Today’s big front page story suggests that the shutdown of Pilgrim may be imminent now that this antiquated plant has fallen to worst-in-nation status. This is heartening new to the great majority of Cape Codders who want to see the end this upwind threat defused at long last.
But any celebrating would be premature. Governor Baker is quoted in the same story as having “expressed confidence in the Plymouth plan’s safety.” “I do believe it’s safe, yeah, …the NRC is the most knowledgeable enterprise involved in this oversight activity. We’re going to let them lead this one.”
Sen. Viriato deMacedo, another Republican: “ I am pleased the the NRC will continue to focus its attention on Pilgrim to ensure that it continues to operate in a safe manner.”
(Funny how the Republicans, who are against government regulation, are always happy to defer mindlessly to what regulation there is.)
This naïve faith in the federal agency is based on confusion about the role of the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission): that its primary role and fundamental responsibility is to protect public safety. Had it been that the plant would never have been relicensed after 40 years.
The NRC came into being in the dawning of what was widely seen as the greatest thing, energy-wise, since sliced bread. Yes, it is charged with making sure a nuclear plant is operated safely, but safely as possible consistent with the commitment to nukes as the energy future. From the wikipedia article on the agency: “Twelve years into NRC operations, a 1987 Congressional report entitled ‘NRC Coziness with Industry’ concluded, that the NRC ‘has not maintained an arms length regulatory posture with the commercial nuclear power industry… [and] has, in some critical areas, abdicated its role as a regulator altogether.’”
It is counter to the NRC’s fundamental mission to shut down a plant.
Given its pro-nukes orientation, the fact that the plant is unsafe and the fears of almost everyone threatened by a meltdown justified is not enough for the NRC to act. (Remember that it disregarded the wishes of virtually every public official in re-licensing.) It would take the NRC’s perception that closure of Pilgrim is consistent with its pro-nukes role— that the obvious decrepitude and incompetence of this particular plant is obviously not doing the reputation of nukes in general any favors—to act against Pilgrim.
Let us hope that it has at last come to that point.
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