Our Atomic Dominoes are Falling [View all]

[diane in sf]

http://www.nukefree.org/editorsblog/our-atomic-dominoes-are-falling

Two more atomic dominoes have hit the deck.

At least a half-dozen more teeter on the brink, which would take the US reactor count under 100.

But can we bury them before the next Fukushima erupts?

And will we still laugh when Fox "News" says there's more sun in Germany than California?

Wisconsin's fully licensed Kewaunee reactor will now shut because it can't compete in the marketplace.

Florida's Crystal River will die because its owners poked holes in the containment during a botched repair job.

UBS and other financial experts say Entergy is bleeding cash at Vermont Yankee. After blacking out the SuperBowl, Entergy has no problem stiffing a state that has sued to shut its only reactor.

But in the face being crushed by renewables and gas, the money men may finally pull the plug.

The same could happen to New York's Fitzpatrick and Ginna reactors, as well as the two at Indian Point, which need water permits and more from an increasingly hostile state. New Jersey's Oyster Creek, slammed by Hurricane Sandy, and Nebraska's Ft. Calhoun, recently flooded, are also on the brink.

The list of crippled, non-competitive and near-dead reactors lengthens daily. Few are more critical than San Onofre Units Two and Three, perched on an ocean cliff in the earthquake-tsunami zone between Los Angeles and San Diego.

More than 8 million people live within a 50-mile radius of where San Onofre's owners botched a $600 million steam generator replacement. As radiation leaked, they may have lied to federal regulators, prompting US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) to demand an investigation.

...