[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11992-11993]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          NUCLEAR POWERPLANTS

  Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, this past Sunday a New York Times editorial 
entitled ``In the Wake of Fukushima'' noted:

       If nuclear power is to have a future in this country, 
     Americans have to have confidence that regulators and the 
     industry are learning the lessons of Fukushima and are taking 
     all steps necessary to ensure safety.

  Following the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March, 
it is clear that maintaining America's confidence in the safety of our 
nuclear reactors is paramount. The disaster at Fukushima should not 
lead to a freeze of the nuclear industry; instead, it should be an 
opportunity to upgrade the safety of our nuclear fleet. Both industry 
and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission assure us that currently 
there is no immediate threat to the operation of our nuclear plants.
  Nuclear power is especially important to my home State of Illinois, 
where nearly half of all electricity in the State is nuclear. With 11 
of 104 operating nuclear power plants and stations in our State, we 
have more reactors than any other State in the Union.
  In the near term, it is my hope that nuclear regulators and the 
industry will take actions necessary to increase safety measures and 
integrate emergency operating procedures. Furthermore, nuclear plants 
should swiftly implement sensible measures to increase flood 
protections, enhance containment-venting capabilities, install remote 
monitoring controls of spent fuel pool conditions, and upgrade the 
ability to cope and maintain operations by a single station sustained 
for initially 8 hours and eventually up to 72 hours utilizing 
preplanned and prestaged resources.
  Moving forward, one of our top priorities should be enhancing flood 
protection at reactors. Obviously reactors,

[[Page 11993]]

for their cooling, need to be near large bodies of water, subject to 
flood. Fukushima highlighted the need to take additional protections to 
guarantee that current backup pumps and generators are also protected 
against flood or other seismic events. A recent flooding on the 
Missouri River is a demonstration of the need for such enhancements. 
Although flood barriers and procedures have so far protected the Fort 
Calhoun nuclear powerplant in Nebraska, this is not the time to look 
away from making further efforts on protecting reactors from floods.
  One of the ringing lessons of the Fukushima disaster is the need for 
enhanced capabilities for nuclear operators to cope with prolonged 
power outages. Every U.S. nuclear powerplant should be able to cope 
with a prolonged loss of power for at least 8 hours for an initial 
period and eventually 72 hours using only the resources onsite so that 
powerplant operators can utilize preplanned and prestaged equipment and 
muster other resources if necessary. We should be prepared for 
simultaneous events for multiple reactors onsite and should be able to 
maintain key power functions in the face of varying circumstances, 
including debilitated infrastructure, lack of communication, and 
especially the loss of onsite power.
  It is clear that operators' ability to cope with the prolonged loss 
of power was critical at Fukushima. We know that the tsunami hit the 
Fukushima Daiichi powerplant and wiped out all alternating power and 
backup power necessary to provide resources to the cooling pumps. This 
eventually caused overheating in both reactor vessels and cooling 
ponds. The ability to perform these critical functions and to monitor 
them--providing power to fans and pumps and to remotely open and close 
vents and valves--the inability of the Japanese to perform these 
functions caused them to lose control of key areas or to maintain 
cooling to critical spent fuel ponds and reactor vessels.
  The Japanese also were unable to remotely monitor conditions, 
especially in their spent fuel pools, and struggled continuously to 
pump enough water into the reactors. Operators need to have proper 
instrumentation at far, remote locations so they can continue to 
understand what is happening in reactors and cooling ponds if an event 
occurs.
  Furthermore, we need to install proper venting upgrades on all 
reactors with the Mark II containment design. This is an important step 
in preventing any kind of overpressurization and in reducing the risk 
of operations that we saw so clearly at Fukushima.
  In the United States, there are 23 reactors with the Mark I 
containment design. We have known since 1989 that there are flaws with 
the pressure containment system of the Mark I boiler reactor. As a 
precaution, industry upgraded the Mark I containments with the hardened 
vent to deal with the excessive pressure in the containment.
  According to the NRC task force's 90-day report, which examined the 
safety of U.S. nuclear powerplants, the hardened vents are not 
universally installed on the Mark II containments in the United States. 
The task force noted further that because the Mark II containments are 
only 25 percent larger than the volume of the Mark I, it is conceivable 
that the Mark II containments, under a similar situation, would suffer 
the same consequences as Nos. 1 through 4 at Fukushima. We should 
install hardened vents on all Mark II containment reactors and not 
allow any more time to pass before making deliberate improvements to 
address these safety concerns.
  As we press forward with nuclear power generation, I believe the NRC 
should also update our emergency planning zones. This is the evacuation 
zone that is preplanned around every nuclear powerplant. It seems 
prudent now, in the light of the experience of Fukushima, that we 
should expand the emergency planning zone to the Japanese radius of 20 
kilometers or 12.5 miles around each nuclear reactor. These EPZs should 
be updated with the latest 2010 census data of the number of Americans 
residing around these reactors, and the NRC should require enough 
radiation dose medication to handle at least two full EPZ evacuations 
if necessary.
  We also know that the spent fuel pools posed a serious threat to the 
safety of the site. Throughout the crises, Fukushima crews struggled to 
maintain water levels at the spent fuel pools to prevent an escape of 
uncontained radiation into the environment. For those of us who know a 
little bit about reactors, this was a surprise because normally we are 
totally focused on what is happening inside the reactor, but at 
Fukushima, as much attention had to be paid on overheating in the spent 
fuel ponds.
  This warning should serve as the beginning of an effort for us to 
relook at the issue of spent fuel in the United States, especially 
spent fuel which is stored near our drinking water sources. We all know 
96 percent of all the fresh water in the United States is in the Great 
Lakes, and I am concerned that we store approximately 1,000 tons of 
highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel just 200 yards from the Lake 
Michigan shoreline at the now defunct Zion nuclear reactor. Any 
proposal to stop the permanent disposal of nuclear waste in Nevada is a 
proposal to continue storing highly radioactive nuclear fuel right next 
to America's source of 96 percent of its fresh water.
  I believe we should now continue to reinvigorate the process of 
building the Yucca Mountain facility. Any proposal to not build Yucca 
is a proposal to pose a clear-and-present, long-term danger to the 
environmental future of the Great Lakes.
  The bottom line is we should not let the lessons learned from the 
Fukushima disaster become a forgotten story, and that the NRC task 
force and its 90-day report issued after the Fukushima disaster is a 
serious document that now should lead not just to further studies and 
consultant reports but comprehensive action, such as hardened vents, 
such as making sure we have remote monitoring of spent fuel ponds, and 
that all reactors be able to operate first 8 and then 72 hours without 
outside power, and that we take the other measures to upgrade our 
measure, such as expanding the EPZs.
  Tomorrow I will be testifying before the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, and as the junior Senator of the State of Illinois, the 
most nuclear State in America, I will carry a strong message: Nuclear 
power has a strong future in the United States but one that should be 
going forward in light of the lessons of Fukushima.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

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