Thursday, March 21, 2013

Grid Crisis, NE ISO and Pilgrim Plant SRV Timeline

April/May 2011: New SRV valves installed.

Dec 26, 2011: First Pilgrim plant leak, shutdown and 3 day shutdown.

Nov 27, 2012: NE ISO says grid price crisis over natural gas began (NH Union Leader).

*Jan 20, 2013: Second leak, required shutdown and another 3 day shutdown. ("On Sunday, January 20, 2013, at 2050 hours, the station entered a 24-hour action statement...)

Jan 21, 2013: NE ISO asserts grid emergency, near mandatory rolling black outs in really cold winter weather (NH Union Leader).

 
Jan 24, 2013: NE ISO says natural gas shortage began in earnest with $300 megawatt-hour(NH Union Leader).

Jan 2013: Peak demand this year 20,800 megawatt, overall peak demand of 22, 818 megawatt (NH Union Leader).

Feb 3, 2013: Third leak, restricted to 80-84% power to control leak.

Feb 6, 2013: Pilgrim admitted leaking media.

*Feb 8, 2013: Nemo blizzard strikes, plant trip, two LOOPs, and just repair and replace of one SRV.

Feb 9, 2013: NE ISO says grid crisis developed during the early morning hours of the blizzard...gas generators couldn't get gas from the market (NH Union Leader).

Feb 13,2013: My Peach Bottom presentation to the NRC and Exelon. I always had issues with coloring within the lines with my crayons. 

"This is a Hurricane Katrina. This is a Hurricane Sandy. This is a Blizzard Nemo that's coming down on you guys..."

"This is a climate change. This is a huge economic climate change that's going on in the industry as far as this natural gas business..."
Feb 14, 2013 NRC senior project manager discussion with Entergy-Vermont Yankee worrying VY may no longer be financially qualified to operate a nuclear plant.

Feb 15, 2013: NYT's article 'The Natural Gas Trap' and $130 megawatt-hour prices all month long.

Feb 16, 2013: Start-up from blizzard trip.

*Feb 26, 2013: New leak develops and restricted to 94% power to control leaks.

March 17, 2013: NH Union Leader article 'Reliance On Natural Gas A Threat To The Grid'.

March 21, 2013: Still leaking and NRC is questioning the financial qualifications of Vermont Yankee.


March 30, 2013: Power restricted to 85%. We don't know if the leak got worst or an addition SRV is leaking, or something else.


Notes

You notice the proximity of the two Pilgrim plant shutdowns and the ISO alert is always a day later.

We need FERC to come into NE with the hammer of perjury and jail time...to find out if there was really congestion on the natural gas pipelines and if the natural gas market nighttime shutdown was a real limitation.

Historically, the NE ISO is very incestuously protective to the nuclear plants in NE...many nuclear go over to the NE ISO to become employees.

You notice the solution of this by the NE ISO is we got to pay the players much more to do than what they should have  been doing all along as a public utility...

Has the NE ISO and player unseen ginned up this grid crisis in order to protect Entergy's Indian Point, Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim nuclear plants?

Has the NE ISO, the NE natural gas market and pipe transmission authorities and utilities speculators and players unseen...is this a fraudulent massive deflationary electric price support mechanism much like the Californian energy crisis debacle in 2000-2001?

Is the electric price spike anticipating as yet unseen Northeast economic activity...is there increased economic activity going on not seen in our economic data?


10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE Peach Bottom Units 2 and 3

           Feb 13, 2013
"CFR 50.73(a) (2) (v) (D), "In the event a condition that could have prevented the fulfillment of the safety functions of structures or systems that needed to mitigate the consequence of an accident." I still can't get over that. Exelon is cutting their dividend and they're cutting their capital budgets, and they're not upgrading any of their nuclear plants to the tune of $2.3 million, billion dollars, excuse me, got to get my Bs right.

I mean, I just -- the pressures that are going on here in all these big plants, all these big companies, biggest utilities in the United States are tremendous, and a lot of people are worrying, and I worry the NRC's asleep. Things are changing, and the -- like I said with budgets, inside a plant, you know, I mean, the first thing you realize is that how blind you are when you're going into the budget problems.

And the second thing that anybody has gotten burnt by these budget problems and cause institutional problems is you've got to ramp up your honesty 100 times and stuff like that. I mean, that's -- you've got to communicate more honestly and more completely. That's the only way -- if you have a budget crisis or lack of budgets, or limitations, priorities and stuff like that. You've got to communicate more between people and within the organizations and stuff like that. You just can't just sit there and say the easy way out is we're going to cut 5 percent and that'll be easy. You really have to do a lot of extra stuff.

You know, really it's -- what has the agency done? You know, what has the agency done to ramp up this honesty and kind of confront this? Why is-- that seems to be a lot of problems with plants now.

What is the root cause, what are the factors that cause this, what are the deeper factors that cause this and all that sort of stuff? Instead of just sticking there and, you know, looking at a threaded seal as an isolated part and not worrying and wringing your hands, and pulling out your hair wondering what's the big picture? I've got to know the big picture behind what's causing these little problems. And if you have a little problem here that's similar to another little problem here, you know, why ain't you pulling out more of your hair and stuff like that? Where's the worry? I don't see that. I see these -- I see the agency running around basically feeling comfortable that they're following the rules that the politicians wrote for them and stuff like that. I see a lot of agency people not having a conscience because they're probably going to get punished or pay a price if they look at the bigger picture, and challenge their conscience, and challenge their status and things, and try to make the agency be prepared for this falling off the cliff of most of our major utilities with natural gas.

This is a Hurricane Katrina. This is a Hurricane Sandy. This is a Blizzard Nemo that's coming down on you guys, and you can't operate like the way you've done in the past. And you should be banging on these politicians to help you out as far as rules and regulations, and to be able to see more, and to be able to use a sledgehammer to get people's attention at times, especially these executives and stuff like that.

We're really going to do damage to our nation if we don't get a handle on what's going on here. This is a climate change. This is a huge economic climate change that's going on in the industry as far as this natural gas business. We don't know how long this thing is going to last, but as it is now it's affecting so many people and stuff like that. You know, the politicians are supposed to be in there helping the agency to do the people's business.

You know, we can't have this independent agency out here disconnected from the politicians and stuff like that. We have to have the politicians helping us to manage our electric system, and especially this invaluable 20 percent component of our electric system. We really need a lot of people. You know, they're all mixed up in Washington, too busy doing this and being overwhelmed by that. They sit there and too many problems, and too many limitations, and too lack of vision. And it's -- I fear for the future if we don't wake up.

I'm Mike Mulligan, and thank you for this opportunity. I'm done."
















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