NRC Rejects Anti-Nuke Activists, Won't Delay St. Lucie Restart

St. Luice Nuclear Plant

For the past few weeks, we've taken note of attempts by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy to cast doubt on the safety of the steam generators at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.

Just this afternoon, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put an end to the nonsense by rejecting a request asking the commission to delay the plant's re-start:

FPL spokesman Michael Waldron said, “There should be no doubt that this decision confirms the continued safety of the St. Lucie plant and the steam generator system. The NRC’s rejection of SACE’s petition clearly shows that the inflammatory rhetoric, scare tactics, and testimony by so-called “expert” witnesses, is about political theater, not safety. FPL would not put a nuclear unit online if it was unsafe, nor, would we be allowed to do so by our federal safety regulator.”

In today’s order, the NRC said, “SACE’s concerns are connected to the 2007 replacement of the plant’s steam generators; the plant, however, has been in operation since that time.”

The NRC performed a safety evaluation in 2012 prior to the increased capacity for Unit 2 being approved that considered the Steam Generator tube issue.

For more on what's really behind all this, check out this post from March 11, 2014.