Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Junk Plant Salem/Hope: Another Mysterious Plant Trip

This is the second largest nuclear facility in the USA. It is a three unit site with two Salem Units and then Hope Creek. 66% of their units are down mostly over a poor maintenance philosophy. Their philosophy is symbolized by Salem's troubles with bolting issues surrounding the reactor cooling pumps loose bolts in the coolant and their baffling core bolting issues. Maybe they need to extend their outages a week or so to do deeper preventative maintenance. It would be cheaper than a this.

So 66% of this site's plants were dead in this perilous summer period. Its got to jack the grid's prices to the hapless ratepayers.


Facility: SALEM
Region: 1 State: NJ
Unit: [ ] [2] [ ]
RX Type: [1] W-4-LP,[2] W-4-LP
NRC Notified By: WILLIAM MUFFLEY
HQ OPS Officer: MARK ABRAMOVITZ
Notification Date: 06/28/2016
Notification Time: 06:58 [ET]
Event Date: 06/28/2016
Event Time: 04:23 [EDT]
Last Update Date: 06/28/2016
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY
10 CFR Section:
50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL
50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION
Person (Organization):
HAROLD GRAY (R1DO)

UnitSCRAM CodeRX CRITInitial PWRInitial RX ModeCurrent PWRCurrent RX Mode
2A/RY100Power Operation0Hot Standby
Event Text
AUTOMATIC REACTOR TRIP ON MAIN GENERATOR PROTECTION SIGNAL

"This 4 and 8 hour notification is being made to report that Salem Unit 2 suffered an unplanned automatic reactor trip and subsequent automatic auxiliary feedwater system actuation. The trip was initiated due to a Main Turbine Trip above P-9 (49% power). The Main Turbine trip was caused by a Main Generator Protection signal.

"Salem unit 2 is currently stable in Mode 3. Reactor coolant system pressure is 2235 psig and Reactor Coolant System temperature is 547 F with decay heat removal via the main steam dump and auxiliary feedwater systems. Unit 2 has no active shutdown tech spec action statements in effect. All control rods [fully] inserted on the reactor trip. All ECCS [Emergency Core Cooling System] and ESF [Emergency Safety Features] systems functioned as expected.

"No safety related equipment or major secondary equipment was tagged for maintenance prior to this event. No personnel were injured during this event."

The main generator protection signal was either a ground fault or a differential current trip. The plant is in its normal shutdown electrical lineup. No safeties or relief valves lifted during this event.

Unit 1 is defueled and was not affected by this event.

The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector and will notify the Lower Alloways Creek Township.

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