09/10/2024
PLEASE share this in response to the incorrect maps being circulated about nuclear power in Florida. There are three nuclear power plant sites in the state and one (Crystal River) has been closed since 2013 but highly irradiated fuel rods are still stored at the site. Levy County was never built.
There are two operating nuclear power plants (with two units each) at St. Lucie and Turkey Point. Both reactors have been hit by hurricanes before and lost off-site power, which is very dangerous for a nuclear power plant. Nuclear reactors do not power themselves. If their diesel backup generators fail or run out of fuel, they are hours away from a nuclear meltdown as the cooling water boils off and can expose the fuel rods to the air. Thankfully, the backup generators have worked at these plants, even though the industry has a history of such generators failing (sometimes immediately) or catching fire. Turkey Point made it five days without off-site power after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which was very lucky. As the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out, their generator building is within falling distance of a smokestack at the same power plant that was severely cracked by winds during Hurricane Andrew. Turkey Point was also fined for falsifying repair records on safety equipment.
UPDATE (10/9 9:30pm ET): Multiple tornadoes touched down in Port St. Lucie, with damage to buildings reported in the Orange Avenue area, less than nine miles from the St. Lucie nuclear power plants. Not sure if any of them touched down closer to the reactors, but will update this status if there is indication of any impacts to the reactors.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dlochbaum/fission-stories-48-hurricane-andrew-vs-turkey-point/
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dlochbaum/turkey-point-fire-and-explosion-at-the-nuclear-plant/
https://www.nucnet.org/news/us-nrc-proposes-usd150-000-fine-for-falsified-records-and-inaccurate-data-at-turkey-point-nuclear-station-4-5-2021
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/nuclear-near-misses-a-decade-of-accidents-at-us-nuclear-energy-power-plants-may-2016-3mb.pdf
[Note: this map is from our EJ Mapping project and a direct link to this view is here: https://ejmap.org/jtiny=4990 . Our mapping project covers all power plants, landfills and incinerators in the U.S., but isn't as up-to-date as we'd like, as it's a very ambitious project with no funding, but we made sure this view is accurate and the map is far more accurate than the one being circulated that has other types of power plants shown as if they're nuclear facilities. Also, note that this map does not include other facilities that have radioactive materials on-site, such as the research reactor at University of Florida in Gainesville.]
