“Although the NRC issues licenses to power plants to operate for 40 years, they were never built to last this long. The average operating life of the 20 or so reactors that have been shut down has been around 13 years.”
-Center for Health, Environment and Justice
A classic case of statistical fiddling.
1. The plants were built to last that long; some components were not, and were designed to be replaced.
2. If you average Zion (1973-1998), or Dresden 1 (1960-1978), or Connecticut Yankee (1968-1996), or Maine Yankee (1972-1996), or Shippingport (1957-1982), or Yankee Rowe (1960-1992), or Big Rock Point (1962-1997), or La Crosse (1967-1983), or Millstone 1 (1970-1995), or San Onofre (1968-1992) with experimental reactors that weren’t designed for 40-year lifetimes like Saxton (1961-1972), or the CVTR (1963-1966), or Elk River (1964-1968), or Piqua (1963-1966), or Hallam (1958-1963), or Humboldt Bay (1963-1976), or Pathfinder (1964-1967), or Vallecitos (1957-1963), or Peach Bottom 1 (1967-1974) with ships (NS Savannah: 1962-1970), with military reactors (Hanford N), with plants that shut down due to accidents (Fermi 1: 1963-1972 and Three Mile Island 2: 1979), with plants that didn’t run at all because of political pressure (Shoreham) or were shut down early because of political pressure (Rancho Seco: 1975-1989), and with ones that had legitimate technical problems like Fort St. Vrain (1976-1989), or Indian Point 1 (1962-1974), or Trojan (1975-1992), yes, it could very well be 13 (Why didn’t they throw the IFR in there too? It generated some electricity, after all). But that number doesn’t mean anything by itself–each plant has different circumstances.
3. How was that average worked out? I suspect that it was taken by adding up the years that each plant operated and dividing by the number of plants instead of using the amount of electricity produced by the plants, which would lead to a lower number than you would otherwise get if you do include prototypes, since operational plants are bigger than test reactors.
4. What about the ones that haven’t shut down yet? Why aren’t those included? What about Oyster Creek, which is beginning its 38th year of operation? They’re deliberately including only the plants that (a) weren’t supposed to last that long, (b) had accidents, (c) had problems, or (d) were shut down by politicians, and extrapolating that figure to every operating nuclear power plant and every one that could possibly be built in the future. Operationally, that statistic is meaningless.
Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fun With Statistics, Industry Performance
Posted on December 28, 2006 by Stewart Peterson |
