March 12, 2013: FitzPatrick-EntergyNot Financially Qualified 2.206Right out of a new FitzPatrick's inspection report. How widespread is this? Is Entergy run-to-failure their own employees. This sounds like the nuclear professional class fleeing Entergy..they see the writting on the wall. It just might not be about the fear of a closure...they might be worrying about losing their professional credentials and going to jail.
.2 Inspection Procedure 92723 Follow-up Inspection for Three or More Severity Level IV
Traditional Enforcement Violations in the Same Area in a 12-Month Period documented in NRC Inspection Report 05000333/2013002. These three violations occurred within the same traditional enforcement area of impeding the regulatory process. Entergy’s evaluation was a collective review of a total of six traditional enforcement violations, which included three violations documented in 05000333/2013002 and three earlier traditional enforcement violations that occurred in 2011 and early 2012. All six violations were within the same traditional enforcement area of impeding the regulatory process.
Inspection Scope: On December 13, 2013, inspectors completed an in-office review of Entergy’s evaluation (CR-JAF-2013-02388) of three SL IV traditional enforcement violations, which were documented in NRC Inspection Report 05000333/2013002. These three violations occurred within the same traditional enforcement area of impeding the regulatory process. Entergy’s evaluation was a collective review of a total of six traditional enforcement violations, which included three violations documented in 05000333/2013002 and three earlier traditional enforcement violations that occurred in 2011 and early 2012. All six violations were Entergy’s evaluation identifies the apparent cause as being associated with inadequate management skills associated with the oversight of the Licensing department. Specifically, a site manager with considerable plant operations documented in NRC Inspection Report 05000333/2013002. These three violations occurred within the same traditional enforcement area of impeding the regulatory process. Entergy’s evaluation was a collective review of a total of six traditional enforcement violations, which included three violations documented in 05000333/2013002 and three earlier traditional enforcement violations that occurred in 2011 and early 2012. All six violations were within the same traditional enforcement area of impeding the regulatory process.
The behavior of Entergy is like the "loud music" murder case against Michael Dunning (and George Zimmerman)...the teabagger politicians who wrote laws in the books that are contrary to our common good. Of course, the good people sat back and let it happen. I am convinced Entergy could do a lot of damage to our nation with this destructive short term philosophy with running their nuclear fleet to ground...but it is perfectly legal. It is the nature of the wording in the laws that lets them get away with murder!In a brand new Pilgrim NRC inspection report below. Palisades is now replacing again the the CRDMs they destroyed. The CRDMs replacement are basically the same form as the repeated maintenance incompetence shut downs and start-ups, as with the safety injection refueling water tank in the past. Remember these tanks were never built as designed. They were defective from day one and lead to the repeated leaks. Ignore the word safety in "safety injection refueling water tank" as the NRC thinks it is not a safety system because of its leaks! Pilgrim over their excess shutdowns severely discharge radioactivity all over their plant...outside primary containment from crud burst. This isn't a plant issue, it is a fleet wide problem...this is a national problem throughout many other plants and fleets outside Entergy.
This is the greatest crisis in our nationwide fleet...all nuclear plants in the USA... we ever faced in the history of nuclear power.
The following observations have been noted by the inspectors: SRV performance was a driver for several down powers and forced outages in 2012 and into 2013; a number of unplanned down powers and shutdowns were the result of non-safety-related equipment failures; it appears that nonsafety-related equipment that was characterized as a run-to-failure is starting to reach the end of their service life and can likely become contributors to such events.Feb 16: Let talk about 2013 with Arkansas Nuclear One....a year in the life of ANO. What does a plant look like in a run-to-failure mode with two plant site.
March begins with unit 1 going
into refueling. On March 31 they drop a 600 ton stator. It kills one, seriously
injures 4, another 4 aren’t so seriously injured. It tripped off unit 2 for about a month. All
this death, injury and destruction was caused by Entergy not following their
own procedures, not testing safety equipment (crane) and a undersized crane.
Basically run-to failure or insufficient budgets to get a job properly done.
OHSA "This tragedy could have been prevented had the employer ensured vital safeguards to protect workers from potential hazards and proper planning for a project of this magnitude," said Carlos Reynolds, OSHA's area director in Little Rock. "OSHA will hold the employers accountable for not meeting their workplace safety and health responsibilities."
They restart Unit 2 on April 27. It
goes well. This plant has been dead for a month.
Below is a dangerous sign of a
sloppy nuclear plant and gross incompetence. Short term budgeting overrides
long term profits! This is so unprofessional
- Aug 7 1% ANO attempts a restart on unit 1. This guy has been dead for about four months.
- Aug 8 18% increasing power.
- Aug 9 56% MFP trouble shooting.
- Aug 10 83% Increasing
- Aug 11 77% The start-up is being held up because secondary maintenance issues...something broke.
- Aug 12 87% Sart-up now being held up for a heat balance (wink wink).
- Aug 13 87% It’s still the heat balance thing.
- Aug 14 87% Holding power for the heat balance. Oops, now shutting down.
- Aug 15 0% It is called feedwater sodium excursion.
- Aug 16 0% Now called a sodium exclusion.
- Aug 17 12% Gen synced and back at 100%
- Aug 18 86% Increasing
- Aug 19 100%
I am saying Entergy though nuclear budget issues are damaging or wearing out components. They are knowingly letting the plant run-to-failure. Examples are ANO, Palisades and Pilgrim! Non safety systems failures are power downing, tripping or shutting down the plant. The magnitude of the repeated power excursions are then damaging the nuclear safety systems.
You see what I am talking about,
the NRC in their status report frames it as a transformer explosion while in
Entergy’s LER they never mention the explosion. You can count on Entergy always
sterilizing their language!
ANO's LER to the NRC
Event Cause: Based on the physical evidence available, the initial fault is suspected to have occurred at the ‘C’ phase 6900V flexible link on the 2X-02 6900V non-segregated bus, which propagated to the associated ‘C’ phase bus. Damage from the explosion led to phase-to-phase and phase-toground faults on the 6900V and 4160V buses. Based on observations of the 2X-02 ‘A’ and ‘B’ phase flexible links at this location, there was evidence of corona exposure on the tapping around the bolted connections, moisture and corrosion on the copper flexible links, and no vendor recommended putty on the bolt heads. Without the putty, partial discharge (corona) occurred which degraded the tape insulation.The flexible links and insulation have been installed in this configuration since at least 1979. In addition, the duct design air gap in the flex link area had a marginal air gap as compared to applicable electrical codes that combined with the lack of putty lowered margin for fault protection.
2X-02 is protected by various protective relays including high speed phase differential relays to actuate the main generator lockout relays for isolation of the transformer and the associated fault. Upon fault detection, these relays are designed to initiate prompt actuation of the main generator lockout relays that open the main generator output breakers, exciter field breaker, and associated 4160V and 6900V bus breakers. Although the relays did actuate during this event as evidenced by the instantaneous element target flags, subsequent inspections identified the output contact for the 2X-02 differential relays were not terminated. Failure of the relays to clear the fault allowed 2X-02 to source the fault for approximately 4 to 5 seconds prior to its failure, which exceeds the typical maximum through-fault current rating of 2 seconds for this class of transformer. (explosion)You see what I am talking about, the NRC in their status report frames it as a transformer explosion while in Entergy’s LER they never mention the explosion. You can count on Entergy to always sterilizing their language!
(This below is what incompetence looks like again.)
0n Dec 9, 2013 in Unit 2 their aux transformer has an electrical explosion and fire. It is interesting; I guess the NRC feels sorry for these guys because they have yet to covered this event in any meaningful way. The plant tripped.
- Dec 20, 2013 forced outage...transformer repair.
- Dec 21 Just zero power. Out of the forced outage
- Dec 22 Now back to a force outage, transformer will remain broken till the next refueling outage.
- Dec 23 Steam line vent repair
- Dec 24 Another heat up in progress. Reactor startup right around the corner.
- Dec 25 Oh shit, cooled back down for MSIV issues
- Dec 26 MSIV Issue
- Dec 27 MSIV
- Dec 28 MSIV
- Dec 29 MSIV
- Dec 30 MSIV
- Dec 31 MSIV
- Jan 10 Completed testing on MSIV
- Jan 11 chemistry hold 30% power
- Jan 12 95%
- Jan 13 100%
Basically a month shutdown.
When is Entergy cutting their
dividend like Exelon and FirstEnergy?
Reposted from 2/11/14
My take on this. For the last twenty years at many of these multi nuclear plant utilities, these nuclear plants have been the low cost producer and they have been the golden goose for the parent company. At points, the nuclear assets have carried the whole utility and they directly supported the stock price. They should have diverted some excess profits from the nukes into updating their plant...they should have put aside a rainy day fund for the nukes for when the market made a turning point to get them passed the stress.These guys don’t deserve any bailouts or any sympathy!
REPORT 05000293/201300 and 07201044/2013001SUBJECT: PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER STATION – NRC INTEGRATED INSPECTION
February 10, 2014
Pg 25
(the regulator)"Equipment reliability issues resulting in plant transients have been identified as a continuing trend by the inspectors and Entergy. The following observations have been noted by the inspectors: SRV performance was a driver for several down powers and forced outages in 2012 and into 2013; a number of unplanned down powers and shutdowns were the result of non-safety-related equipment failures; it appears that nonsafety-related equipment that was characterized as a run-to-failure is starting to reach the end of their service life and can likely become contributors to such events. These issues have directly led to six forced outages in 2013, and have contributed to Pilgrim crossing multiple performance indicator thresholds. Additionally, although two of the events which resulted in complicated scrams at Pilgrim in 2013 were the result of offsite initiators, these also represent opportunities for Pilgrim to further evaluate options to limit their vulnerability to, or to mitigate the consequences of, such events."You could make the case these plants are intentionally not preparing plant evaluations...they are intentionally blinding their upper management to the results of this.
The results of this business strategy is they are damaging plant reliability...ending in the damage cascading into degrading nuclear components and processes. The examples are ther recent ANO transformer explosion and dropped stator, the destruction the Palisades CRDMs and excessive shutdowns at Pilgrim plant, excessive radiation problems throughout inside the Pilgrim plant and now serous contamination in a well outside the building These issues all come from budgets taking a higher priority than plant reliability and safety.(*new) By the way, those SRVs that cost them so much money with reduced capacity factor. It is one of the most safety critical components in the reactor. They recently replaced obsolete SRVs with new ones. It is the brand new ones that repeatedly leaked and malfunctioned. They began leaking within months of new installation....with repeated shutdowns and downpowers throughout the operating cycle. We still don’t know why this happed and the report has been delayed from being released because their bureaucracy is overwealmed with paperwork. This goes way beyond only a run-to-failure philosophy with non-safety component.Non-safety components consist of 99% of the components of a nuclear power plant...but their repeated failures on this scale can damage and degrade safety related components.A hint of the scale with what we are talking about here....a nuclear power plant consists of many millions of components.A relative small percentage of high worth “non-safety” components failure does result in damaging nuclear safety components and structures in a non-safety million component system! Pilgrim and Palisades are a result of this!
So here is Entergy and Exelon at a Platts Energy conference talking about a unprecedented nuclear plant economic crisis. They are saying their nuclear plants are economical.
Nuclear giants urge market changes to thwart closures
Hannah Northey, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Thursday, February 6, 2014
The country's largest nuclear operators yesterday reiterated their calls for market changes to prevent a spate of reactor closures in markets that they say are becoming too reliant on subsidized renewables and cheap gas amid premature plant retirements.
Top executives from Entergy Corp. and Exelon Corp. -- the United States' biggest nuclear operators in competitive markets -- warned at a Platts energy conference in Washington, D.C., that electricity markets are rewarding the lowest-cost, near-term energy sources, namely cheap gas and subsidized wind.
Being overlooked are merchant nuclear power plants that provide carbon-free base-load power, they said.
"Regulators, policymakers really don't understand the consequences of some of their focus, which are well-intended; they want to do the right thing, move to renewable resources, reduce carbon output," said William Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, which operates about 5,000 megawatts of merchant nuclear power. "[But] we're really headed off a cliff if we don't see some changes in overall market design."Think about this statement on a national level where a few bad nuclear plants can wipe out the profits across the whole fleet of nuclear plants. The west coast for years have had low wholesale electric rates. Can you believe this; "where losses have wiped out revenues at the company's other 19 nuclear facilities". These guys have been hacking and slashing at nuclear plant budgets for years. Generally when you hack away resources at a nuclear plant, you are intimidating the staffs of these nuclear plants.
Brown said Exelon is eyeing shaky finances at five of its merchant nuclear plants -- including Clinton, Quad Cities and other units not made public -- where losses have wiped out revenues at the company's other 19 nuclear facilities. Brown said those decisions will be based on movement with gas markets and what Congress decides to do with the production tax credits.There it is right there out of the mouths of babes...investors and executive bonuses comes before plant reliability and nuclear safety. By the way, the NE electric market prices have been skyrocketing since 2012.
"Frankly, what we're dealing with right now in some of these markets is they are insufficient to provide sustainability for investors -- and that's where you end up with a situation like Vermont Yankee," Mohl said. "And obviously, there are other units out there that are critical.Basically, Entergy's one off plant in Michigan is deeply in with Exelon's territory...certainly their ISO. Palisades maintenance screw-ups and shutdowns has cost Entergy many tens of millions of dollars. If Entergy shuts down this plant it will be because they shot themselves in the foot for not putting enough money into this guys.
Chicago Business, February 6, 2014. "The clock is now ticking for Exelon Corp.'s Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants. CEO Chris Crane said the company would have to decide by year-end on whether to shutter nuclear facilities that currently are losing money due to persistently low wholesale power prices. Analysts have identified the downstate Clinton plant and Quad Cities as the two in Illinois that fit this description. Exelon runs six nukes in Illinois."
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