Nuclear Expert Takes Issue With CP&L Waste Expansion

But he won't get to share those same opinions when Carolina Power & Light Co. and Orange County face off today in Raleigh in front of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The ASLB will not hear arguments from Thompson, a nuclear accident risk expert hired by Orange County, in today's legal proceedings to determine whether an Environmental Impact Statement must be issued before CP&L can expand its waste storage facilities.

Thompson said the proposed expansion of water cooling pools poses a greater risk for potential nuclear waste problems than alternatives such as dry cask storage.

"The county's statement is that an Environmental Impact Statement should be prepared for an expansion of the storage and that (statement) should provide a detailed assessment for alternatives," Thompson said. "I, over 20 years, have been involved in attempts to raise this issue and have been beaten back on every attempt."

CP&L uses two cooling pools that store waste in the form of tightly packed rods. The company wants to expand storage to the use of four cooling pools, with rods more densely packed.

Thompson said that by opening the new pools, the waste would be packed at the highest density possible. "We're at that point again in terms of pool accidents where the staff is denying it and still doesn't want to talk about it," Thompson said.

"History shows it's only through the relentlessness of citizens or by accidents that these things get attention."

In place of using cooling pools for storing nuclear waste, Thompson said dry cask storage is a much safer alternative. This process involves storing nuclear waste in casks or vaults, which is then cooled by natural air circulation. With dry cask storage, waste has a smaller chance of escaping and catching fire, he said.

But Thompson said that while CP&L uses some dry storage at its other plants, it refuses to use the safer alternative at Shearon Harris because of cost.

"The only logical explanation I can see (for using high-density storage rods) is it's the cheapest option," he said. "Dry storage is cheaper, but pools existed and cooling equipment exists, so it's only the capital cost that is higher. The true increment of cost is hard to determine from our position because a company like CP&L could strike bargains."

Thompson's analysis demonstrates that the probability of an accident occurring at Shearon Harris over the next 30 years is one in 2,000.

But residents feel that number poses too great a risk for their health and safety.

"We think it's a mistake to expand those fuel pools out at Shearon Harris," said Jerry Drake, a retired physician from Chapel Hill and member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility in the Triangle. "The main thing we have to do is quit producing this stuff," he said.

"We have to use energy efficiency, we just scratched the surface on that."

The City Editor can be reached

at citydesk@unc.edu.