In New Hill, North Carolina lies the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant (NPP). The plant consists of a single 900 megawatt reactor, built approximately 20 years ago. According to Progress Energy, the company operating the plant, there were initial plans to build four reactors at the site, but due to changing financial conditions the remaining three ones were never built. Having visited the plant, I can assure you that the world is extremely lucky that the guys at Progress Energy decided to stop building reactors, and here is why:

The fire safety system at the Shearon Harris is in chaos. In 2005, it came to the point when experts from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) questioned the plant’s overall security. Mind you that the Commission usually tries to cover up problems at US NPPs rather than bring them to public attention. Right now, Progress Energy is applying for a new license for operating Shearon Harris until year 2046. Strangely enough, the NRC is planning to grant them the license, even though the plant does not meet federal demands for fire safety. The decision, based on the company’s promise to improve the situation over the coming four to eight years, has spurred several NGOs to bring suit against Progress Energy, demanding that their license be suspended and that they be fined for breaching federal regulations.

According to official results from studies done by US federal agencies on nuclear regulation, a fire at an NPP can lead to loss of control over the reactor, overheating, and a major release of radiation.

And now to my favorite part of the story: Instead of carrying out an expensive upgrade of the fire safety system at Shearon Harris, Progress Energy decided to hire a few people, who every hour take a walk around the plant and check that there is no fire. I first heard about this ingeniously cheap and simple solution from Jim Warren at the local organization NC WARN, which is currently involved in a court case against Progress Energy.

The next day during a tour of the plant, I asked the staff at Progress Energy whether the information about the fire patrols was correct, and they confirmed that it was. They even told me that about half a dozen people are employed to do these regular “fire checks.” When I asked whether it was possible to have a word with them, I was told that were busy and that we would not visit the part of the building patrolled by them; so, in other words no. And really – why would I want to disturb people who do such an extremely important job? But when the tour at the NPP was over, our guide informed us with a smile, that the guy in the blue top that we met five minutes earlier was one of those “fire watchers.” To be honest, I could not really understand why we could not talk to him and what terrible secrets he could reveal to us.

Now, you might think that what lies behind the lamentable fire safety situation at NPP Shearon Harris is a lack of serious incidents there. It is, after all, a known fact that people don’t take theoretical threats to heart. But as it turns out, this was not the case. In the beginning of the tour we were shown a short propaganda film produced by Progress Energy. The film explained in an unappealing voice that the security at NPP Shearon Harris is top-level. After the viewing, I asked the head engineer what he knows about the big accident in 1989. As it turned out, he didn’t know anything; after all, it was before his time. However, in the reactor control room, I managed to find someone who remembered the event. In 1989, during the course of a few hours, fires raged in several parts of the NPP simultaneously, and more than 30 fire fighting units worked to extinguish it. The reactor was shut down for one week while the reasons for the fire were being examined. Progress Energy has truly not learned anything from this accident. (By the way, Russia also learned little from the Chernobyl accident, as fires and other incidents take place at high-power reactors in Russia with frightening regularity. The United States is really becoming more and more like Russia. And if we are used to associating the problems in Russia with the Russian mentality, in the United States they are first and foremost related to money.)

In conclusion, I would like to quote David Lochbaum, the famous American nuclear safety expert, who said: “Shearon Harris is not safe today. A fire tomorrow could be like a nuclear Katrina: People in North Carolina would pay a high price, but the rest of the US might benefit if Congress makes the NRC finally enforce its own fire protection rules.” I wish with all my heart that Jim Warren and the other organizations (among them NIRS and the Union of Concerned Scientists) taking part in the court process against licensing Shearon Harris will be successful. A company which substitutes fire safety measures with a group of “observers’” who walk around the station all day must lose every license they have and not be allowed within 100 km of an NPP without special court approval. Like people say: “It’s beyond good and evil.”

Vladimir Slivyak is the co-chair of the Russian anti-nuclear group Ecodefence! This is his first blog on the Bellona Web English-language page.