Nuclear Whistleblower: “Spent Fuel Pools In US Are A Potential Timebomb, Situation Can Get Worse Than Chernobyl”

ZeroHedge
April 11th, 2011

Nuclear Whistleblower: “Spent Fuel Pools in US are a potential timebomb, situation can get worse than Chernobyl”

Interview by Tuur Demeester

George Galatis became world famous in 1996, when Time Magazine featured him in its cover article “Nuclear Warriors”. Today, he warns that that the situation in the USA may soon become much graver than that in Japan.

Working as a Senior Engineer at Northeast Utilities company (NU) in Connecticut, Galatis noticed that across the country, high-level radioactive waste was being stored in overfull spent-fuel pools, creating the kinds of risk that could lead to a nuclear disaster with radiological consequences greater than those in Japan today, graver than even the Chernobyl disaster.

Indeed, along with a host of other safety related issues, his 1992 memo specifically mentioned that some of the pool’s cooling pipes weren’t designed to withstand an earthquake as they were required to.

After a lengthy legal battle, and dealing with an uncooperative Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Northeast Utilities Company was eventually convicted of 25 federal felonies, was forced to sell all of its nuclear plants, and lost over $3 billion in what company CEO Bruce Kenyon called “the largest management turnaround in the history of the nuclear industry”.

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Eventually, NU grudgingly made the fuel pool cooling system changes that Galatis had suggested. Though treated as a hero by the public, collegues continued intimidation and threats, according to Galatis, which eventually killed his career in the nuclear industry.

In light of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, where spent fuel rods are in effect melting down in the aftermath of an earth quake and subsequent tsunami, these sentences of the 1996 Time article have a prophetic ring to them:

“Because the Federal Government has never created a storage site for high-level radioactive waste, fuel pools in nuclear plants across the country have become de facto nuclear dumps—with many filled nearly to capacity. The pools weren’t designed for this purpose, and risk is involved: the rods must be submerged at all times. A cooling system must dissipate the intense heat they give off. If the system failed, the pool could boil, turning the plant into a lethal sauna with clouds of reactive steam. And if earthquake, human error or mechanical failure drained the pool, the result could be catastrophic: a meltdown of multiple cores taking place outside of the reactor containment, releasing massive amounts of radiation and rendering hundreds of square miles uninhabitable.” (Emphasis added.)

So what does whistleblower George Galatis make of the global nuclear crisis that developed since the earthquake and tsunami of March 11?

George Galatis: “Since the start of the Japanese nuclear crisis, I have been very concerned about its consequences to the Japanese people, to the general public, and about the lack of attention to what I perceive as being the real issue.”

Tuur Demeester: What is the real issue at stake, in your opinion?

GG: “The real issue is that of nuclear safety. Right now the true risk to public health and safety associated with the generation of nuclear power is intentionally kept from the public. Because of misplaced trust, these enormous risks are in effect being enforced on the public without their knowledge or consent. People need to know about and agree to accept the real risks involved so that when a scenario like Fukushima—or worse—arises here, there is already a degree of acceptance. Without this formal public acceptance, nuclear power will never be cost effective nor will it survive.”

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