Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant

The construction of Seabrook Station was completed ten years later than expected, with a cost approaching $7 billion. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) described its own regulatory oversight of Seabrook as "a paradigm of fragmented and uncoordinated government decision making," and "a system strangling itself and the economy in red tape."[2] The large debt involved led to the bankruptcy of Seabrook's major utility owner, Public Service Company of New Hampshire.[3] At the time, this was the fourth largest bankruptcy in United States corporate history.[4]

A second reactor was proposed in 1972 and cancelled in 1988.[5] It was 22% complete.

The plant was originally owned by more than 10 separate utility companies serving five New England states. In 2002, most sold their shares to FPL Energy (a subsidiary of FPL Group), later known as NextEra Energy Resources. NextEra Energy now owns 88.2% of Seabrook Station. The remaining portion is owned by municipal utilities in Massachusetts. The station is one of five nuclear generating facilities operated by parent company NextEra Energy. The other four are St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant and Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station operated by sister company Florida Power & Light (a regulated utility), and the Duane Arnold Energy Center and Point Beach Nuclear Generating Station operated by NextEra Energy Resources.

In 2005, a security fence installed by a subcontracted engineering firm the previous year failed a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection and was declared inoperable.[6] In 2006, the owner of the plant, FPL Energy Seabrook LLC, was fined $65,000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since "both design of the system and testing procedures did not adhere to NRC guidelines".[7]

During the 2008 presidential election, Republican nominee John McCain mentioned the possibility of building the once-planned second reactor at Seabrook. The idea drew cautious support from some officials, but would be difficult due to financial and regulatory reasons.[8]

In 2017, due to the steady drop in value of nuclear power plants including Seabrook Station, the town of Seabrook enacted a 9.9 percent tax increase to offset the decrease in tax revenue collected from the plant's owner, NextEra Energy.[9]

In February 2018, a magnitude 2.7 earthquake occurred approximately 10 miles from Seabrook Station, but the earthquake did not trigger any emergency procedures or result in any signs of structural damage to the plant.[10]

Seabrook Station behind the Blackwater River seen from Route 1A in Seabrook, New Hampshire

In 2010, the plant applied to have its operating license extended from 2030 to 2050.[11] In September 2012, Massachusetts Reps. Edward Markey and John F. Tierney filed HR 6554, titled the "Nuclear Reactor Safety First Act".[12] The bill would prevent nuclear plants from receiving 20-year license extensions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission if they apply more than 10 years before their current 40-year licenses expire. The legislation was specifically aimed at Seabrook Station, which is currently experiencing aging-related problems 22 years into its operating license. The representatives have asserted that granting the plant a license extension covering operation from 2030 to 2050 based on inspections done in 2012 is illogical. They believe that inspection dates more than 10 years before the expiration of the current license are too far from the dates of validity for the extension and therefore may miss additional age-related problems that may occur in the future.

In February 2012, there were safety concerns about concrete degradation at the plant. Concrete surrounding an electric control tunnel at the nuclear plant had lost almost 22 percent of its strength and was showing signs of an alkali–silica reaction (ASR) because of more than a decade of ground-water infiltration, according to an NRC inspection report released in May 2011. A growing chorus of local politicians were "urging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt the relicensing process for Seabrook Station until a long-term solution is implemented".[13]

In June 2017, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials "reviewed numerous documents and inspected the plant as it gauges NextEra's safety plan to monitor and manage the alkali-silica reaction phenomenon present in concrete throughout the power plant".[14] In October 2017, federal regulators allowed the non-profit nuclear watchdog group C-10 to weigh in on the license amendment request.[15] On March 12, 2019, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it would be renewing the operating license of Seabrook Station for an additional 20 years, expiring on March 15, 2050.[16]

In 2013, the Nuclear Energy Institute released a study showing the positive impact of Seabrook Station on the economy and environment. Key findings are listed below.[17]

• Seabrook Station directly employs 650 people that earn more than double the average salary of workers in Rockingham County and Strafford County
• Seabrook Station generates approximately 40 percent of New Hampshire's total electricity, and its emission-free operation helps avoid the emission of nearly 4 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, which is the equivalent of taking almost 700,000 cars off the road
• Seabrook Station contributes $535 million of economic activity locally and contributes $1.4 billion to the U.S. economy each year, and for every dollar of output from Seabrook Station, the local economy produced $1.34
• Seabrook Station's financial contributions to local environmental groups over the previous decade amounted to more than $1 million

Seabrook Station has been cited as crucial for allowing Massachusetts to comply with carbon emission legal requirements, which was also evidenced by the closure of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in 2015 causing carbon emissions to rise in New England for the first time in five years.[18] According to projections by ISO New England, any decrease in electricity production in the region would not be expected to be replaced by renewable energy and instead would be replaced by natural gas.[19]

In April 2018, the New Hampshire Office of Strategic Initiatives released the state's 10-year state energy strategy that cited "preserving Seabrook Station as a source of zero-carbon energy is the most realistic and cost-effective means of managing emissions in New Hampshire at scale".[20]

In the eight years before construction started at Seabrook, residents had opposed the plant before regulatory agencies and in a town meeting vote. Spurred on by the failure of these methods, and the success of a large anti-nuclear site occupation in Whyl, Germany, local people formed the Clamshell Alliance.[21]

On August 1, 1976, 600 protestors rallied at the Seabrook Station construction site. In May 1977, more than 2,000 protestors, including 1,400 members of the Clamshell Alliance, occupied the site. Of the protestors, 1,414 were arrested and held for two weeks after most refused bail.[21][22]

Another vocal opponent of the plant was then Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who blocked the opening for several years due to environmental issues as well as concern about emergency evacuation plans. The NRC had stipulated that workable evacuation plans needed to be in place for all towns within a 10-mile (16 km) radius of the plant. Four Massachusetts towns were within the ten-mile radius, and thus Governor Dukakis' approval of evacuation plans was required.[4]

A lawsuit complaining that the NPP would cause thermal pollution was launched by anti-nuclear opposition. This was rejected without merit, but it delayed construction by 7.5 months.[23] These protests and lawsuits are the reason the plant cost double initial estimates.[23]

In September 2017, activist Steve Comley Sr. along with his non-profit "We The People" paid for an electronic billboard in Salisbury, Massachusetts allegedly warning of the absence of an evacuation plan in the event of an accident at Seabrook Station.[24] In January 2018, the town of Merrimac, Massachusetts joined half a dozen other communities "calling for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hold a hearing on whether the Seabrook, New Hampshire, nuclear power plant's evacuation plan can be effectively implemented".[25] In response, NextEra Energy released the following statement:[26]

We have extensive emergency response systems in place, including numerous back-up safety systems that provide our plants with layer upon layer of both automated and manual protection. Also, we work collaboratively with local, state and federal officials on a regular basis to ensure our plans are comprehensive and effective and continue to refine. These most recent claims by 'We the People' and Mr. Comley are completely without merit. Mr. Comley has a long history of making false allegations and baseless claims against Seabrook. Independent agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have reviewed his claims and allegations and have found them to be without substance.

In April 2020, Massachusetts members of the U.S. Congress that included U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and NextEra Energy to release the pandemic plan for Seabrook Station in response to COVID-19.[27] The letter was submitted in response to the ongoing refueling outage bringing hundreds of workers on site with concerns over safety procedures and plant staffing. Seabrook Station was also granted regulatory exemptions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to aid in its preventative efforts against the spread of COVID-19 including loosening work-hour controls and deferring certain inspections.[28]

Seabrook Station seen from Powwow Hill in nearby Amesbury, Massachusetts

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[29] The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Seabrook was 118,747, an increase of 10.1 percent in a decade. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 4,315,571, an increase of 8.7 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Boston (40 miles to city center).[30]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Seabrook was 1 in 45,455, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[31]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant.

• Information on Seabrook Station, at NextEra Energy site
• Department of Energy Seabrook Page
• Seabrook, NH Nuclear Plant Occupation Page with timeline, scanned articles 1977-2007, images and links