> The only truthful reading of this claim is that there have been dozens of years that some oil has been released.

And that's a problem if the system hasn't been designed for such an operating regime, which the article indicates is the case.

Think of the memory effect[1] in NiCd batteries, except the failure mode is more permanent than just a temporary loss of usable capacity.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect