process for control room operators was also reassuring, especially the fact that they have refresher courses every six weeks in exact replicas like the one we toured. I was a little surprised that you only need a high school diploma in terms of traditional education, but I suppose this is reasonable given that you only need one set of very specialized skills.

As a whole, on one level the tour was quite comforting – the whole place seemed quiet and well-ordered, and the size of the place felt quite normal to any city dweller. While large by any standard, the containment structure did not seem to intimidate any of our group, who all were familiar with navigating the canyon of skyscrapers in Manhattan. On the one hand, the plant struck me as quite inconspicuous, tucked away outside a fairly sleepy area upstate. However, on the other hand, (and perhaps this also shows my city roots) it was striking how few people were around. We had been nearly all alone in the cavernous generator room, and outside the building, there had been almost no one around. It seemed almost like the plant ran itself – with every part whirring at full speed with only the slightest oversight. However, this impression was shattered when Pat remarked at the empty parking lot at the end of our trip and mentioned that this was most people’s day off.

After we left the facility, out of curiosity, I did check up on the particulars of the controversy surrounding Indian Point’s relicensing. I was disappointed, but rather unsurprised to find that we had not gotten a full picture of the relicensing controversy and that Indian Point’s safety record was not quite as stellar as our tour guide had represented it. According to a New York Times report, for many years, Indian Point was on the federal government’s list of the least safe nuclear power plants in the nation, and in the nineties, made the list four consecutive years. When they were finally removed from the list in 1997, Richard S. Barkley, a project engineer for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said “They had a number of equipment issues that constantly seemed to plague them…They were constantly at a point that the equipment was inoperable because it was breaking and they would have to scramble to fix it. Now on our inspections they have progressively smaller and smaller number of problems that they hadn’t already found on their own.” (“Indian Point…Removed From List of Worst in Nation”). While it is now attained “green” the highest rating for five years running, “it has only been in recent years that it has experienced a significant improvement in its safety culture.” (“Indian Point…Removed”).

According to another New York Times report, Indian Point has had a “history of transformer problems”. In 2007, a transformer caused “a major fire”, and in 2010, the plant’s main transformer exploded and the plant was fined $1.2 million. (Wald). In 2005, Entergy workers also discovered a small leak in a spent fuel pool. As they struggled to contain the leak, it was found that water containing radioactive tritium and Strontium was “leaking through a crack in the pool building and then finding its way into the nearby Hudson River.” (Wald). Workers were able to keep the fuel rods “safely covered” despite the leak, but in 2006 radioactive nickel-63 and strontium were still found to have leaked into groundwater on site. Ultimately, neither was classified as a health risk because “no drinking water sources were contaminated.” (Clary).

Perhaps most significantly, and is an issue that could affect Indian Point’s relicensing, is that in 2008 Columbia scientists discovered a previously unknown seismic zone that includes the Indian Point Facility. According to some analyses, this makes Indian Point the most seismically vulnerable nuclear facility in the country, and could even have a significant risk of (Dedman). This is largely because Indian Point was built on the assumption that it was a relatively low risk area for earthquakes, while plants in areas already known to be seismically active (like the West Coast) have been built to withstand earthquakes of much larger magnitudes. Since its construction, geological surveys and studies have revealed that recent (past few hundred years) earthquakes in the North East were stronger than previously thought and if one of similar strength occurred today, posed of risk of damaging the reactor core even without an accompanying tsunami. (Gardner). While Entergy has contested many of these risk assessments, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has placed Indian Point and 27 under review for seismic risk. (Gardner).

In this light, it is somewhat problematic that Indian Point has faced meaningful criticism of their evacuation and safety plans. In a 2003 report commissioned by the pro-nuclear N.Y. governor George Pataki, a team headed by James Lee Witt (former director of FEMA) concluded that “the plans were drafted to comply with regulations rather than to create an effective strategy to protect the population, and that they assumed people would comply with government directives rather than do what seemed to be in their own best interests.”(Applebome).

Indian Point’s evacuation plans have again come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Even though during Fukushima crisis, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency advised Americans to avoid a fifty-mile radius around the disaster area, there are no evacuation plans for the New York metropolitan area, which comes significantly closer to the plant. (Applebome). Currently, Entergy only has evacuation plans for a ten-mile radius, and even these have been deemed inadequate by many experts. For example, according to Daniel P. Aldrich, a political science professor at Purdue Univeristy, “Many scholars have already argued that any evacuation plans shouldn’t be called plans, but rather ‘fantasy documents’…They are often bureaucratic documents meant to meet policy requirements, not to work in the real world.” (Applebome).

Of course, there’s no magic number for safety zones. Is a plant dangerous at 10 miles away, but not 11? It may have to come down to the public weighing the risks themselves to conclude what they are comfortable with. Unfortunately, details like this, while no scandal, feed the perception that private companies may not take safety seriously and may skimp to pad their bottom line, thus eroding the trust on which people make such decisions and assess risk.

None of these things have ultimately changed my opinion that nuclear power will need to be a crucial part of meeting our energy needs over the course of the next century and is key to the future of electricity. But this is an opinion I reached after weighing the relative risks and benefits of nuclear power, in comparison to its alternatives. I am still a supporter of nuclear power, but can admit that like anything, it has its drawbacks, and an honest discussion of energy policy needs to present both sides and not minimize risks beyond what the facts support. Also, I think it is important to emphasize that a reasonable person can question the merit of a particular plant when it has problems or support changes to the system of plant regulation and management and still be generally in favor of nuclear power.

Ultimately, since many of these incidents are relatively minor, I think it might actually help Entergy’s case with the public to mention and explain some of them. Being a bit more transparent and explaining the actual (minor) risks associated could soothe people’s anxiety about them and spreading their side could prevent people from becoming alarmed in the first place, rather than if they encountered the information from another source. Then tour could take on the feel of a genuinely informative public service and build trust, rather than make it feel like a propaganda campaign. Entergy has the right idea to try to inform the public and de-mystify nuclear power, but I think there are significant flaws in the way they are implementing their public relations campaign. In analyzing my experience and at the plant and how it could be improved, it may be helpful to compare it to the French government’s campaign, which has been an overwhelming success by any standard, resulting in the highest approval rates for nuclear power anywhere on the globe. And overall, their unofficial motto has consistently been: the sign of a great public relations campaign is that the people involved don’t feel part of one. (Palfreman).

A more open approach may be closer in line with France’s successful approach to popularizing nuclear power. There has been a large campaign to get the French public to visit nuclear plants, and it has mostly been a success, with over 6 million visitors since the effort began. (Palfreman). However, this may be only one piece of the puzzle because the French typically go into these visits with a solid understanding of nuclear power to begin with. A key difference is that the French education system emphasizes STEM subjects much more than the U.S. system, and produces many times more engineers and scientists. (Palfreman). People go into these tours with a much better base of scientific knowledge and prior knowledge of the risks of many different methods of electricity generation. For instance, it is common knowledge in France that hydroelectric dams have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in recent decades, while the largest nuclear incident on record directly killed fewer than thirty people. (Palfreman).

Another crucial (and related) factor is that the French political system is less dominated by lawyers than the U.S. system. Many more people with science or engineering backgrounds enter politics in Europe, and especially France. (Palfreman). This gives people more confidence in the safety legislation that is passed, because they feel their politicians have a much better understanding of the technology. This gives the U.S. yet another reason to overhaul its public education system and put more emphasis on STEM subjects, as it would certainly help the U.S.’s nuclear energy program to recruit and get more scientists or people with scientific training into public office.

Also, the prominence of France’s nuclear program means it receives much more media and press attention, with the media acting as another, more informal means of educating the public. (Palfreman). In contrast, the U.S. media barely covers such things, except for major crises, when it receives a lot of negative attention, without much in the way of basic explanations of how nuclear power actually works. In the U.S., some kind of large and well-coordinated media campaign to raise awareness would have to be launched in order to give adults a similar understanding of what nuclear energy entails.

Overall, I still have a positive view of nuclear power and the visit to Indian Point probably improved it and was certainly very informative, but I think that certain adjustments could be made to better persuade people to this point of view and temper the hysteria surrounding nuclear power.

Companies like Entergy are right to conclude that informing the public about nuclear power through tours is important, but advocates should be careful to not present people with a one-sided view of it. There are real risks to nuclear power, and if advocates minimize them in a way that stretches the truth, they will lose credibility with a public that is already scared of nuclear technology and suspicious of corporate motives. Ultimately, tours like the one I went on may be only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to improving public opinion on nuclear power – perhaps more crucial is ensuring children have a solid science and technology education and get the facts about nuclear power from trustworthy outside sources. In any case, it is surely the time to take the discussion about nuclear power outside the arena of vested interest versus vested interest where short-term political interests battle the profit motive.

Works Cited

“Indian Point Nuclear Plant Removed From List of Worst in Nation”. New York Times. June 26, 1997. December 8, 2013.

Palfreman, Jon. “Why the French Like Nuclear Energy.” Frontline. Nuclear Reaction: Why Do Americans Fear Nuclear Power?. April, 2011. November 6, 2013.

Peter Applebome, “Fukushima, Indian Point and Fantasy.” The New York Times March 20, 2011. December 1, 2013.

Gardner, Timothy. “NY nuclear plant likely a quake risk: study.” Reuters. August 22, 2008. December 1, 2013.

Dedman, Bill. “What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk.” msnbc.com. March 17, 2011. December 8, 2013.

Clary, Greg. “Indian Point had a small leak in the past.” The Journal News March 27, 2011. December 8, 2013.

Wald, Matthew. “$1.2 Million Fine for Indian Point Fire”. New York Times. March 27, 2012. December 8, 2013.