ML19224A892
| ML19224A892 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 04/24/1979 |
| From: | Gordon D AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | Mattson R Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7906120005 | |
| Download: ML19224A892 (25) | |
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1536 Comstock Court - Berkeley, California 94703 April 24, 1979
Dear Mr. Matson:
I wish to express my deep thanks to you and the other members of the N who are making an effort to intelligently review our present nuclear power operaticos and I wish to ber you to continue to point out the need fo) shut-downs. I am sure your position is not popular, may endanger your total career, is difficult to maintain under pressure yet there are so many of us lay people depending on persons like yourself to break through the politics of energy to help us survive using our intelligence instead of ignoring it.
True intelligence acknowledges the role of ignorance in knowledge. So many of us don't realize that. Please continue to stand forward with your reservations. The lay people are helpless and while we can understand phrases like, " human error" it would seem that there is an opportunity to avoid venturing further into the nuclear gamble, giving true understanding to the possibility that we erred ten we thought we knew enough to open the plants.
Thank you.
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CRAIG D. JOHNSON 6718 Callaghan Road, #202 San Antonio, Texas 78229 (512)341-7687 May 29, 1979 Mr. Roger J. Mattson Director, Division of Systems Safet;/
Nuclear Regulatory Comission 1717 11. Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20555 lbar Mr. Mattson:
'Ihe following is a direct quote, attributed to you persona 11f, that appeared in the Manchester Union Leader on May 4,1979.
"There never was any danger of a hydrogen explosion in that bubble.... It was a mgretable error....We put nisinfomation on the streets and everybody got concerned about an explosion.
'lhe amount of concern was entirely undeserved."
Although you personally may not have generated this insanity about an explosion, your comission (NRC) must take the blam, if for nothing else, for not telling the truth to 220 million " concerned" people.
I personally support nuclear energy to the fullest and will continue to do so since it is, contrary to Washington rhetoric and uninformed do-gooders, the safest, cheapest and longest lasting form of energy we can produce.
The NRC made a terribic error of judgement, and 220 million people will suffer further energy shortages because of your negligence.
As the old saying goes:
"Either lead, follow or get out of the 5:a."
And as far as I can tell, the NRC is just "in the way."
fSincerely,h s
y,
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c-Craig Johnson cc: Joseph M. Elendrie, Chaiman-NRC 169 162
Senator Edward Kennedy Ray 5.1979 Congress o-f the United States
, Washington; D. C'.
Dear Senator Kennedy:
I am writing to you in regard to the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station. I am a member of your constituency, but I believe that, in their importance, the issues involved in the nuclear power question transcend politics 4 I hope that you can be led to this point of view.
I believe that the building of nuclear power plants should be stopped completely. Furthermore, I would like to see the eventual phasing out of all those plants now in operation. I understand this position to be extreme. Indeed, it must seem to collapse when set against the weight of all the scientific opinion which can apparently be brought to bear on it. A friend of mine, con-cerned about the Harrisburg accident, said, "But what do I know about nuclear power?" It is clear that many Americans are im-jressed by even the vaguest mention of all the mathematical computations which lie behind the operation of a nuclear power plant. Who would choose the burden of arguing against ten thou-sand talking blackboards filled with complex symbols and equations?
This " burden", however, does not exist. Araericans do not have to argue against the expertise of nuclear scientists. This is true for two basic reasons.
First, nuclear power plants are not constructed out of equations in theoretical physics. They are made out of steel and concrete.
When a nuclear power plant malfunctions, it is not the equations which have gone wrong, it is the valves and pumps which have failed.
The truthfullness of the underlying mathematical computations is not magically transformed into the flawlessness of the materials and parts out of which a nuclear power plant is constructed. There-fore, the expertise of nuclear scientists cannot determine the outcome of the debate over the wisdom of building nuclear power plants.
Is the knowledge of other kinds of scientists crucial to deter-mining the outcome of this debate? How about the men who design the pumps and valves out of which the power plants are made? I don't think this is a promising line of inquiry if what we seek is certainty about our safety. Valve and pump scientists could have nothing reassuring to say about safety, not even to a Vermont farmer.
The first reason brings us to the second. The history of the human race demonstrates that men are slipshod and prone to error. This claim is irrefutable. Nothing which has happened in our world, especially since August of 1914, can be taken as proof to the contrary. Mistakes in planning, as well as mistakes in execution, have plagued every human endeavor which one can think of. Th.s is so because men are not omniscient. They are not Gods, and never can be. Let us call this simple truth the sovereign Law of Human Bungling.
169 163
Is this Law a cause for despair? No, it is not in so far as men are willing te obey another, equally sovereign Law.
The Law of the Limitation of the Costs of Human Bungling.
The nuclear power issue, however, brings before ur the spectacle of men, who are imperfect, trying to unchain and control, on a daily basis, the elemental and terrifying power of Nature. Are men equal to such a task? Ir so far as men are imperfect, the Future promises to be like che Past. Therefore, the nuclear power situation, or the bringing together of men, who believe they are masters, with the primal force of Nature, which is supposed to be the Servant, suggests that we are now violating the Law of the Limitation of the Coste of Human Dungling.
In this light I would like you to consider the statement of Representative Mike McCormack "I compare the Three Mile Island incident to the near miss of two commercial airliners. It scares hell out of everybody; we go back and learn from it - but we don't quit flying." This statement is ill-consicered. Even if the air-liners crash, the tragedy affects only the victims and their relatives and friends. The costs are limited. But, if the core of a nuclear reactor were to melt down, then tens of thousands of people would die, and the long-term effects would be catas-trophic. They would be worse. They would be unacceptable. Perhaps Representative McCormack understands this, though he hides it from himself, inadvertently. I notice that he does not choose to imagine the crash of the airliners. The Three Mile Island accident was, af ter all, a "near miss". But, if the Representative will bring himself to imagine the crash, then he will also have to imagine the meltdown of a reactor. It is said that the power of the atom is enormous. It is, and the difference between an air crash and a reactor meltdown is that, in the latter, the power of the atom generates a " chain-reaction" whereby a simple human error can be magnified into a catastrophe of monstrous proportions.
Let us take the analegy to the airlines industry further. What is it that Representative McCormack fails to see? FAA regulations are very stiff. Cormercial jet aircraf t are maintained rigorously.
They are stripped down and rebuilt with some frequency. Filots are trained methodically. They must undergo severe tests of their health and competence every six months. Still, jet airliners crash. They will continue to crash. They will do this because they are designed, built, and flown by men. Extreme care in the maintenance and operation of jet aircraft has earned for the commercial airlines industry an excellent safety record. Let us assume, for the moment, that the nuclear power industry can achieve a record for safety which rivals that of the airlines industry. That will not be good enough. Let us imagine a super-human safety record. That would still not be good enough. We have seen why. The crash of an airliner cannot be equated with the meltdown of a nuclear reactor.
We must take our analogy one step further. First, I will refer 169 164
to a comment about the Three Mile Island accident made by a Mr.
L'attson, an experienced and senior NRC official, during a communi-cation with the NRC from the reactor site in Pennsylvania "It's too little information too late unfortunately, and it is the same way every partial core meltdown has gone. People haven't believed the instrumentation as they went along. It took us until midnight last nicht to convince anybody that those goddamn temperature measurements meant something. By 4 o' clock this morning, B.& W.
a gr e ed. "
In certain situations, pilots don't believe their instrumentation.
A man is flying blind, at night, over a body of water. He has nothing to rely on other than the instrument panel. The horizon indicator tells him that he's flying level. His senses, his intuition, tell him that he's not. Under the pressure of fear, with his life at stake, he chooses to believe his senses, and to disbelieve his instruments. He " corrects" ac cordingly, and kills himself.
Fear destroys the power of judgment. Imagine the level of fear, and the kind of fear, which might grip the men in the control room of a nuciear power plant which has, in some bizarre way, gone out of control. This fear might be primal, a kind of uncanny terror, the sort of fear which lies just below the threshold of conscious-ness in all men who have grown to maturity in the age of Hiroshima.
The proneness to error must rise considerably in men who a;e gripped by such emotions. The chances of making costly mi <rkes, of not believing one's instrumentation, of making decisic aut of hope, or mad fear, must rise enormously. This problem cannot be solved by adding more instrumentation. Instrumentation is not the problem. Men are the problem. Nuclear power threatens to deliver men into the hands of deep fear - that abysmal " chain-reaction" of the psyche whereby the force of the unconscious devours the slender power of rationality.
A man attacked with a knife does not reason clearly.
What are we to imagine, then, of men in a control room, facing the possibility of a core meltdown, and staring, in terror, at inert speechless gauges?
You say that the men in the control room are trained, whereas the man attacked with the knife is not. Yes. But the men in the con-trol room are trained at handling their equipment, not at handling their emotions. They are scientists and technicians. Therefore, their education has taught them the irrelevance of emotions.
Nuclear scientists and technicians are therefore not particularly well equipped to handle the terrifying possibility of a core melt-down. Who, then, is so equipped?
No one.
From another angle, play your imagination over the realities of the nuclear power situation. There are some seventy nuclear power plants in the United States. Between them they are operating for 169 165
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1680 hours0.0194 days <br />0.467 hours <br />0.00278 weeks <br />6.3924e-4 months <br /> per day. Multiply that figure times three years. That's ro Jghly 1,700,000 operational hours. It is impossible to hold such figures in one's mind without beginning to imagine an eventual disaster. If a figure of three years does not put the imagination to the threshold of catastrophe, then a figure of ten or fifteen years will do it.
Would it be acceptable to you for this country to lose the state of Pennsylvania i i 1985, or in 1990, or in 1995? Do you know what will happen wher, let us say, in 1993, the state of Idaho is rendered uninhabitable? A technician who is responsible for check-ing pipe weldings will confess to a moment of slipshodness. A scien-tist will say that this one particular causal chain of malfunctions was not predicted by any computer study.
The nuclear power situation, so alarming, sends one in search of reassurance. It is not to be found. The statements made by industry and government officials about the Three Mile Island accident do not allay one's fears. Instead, these statements only reaffirm a highly disturoing impression of the nuclear power industry. Men are playing with something which they don't fully understand. The level of negligence and inconpetence displayed by the nuclear in-dustry as a whole is breathtaking. Look at the New York Times for April 14, 1979. Mr. Ma tts o n, to whom I referred before, made several revealing renarks about the Three Mile Island accident - "There's a not negligible risk in bringing this plant down. No plant has ever beer. in this condition, no plant has ever been tested in this con-dition, no plant has ever been analyzed in this condition in the history of this program." Consider another of Mr. Mattson's obser-vations - "My best guess is that the core uncovered, stayed un-covered for a long period of time. We saw failure modes, the likes of which has never been analyzed." And later "It is a failure mode that has never been studied. It is just unbelievable."
I can hear, in my imagination, the kind of thing the industry officials will finall.y say about the Three Mile Island accident -
"We confidently predict that this accident will be the last serious unpredictable thing that will ever happen at a nuclear power plant."
If the Devil is real, he'll be laughing at that one.
So far, in discussing the nuclear power question. I have assumed the innocence of the efficials. Perhaps this assumption is naive.
What are we to think, for example, of another of Mr. Mattson's observations on the Three Mile Island accident "Well, my prin-ciple concern is that we have got an accident that we have never been designed to accomodate, and it's, in the best estimate, de-teriorating slowly, and the most pessimistic estimate it is on the threshold of turning bad. And I don't have a reason for not moving people. I don't know what you are protecting by not moving p eopl e. "
The Three Mile Island accident tugs at my consciousness. In thi nk-ing about the potential costs, and in simultaneously holding in 169 166
mind some of the statements made by public officials (such as Carter's decision to license nuclear plants faster now that we know they aren't safe), I have felt an impulse to drop open my jaw in speechless stupefaction. Could it be, however, that ny sense of amazement ic really the result of a prior failure of per-ccption? Perhaps I am astounded by the official statements because I am not taking note of a hidden premise behind those statements.
I can at least guess at this hidden premise. It might run like this.
The Public Utilities, and the Corporations which nanufacture nuclear power equipment, are the enemy of the people. They would sacrifice us in order to preserve their profits. They would ex-pose the public to ever increasing risks of contracting cancer or leukemia in order to preserve their profits. They would expose children's bones to radiation in order to preserve their profits.
Are the Corporations and the Public Utilities enemies of the people by conscious choice? No. The men who are responsible do not do these things with evil intentions, but these evil things manage to get done anyway, in the name of profit. This is what Mr. Fattson does not see. Frofits, and the all important Fublic Relations Image, are protected by "not moving PeoP e".
The Utility and Corporation l
executives might say that they are not responsible. They point to the scientists and claim that they re the ones who issue decrees about " permissible" doses of J'
. tion. But no citizen of the United States, or any other country, has ever granted to a scientist the moral right to determine what constitutes a " permissible" dose of radiation. Scientific knowledge does not add up to moral power.
These scientists claim to legislate on " permissible" chances of getting leukemia. Cf these men, Albert Schweitzer asked "Nho permitted them to permit?"
Are the men who run the Public Utilities and the concerned Cor-porations as monstrously evil as the results which nucloar power plants right bring about? No. They are not. Some men are greedy.
Some men always will be. Nuclear power plants, however, are un-acceptable because they threaten to magnify the normal, more bearable effects of Corporate greed into effects which are non-strous and unbearable. If greed produces a badly designed, poorly built automobile, the results can be tragic for some, but the huran race can survive the error. If greed produces nuclear power plants which suffer from design faults, or nuclear power plants which are hastily finished in order to secure tax benefits, the human race may not be able to live with the results. Some men will always seek tax benefits. Let us even wish them good luck. But for this trivial kind of gre(d the state of Pennsylvania should not be threatened with having to pay the cost for the next five hundred years. Therefore, nuclear power plants must be taken down.
They lend wildly exaggerated power to the most banal and boring human faults.
What is at stake here?
The truth is that we now fi:.d ourselves in a grotesque and terri-169 167
fying situation. Malfunctioning valves in nuclear power plants threaten the inhabitability cf entire states. Design errors in pumps now have the potential to inflict cancer en one hundred thousand people. Faulty gauge; now possess the power to compel mass evacuations. These are the grotesque incongruities out of which an Evil God might fashion a black comedy featuring the end of the world. But it is not an accident that we are threatened by these incongruities. In proliferating the use of nuclear enercy, men believe tha* they are gaining power, and yet they are losing it every day, sur endering it hand over fist, to pipes and pumps, valves and concrete. Soon the people will be asked to surrender some of their rights, some of their freedom, in the name of pro-tecting nuclear power plants. They are too dangerous. Why increase risks? Soon, perhaps, the news media will be prohibited fron disseminating information about on-going nuclear accidents. Too dangerous. The people will panic. Tell nc one when you let the radioactive steam out into the countryside. It's safer that way.
What are a few millirens nore or less when weighed against the sure and dramatic dance s f a nass panic? Take away the right to information. Surrender your freedoms to the nuclear power plan ts. Surrender your power to nuclear power. Now, it is as if the tentacles of a distortec attitude which would aim at doninat-ing all of Nature are circling slowly around from behind and strangling the life out of the human agents who would presume to control them We have been surprised. The tentacles have a life of their own. flan has decided to interpose between hime if and his electric light switche: a fire-brea thing dragon two..ndred feet long. We are safe. The dragon's mouth is cooled by General Electric pumps. These pumps nrver fail.
Nuclear accidents threaten us with Apocalyptic consequences. The risks attendant on running nuc2 ear power plants may yield a crine of Biblical dimensions. At Nure, 'urg, in 1945-6, former Nazis, the architects and cureaucra te o' Auschwitz and Treblinka, were charged with " crimes against humt.nity". But, the meltdown of the core of a nuclear reactor, with the resulting long-term contami-nation of the countryside, will constitute a new kind of crime -
a Crine a~ainst the Future. To destroy part of the earth. to render it unfit for habitation, to destroy men, and, at the same time, to destroy part of the genetic endour.ent of the next gener-ation - all of this is to destroy the possib.ility of the Future.
And yet, this crime is also retroactive. A future, replete with meaning, with hunan significance, can only be built on a living past. The past lives in, and lends its weight to the present. For millions of years, life has slowly been evolving en this planet.
For thousands of years men have struggled at creating the thing we call Civilization. A man who sets before his mind'r eye the spectacle of this evolution, of this struri e, must e::perience a l
profound sense of awe. But, if this awe takes hold of a man, then he cannot f ail to know that he is, in some small way, responsible to the accumulated history and achievement of the human race, and that this responsibility consists, at least, of the obligation to give future generations a chance to make what they can of the human heritage. Thus, the nuclear power issue poses one cer tral question 169 i68
for every member of the human community.
Where do you live?
In The China Syndrome, when Engineer Godell is on the brink of making his ultimate moral choice, a friend of his in the control room tells him to just "go home". But the Engineer does not move, for he understands that, at this pivotal moment, he has, in fact, "come home". There is nothing for him to do but to stay, ard act.
He has learned where he lives. His home is all the Earth. His time is the time of all Human History.
I don' t have many illusions about politicians. I don't believe that they are all corrupt, but I also do not believe that most of them are thinking about their obligations to the past and the future. Still, the nucl ear power situation has one great virtue, and I would like to highlight it by asking that you and your colleagues take the following considerations into account as you think out your positions on this issue.
Your power is dead. Your privileges are worthless. Your influence counts for notbir.g. Your bank accounts are impotent. The wheel has come full ire]c. Folitical and financial men wielding great power, power which puts them out of the reach of normal men, have decided to profit by harnessing the power of the atom, but now Nature herself makes a mockery of human political and financial power by taking the politicians and Corporate executives and throwing them, against their will, into the streets with the people. You have surrendered your power and Nature has made her Revolution. Send out your orders to the FBI and the CIA. Have them compile a list of Nature's invisible and subversive elements -
Cobalt 60, Cesium 137, Krypton 85, Strontium 90, Plutonium 239.
Call out the Police. Let them beat down alpha and beta particles with their clubs. Let them disperse gamna rays with their tear gas. This is knowledge which you can no longer conceal from your-s elv es. You ace nothing but men. In the past it was said that no man could behold the face of God and live. Let us translate this idea into terns which any atheist, or r.enber of the NRC, can unders tand. No man, not even a United States Senator, can inhalc a gram of ?lutonium 239, and expeet to survive.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Sincerely, ir' C'f o / ref as]'~
s
- ffrey C. Hart J9 Museum Street lsrbridge, Mass. 02138 169 169
' Alexander G. Sidar, 3rd FREE-LANCE WRillNG (212)662-8524 372 CENTRAL PARK WEST, APT.19M, NEW YORK, N. Y.10025 April 21, 1979 Rog',r J. Mattson, Director Dieision of Systems Safety Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 7920 Norfolk Avenue Bethesda, Maryland
Dear Roger,
On the morning of March 28 I had penciled into my calendar,
" Set up D.C./Pa. research trip," and had meant to call you that day to try and set up an interview.
The moment I heard about a loss of feedwater transient at Three Mile Island, however, I looked it up in Dick Webb's book and said, " Forget Mattson for a while, we're into the worst accident in commercial reactor history."
I also wondered whether I should forget Pennsylvania.
I have no idea when this letter is going to get through to you, because I imagine that Three Mile Island is going to tie you up pretty thoroughly for months (and months), what with trying to figure out how best to deal with what's left of the reactor, testifying be-fore commissions, promulgating new regulations, etc.
But my book deadline is coming up soon, and I thought I would get something in the mail on the off chance that you or someone else down there would have an hour or so some time in the next month to clear up a few last questions.
These are mostly specific and technical, referring to your February 23 letter -- for which, incidentally, thank you very much.
For instance, I wondered whether the staff analysis of turbine trip initiated ATWS without HPT assumed proper functioning of turbine bypass, whether it is correct that in most plants this can only dump 35%-40% of full power into the condenser, whether this leads to main steam isolation valve closures, and if so, how soon; what the initial power / pressure spike would be, what the MSIV-closure-induced second spike would bo, etc.
I must tell you, however, that about three weeks before Three Mile Island, having concluded from Webb's contentions and your letter that MSIV-closure-initiated ATWS without BPT could pretty well be counted on to explode the primary system in between 6 and 44 seconds, and at the worst might blow the vessel closure head through the con-tainment along with a good portion of the core -- and having had no IreplyatallfromGen Northeast Utilities of Philadel-phia Electric to my inquiries -- I l69 170
Mattson, 4/21/79 2.
ceived debate-style book was neither feasible nor the best thing I could do for the public with what I'd learned.
The publisher was quite shocked by my findings and urged me to convert the pro-ject to a hypothetical account of what would harpen in the event of this type of accident -- in effect, a disastar book -- and I agreed.
I am still after the best scientific evidence available on this accident sequence and its potential consequences, but I realize you may not consider it worthwhile for your office to co-operate in this type of project.
On the other hand, I am anxious to ensure the authenticity of this book and not to overstate the case, and I do believe that if the dangers of ATWS were put forcefully before the public, your office might find it a great deal easier to get utilities to add the ATWS protection and mitigation systems for which you have been fighting lo these many years.
And it could be argued that you would be as justified in giving me information for this book as you would in giving someone else information for a strongly pro-nuclear boci.
I should also tell you that before Three Mile Island I had reached the conclusion that in fact ndelear power plants are just too intrinsically and irremediably dangerous for us to be messing with, and we ought to bite the bullet now and start shutting them down.
I know this will not be done until we experience the disaster that was averted at Three Mile Island, but I believe it should be.
I am quite upset that people seem to be taking all the wrong lessons from Three Mile Island -- for instance, picking on the B&W design in particular and PWR's in general, when my research has concluded that BWR's are if anything more dangerous; picking on plants under construction (e.g., the Governor of Connecticut looking for ways to keep Millstone #3 from going on line) instead of older, more dangerous plants (she s got a plant without automatic recire 8
pump trip, etc. there right now, and first priority ought to go to shutting it down, if not permanently, at least for extensive back-offGEg.)
If Three Mile Island has the effect of taking the heat fittin s reactors, I fear it is going to promote a Dorset Disaster (the new title for my book -- about a fictious plant in Connecticut.
All characters, companies, etc., are now to be fictitious.)
By the way, I very much admire both your forthrightness with me and the role which the transcripts of the NBC meetings show you played during the Three Mile Island crisis -- but frankly, having met you, I would have expected it.
If we don t get a chance to get to-8 gether formally before my deadline, maybe you'll let me buy you a few hundred beers some day.
Sincerely M Y 169 171 A. G. Sidar, 3rd P.S. - I have not given up the idea of a general book on nuclear plant accident possibilities and consequences, but at this point it would probably be a rewrite and update of Dick Webb's book.
Mattson, 4/21/79 3
cc: Paul Pargis, publisher, Stonesong Books, Grosset and Dunlap Richard Curtis, Authors' Representative Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
Peter E. McGrath Environmental Protection Agency:
Jack Bussell State of Connecticut:
Faith Breneman, Energy Division, Connecticut State Office of Policy and Management Hepresentative David Layine, State Capitol, Hartford Art Heubner, Department of Environmental Protection Alan Hekking, Office of Civil Preparedness Lawrence Bettencourt, First Sclectman, Waterford Nuclear Power Industry:
Robert Hartranft, Combustion Engineering Utilities:
E. Clifford Hill, Northeast Utilities Denning S. Powell, Northeast Utilities Noble McHugh, Philadelphia Electric Co.
Larry P. Eckman, Philadelphia Eleciric Co.
Consultants:
Dr. Richard E. Webb, Toledo, Ohio MHB Associates, Palo Alto, California Dr. Jan Beyea, Princeton Center for Environmental Studies 169 1/2
LATE FLASH - 10 M A.F.
Acril 4 - NRC SET TO COMf:ENCE COOLD0h'N Alexander G. Sidar, 3rd FREE-LANCE WRITING (212)66? 8524 372 CENTRAL PARK WEST, APT.19M, NEW YORK, N. Y.10025 W Sj g y + a a u - ~ % w*&~ hh?:&& f$ LQQ
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- 4 to FOR IMMEDTiTr HELEASP April 3, 1079 10:00 r.h.
Contact:
Richard Webb, 419-729-2324 A leading reactor scientist and nuclear power critic claims that the Three Mile Island reactor remains in imninent dancer of a melt-down or explosions, and that premature efforts to bring the reactor to a cold shutdown micht heichten the dancer.
Richard Webb, c
'!avy and industry reactor engineer viho left industry in 196c to gain a Ph.D. in reactor engineering and write a 1976 book entitled The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Fower Plants, C'
I says that the snrinkinv of the infamous hydrogen bubble was partly M
due to absorption of hydrogen by the zirconium claddinr of the Ch. VY g g 1 nt. clear fuel rods, which has made the fods more brittle and likely
- to crumble.
He estimates that 25% tv 50A of the cladding was de-W
/stroyed by the initial zirconium-steam reaction which created the I hydrogen bubble in the first place.
p (f[gsW (O.
R
.,ff Efforts to speed up cooling of the fuel, Webb says, may further o.+)(o y
stress the fuel and cause serious fuel rod crumbling.
This could lead to the core meltinc into an uncoolable mass which might cause catastrophic steam or hydrogen explosions or a China Syndrome type meltdown throuch the bottom of the reactor.
Says Webb, "The TEiC is now telling the public that the hydrogen (more) 169 173
Sidar/re. Webb 2.
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bubble is gone, but is not mentioning that the danger of a meltdown has undoubtedly increased.
Further, the political premium on get-Suff oSLd\\y ting the reactor into af W H = safe, co".d shutdown as quickly u
as possible may lead URC scientists to ignore the possibility that by doinc this they may increase the chances of a meltdown.
They should consider leaving the reactor in its current, relatively stable state, and allowing fission ?roduct heat to decay over as long as a year, rather than putting it through heat and pressure changes now.
"The reactor,"
n' ebb says, "is still in a very touchy state.
It may melt down even if they don't try to cool it too fast, because crumblinc fuel may block coolant channels or for eny of a number of other reasons.
Therefore, the evacuation of the area out to about 30 miles from the plant should carried out according to continrency pla e and maintained for at least a week.
"There is a further danger that if the Three Elle Island 72 re-actor melts down and the whole site has to be abandoned, the Three Mile Island #1 reactor will also melt down, and the heavily irradia-i ted spent' fuel in the cooling pools onsite would also lose coolant and catch fire.
In such a c3se, the Three Mile Island accident could contaminate the entire northeastern United States..
"There seems a possibility that the Three Mile Island plant was sabotaged, since the main and auxiliary feedwater pumps all failed at once, and these were housed in a relatively accessible buildinc outside the reactor containment building.
(more) 169 174
Sidar/re. Webb 3
"But," Webb concludes, "whether the Three Mile Island horror is the result of an accident or sabotage, and whether it melts down or not, the fact remains that all U.S. nuclear power plants are doomsday machines, and ought to be shut down."
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169 175
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May 21, 1979 Mr. Roger Mattson, Director of Systems Safety Nuclear Regulator Co==ission Washington, D.C.
l> ear Mr. Mattson:
It has been brought to our attention that you, Mr. Mattoon, are responsible for issuing a Panic Warning that an explosion was possible inside the Tnree Mile Nuclear Plant triggering saare headlines across our nation, when your Agency knew early in the crisis that a blast was impossible causing the closing of the Nuclear Power Plants and costing the public more millions of dollars. Then to make matters worse your Agency waited nearly one month before confessing to the Public that you had issued a monstrous false alarm.
Now we are in the mist of another crisis, GASOLIIG. Are we to assume then that we are again being lied to? If we can't trust our elected officials, then whom are we to trust?
We have come to the conslusion that it is about tine to fire a few Environmentalist in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, along with a few Senators, Representives and Governors and get going witr Nuclear Power, Solar Energy, and building more Da=s and roads.
If gasoline is in short supply, as our elected officials lead us to believe, then lets get to the bottom of this and allow other sources of supply to be made, ie. diesel, electric, newer mod-ifications of Combustion Engines, etc., rather tnan allow the increase in price.
Ie,ts Ration gasoline so all can get their supply not just the rich and politicans, who jet all over the world., while the poor people have to stay home, m rk and pay the bills. Eh? Mr. Hayakawa???
COME ON YOU GUYS, WE, THE PEOPLE HAVE HAD IT1 Sincerely yours, m
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-W V/ h h)a c4 G M &ff w Mrs. Irene H. Patterson 55 Pacifica Ave., Sp. 86 Pittsburg, Ca. 94565 cc Hayakawa Cranston Miller Brown CC Times 169 176
Dr. Roger J. Mattson May 8, 1979 Division o'f System Safety U.S. N.R.C.
Washington, D.C.
20555
Dear Dr. Mattson:
I enjoyed our telephone conversation of F.ay 7 very much. You will find enclosed here a copy of the letter I mentioned during our talk. This is, in fact, the seventh version. As you can see, j
this letter tends towar.s the style of an oration. Eventually, if I achieve the resul. I want, I will try to get my statement printed in some newspapers in the form of an Open Letter to the Feople, please feel free to send me any critical comments you may have on the arguments, the style, or the tone of the letter.
Certainly, you, of all people, should see this document since I quote you in it a number of times. I would also like to say that I was very impressed by your statements on the Three Mile Island accident as reported in the New York Times of April 14, 1979 You come across as a person who is genuinely concerned about the nuclear power question.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Sincerely,
(.
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Jeff ey C. Hart 109 Museum Street Cambridge, Mass. 02138 617-547-1302 169 177 a.___
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THE HEDGCOCK COMPANY POST OFFICE BOX 56 EAST BOOTHBAY, M AINE 04544 Phone (207) 633-5078 May 2, 1979 Honorable Roger Mattson.
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Safety Expert Nuclear Regulatory Com-ission Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. Mattson,
I have a great deal of respect for your concern and honesty during the Three Mile Island Accident.
It certainly seems people for miles around should have been evacuated. There will probably be thoasands of sses of cancer in men, women and children in the future as a result of thi horrible experience. This is why I am writing to you.
Maine people need your help. People around the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Plant are gathering in thousands to work to shut down this conster in every and any way possible. Each day more and more employees, former employees and men who constructed the power plant are stating the poor quality of construction, the tre.ining program for operators i s inadequate, light bulbs go out and are not replaced in the control room, leaking valves and pipes plague the plant and its workers, radioactive discharges upset the balance of marinelife in Montsweag Bay, trucks bring into the plant radion:tive caterials that are too " hot" to bring into the plant, and also, hundreds of little red balls are floating all over Montsweag Bay and the Sheepscot River and HAVE BEES FOR JUST ABOUT A YEAR. We don't ever hear these stories from Central Maine Power Company? Why can't they tell us these things are happening?
My children have drunk farm fresh milk, enriched with radioactive Iodine 131 for four years. I just found out about it.
People are terrified, young children in the area are writing letters about how they don't want to die.
Kids have nightmarepabout things they can't be expected to understand. How can re do this to our children?
Maine people used less power from CMP in 1978 than in 1977 We are and will continue to cut back on energy consumption. But we MUST NOT TAKE THIS UNGODLY RISK when over half of the energy Maine Yankee generates is going OUT OF STATE. We must, with your help, close down thi s monster before it destroys (however slowly) us and our children, perhaps the whole country?
Thank you very much, sir.
169 178 Ve s1
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