Indian Point Energy Center
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Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) is a three-unit nuclear power plant station located in Buchanan, New York just south of Peekskill. It sits on the east bank of the Hudson River,24 MI N of New York City, NY. The plant, which includes two operating Westinghouse pressurized water reactors, is owned and operated by Entergy Nuclear Northeast, a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. The two reactors were built in 1974 and 1976. Entergy also owns the intact decommissioned Indian Point Unit 1 reactor. Total employment at the site is 1500.
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[edit] Technical Data
[edit] Capacity
Approx. 2,000 Megawatts (MWe)
[edit] Indian Point Unit 1
- Acquired from Consolidated Edison
- Deactivated: October 31, 1974
- Retired (non-operational)
[edit] Indian Point Unit 2
- Acquired from Consolidated Edison
- Type: Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
- Commercial operation began August 1974
- License expiration date: September 2013
[edit] Indian Point Unit 3
- Type: Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
- Acquired from New York Power Authority (NYPA)
- Commercial operation began August 1976
- License expiration date: December 2015
[edit] Controversy
The operation of Indian Point has been controversial, as it is opposed by anti-nuclear and environmental activists. Interest in shutting down Indian Point dates back to 1979 following the Three Mile Island incident, a partial core meltdown with no injures. Since September 11, 2001, anti-nuclear activists have used the threat of terrorism to renew their attempts to shut down the plant.
One of the reasons activists want it shut down is because it could be used as a "weapon of mass destruction," vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Indeed, on September 11th, flight 11 (the first plane to strike the World Trade Center) reportedly flew almost exactly over the Indian Point Energy Center en route to and no more than eight minutes from the World Trade Center. It is also noteworthy to them that Mohamed Atta (one of the 9/11 hijackers/plotters) considered nuclear facilities for targeting in a terrorist attack[1].
Although it is impossible for commercial nuclear plants to explode like atomic bombs, the activists still insist that such an explosion in or around the plant could happen and would cause nuclear fallout that might reach populated areas including New York City, northern New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. Studies and actual demonstrations by Entergy have indicated that even a large airliner crash into the containment building would not cause reactor damage. Regardless, the plausibility of an accident remains an issue to activists. Minute amounts of radioactive material have leaked into the Hudson River. The NRC and FEMA still considers the plant safe.
Supporters of nuclear energy point to the need for stable power near the New York metropolitan area. The Indian Point plant produces 2,000 megawatts of electricity for nearly 2 million homes in the area. The recent dramatic increases in oil and natural gas prices, and instability of the international petroleum markets, also illustrate the benefits of nuclear power generation, which is unaffected by such increases and instability.
Nuclear energy supporters also point out that nuclear power is an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel in terms of air pollution. The management of nuclear waste remains an important, but not unmanageable, environmental and security concern.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently approved an evacuation plan for Indian Point, although some local residents and first responders question its effectiveness. A successful test of the plant's alert sirens was held on September 13, 2006, with 154 of 156 sirens operating properly. Of the two failures--both in Rockland County--one siren sounded but did not rotate, and the other experienced a transmitter failure. Entergy is replacing the current sirens with a $10 million high-tech warning system, scheduled for early-2007.
[edit] 2000 leak
On 2000-02-15 Indian Point II power plant vented a small amount of radioactive steam when an aging steam generator ruptured. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission initially reported that no radioactive material was released, but later changed their report to say that there was a leak, but not of a sufficient amount to threaten public safety. [2]
From NRC Information Notice 2000-09:
| ...at 7:17 p.m., the Indian Point Unit 2 nuclear plant experienced a steam generator tube failure, which required the declaration of an Alert at 7:29 p.m., and a manual reactor trip at 7:30 p.m. The operators identified that the #24 steam generator was the source of the leak and completed isolation of the #24 steam generator by 8:31 p.m. The licensee exited the Alert at on February 16, 2000 at 6:50 p.m.
The event...resulted in an initial primary-to-secondary leak of reactor coolant of approximately 146 gallons per minute and required an "Alert" declaration (the second level of emergency action in the NRC-required emergency response plan). |
[edit] Media coverage
HBO has aired a documentary surrounding the controversy called Indian Point: Imagining The Unimaginable. [3] It first aired on September 9th, 2004, and was directed by Rory Kennedy.
In the October/November 2005 edition of The Indypendent (a newspaper run by NYC Indymedia), Alex Matthiessen claimed that Indian Point, about 35 miles from Times Square, remains a terrorist target. Former FEMA director James Lee Witt has said that Indian Point's emergency plan does "not consider the possibilities of a terrorist-caused event," emphasizing that an evacuation in the event of an attack would be impossible given the area's congested roads and population density.
In 2001, the environmental activist group Riverkeeper lobbied more than 400 politicians (including 11 members of Congress), 500 local businesses, and over 200 police officers, firefighters, bus drivers, school teachers, and hospital workers, to call for the plant's closure, criticizing, among other things, its allegedly unworkable emergency plan. Yet, in 2003, Michael Brown and Joe Allbaugh certified the plant for operation and approved the evacuation plan. In response, Sue Kelly, a Republican congresswoman from Katonah, accused the pair of "bureaucratic rubber stamping." Allbaugh and Brown have more recently been criticized for their handling of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Critics of those who raise the threat of a terrorist attack at Indian Point counter that commercial nuclear power plants are the best protected civilian sites in the United States. The plants are protected by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, as well as by specialized and highly trained private on-site security forces. Plant security is tested by federal officials, including mock assault exercises overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assess Indian Point's defenses in the event of an armed assault.[4] These critics note that there are many more pieces of infrastructure (e.g., bridges, tunnels, reservoirs, etc.) and chemical plants storing dangerous chemicals, that are also located near large metropolitan areas, do not have the same security standards or protection, and are thus far more attractive targets to terrorists.
In September of 2006, the Security Deparment successfully completed Force on Force exercises for the NRC.
[edit] In literature
The book Night Siege, by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, details an infamous incident where UFOs flew over the plant and explains that a massive cover-up was done like at Roswell in 1947. On the other hand, many contend that there is no credible evidence of UFOs from extra-terrestrial locations.
[edit] See also
- Pressurized water reactor
- Entergy Corporation
- Consolidated Edison Company of New York
- Nuclear and radiation accidents
