Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Special Report: Nuclear's lost generation

From Reuters:

On a flat, low-lying island nestled in crisp waters off the west coast of Finland, the first nuclear power plant ordered in Western Europe since 1986 is inching toward start-up.

Over 4,000 builders and engineers are at work on the sprawling Olkiluoto 3 project, whose turbine hall is so cavernous it could house two Boeing 747 jets stacked on top of each other.

When it is dark, which in winter is most of the day, enormous spotlights throw into focus scores of scaffolding towers and the red hauling equipment that encircle the grey, unfinished reactor building.

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Are ponds near nuclear plant disappearing?

From the Herald News:

Five years after radioactive tritium leaks from the Braidwood Nuclear power station became public, suspicion and frustration continue to fester among some of the people who live in the shadow of the Exelon plant.

The latest concern is for area ponds that are drying up. When Exelon Nuclear pumps water from a pond contaminated with tritium, water levels go down in nearby privately owned ponds, plant neighbors say. Coincidence?

Tom Zimmer doesn’t think so. When the Exelon pumping first started a couple of years ago, the water level in Zimmer’s nearby pond dropped about five feet. In recent months it has gone down even more, so much so that his fishing dock sits high above the water.

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Activists push for analysis of leaks at Vermont Yankee

From the Daily Hampshire Gazette:
Brattleboro-based New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution has called on federal regulators to require the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's owners to do a complete analysis of connections between leaks of the Vernon reactor's feedwater piping system earlier this month and similar leaks at the plant in January 2009.

The coalition filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to require and fully supervise a "thorough root-case analysis" of the system's inspection-port leak, and also a "comprehensive extent-of-condition review" of feedwater piping.

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Monday, November 22, 2010

UK gov't apologizes for decades of secret nuclear power industry corpse-mutilation

From BoingBoing:

The UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has apologized for 40 years' worth of clandestine, illegal mutilation of the corpses of British nuclear energy workers. When these workers died, pathologists and coroners colluded with the energy authority to remove their organs without the consent or knowledge of their families, in part to remove the possibility of a lawsuit for cancer caused by their work environment, but partly out of a seeming cavalier, better-safe-than-sorry approach that had them scooping out organs that had no diagnostic value. The corpses were then stuffed with random detritus from around the shop to disguise their mutilation; for example, broomsticks were used in place of bones removed from workers who'd died of leukemia.

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SPECIAL REPORT: Nuclear Executive Roundtable

From PennEnergy:

As the United States continues to look for clean, reliable energy to cut emissions and continue to provide power for the growing country, the nuclear power industry is making plans to expand. On Feb. 16, 2010, President Obama awarded the first loan guarantee for a nuclear plant under provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The award of $8.3 billion for two additional reactors at Southern Co.’s Vogtle plant in Georgia is conditional until the plant receives a combined construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is expected in 2011.

Southern is not the only energy provider looking to build new nuclear reactors in the U.S. And modular designs and the battle to finance new construction means nuclear power has been grabbing headlines across the globe.

In a series of interviews, Power Engineering magazine Associate Editor Brian Wheeler moderated this year’s Nuclear Power Executive Roundtable.

Participants included John Herron, president, CEO & chief nuclear officer of Entergy Nuclear; Mark Marano, Areva senior vice president of U.S. new build operations; Danny Roderick, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s senior vice president for new plant projects; Christofer Mowry, president & CEO, Babcock & Wilcox Modular Nuclear Energy LLC; and Deva Chari, Westinghouse senior vice president of Nuclear Power Plants.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Peach Bottom Enters Outage to Replace Main Power Transformer

From Nuclear Street:

Operators at Exelon Nuclear’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station safely shutdown the Unit 3 reactor yesterday at 8 a.m. ET to allow workers to replace one of the station’s main power transformers. Station operators, who continuously monitor plant performance, made the determination to replace the transformer this weekend as a precaution.

Peach Bottom has six main power transformers, four of which have already been replaced as part of Exelon’s $87 million investment to ensure long-term equipment reliability at the station. The station’s Unit 3 ‘B’ transformer, one of two remaining units that have been in service since 1974, will be replaced with a spare unit of similar vintage that is currently on site. Both older transformers are scheduled for replacement next fall.

Station operators will take advantage of the outage to complete a host of other maintenance tasks that can only be performed while the unit is offline.

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Daya workers in radiation scare but CLP denies harm

From the Hong Kong Standard:

Workers of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station were exposed to "unacceptable" levels of radiation last month, an environmental campaigner warned, and a legislator is calling for a special meeting to discuss the incident.

Operator CLP Power, however, said the radiation leak did not cause any harm and was rated at level one on the seven- scale international nuclear incident rating system.

The latest incident at the station just 50 kilometers from Hong Kong follows a scare on May 23. In the latest incident, on October 23, a flaw was observed in a water pipe section of a residual heat removal system. The company admitted several workers were exposed to radiation - less than two millisieverts - carried by the liquid. This is less than what an average person in Hong Kong would be exposed to every year, it said.

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China's Nuclear Plant Leak Poses No Threat to Environment, Public, Workers

From Bloomberg:

Radiation that leaked from Daya Bay nuclear power station, China’s first large-scale atomic generator, poses no danger to the environment, the public or plant workers, said China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group Co.

The leak, detected on Oct. 23, was caused by a fault at a pipeline bearing coolant from the No. 1 reactor, the state-owned company said on its website today. The fault has been fixed since it was found on Oct. 26, Guangdong Nuclear said.

The leak is Daya Bay’s second following a leakage from a fuel rod in May. The No. 1 reactor has been shut since Oct. 22 for scheduled maintenance, Guangdong Nuclear, which owns 75 percent of the plant, said today.

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Clyde contaminated by radioactive leak from nuclear plant

From the Scotland Herald:

Radioactive waste has leaked into the Firth of Clyde from a defunct nuclear power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Heavy rain caused contaminated silt from the site to flood onto the foreshore, in breach of safety procedures. The Government’s environmental watchdog is now investigating whether to take legal action.

The revelation has prompted condemnation from politicians and local residents, who are critical of Hunterston’s safety record. They want tough action to prevent any further leaks from the site.

“Time and again we have had leaks of low-level radioactive material into the Clyde in recent years,” said Kenneth Gibson, the Scottish Nationalist MSP whose constituency includes Hunterston.

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Peach Bottom: Inspection Reports 05000277/2010004 and 05000278/2010004

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station - NRC Integrated Inspection Report 05000277/2010004 and 05000278/2010004 ADAMS Accession No. ML103140643 Download PDF

EDF's Expensive U.S. Nuclear Option

From the Wall Street Journal:

Big French companies have a poor investment record in the U.S.: think Crédit Lyonnais in financial services, the former Suez in water and Vivendi in entertainment.

Will Electricité de France join the hall of shame? That partly depends on the outcome of a tricky negotiation with Constellation Energy Group, which wants to exercise a $2 billion put option that would require its French nuclear joint-venture partner to buy 11 coal-fired power stations. With EDF threatening to walk away from the U.S. market, its international strategy could unravel.

EDF paid a big price to buy its foothold in the U.S. Constrained by foreign-ownership rules, it paid $4.5 billion for half of Constellation's nuclear business in 2008, outbidding Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which offered $4.7 billion for the whole company. EDF also acquired an 8.4% stake in Constellation. With Constellation in dire financial straits at the time, EDF offered a backstop financing facility in the form of the put option. Despite improved cash and credit lines valued at $3.8 billion as of June 30, Constellation wants to exercise the put before it expires at year-end.

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An 80-Year Run for Nuclear Reactors?

From the New York Times;

With the so-called “nuclear renaissance” looking smaller and slower than predicted, some in the nuclear industry are focusing on running existing plants longer — not only for their initial 40-year licensing period and the 20-year extension already allowed, but for a second 20-year extension.

“If you would have looked five years ago at the number of plants people were intending to construct and then you look today, it’s clear with the economic conditions we face in our nation, they’re pushing the builds out there,’’ said Maria Korsnick, the chief nuclear officer with Constellation Energy Group. (In industry-speak, that means delaying construction.)

In fact, her own company dropped out of a partnership to build a third reactor at its Calvert Cliffs site, 50 miles south of Washington, last month.

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Be very, very quiet; I'm Hunting Radioative Rabbits

From Physics Central:

A radioactive rabbit that was on the loose this week in the Hanford former nuclear reactor site in Washington state prompted state Department of Health workers to hunt for contaminated rabbit droppings in the area.

The radioactive rabbit was among several bunnies captured over the last few days (a scene which calls to mind an iconic moment in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) at the site near Richland, Wash. The hopping critters were rounded up for testing after contaminated rabbit droppings were found last week. Only one rabbit tested positive for radiation contamination.

State department of health workers used hand-held radiation-detecting instruments to look for contaminated droppings. After capturing the afflicted rabbit, the amount of tainted droppings they found decreased, leading them to believe only one rabbit was affected. None of the droppings, so far, have been found in areas accessible to the public.

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Power plant's outage program continues apace

From CourierPostOnline.com:

Oyster Creek Generating Station employees will continue working on replacing underground pipes during a planned outage as part of the state's tritium remediation project.

The power plant entered its planned refueling outage program on Monday morning.

More than 5,000 gallons of water have been pumped to date as part of the remediation project. Exelon Corp., the owner and operator of the Forked River-based power plant, shut down the reactor at 12:01 a.m. for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage.

According to a statement Monday from Exelon Communications Manager David Benson, throughout the outage, workers will perform approximately 9,500 activities on a variety of plant components and systems, including replacing both of the station's main transformers, as well as finishing the majority of a 16-month, $13.3 million project to move pipes containing tritium above ground or into monitored vaults.

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TVA plans to spend $160 million on towers to help keep water cool

From the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

The Tennessee Valley Authority will spend up to $160 million here over the next three years, trying to stay out of hot water at its biggest nuclear power plant.

TVA Chief Operating Officer Bill McCollum Jr. said the federal utility will add another cooling tower and expand four of the six existing towers to better cool water from the Tennessee River that's used for power generation at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant.

The work should be done by 2013, TVA officials said.

TVA rejected a similar proposal in 2005 when officials projected that the extra cooling capacity was not needed to keep the river within thermal limits set by state regulators. But hot weather forced TVA to limit Browns Ferry generation during two of the past four summers when river water temperatures approached allowable limits.

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Nuclear Power Benefits From Republican Wins, NRG Says

From Bloomberg:

Electricity producers such as NRG Energy Inc. and Southern Co. will benefit as Republicans who won control of the U.S. House yesterday promote nuclear power as part of clean-energy legislation.

Requirements for the use of renewable power to reduce carbon emissions and encourage U.S. energy independence may win passage if nuclear plants are added to the wind turbines and solar panels favored by environmentalists, said David Crane, chief executive officer of Princeton, New Jersey-based NRG.

“A lot of the things we’re trying to do in Washington to move forward with zero- and low-carbon generation is something that at least the mainstream of the Republican Party wants to support -- nuclear power in particular,” Crane said in an interview. “It’s not just California and Oregon tree-huggers.”

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Reid Victory Likely to Keep Yucca Mountain Sealed

From ScienceInsider:

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada won reelection yesterday in a race with major ramifications for nuclear power politics.

Reid's victory over Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle not only helped the Democrats retain their majority—allowing him to retain his position as Majority Leader but also lets the Obama Administration continue moving forward with its plan to abandon a proposed nuclear waste-disposal project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

One of Reid's big promises to Nevada voters was that this waste site would never be developed on his watch. The Obama Administration has cooperated closely with Reid in closing down the 20-year-old project. And despite efforts by Republicans to embarrass the Department of Energy (DOE) over its apparent deference to Reid in pulling its application for a license, DOE seems likely to stay the course. As a Reid spokesperson commented to the Las Vegas Review-Journal a few weeks before the election: "As long as Senator Reid is majority leader, there will not be a Yucca Mountain. …Yucca Mountain will be dead."

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Peach Bottom to unload spent fuel

From the York Daily Record:

Soon, workers at the nuclear-powered plant will unload more than 60 spent fuel assemblies from a 18-foot cask into the grid-like racks of the power station's spent fuel storage pool, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The assemblies are bundled fuel rods that have been removed from the reactor and replaced with fresh alternates.

Last month, workers found a small amount of the inert gas had leaked from the system on the cask, which is designed to prevent helium inside the 115-ton container from escaping.

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Entergy to put Vt. Yankee on market

From boston.com:

Entergy Corp. will announce this week that it plans to sell the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, confirming months of speculation and perhaps beginning a new chapter in the contentious relationship between the plant and the state, according to a top Vermont utility regulator.

David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, said Entergy Corp. officials told him they planned to announce that they were seeking a buyer for the 650-megawatt reactor.

"My understanding is that there is an impending announcement that they are in fact pursuing a sale of the plant," O'Brien said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

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Radioactive groundwater reported at Va. plant

From WTKR:

Dominion Virginia Power said Monday it is seeking the source of low-level groundwater radiation detected by one of its monitoring stations at its twin-reactor nuclear power plant in North Anna.
The utility said the elevated levels did not pose a health hazard to plant workers or residents, according to a filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The elevated reading was detected in April by one of eight monitoring stations and has since returned to acceptable levels.
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TMI: NRC Report 5000289-2010004

Three Mile Island Station, Unit 1 - NRC Integrated Inspection Report 5000289-2010004

Download PDF

Monday, November 8, 2010

EPA Recognizes Top Green Power Purchasers

Release date: 11/01/2010

Contact Information: Stacy Kika Kika.stacy@epa.gov 202-564-0906 202-564-4355 Cathy Milbourn Milbourn.cathy@epa.gov 202-564-7849 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing its list of the top 50 organizations using the most renewable electricity. The Green Power Partnership’s top purchasers use more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity use of more than 1 million average American homes. Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, and low-impact hydropower. The Intel Corporation tops the list as the Partnership’s largest single purchaser of green power and was recently honored with a 2010 EPA Green Power Leadership Award for green power purchasing. The company uses more than 1.4 billion kWh annually, equivalent to avoiding the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of nearly 125,000 average American homes. Both Kohl’s Department Stores and Whole Foods Market received the 2010 EPA Green Power Partner of the Year Awards, and came in as second and third this quarter in purchasing green power. Reaching the top five for the first time, Starbucks (No. 4) more than doubled its annual green power purchase to more than 573 million kWh of green power equivalent to avoiding the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of nearly 50,000 average American homes annually. Also in the top five is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which increased its green power purchase to 500 million kWh of green power annually. Rounding out the top 10 are the City of Houston, Dell Inc., Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Air Force, and the City of Dallas. EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with nearly 1,300 partner organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use. Overall, EPA’s Green Power Partners are using nearly 18 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to avoiding the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of more than 1.5 million average American homes. Green power resources produce electricity with an environmental profile superior to conventional power technologies and produce no net increase to greenhouse gas emissions. Purchases of green power also help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide. More information on the top 50 list: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm More information on EPA’s Green Power Partnership: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/

Democratic Governors Association courts nuclear industry

From the Burlington Free Press:
The Democratic Governors Association, in a letter sent to representatives of the nuclear industry last month, said the party group’s funding of ads detailing problems at the Vermont Yankee facility in Vernon does not mean it opposes nuclear power. "I understand that our sponsorship of these ads could have given the impression that we are against nuclear power," Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, wrote in a letter dated Sept. 10. "I want to assure you that this is not the case." "These ads are meant to be statements about the candidates we oppose, not about the use of nuclear power in general," Daschle’s letter continued. "It is not our practice to adopt policy positions, but as you know many of our governors are ardent supporters of nuclear energy."
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NRC's approval of VY inches forward

From the Brattleboro Reformer:

Entergy came one step closer to receiving its approved license renewal for Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant on Thursday when the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board rejected an appeal from the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution.

The contention dealt with NEC's assertion that Entergy did not have an adequate aging management program in place to deal with the effects of moist or wet environments on buried, below-grade, underground or hard-to reach safety-related electrical cables.

The submittal cited an NRC inspection finding from last May that dealt with this issue.

The ASLB based its denial on three factors: The motion was not timely because the issue of submergence of electrical cables at nuclear power plants has been known for years and could have been questioned in a contention before this past August; the motion does not address a "significant" safety or environmental issue; and because NEC was unable to demonstrate that a materially different result would be or would have been "likely" had the newly proffered evidence been considered initially.

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Offsite Notification Due to Sodium Hypochlorite Leak from Underground Piping

Event Number: 46374 Facility: PERRY Event Date: 10/28/2010 OFFSITE NOTIFICATION DUE TO SODIUM HYPOCHLORITE LEAK FROM UNDERGROUND PIPING "On October 28, 2010, at 1740 hours, the plant entered the Off-Normal Instruction for spills and unauthorized discharges. At 1751 hours, notification of a sodium hypochlorite spill was made to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Response Center. At the time of the event, the plant was in Mode 1 at 100% power. The sodium hypochlorite spill is believed to be the result of a leak in an underground piping supply line to the Emergency Service Water pump house. The leak is estimated to be approximately 130 gallons of a 12.5% Sodium Hypochlorite (Bleach) solution (80 gallons in a 24 hour period is the reportable quantity). The associated chlorination systems have been isolated, and current storage tank level is stable, indicating no more leakage in progress. "Additionally, the Ohio EPA: State Emergency Response Commission, Perry Township Fire Department, Lake County Emergency Planning Committee, and the U.S. Coast Guard were notified in accordance with plant procedures. This event is also being reported in accordance with the Operating License, Appendix B, Environment Protection Plan, which states in part, 'Any occurrence of an unusual or important event that indicates or could result in significant environmental impact causally related to plant operation shall be recorded and reported to the NRC within 24 hours followed by a written report ..' Specifically, ' ..unanticipated or emergency discharge of waste water or chemical substances.' The NRC Resident Inspector has been notified."

Op-ed: Thanks to U.S. Senator Casey for protecting the Great Lakes from radioactive waste shipping risks

Dear Erie Times-News Editorial Department, U.S. Senator Robert Casey, Jr. deserves the thanks of those who love and cherish Lake Erie and the rest of the Great Lakes. He recently joined an effort, along with six other U.S. Senators from around the Great Lakes, to put the brakes on a risky radioactive waste shipment that would traverse Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario, and the rivers and waterways that connect them. By doing so, Sen. Casey has challenged this precedent-setting shipment that could lead to even more risky high-level radioactive waste shipments on the Great Lakes. Sen. Casey, joined by Sens. Feingold (D-WI), Durbin (D-IL), Levin (D-MI), Stabenow (D-MI), Schumer (D-NY), and Gillibrand (D-NY), has challenged the proposal by Bruce nuclear power plant on Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada to ship 16 school bus-sized, 100 ton radioactive steam generators on a single boat across the Atlantic to Sweden for so-called “recycling.” The seven Senators fired off letters last month to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), urging that the highest level environmental assessments be performed before this shipment is allowed to enter U.S. territorial waters. The Senators’ concerns are well founded. Bruce Nuclear’s CEO has admitted that there is no emergency plan in place if the ship were to sink, flippantly adding that there would be plenty of time to figure out what to do once the ship sank. CNSC’s staff has done a shoddy job analyzing the risks, initially excluding consideration of Plutonium-241, an ultra-hazardous isotope whose inclusion nearly doubled the radioactivity content of the shipment. CNSC has even admitted that the welds sealing shut the radioactive steam generators are only good to a depth of 800 feet below water, the very depth of Lake Ontario, meaning there is no safety margin. It is important Sen. Casey hold PHMSA’s feet to the fire. Recent U.S. House hearings shined a spotlight on PHMSA’s incompetence in light of the recent, disastrous oil pipeline leaks into rivers in Illinois and Michigan – threatening the Great Lakes downstream – as well as deadly natural gas pipeline explosions, and the agency’s cozy connections to the very companies it is supposed to regulate. Sen. Casey has also questioned the risks of “recycling” radioactive metal. Radioactive consumer products could be re-imported to the U.S., exposing unsuspecting American families to radiation hazards. This radioactive waste shipment could set a bad precedent for worse to come on the Great Lakes. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy proposed 453 barge shipments of high-level radioactive waste on Lake Michigan as part of the plan for moving irradiated nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain, Nevada for burial. This raises serious safety and security concerns. If such a shipment sank, there is enough fissile Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 in the irradiated nuclear fuel that a chain reaction could be sparked on the bottom of the Great Lakes. This would make emergency response a suicide mission, and result in catastrophic radioactivity releases. President Obama, to his credit, has cancelled the Yucca dump and such risky shipment plans. But any away-from-reactor proposals, such as reprocessing or centralized interim storage, could again raise the specter of radioactive waste shipments on the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes represent 20% of the surface fresh water on the planet. They supply drinking water to 40 million people, and are the engine for one of the world’s biggest regional economies. Sen. Casey deserves our thanks for protecting them from the risks of radioactive waste transport. Sincerely, Kevin Kamps -- Kevin Kamps Radioactive Waste Watchdog Beyond Nuclear 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400 Takoma Park, Maryland 20912 Office: (301) 270-2209 ext. 1 Cell: (240) 462-3216 Fax: (301) 270-4000 kevin@beyondnuclear.org www.beyondnuclear.org

TMI: Notification of Conduct of Triennial Fire Protection Baseline Inspection

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station Unit 1: Notification of Conduct of a Triennial Fire Protection Baseline Inspection Download ML103010015

Cook Nuclear Unit 2 Refueling Extended for Emergent Repairs

From PRNewsWire:
The refueling outage for Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 will be extended by two to three weeks for repairs to internal components of the reactor vessel. The plant, owned and operated by Indiana Michigan Power, a unit of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), had an initial projected return-to-service date of Nov. 6. Routine inspections following removal of the fuel assemblies identified damaged bolts from the reactor vessel's baffle plates. The baffle plates direct water flow through the fuel assemblies in the reactor. Similar bolt failures have occurred and been repaired previously in the industry. There are existing safety analyses and specialized repair tools being used to resolve the issue. The 18 damaged baffle bolts are grouped on one baffle plate. Those bolts are being removed and analyzed. Determining the root cause of the failure is ongoing. Data and analyses from those 18 bolts will determine final repair plans. In keeping with its conservative operating philosophy, I&M plans to perform all necessary repairs during this refueling outage to ensure the problem is bounded and repairs support long-term reliable operation.
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Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station deals with helium leak

From the York Dispatch:

Engineers at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station are working with a vendor to repair a helium leak from a system designed to stabilize radioactive waste inside a large cask.

No radiation has been released, and the amount of escaped helium is inconsequential, said plant officials and the federal agency that oversees security at the plant.

Plant spokesman David Tillman said there are 49 casks on site at Peach Bottom. Each unit -- inside of which radioactive waste or "spent fuel" from the plant is stored -- is 115 tons of steel equipped with a pressurization monitoring system.

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New NRC chief says he urged Entergy to be more open

From the Rutland Herald:
The new regional administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday he is urging Entergy Nuclear to be more “open and transparent” with the people of Vermont about the problems at Vermont Yankee. William Dean, a 25-year NRC veteran of the federal agency, also said the NRC had no information about the repeated rumored sale of Vermont Yankee, whose license to operate expires in March 2012. Over the weekend, a British business website, SGAM, citing sources, said Entergy Nuclear had hired the Morgan Stanley investment firm to handle the potential sale. In August, Energy Daily, an e-newsletter, again citing anonymous sources, had said the plant was for sale. Dean said usually such developments are kept very quiet in the corporate world, noting that the recent failure of the deal between a French firm to build a new reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant took the agency completely by surprise.
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Oyster Creek's solution to tritium leak: Water it down

From the Press of Atlantic City:
The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will use an age-old method to clean up a radioactive water spill: For this plant and others like it, the solution to pollution is dilution.

Oyster Creek will soon begin pumping 25 to 50 gallons per minute from the Cape May and Cohansey aquifers to remove water contaminated with the radioactive material tritium. That amount is a trickle compared with the 115,000 to 460,000 gallons per minute that flows through the Ocean County plant to cool its radioactive core, owner Exelon Corp. said.

Exelon discovered on April 15, 2009, that an estimated 180,000 gallons of tritium-laced water had leaked from a pipe, seeping beneath the ground into two aquifers that supply drinking water to more than 1 million New Jersey residents.

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Peach Bottom: Cask Leakage Rate Greater than Specification

Facility: PEACH BOTTOM Event Date: 10/22/2010 SPENT FUEL STORAGE RELATED DEFECT - CASK LEAKAGE RATE GREATER THAN TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION "On 10/22/10, at 1058 EDT, a troubleshooting of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) Cask TN-50-A indicated that a leak existed in the cask lid sealing area at a rate greater than allowed by ISFSI Cask Technical Specification (TS) Section 3.1.3, Cask Helium Leak Rate. TS 3.1.3 limits the Cask Helium Leak Rate to 1.0 E-05 ref-cc/sec. The cask is currently in unloading operations and is located within the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station Unit 3 containment building. Preliminary review indicates that a leak exists at the weld plug that provides sealing of the drilled interseal passageway associated with the drain port penetration of the cask lid. This leak effectively provides a bypass of the main lid outer confinement seal. "This report if being submitted pursuant to 10CFR72.75(c)(1) as a result of a material defect in a weld in the cask main lid. This report is also being submitted pursuant to 10CFR72.75 ® (2) as a result of a resolution in the effectiveness of the cask confinement system. "The Certificate of Compliance for this cask is 1027 (Amendment 1). "The NRC Resident Inspector has been informed of this notification."

Alabama’s financial risk in utility bonds

From examiner.com:

A first-ever report on the hidden financial risk for investors who buy the water and electric utility bonds that finance much of the country's vast water and power infrastructure was released October 22, 2010, by Ceres and Water Asset Management.

The report, The Ripple Effect: Water Risk in the Municipal Bond Market, evaluates and ranks water scarcity risks for public water and power utilities in some of the country's most water-stressed regions.

"Water scarcity is a growing risk to many public utilities across the country and investors owning utility bonds don't even know it," said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, which authored the report. "Utilities rely on water to repay their bond debts. If water supplies run short, utility revenues potentially fall, which means less money to pay off their bonds. Our report makes clear that this risk scenario is a distinct possibility for utilities in water-stressed regions and bond investors should be aware of it."

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

“Standards: An Integral Part of Regulating for Safety

Prepared Remarks for The Honorable Gregory B. Jaczko Chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Download PDF

In-Ground Wall to Filter Water at NY Nuke Site

From WGRZ:

Contaminated water inching through the ground at a New York nuclear cleanup site is about to hit a wall.

And if all goes as planned, it will seep through and come out clean on the other side.

Crews at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York are digging a three-foot wide trench as deep as 30 feet and filling it with volcanic material called zeolite.

The in-ground zeolite wall is meant to decontaminate groundwater as it filters through.

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Suspicious Package Found at Nuke Plant Near Phoenix

From Fox News:
Maricopa County Sheriff's spokesman Brian Lee says security officers at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station called them at about 5 a.m. after they found the suspicious package. A second call initially led to confusion that a second device may have been found, but that was quickly discounted. Lee says a sheriff's bomb squad is investigating. A spokesman for plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. says security guards found the suspicious package during a search of a vehicle at a checkpoint about a mile from the plant. The plant is operating normally, but traffic in and out is stopped.
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Who rules Yankee?

From Vtdigger.org:
Last week’s discovery of tritium in a well that until last February supplied drinking water to a building at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant is again raising questions about who has authority to oversee the plant’s safety and reliability. Vermont’s two candidates for governor have staked out starkly different positions on the plant’s continued operation beyond its 2012 scheduled closing date. Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie supports relicensure by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Sen. Peter Shumlin, the Democrat, spearheaded a vote in the state Senate last spring to deny Yankee an opportunity to seek a 20-year extension of its license. Despite news reports to the contrary, those basic positions haven’t changed since last week’s new revelations that extremely low-level amounts of tritium have been found in a well connected to a “fractured” bedrock aquifer that flows toward the river, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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Shumlin, Dubie weigh in on Vermont Yankee

From the Brattleboro Reformer:
Vermont’s top two gubernatorial candidates weighed in on an already controversial issue this election cycle when Republican Brian Dubie and Democrat Peter Shumlin both released statements regarding the recent detection of tritium in a decommissioned drinking water well at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Dubie, the state’s incumbent lieutenant governor from Essex Junction, said he was troubled by the latest reports at the Vernon-based facility after state health officials reported a sample taken from a former drinking water well was contaminated with tritium on Friday. Earlier this year, engineers at the plant traced tritium leaks to an old system of pipes. No tritium -- a radioactive byproduct of nuclear power as well as a naturally-occurring isotope -- was detected at the deepest range of the closed well, however. Yankee opponents have deemed the nuclear plant unsafe with the radioactive material findings while advocates consider the tritium issue over-politicized because the concentration detected is relatively low when compared to Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standards. "I’ve always said that the health and safety of Vermonters comes first. [Friday’s] discovery demonstrates the plant has much more work to do in order to regain the trust and confidence of Vermonters," Dubie said last week in a release. "I am calling on plant management to be open and forthright with information about the latest discovery. Questions must be answered. Trust must be rebuilt."
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Latest Discovery At Vermont Yankee Becomes Campaign Issue

From Vermont Public Radio:
Yankee was already front and center in this year's gubernatorial contest. As leader of the Senate, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin organized a legislative vote against allowing regulators to extend Yankee's license for another 20 years.

Republican Brian Dubie opposed the Senate vote. He's talked repeatedly about the hundreds of jobs that could be lost if the plant shuts down as scheduled in 2012.

But the latest news that radioactive tritium was found deep underground prompted Dubie to take a harder line. Dubie says the state Health Department and federal regulators need to investigate and assure the public that the plant is safe.

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Entergy, security union reach agreement

From Wicked Local Plymouth:
Security officers at Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant have negotiated a new contract with Entergy Nuclear Operation – just in the nick of time. The collective bargaining agreement between Entergy and the union expired at midnight Friday, Oct. 1, the same day negotiations took a turn for the better and heads began nodding. “The fact is, we reached an agreement that was satisfactory to both parties,” Pilgrim Spokesman David Tarantino said this Friday. “We reached an agreement with local #25, the union for security officers, and they were scheduled to ratify it today. Membership has to accept it as well.” Days prior to reaching an agreement, Jonathan Brain, president of United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA), Local #25, said the negotiations had not been going well. “The company refuses to acknowledge the ongoing problems concerning the officers as they relate to safety, harassment and intimidation of employees in the workplace by their managers, poor morale and the chilled environment created by management’s failure to appropriately address problems with their supervisors, and the quality of life of the workers in general,” Brain wrote in an e-mail to the paper.
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Constellation shelves proposal for Calvert Cliffs reactor

From the Washington Post:
Constellation Energy has shelved its proposal to build a new reactor at its Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, Obama administration officials said Friday, even though the administration had decided to award the project a $7.5 billion loan guarantee. Senior administration officials said Constellation's decision was "a surprise," but a Constellation Energy spokesman Larry McDonnell said that the administration's loan guarantee terms were "unworkable" and that Constellation had told the Energy Department "we can't move forward." The decision by Constellation deals a blow to the idea of a U.S. nuclear renaissance. Constellation and French power company Electricite de France are partners in Unistar, a joint venture that had intended to make the new Calvert Cliffs reactor the first of a fleet of identical units around the country. They filed the loan guarantee application in July 2007.
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Team checking insulation at plant

From Fredericksburg.com:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has dispatched a special inspection team to North Anna Power Station.

The agency announced yesterday that inspectors will be looking at a type of insulation used to wrap large pipes that carry coolant water for the plant's two nuclear reactors.

The inspection at the plant, near Mineral on Lake Anna in Louisa County, began Monday and is expected to last about a week.

Meanwhile, both units are shut down. The problem was first discovered in the containment area of Unit 1, which has been shut down since mid-September for refueling. Unit 2 was shut down last Tuesday after the insulation was discovered on pipes in Unit 1.

The NRC is concerned that if any of the wrapped pipes--which join the reactor vessel to the steam generator--burst, chunks of insulation could clog sump pumps that would carry away the spill.

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