An application to extend Seabrook Station’s operating license reawakens debate about the pros and cons of nuclear power.

Accusations flew in the Galley Hatch Conference Center in Hampton as supporters and opponents of nuclear power voiced their concerns on Aug. 19. The tense, emotional atmosphere suggested little has changed since debate regarding the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant began close to 35 years ago.

Twenty years to the day after the plant began commercial operations, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission held two public hearings to discuss an application to extend its operating license until 2050. The plant’s current license does not expire until 2030, but it’s already seeking a 20-year extension.

Seabrook Station has a long history of generating protest and controversy. Construction on the plant began in 1976 but it did not become operational until 1990. Massive public opposition, led largely by a local group called the Clamshell Alliance, effectively delayed the plant’s opening for more than a decade.

Paul Gunter, a founding Clamshell member, said the alliance was part of a New England-wide network of activists opposed to governmental efforts to expand the use of nuclear power. Thousands of people were arrested for acts of non-violent civil disobedience such as trespassing and refusing to leave the 900-acre property off Route 1 in Seabrook while the plant was being constructed.

Now, opponents of Seabrook Station are up in arms again, this time rallying against the plant’s license renewal application.

“The fact is that we went through this same process 20 to 30 years ago,” said Doug Bogen, executive director of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League.

Seabrook Station is one of 104 operating nuclear power plants in the United States, and one of eight owned by NextEra Energy. Due in no small part to public displays of opposition in the 1970s and ’80s, Seabrook remains one of the youngest nuclear power plants in the country. Only five construction permits for nuclear plants have been issued since Seabrook attained its original permit, and all five of those facilities began operating years before Seabrook.

Bogen, who attended the public hearing on Aug. 19, remembers donning a protective Tyvek suit at Hampton Beach in the 1980s as an act of protest against the plant’s construction.

Nuclear power generation in the United States has grown from about 675 million megawatt hours in 1996 to 800 million megawatt hours in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. But nuclear power still accounts for roughly 20 percent of the nation’s total energy generation—about the same as in ’96. Seabrook Station generates 1,244 megawatts of power for 1.4 million homes and businesses across the country, making it New England’s largest power plant.

According to the NRC, the United States generated about 31 percent of the world’s gross nuclear-generated electricity in 2008, with France ranking the next highest at 16 percent. France covers 78 percent of its own domestic energy with nuclear power.

Fifty-two nuclear plants in the United States have been awarded 20-year operating license extensions by the NRC. While some plants have voluntarily decided not to go through with the renewal process, the NRC has never denied a renewal application.

NRC policy allows a plant to apply for a license renewal 20 years before its existing license expires, or halfway through the initial 40-year operating period. The renewal process entails a safety and environmental review and opportunities for public input.

“Renewal allows us to do the very best job possible in planning our maintenance activities and expending funds for new equipment for systems,” said Seabrook Station spokesman Alan Griffith. “All these things ensure that the plant is in top condition at the end of the current license period in 2030.”

According to Griffith, support for nuclear power has increased since Seabrook Station began operating. Plants have operated safely over the past 20 years, he said, and the technology is now viewed as mature.

In the eyes of opposition, however, the fact that no large-scale emergencies have arisen over the past 20 years has created a false sense of security in the industry. The memory of past nuclear disasters still looms in the minds of many opponents.

A malfunction of the cooling system at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania in 1979 resulted in a partial meltdown of the generator’s core and the release of a radioactive plume—the worst accident in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear power generation. The explosion at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in 1986, considered the worst nuclear disaster on record, was also still fresh in the public’s mind when Seabrook Station opened.

Bogen argued that even a perfect record is no guarantee that a plant will operate flawlessly 20, 30 or 40 years down the line. Aging is not linear, he said, and unforeseen problems could arise.

Sandra Gavutis agrees. She’s the executive director of the C-10 Research and Education Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1991 to address health and safety issues related to Seabrook Station.

“Licensing the plant now without knowing what future conditions might be seems inconsistent with the (NRC’s) duty,” Gavutis said. “Reasonable reassurance that the plant can operate safely cannot be made 20 years in advance.”

In fact, concerns have already been raised surrounding degradation of pipes that perform safety functions such as cooling the core of the reactor and, in some cases, carry radioactive material. According to Paul Blanch, a former nuclear engineer who has worked at Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, leakage is currently occurring in about 30 plants across the country.

The issue of leakage is one of the reasons the operating license renewal Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant applied for in 2006 still has not been awarded and remains under review by the NRC. Blanch has testified before the Vermont Legislature, arguing that Vermont Yankee is not safe. In February, the plant reported leakage of tritium, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear power generation, into the groundwater at levels far exceeding the federal limit.

Additionally, Blanch said, many electrical cables supporting vital operating and emergency backup systems in Seabrook are inaccessible, buried underground and, in some cases, submerged in water.

Gavutis has actively opposed licensing Seabrook Station for more than 25 years. She was a selectwoman for Kensington in the mid to late 1980s and worked on evacuation plans for the plant. She also gave testimony on behalf of Kensington as a private citizen during the original license hearings. Only people and organizations who read reports and stay informed truly know the existing dangers and potential future problems with the plant’s parts and systems. Most people, she said, prefer not to think about it.

“If you really thought about the potential of what could happen, it’s pretty scary. It’s easier to ignore it for some people,” she said.

Gavutis described this phenomenon as “psychic numbing,” saying disinterest in the plant has bred apathy.

“When Seabrook was licensed, it was a long battle,” she said. “We fought so hard and came so close, only for the licensing to be passed... There was so much opposition, and people felt as though they couldn’t make a difference.”

Gavutis remains concerned about Seabrook Station’s evacuation plan. Gunter, who is now a member of anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, said the plan is “not acceptable, believable or feasible.”

David Barr, trained education expert in Seabrook Station’s corporate communications department, said that in the event of a radioactive plume escaping from Seabrook, the plant would combine its own weather data with that of the state to determine where winds may be blowing the plume, and if people should evacuate the area. The plant would also instruct people to go inside, shut their windows and wait for the plume to pass.

Barr said evacuation plans take into consideration special groups, such as hospitals and schools, and other factors. Time estimates for an evacuation were initially set in 1990 and were updated according to Census data in 2000. Barr expects the estimates to be updated again when 2010 Census data is released. In addition to population changes, Barr said, road improvements and expansions must also be taken into consideration.

Mary Lampert of Pilgrim Watch, a nuclear watchdog focused on the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass., worries that people outside of the evacuation plan’s 10-mile radius would also be affected by an emergency. In coastal regions, wind patterns are unpredictable and wouldn’t blow in a straight line, Lampert said.

She also noted that decontamination centers were only designed to treat 20 percent of area residents, which she believes dissuades people from going to them. People may instead go to the homes of friends or relatives outside the evacuation zone, thus spreading contamination.

Gavutis said there have been significant population density increases over the past 20 years, particularly in terms of beach traffic. She does not believe there is a sufficient network to carry high volumes of traffic, and highways don’t have signs alerting people to evacuation routes. Additionally, many people worry they wouldn’t be able to hear warning sirens from inside their homes, she said.

“Evacuation plans have been flawed from the very beginning and they continue to be,” she said.

Evacuation plans are particularly important in today’s post-9-11 world, opponents stress. Nuclear reactors are targets for terrorists, they say, and Seabrook Station was not built to withstand the impact of an airplane crash.

But Barr disputes that notion. Pease Air Force Base in nearby Portsmouth was operational at the time Seabrook Station was constructed, and he says engineers designed the plant knowing that a plane could crash into it, deliberately or accidentally.

The storage of spent nuclear waste is another issue of concern that has arisen over the past 20 years. At the time of Seabrook’s construction and initial licensing, the federal government had designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a long-term geological repository for spent nuclear fuel assemblies. However, the project has been delayed and, in 2009, the Obama Administration announced its intent to end the project and halt funding.

Barr said Seabrook Station, like all nuclear power plants across the country, is paying into an account with the federal government for the eventual removal of waste from the site. In the meantime, it has begun to use dry cask storage, in which spent fuel is surrounded by inert gas in sealed steel and cement cylinders.

Gunter said he believes the heart of the intergenerational controversy about nuclear power revolves around spent fuel rods.

“The lasting legacy is nuclear waste, which is potentially a hazard for millions of years,” he said. “It is a threat to the water, soil and air of future generations that will not get one watt of electricity from that plant.”

This waste, opponents argue, is something the nuclear industry neglects to mention when describing itself as an “environmentally friendly” method of generating electricity. Noting that nuclear power generation does not emit carbon, supporters now tout it as a potential solution to global climate change—a problem people weren’t aware of when Seabrook Station was constructed.

“Regardless of theory or ideas such as global warming, we must have an energy policy in place that makes sense and takes our needs into consideration,” said Alan Griffith. “We believe that Seabrook Station will play a significant role in providing sustainable energy for years to come.” He described electricity from nuclear plants as “safe, efficient and emissions-free.”

But Gunter said that claim is misleading. The carbon footprint associated with mining and enriching uranium, which is used for fuel in nuclear power generation, is significantly greater than renewable sources of energy such as wind power.

“Climate change is more reliably addressed through energy efficiency and conservation,” he said.

What it comes down to, Griffith said, is that staunch opponents and supporters of nuclear power are not going to sway each other. He said there is no process by which Seabrook Station directly responds to opponents, asserting that the proper forum for debate is the NRC license renewal process.

Gunter said plans for future demonstrations will be announced as they arise. He and a coalition of anti-nuclear organizations are petitioning to change NRC policy so that plants cannot apply for a license renewal until their existing license is within 10 years of expiring. The coalition is also requesting that license renewals currently being considered, including Seabrook, be suspended until a ruling is made on the petition.

The NRC will review this petition and may decide to open it to the public for comment. If so, it would leave the document open for comment for six months, and then make a ruling on it. This process typically takes around two years.