ML19340C816

Open Ltr Re Prolonged Delay in Restarting Unit 1.Urges NRC to Relicense Plant for Immediate Startup

ML19340C816
Person / Time
Site:	Three Mile Island
Issue date:	11/15/1980
From:	Beckmann P AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:
References
PR-801115, NUDOCS 8012170514
Download: ML19340C816 (1)

Text

____

C 4

DCC CED 1 DOCKET NUMBER UN PROD. & UTil. FAc

$_.~. 2 98.%

. . . .

-

5-DEC 161980 ,, Te -

-

Office of the seer,;,,y

-

- - -

- \ Docketint & Service 9

-

\

_ _

a.w

....................................................

9 OPEN LETTER TO THE CHAIRSfAN OF THE NRC  % _. &

.................................................... -

/ 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 ~

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 ,

. _.

g by Brookhaven National Laboratory and published in the report 5 .

-

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

'

-

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

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

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

[ with 50r oprobability, that number has been exceeded.

'[ 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 6

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

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. 4' P 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 )

'

[ l Professor, Electr. Eng. Dept. L 5 1

University of Colorado t

!!1 Best estimate by personally contacted spokesman of General Public Utilities. [2] The Direer Use of Coal, OTA Report Washington, D.C.,1979; n 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. h

.

y ..,.--__m._- -

^- - - <'

g ID wpown6;M1 Di C; ~

/ / .8L 8012170514