Earthquakes, Droughts, Fracking for Oil & Financially Distressed Owner/operator

[Divernan]

Yes it's a perfect storm for nuclear energy in the Dallas/Fort Worth,Texas, metropolitan area, with over 6.3 million residents, and 2 nuclear reactors 70 miles southwest, with a southerly prevailing breeze.

The owner/operator has $36 billion in junk bond debt it cannot service and, according to the Dallas papers is in default on $23.9 billion of that debt, as detailed in Business Week and the Dallas Morning News. Now said owner/operator has applied for approval to put in two more nuclear reactors. Am I hopelessly cynical to expect this owner hopes to cut corners on construction of the new reactors to service his existing debts? Or to point out that the owner's demonstrated incompetence in making a go of nuclear power in corporate friendly/energy friendly Texas does not bode well for future safety concerns, let alone electricity rates charged to Texans.



1. Dallas Morning News, March 6 and 9, 2011 and http://www.alacrastore.com/research/moodys-global-credit-research- Energy_Future_Holdings_Corp-PBC_126914.

2. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-28/energy-future-holdings-cds-rises-before-lender-call.html2.


snips from the following blog:
http://mactorquil.com/


The reactors sit over the Barnett Shale which is currently enduring extensive hydraulic fracturing, a process in which a mixture of sand, water and up to 100 chemicals is injected far below the surface under pressure strong enough to fracture the formation and release, in this case, natural gas.

• Fracturing is not regulated by the state or federal government. Disclosure of the chemicals used is not required.

• Earthquakes are now regularly reported in areas of the Barnett Shale near the facility. The area had no tremors for at least 140 years.

• The cooling source, the fairly small Squaw Creek Reservoir (150,000 acre feet) may not contain enough water to cool the rods and spent rods if the plant is compromised, especially in a drought.
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The confluence of earthquakes and drilling/fracking has also been a serious issue in Arkansas, and is particularly alarming to us in Pennsylvania where our new Governor's election was substantially financed by the Big Oil/fracking interests drilling into the Marcellus Shale.

[dkofos]

1. It's texass, Insanity will prevail!!

[AndyTiedye]

2. Are Those the Reactors Being Built in Partnership with (shudder) TEPCO?