Sunday, August 19, 2012

Illinois Grid (electricity) not adequately designed for our climate?

Aug 28: Has the cheap natural gas caused Exelon not to be able to support maintenance and sufficient plant cooling capacity on their fleet of nuclear and fossil plants, then support their stock prices and bloated executive compensation...?

Exelon drops new Texas nuke plans, cites cheap natgas

Exelon Corp (EXC.N) will halt efforts to gain regulatory approval to build a new nuclear plant in southeast Texas, the company said on Tuesday.

"The action is in response to low natural gas prices and economic and market conditions that have made construction of new merchant nuclear power plants in competitive markets uneconomical now and for the foreseeable future," said Charles Pardee, Exelon Generation's chief operating officer."

July 24: It is interesting, did Obama and Exelon compromise the Illinois environmentalist...

Seems the nukes were the sentinel...their reportability requirements cued you  into troubles on our waterways even other than the nukes. Generally it is shameful how little transparency their has become in the utility industry. It has become a undemocratic institution!  


...Braidwood cooling tower from NYT


Robert Ray/Associated Press


Exelon doesn't want anymore wind subsidies because it undermines their nuclear program. A marginal quantity of a highly subsidized electricity can  undermine the majority of electricity or a lesser subsidized electricity. And this mandated green electricity is a worst poison to the system than one can imagine.

This kind of political ties always undermines the employees and the vulnerable public. I wouldn't mine it so much if the lesser players without as much money had equivalent reach to the  president powers. I just want the power of transparency!

Our family is still voting for you! There is still time for a redemption. It is mindbogglingly to think how much the Obama administration is advocating global warming is here and it is a direct threat to you, and they are at the same time are undermining the cooling capabilities of power plants to the biggest owner of nuclear plants in the USA. It is mindbogglingly...      
Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility

WASHINGTON — Early in the Obama administration, a lobbyist for the Illinois-based energy producer Exelon Corporation proudly called it “the president’s utility.” And it was not just because it delivers power to Barack Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago... 
Me a month ago: "All the big dogs in the NRC, Exelon and big power companies, the Illinois state grid regulators...they are pissing their pants over what August might bring Illinois and they don't want the story out."

Right, big picture, I have made my statement and it got plenty of print...the majority of my conscience is now clear.

 Me July 18:

"...Pathetic, you people think a drought just uncovers the low rocky shoals and sand bars of our baking steams, river and waterways. I know a drought mostly uncovers a staggering build up and amount of fraud and corruption in our society. A 50 and 100 year drought of staggering dimensions is really a amazing transparency device or tool..." 
"At the same time, Exelon was working with other power companies to block or weaken a provision of proposed clean water regulations that were also under review. The E.P.A., aiming to prevent water intakes at power plants from killing fish and other aquatic life, was proposing regulations that the companies feared would require extensive renovations.
Exelon lobbyists and their allies, over the last year, have again secured unusual access to White House meetings, pressing for dozens of changes, even proposing how to redraft entire sections of the regulation, according to its written presentations to the E.P.A.
Days after a March 2011 meeting with Exelon executives, a White House official instructed the E.P.A. official in charge of drafting the water intake rule to rewrite major portions, according to White House e-mail records.

The E.P.A. official, Mary T. Smith, was called to a meeting shortly after lobbyists for Exelon and industry associations appealed for changes, and told to rewrite the regulation, agency e-mails show.
“You are disappointed, but you can’t work at the agency without understanding you are not the decision maker,” Ms. Smith, who retired from the agency this year, said in an interview.

The rewrite effectively narrowed the circumstances under which nuclear plants would be required to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to eliminate the hazard for aquatic life." 
Power Plants Releasing Hotter Water
***struggling because of "stubbornly low electricity prices"...
***"may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection 
By Erin Meyer and Julie Wernau, Chicago Tribune reporters
August 20, 2012 
As fish die in record numbers across Illinois this summer because of the intense heat and drought, state officials are granting power plants special exemptions to flush massive amounts of hot water into already stressed lakes and rivers.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is allowing power plants to dump hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day at temperatures approaching 100 degrees into the state's waterways, the Tribune has learned.
Temperature-sensitive fish already have been swimming deeper to find cooler water or have been abandoning environmentally inhospitable areas during the heat and drought. But with power plant operators dumping hot water at record amounts, environmentalists say the fish, along with the rivers and lakes they live in, could face increased risk.
Regulators and power plant operators say the waivers to release water hotter than normal are necessary so they can continue providing adequate power in August, following the warmest July in U.S. history when energy demand from air conditioners was soaring...
***Do you want people to start dying, or do you want to save some fish?" said Julia Wozniak, of Midwest Generation, whose job is to make sure the plants remain in compliance with thermal emission limitations.
***In issuing the variances to four coal-fired plants and four nuclear plants, the IEPA has largely relied on power plant and grid operators to say whether shutting down any individual facility would lead to widespread power outages.
***Plant operators — struggling because of stubbornly low electricity prices — have a financial incentive to keep plants running rather than power down. Analysts say that for every day that a power plant shuts down, its owner loses hundreds of thousands of dollars. And Midwest Generation, which operates six coal-fired plants in Illinois, is struggling and may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection along with its parent company, executives said this month.
***Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Midwest office in Chicago, said state officials are making a mistake by granting variances to power companies to exceed hot water thresholds. Instead, power plants should power down, he said. 
***Callaway added that he has never seen a more uncertain time for the power supply in 40 years working in environmental compliance.
 First published July 15, 012

I'd like to talk about your drought...what it is doing to the electric grid and power system. Last week the two nuclear plants in the Braidwood facility (near Chicago) nearly had to power down because their cooling lake had overheated. This really isn't a nuclear safety or an environmental story. It asks us is the Braidwood nuclear plant and our power and electricity system adequately designed for the current and projected climate? It asks us if this drought worsens through August what kind of condition could the Illinois grid/electrical system be in? By fall, how many power plants nationwide will get knocked off the grid? This is a national story and you could be the first to get it out right? 

All the big dogs in the NRC, Exelon and big power companies, the Illinois state grid regulators, They are pissing their pants over what August might bring Illinois and they don't want the story out.  

We are in a humongous emergency! 

Lets talk! Mike Mulligan 1 603 336 8320 

Check this Newspaper article out about the Braidwood nuclear plant in 1988...your last big drought...how will we look this Aug 10?

Braidwood in 2001 got a 10% power up uprate into their cooling lake and thus drove the grid toward fagility in droughts and heat waves. This is the best from our best and brightest engineers! Need i talk about temperature records and all the once every 100 year weather event we have broken in the last few years? The power up rate caused the lake to heat up more and produce more algae, darkened the waters, thus sunlight is massively heating up the lake too. So the power uprate and sunlight are heating up the water more...and lake evaporation challenging the make up capability ?  
I think this 1988 newspaper reporter is amazing how he captured this for us!!! Don't forget to watch the Newsroom on HBO tonight?   

Edison To Tap Lakes To Keep Plant Running

August 10, 1988|By Michael Arndt. 
A variance in March...these guys got to be screwed?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2012

Illinois EPA grants Exelon Braidwood Station Provisional Variance from Discharge Requirements

Springfield—The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) has granted the Exelon Generation’s Braidwood Station a provisional variance from the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) water discharge permitted temperature limits, due to recent unseasonably warm weather conditions.
Braidwood Station is a nuclear-fueled steam electric generating facility located approximately five miles from the Kankakee River at Braceville. Circulating water used to cool and condense steam from the generating process is ultimately discharged into a cooling pond, then to the Kankakee River. It does not come into contact with any radioactive components and does not have any impact on radiation risk.
Exelon’s NPDES permit places limits the temperature of the effluent versus the temperature of the river water during a given season, and gives Braidwood an allowance of excursion hours it can use if its discharge exceeds the temperature. Because of recent record breaking warm weather, the river temperature at the intake has exceeded temperature standards; therefore the capacity of the river to dissipate heat has been reduced, causing the facility to exhaust the permitted excursion hours.
During the variance period, Braidwood Station must continuously monitor both discharge and receiving water temperatures and must visually inspect all discharge areas at least three times each day to assess the impact on aquatic life. It must also notify the Illinois EPA and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources if aquatic life is shown to be affected. If the increased discharge temperature results in adverse environmental impact, appropriate reparations must be conducted.
Exelon Generation’s Braidwood Station must continue to meet all other effluent conditions in its NPDES permitalong with additional conditions contained in the provisional variance but not expressly listed above.
The Illinois EPA has determined that any environmental impact from the variance would be closely monitored, and the Agency will be notified immediately of any adverse impacts; no reasonable alternative appears to be available; no public water supplies will be affected; no federal regulations would prohibit granting the request; and the facility would face an arbitrary and unreasonable hardship if the IEPA did not grant the requested variance.
The provisional variance will be in effect no later than March 31, 2012. All other NPDES permit requirements will remain in effect.


From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
The 1906 low flow record is 360 cubic feet per second...it is now 424 cfs. It's 64 cfs from the 1906 low flow record. The mean is 1500 cfs...This is the guy who feeds the Braidwood lake. How long will they be allowed to withdrawal from this river and who does it impact downstream?
Kankakee River
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
"Meents, the site superintendent for Mazonia/Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area, said there were some dead floaters at Braidwood, the cooling lake in the southwest corner of Will County, but nothing major. It was mainly threadfin and gizzard shad. On Monday, there was still 100-degree water on the south end."
Yea, because they been already been dead for years because the algae bloom driven by elevated water temps from the power up-rate sucked the oxygen out of the water!
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
What is the water level in the Braidwood lake?
That really bad marker 1988 drought I was talking about yesterday is being mention all over the press today. Already many outlets say this drought and record heat is worst than 1988. The difference between 1988 and 2012 is in 1985 and 1986 they had more than average precipitation. Illinois now is in drought conditions in 2011 and through this winter and fall. And we had the warmest winter on record! We been breaking temperatures records for as far as the eyes can see.
You catch the date of this article, Aug 10, 1988...how will Braidwood be on Aug 10, 2012? Will it be a worst repeat of 1988?
You see all the other power plants throughout our nation who are in trouble by Aug 10...
We in the beginning of national emergency of historic proportions...
I can hear the NRC saying because there is no evidence of a worst than 1988 drought, thus a worst than 1988 drought is impossible. 




August 10, 1988|By Michael Arndt.
New
Commonwealth Edison Co., which has said low water levels could force it to reduce output of its Braidwood nuclear station, signed an agreement Tuesday that should allow the power plant to run at capacity into autumn.
Meanwhile, rains across the state allowed Edison`s Quad Cities nuclear station on the Mississippi River to generate more electricity Tuesday, though it remained far below capacity.
Like several other Midwestern utilities, Edison has had to curb production at several power plants because this summer`s drought has diminished water supplies needed to cool the generators.
At the current rate of evaporation, which lowers Braidwood`s lake level by a half-inch a day, Edison has said it would be forced to slow the atomic
power plant`s production within days and suspend operations by the end of August.
The loss of the 2,240-megawatt facility would cut the utility`s capacity by more than 10 percent.
But Edison spokesmen said Tuesday that the utility has found a way to extend full-capacity operations by the twin-unit facility for at least another two weeks, even if it doesn`t rain for the rest of the month.
After meeting with local and state officials in Will County, Edison officials got tentative permission to enlarge a roadway ditch to feed the facility`s cooling lake with water from four nearby lakes formed by strip mines.
On most days, the strip-mine lake water will make up all the water that evaporates from the cooling lake-estimated to be 20,000 to 30,000 gallons a minute-and keep the cooling lake level above the mouths of the plant's intake pumps.
Under the tentative agreement, Edison can remove up to half the water in the four lakes, all within a mile of the twin-unit nuclear station and owned by Edison. Pumping is expected to begin next week.
In addition, Edison said it will drill wells to make sure that by draining the lakes, the company isn`t lowering the underground water table and jeopardizing well-water supplies for nearby farms and residents.
The move by Edison is similar to steps recently taken by Decatur-based Illinois Power Co.
That utility has been pumping 3,700 gallons of water a minute from a strip-mine lake into a cooling pond of a 165-megawatt coal-fired power plant outside Danville. The level of the cooling lake is 7 feet below normal.
Other utilities also are working to counter the effects of the drought, which has dropped the levels of rivers and lakes to record lows, forcing utilities to curtail power production from Arkansas to Minnesota.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, for instance, has built a dike across a channel on the Mississippi River to create a reservoir for a 990-megawatt coal-fired station.
Rain, howewer, is the best solution, utility spokesmen agree.
Thunderstorms late Monday and early Tuesday raised the level of the Mississippi and lowered its water temperature enough to allow Edison`s 789-megawatt Quad Cities I nuclear unit to raise its output to 500 megawatts from 400 megawtts.
Edison also said the rains should soon allow the twin-unit Dresden nuclear station, near Morris, to increase generation to more than 50 percent of capacity.
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 9:01 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
I just proved to you this NOED should have anticipated and the NOED is so engineering justification wise shallow and unsafe..it constitutes NRC and public falsification...
Did you see all the NRC officials involved in this meeting...
Nobody wants to admit the facility isn't designed as a public utility and power source...isn't adequately designed for the current and anticipated climate. It is a cover-up! And the outcome of all of this is it drives Exelon to unnecessarily over and over again to challenge safety and tech spec limits...
I have no needs of confidentiality or anonymity...
Mike
BRAIDWOOD LAKE FISHERIES FACT SHEET
Dec 8, 2011...
http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/r2/MZB/Braidwood_FishFactSheet.pdf
"Further increases in electrical output at the generating station have resulted in even warmer water temperatures during the past summers."
"Once supporting a variety of rooted and emergent aquatic plant species, Braidwood Lake is now dominated by an almost year ‘round phytoplankton bloom. In an excellent example of cooperation between corporate partners, constituents and the IDNR, a fish habitat enhancement project which was initiated in 2007 has continued on an annual basis."
This state document is post 2007...
So the phytoplankton bloom darkened the color of the lake, the elevated pond temperature drastically changed the population of the fish...and this darkened coloration and phytoplankton bloom is further capturing solar radiation and increasing the temperatures of the lake.
As air temperatures increases does phytoplankton bloom increase...
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
Is Browns Ferry next? But they got $250 million dollar upgrade to their cooling system and a new cooling towers after massive capacity losses due to their heat sink problems last year.
Who has the mega picture with heat sink problems and climate in the NRC?
I'd have to look at the Braidwood heat sink summer time temperature trends, maybe the peak heat sink temperatures over the last decade...were they trending up over years? Was it an inevitability years ago the limit wound be broken?
What is going on nationally with our heat sinks?
So why wasn't the agency in there years ago, hey buddy...you are going to have to start building cooling towers to stay running in the summers. When the day comes to beg for a NOED it ain't going to be to coming from us. That is what a real friend does. Sounds like this lake is private property.
Get, Alabama enforced their environmental laws causing a Browns Ferry prolonged down power and construction program last year...while the NRC says to Braidwood be stupid and don't worry about the future, we will always give you a free go pass go card when you violate our rules.
As the NRC inspector said to me this morning, we got to be thinking holistically. Is it in the interest of the Chicago grid region and populous, to keep giving Exelon a free go pass go card with their heat sinks...or should the agency force or coerce them for the greater good of the Chicago region to purchase cooling towers!
Maybe shutdown for the approaching heat waves to keep their cooling pond cool...then power up when the grid is fragile and staving for electricity...that way they will use their precious cooling pond for the most good. Cause the way it works now, you allow Braidwood ponds to heat up to the worst of a heat wave grid criticality...then force a shutdown at the worst possible time. How long we going to trade off nuclear safety for regional grid and public safety, when we know the cooling towers wouldn't cause Chicagoans to play Russian roulette.
Believe me i get it the finances of Exelon are weak and getting weaker...but closing our eyes and keep digging that hole deeper and deeper, is that strategy really good for the Chicago metropolitan area?
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
 
Coal City Ill:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/il/nwis/rt
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/il/nwis/uv?site_no=05542000
The 70 year medium cubic feet per second river flow is 50 cfp...it is flowing now at .78 cfp 4 miles from the plant. The 30 year low flow happen in 1988 at 07 cfp. How did the plant work back then? Has the plant had a uprate...
This is a indicator of climate?
so two 5% uprates in 2001 for a total of 10% more heat load into the cooling pond...
The 2001 uprates drove the regional grid to be more fragile during droughts and high temperature events...
The facility is not designed for the current climate.
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
 This is called engineering analysis stove piping. You focus on a correct artificially narrow evaluation...leading to basing the outcome on an incorrect set of facts. You base the NOED outcome on a meaningless temporary weather forecast while ignoring the repetitive nature of looking at this through the eyes of a spreading drought and record historic temperatures...repetitively entering a NOED. It is engineered falsification and lying to the public. I don't care if the rules allow lying and creating an official falsification.
From Briadwood NOED:
"At the time, you asserted that weather forecasts and lake temperature modeling indicated that the UHS temperature excursion above 100ºF would end prior to midnight Saturday, July 7, 2012, due primarily to environmental temperature moderating to the mid 80ºF range and an increase in local wind."
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 12:33 PM
Subject: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Pray for rain" and Braidwood nuclear plant
This is to support my allegation by telephone of a few hours ago...
I request to talk to Washington DC NRC officials who are knowledgeable of the situation?
I left a phone message with Gary Shear, Acting Director Division of Reactor Projects, Region III to discuss his NORD. It should be noted when I got to the Region III phone system asking me to spell out the the last name of the one I wanted to talk to....SPEAR...the system wouldn't accept my correct spell out and dropped me to have call back to region III. Maybe the computer couldn't understand my New England accent. This part of the phone system requesting the person to spell out "the one who he wants to talk to" is broken and not working.
"Pray for rain," Gov. Pat Quinn said this week. "It's a good thing to do."
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/weather/stories/Pray-For-Rain-Drought-Illinois-162341306.html#ixzz20WDld9Ue
With all of Illinois and much of the surrounding region in the throes of drought, state climatologist Jim Angel said there is no easy soluti
...The problem I had with the NRC was that that the NRC wasn't “thinking big “ and far sighted. He didn't even mention to me Illinois was in a spreading drought. He was comforted with a certainty of a "weather front" was approaching to bring the Lake temperature down, but he had no fear of our uncertain summer. Certainty/uncertainty gaming.
There was almost certain knowledge that entering the NOED might be repetitive in nature...he and the NRC was only considering it was a "one off".
We are in an unprecedented weather/drought national emerging emergency...
I request the NRC form an emergency panel of "big thinking" top agency experts on and to monitor the 2012 summer drought situation and how the nuclear plants respond to this crisis.
I suspect the NRC is going to be confronted with a pan on the stove of popping popcorn amount of NOEDs at many plants before the summer is over.
All I can think of is in the drought of 1998 thru 200, the massive amounts of paper whipping NOEDs and tech spec changes that occurred back then. Braidwood did it.
The inspector justified to be me this was a once in a hundred year temperature event...I thought that kind of thinking was unsat. We are riddled in past years with many once in a hundred years weather events and i would consider every 100 year weather event to be normalized now. A once “in a hundred year event” weather event is not a rational justification to do nothing and just turn your head away from confronting problems.
I thought the inspector and the NRC was grossly situationally, environmentally and historically unaware with the conditions of drought conditions around his plant.
He mentioned temperature conditions around safety equipment in his plant was banging around upper limits. I reminded him most safety systems and components aren’t tested in the worst case and with an adequate safety margin at the upper temperature limits.    
...(CNN) -- Authorities have declared more than 1,000 counties as natural disaster areas as the worst drought in a quarter-century spreads across the United States this summer.
Is the drought hitting your area? Let us know how you're coping on CNN iReport.
"Pray For Rain:" Quinn

The entire state has been declared in some stage of drought as another heat wave aims for Chicago
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/weather/stories/Pray-For-Rain-Drought-Illinois-162341306.html#ixzz20WDTu1LW
Quinn plans to unveil drought plan
July 13, 2012
Associated Press
All of Illinois is now officially in a drought, and Gov. Pat Quinn plans a trip to southern Illinois on Monday to discuss the state's plans for responding to dry conditions.
Officials at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska say Cook County is fully in a moderate drought for the first time this year. But that isn't the worst of it. Far southern Illinois is designated as being in an exceptional drought, which is the most serious classification.
State Climatologist Jim Angel says Illinois needs several good-sized rains to turn things around.
Quinn on Thursday urged Illinoisans to pray for rain. And a Quinn spokeswoman says the governor's office is working on a variety of plans to provide relief to farmers and Illinois communities.
All of Illinois in a drought
Chicago received only about a quarter of average rainfall for June
July 13, 2012|By Mitch Smith, Chicago Tribune reporter
A patch of greenery persists Tuesday in an expanse of scorched grass along the Midway Plaisance in Chicago. The entire state of Illinois is in a drought. (Nancy…)

After flirting with drought conditions for weeks, the Chicago area is for the first time this year officially dry.
Two-thirds of Illinois is experiencing at least a severe drought, and about 9 percent is in an extreme drought or worse, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center, based at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Last month, Chicago got 0.89 inches of precipitation, far below the June average of 3.45 inches, according to Weather.com's totals forO'Hare International Airport. In July the city had only seen 0.28 inches of rain through Wednesday, and the short-term forecast promises little relief
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