EFMR Monitoring Group

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Coming to your Municipal Landfill – Radioactive Waste

From the RWMA Newsletter:

Is the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico a good reason for energy companies to reconsider the use of cheap practices and quick solutions? Apparently not so for the natural gas giants, who are drilling up the Northeast region that overlies a naturally radioactive Marcellus shale formation. The formation is estimated to contain a colossal 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But how to dispose of the radioactive shale rock brought up from the drill hole? Why not your neighborhood solid waste landfill? The Marcellus shale formation has elevated radioactive concentrations due to naturally occurring uranium, approximately 25-30 times above background concentrations. Meanwhile, the produced water from these wells can contain 15,000 pCi/L (picoCuries per liter) of radium. The drinking water standard for radium is 5 pCi/L. What is to be done with the cuttings and the wastewater? Well, most Marcellus shale wells in Pennsylvania send the fluids to wastewater treatment plants and dispose of the dewatered drill cuttings in various landfills.

Unit 1 at Susquehanna nuclear plant shuts down safely

MAY 15, 2010

Contact:

Joe Scopelliti, 866-832-4474

jjscopelliti@pplweb.com

Unit 1 at Susquehanna nuclear plant shuts down safely

Operators at PPL’s Susquehanna nuclear plant near Berwick, Luzerne County, Pa., safely shut down the Unit 1 reactor Friday night (5/14) during equipment testing.

“During the refueling and maintenance outage that concluded last month, we made several equipment upgrades, including installing a new integrated digital control system for plant equipment and replacing turbines that power pumps providing water to the reactor vessel,” said Jeff Helsel, PPL’s Susquehanna plant manager.

“While plant personnel were performing a required test on the control system and the pumps, operators shut down the unit because established test limits were met,” he said.

All equipment responded to the shutdown as designed. There was no equipment damage.

“We have been performing a series of tests with the new control system to ensure the safety and reliability of the unit. We will complete an evaluation of the shutdown and have Unit 1 generating electricity again,” Helsel said.

The Susquehanna plant, located in Luzerne County about seven miles north of Berwick, is owned jointly by PPL Susquehanna LLC and Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc. and is operated by PPL Susquehanna.

PPL Susquehanna is one of PPL Corporation’s generating facilities. Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) controls or owns nearly 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to about 4 million customers in Pennsylvania and the United Kingdom.

UN Atomic Chief Amano Warns That Nuclear Accidents May Rise

From BusinessWeek:

Nuclear accidents may occur more often as atomic technology spreads and countries build more reactors, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano said.

“Member states are considering the introduction of nuclear power plants,” Amano said during a May 14 interview in his 28th-floor office overlooking Vienna. “We cannot exclude accidents. If there are more, we have certain risks.”

The IAEA expects as many as 25 nations to start developing nuclear-power facilities by 2030. The total global investment in building new atomic plants is about $270 billion, the Arlington, Virginia-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change said on Feb. 17. Interest in nuclear power is growing at the fastest rate since the Three Mile Island accident in the U.S. in 1979 and the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine in 1986, IAEA statistics show.

Retired Millstone worker alleges safety compromises at Millstone, NRC

From the Day:

Federal regulators are investigating allegations by a retired Millstone Power Station worker that plant owner Dominion puts profits ahead of safety and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not thoroughly managing safety issues.

David Collins of Old Lyme, a pro-nuclear retiree who took a company buyout in March, says the way Dominion has handled staffing cuts in key areas at the nuclear complex, along with an electrical mishap that forced a manual shutdown at the plant and the monitoring of fire doors, contribute to a "cover-up culture" that could compromise public safety just the way it was compromised in the late 1990s at the Waterford plant and in 2002 at the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio.

Power plants face closures

From San Diego Union-Tribune:

Three power plants on the San Diego County coastline face major changes — from shuttering operations to building new cooling towers — in the wake of a landmark ruling by California’s water-quality officials to protect sea life.

The State Water Resources Control Board last week decided to phase out once-through cooling for seaside power plants because the process kills more than 2.6 million fish and 19 billion fish larvae annually, according to the agency. The policy may be contested by energy companies concerned about the cost of compliance, including fitting new infrastructure into existing facilities.