ML19340C816

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Open Ltr Re Prolonged Delay in Restarting Unit 1.Urges NRC to Relicense Plant for Immediate Startup
ML19340C816
Person / Time
Site: Three Mile Island Constellation icon.png
Issue date: 11/15/1980
From: Beckmann P
AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:
References
PR-801115, NUDOCS 8012170514
Download: ML19340C816 (1)


Text

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5 DEC 161980,, Te 9

Office of the seer,;,,y

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Docketint & Service 9

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OPEN LETTER TO THE CHAIRSfAN OF THE NRC 9

/ and to the Chairman, Atomic Safety Licensing Board, Washington, DC 20555 Docket 50 289SP/ TMI Unit I i to go on record as a Limned Appearance Statement in the Heanngs on the Restart and Licensing of Urut 1. Three Mile 14and (TMt.1).

k 15 November 1980 I

The prolonged delay in restarting Unit I of Three Mile Island nuclear plant (TMI-1), which was neither damaged nor involved s

in the March 1979 incident, is costing th es, for its undelivered

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power is being replaced by electricity from less safe sources.

i 75eo of the power now being bought by Metropolitan Edison to replace TMI is coal-fired [1]; prorating the number of i l

premature deaths due to coal-fired plants alone, and by air. ?

i pollution alone, I find (using mainly the detailed data collected

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g by Brookhaven National Laboratory and published in the report 5

r by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment) the me-C f

E dian number of stich deaths due to the idle TMI-l capacity of !

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792 MW to be more than two per week [2]. That means that [

F more than 173 premature deaths have by now occurred; and !

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with 50r probability, that number has been exceeded.

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It is true that these fatalities caused by the failure to restart TMI-l are not individually traccable, and that most of them are *

_ _ elderly people whose lives are shortened by comparatively small i p

periods. They die nevertheless; they die unnecessarily; and they )

die by the slowness of a process that was intended to protect the health and safety of the population, j

Antinuclear propagandists such as the so-called Union of r :

6 Concerned Scientists are free to frighten people with the risks of i nuclear power while concealing from them that it presents a risk j

reduction (albeit not to zero) from the hitherto used methods of

.; generating electricity. The NRC, I submit, has no such freedom, J,

for its mandate makes it responsible for assuring public health t j

,j and safety in regulating the civilian nuclear industry.

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1 therefore urge the NRC to re-licence TMI-l for immediate.: '

[ start-up, not cnly because its continued shut-down is unjustified Y 0 f

and disenminatory, but because it costs lives for which the NRC y -

f is, by its mandate, legally accountable.

I

~.. _. _ _

htd Petr Beckmann )

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l Professor, Electr. Eng. Dept. L 1

University of Colorado t

!!1 Best estimate by personally contacted spokesman of General Public n

Utilities. [2] The Direer Use of Coal, OTA Report Washington, D.C.,1979; V

f median number of deaths based on BNL data, p.2.8, interpolated for 1980;

'. fraction of coal used for electne power generation 0.776 (doe /EIA 1979);

e j pro rated for TMI-I 75% of 792 MW vs. 228.900 MW total US coal-fired !

g capacuy (DcE 1979). Not considered: excess casualties in the mming and f g transponation of coal vs. uranium for the same deliveted electnc power, ex.

j g cess casualties in the fuel cycle of oil-lired power plants, nor local effects 3 (Pennsylvama is far above average in coal-fired air pollution and correlated !

mortahtg All of these would cause the estirnate to increase above the 2 r

j deaths / week given here.

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