Controversy
The anti-nuclear group "N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network" (NC-WARN) believes that Shearon Harris' safety and security record is insufficient, and questions whether it is the most dangerous nuclear plant in the US. However, the plant's technical and security systems have passed all Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) standards as of 2008, including protection and security, and no worker or area resident has been injured as a result of the plant's operation.
In 2010, Project Censored, a non-profit, investigative journalism project, ranked the safety issues at Shearon Harris the 4th most under-reported story of the year, because of the risk of fires at what are the largest spent fuel pools in the country:
Between 1999 and 2003, there were twelve major problems requiring the shutdown of the plant. According to the NRC, the national average for commercial reactors is one shutdown per eighteen months. Congressman David Price of North Carolina sent the NRC a report by scientists at MIT and Princeton that pinpointed the waste pools as the biggest risk at the plant. "Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly and catch fire," wrote Bob Alvarez, a former advisor to the Department of Energy and co-author of the report. "The fire could well spread to older fuel. The long-term land contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than Chernobyl."
In August 2007, NC WARN dropped a lawsuit against Progress Energy that was intended to delay or prevent expansion of Shearon Harris, claiming that continuing the legal battle would cost at least $200,000.
Read more about this topic: Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant
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