Word: vernon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Another drawback of the Vernon reactor is its operational requirement to release low-level radioactive liquid and gaseous wastes from time to time. The AEC contends that these wastes are harmless. But a recent paper has shown remarkable correlation between changes in infant mortality and radioactive gaseous discharges in Illinois in the area surrounding the Dresden No. 1 power station (a BWR of one-third the capacity of Vernon) over the past ten years. Dresden's annual effluents ranged from 34,860 to 800,000 curies from...
...periodic low-level discharges are not what principally alarms anti-reactor groups. The big fear is of a major accident at Vernon. Although it is certain that the plant cannotsustain a full, A-bomb blast, it can easily run out of control, melting its safety devices and enclosures. Such overheating would cause explosions of superheated water which could rupture the reactor shielding, releasing highly radioactive particles and gases...
...construction of a reactor in Gravel Neck, Virginia, the welding superintendent admitted that as many as 5000 welds in vital parts of the structure could be defective. A cooling water failure might precipitate a "runaway" which could cause a high-power steam explosion within one-hundredth of a second. Vernon's emergency cooling system takes from three to ten seconds to become effectively operational...
There will be no full-scale test of emergency systems at Vernon before 1973 or 1974 because the test facility has been delayed in construction. Testing will take place at the National Reactor Testing site near Idaho Falls, but results will not come before 1975. And, as Dr. Milton Shaw, AEC director of reactor development, testified before Congress, "Seventy-one utilities and twenty architect-engineering firms are working on nuclear power plants. Most of these personnel are trying to build the first nuclear plant they ever built...
...meantime, conservation groups and the state have recently obtained some important concessions from Vermont Yankee in the form on improved emissions standards for the Vernon plant. But Vermont continues to explain that it is entirely unable to conduct effective monitoring and enforcement of the improved standards. And it is also incapable of coping with a major accident...