NE Electric System is a Market Failure

Whether it is power plant builders or environmental consideration...they are all gaming the public to delay fixing our electric system. They are now creating a legal and acceptable California electricity crisis to boost profits.  

Well, the regulatory system set up saying no other entries and lower consumer cost welcome.

I say with some exaggeration, declare a dire national emergency and martial law, give an above fair price for the property taken...then immediately construct the pipeline or power line basically without any rights or appeals.  Make it a government project and eminent domain…

Basically every second we delay fixing this problem, we are making our lives harder and we are losing jobs. It contrast how weak government is with solving our greater problems.

They are now creating a legal and acceptable California electricity crisis to boost profits.

Maybe the rest of our nation wants a weakened NE?

Moniz: NE faces energy problem

By STEPHEN SINGER

Associated Press

Monday, April 21, 2014
(Published in print: Tuesday, April 22, 2014)

HARTFORD, Conn. — The nation’s top energy official delivered a blunt message Monday to a Connecticut audience of energy executives, regulators, environmentalists and others who already know that fuel heating and cooling homes and businesses and running power plants in New England is among the costliest in the nation.

Ernest Moniz, U.S. secretary of energy, stopping in Providence, R.I., and Hartford in a months-long federal review of energy issues, said New England doesn’t share the good news developing in the field of energy with the rest of the country.

“Out there, in much of the country the talk is about the energy revolution, the abundance of energy that we have, the way that we are in fact drawing upon new resources ... promoting renewables, at the same time reducing carbon emissions,” he said.

“But yet if we come here, it’s not a discussion of abundance. It’s a discussion of, in particular, infrastructure constraints,” he said.

Speaking to an audience of about 150 in Hartford, Moniz said that in New England, piping in natural gas and otherwise delivering heat or electricity is limited by a lack of delivery systems.

During the severe winter, natural gas prices soared to more than $120 per million British thermal units from about $5 in the summer. The spike was blamed on strong demand, a lack of pipeline systems, limited regional liquefied natural gas deliveries and inadequate storage.

Energy prices in New England often are “very volatile and much higher than other parts of the country,” Moniz said.

Moniz knows New England. A physicist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Moniz said even when fuel is available, it cannot be moved in emergencies, such as Superstorm Sandy in October and November 2012, because of power outages.

New England governors announced a plan in January to expand natural gas use. The governors of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont asked the region’s grid operator for technical help to seek proposals to build transmission equipment and public works to deliver enough electricity to serve 1.2 million to 3.6 million homes. The states also asked the system operator, ISO-New England, to devise a way to finance the project.

Gordon van Welie, ISO president, said Monday that because many non-gas-fired plants are to be retired beginning this year and public works improvements are scheduled to start years from now, New England’s power system will be in a “precarious position” for a few years.

Anthony Buxton, general counsel for the Industrial Energy Consumer Group, a trade association of industrial facilities, said he told Moniz in his visit to Providence that 2 billion cubic feet per day of more pipeline capacity into New England is needed to tame

natural gas price spikes.

Connecticut director William Dornbos of Environment Northeast, an advocacy group, urged Moniz and state policymakers to seek ways to cut demand via greater energy efficiency and to avoid major capital projects such as interstate natural gas pipelines or electric transmission lines.

 Why New England power situation is precarious

Quick Take: I sit on advisory boards with various executives from the electric power sector. Recently they've been telling me about a disturbing discovery from this year's Polar Vortex winter. The gating factor in the Northeast is not the number of power plants. Nor the capacity of the power lines. It is the capacity of the region's pipelines. And now the Secretary of Energy is out delivering the warning. – Jesse Berst

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz delivered a blunt message to New England last week, according to a story in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. “In much of the country the talk is about the energy revolution, the abundance of energy that we have," he told a Connecticut audience of energy executives, regulators, environmentalists. “But yet if we come here, it’s not a discussion of abundance. It’s a discussion of, in particular, infrastructure constraints."

The challenge is getting fuel to the region's natural gas-powered plants. Bringing in natural gas is constrained by the shortage of pipelines. During the severe winter, natural gas prices soared to more than $120 per million British thermal units from about $5 in the summer. The spike was due to strong demand, a lack of pipeline systems, and inadequate storage.

Why did natural gas prices jump to such extremes? A recent newsletter from Luthin Confidential Associates offers this explanation: "Federal regulations treat pipelines as common carriers and limit the profits of pipeline owners. But once that capacity gets "rented" by investors and speculators, the sky is the limit on what they can add to local gas pricing for the use of the pipe."

The problem will soon get even worse. Many coal plants are due to be retired soon. Meanwhile, pipeline improvements are years away, causing Moniz to warn that New England will be in a "precarious position" for a few years.

Indeed, those much-needed pipeline improvements may be delayed even further by protests from environmental groups. For instance, the director of Environment Northeast urged policymakers to cut demand via greater energy efficiency rather than approving new pipelines or electric transmission lines.

Jesse Berst is the founder and Chief Analyst of SGN and Chairman of the Smart Cities Council, an industry coalition.

Oyster Creek Going Summertime Wackco on Us

Problems:

1) A poorly addressed problem like this could more damage the safety culture of a plant than the risk of the components not working in a accident.

2) So what has changed...considering these components have been around since the dinosaurs without much problems...what has changed to cause this problem.

3) This is a grand experiment. The idea  of a notification over permeant shutdown many year in advance…giving a company the chance to reducing funding for maintenance and upkeep in anticipation of a permanent shutdown.

Pilgrim's Relief

Oyster Creek Shut Down Again For SecondTime This Week

July 11, 2014: Oyster Creek operators were restarting the plant at 3:12 a.m. this morning when problem with "vacuum conditions" in plant's condenser were discovered, NRC says

Posted by Patricia A. Miller (Editor) , July 11, 2014 at 06:27 PM

by Patricia A. Miller

Operators at the Oyster Creek Generating Station shut down the plant early this morning because of problem with the facility's condenser, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

Plant operators manually scrammed (shut down) the plant at 3:12 a.m. after they discovered a reduction in vacuum conditions inside the condenser, said NRC spokesman Neil A. Sheehan.

"There were no complications during the shutdown and the NRC has not identified any immediate safety concerns," he said.

The condenser - which cools down and condenses steam produced by the reactor after it has passed through the turbine - is operated in a vacuum condition to maximize efficiency, Sheehan said.

It was the second time this week the 45-year-old plant had to be shut down.

Oyster Creek operators took the plant off line on July 7, due to "degradation" of five solenoid electromatic relief valves used in the plant's cooling system.

Operators were attempting to start the plant up again early this morning and had reached 55 percent of power when the problems with the condenser were discovered, Sheehan said.

"However, it appears the shutdown will change the plant's Performance Indicator for Unplanned Scrams per 7,000 Hours of Operation from "Green" to "White" and result in additional NRC oversight," he said.

Exelon spokesman Suzanne D'Ambrosio said plant operators and technicians closely monitor pressures, temperatures and plant equipment for safe, reliable operation.

"It is crucial that during start up, every system operates flawlessly," she said. "If anything is not as expected, operators stop the start-up process and address the issue. This comprehensive process and attention to detail has helped Oyster Creek reach industry leading levels of reliability."

Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant in the United States. It went online on Dec. 23, 1969.

Oyster Creek shuts down to check safety valves

 July 8: LACEY – Operators of the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor shut down the power plant to check and possibly replace five safety valves, plant officials said.

The shutdown was prompted by an inspection of previously removed valves, which showed unexpected wear on two of them and could have caused them to fail, according to plant owner Exelon and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Oyster Creek operators started shutting down the reactor power at about 8 p.m. Monday, and it’s not known how long the plant will remain offline, according to Suzanne D’Ambrosio, a spokeswoman for the plant.

July 9 NRC event report: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION REQUIRED SHUTDOWN

 
"On July 7, 2014 at approximately [2040 EDT], an issue was discovered with currently removed Electromatic Relief Valves (EMRVs) that calls the operability of the currently installed EMRVs into question. Based on this new information, all 5 of the currently installed EMRVs were conservatively declared inoperable. With the potential of 5 EMRVs inoperable a Technical Specification shutdown is required under Technical Specification 3.4.b, whereby reactor pressure shall be reduced to 110 psig or less within 24 hours. This event is immediately reportable under:

"50.72(b)(2)(i), 'The initiation of any nuclear plant shutdown required by the plant's Technical Specifications.'
 
"50.72(b)(3)(v)(D), 'Any event or condition that at the time of discovery could have prevented the fulfillment of the safety function of structures or systems that are needed to: (D) Mitigate the consequences of an accident.'"
 
The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector. The licensee will notify the State of New Jersey and issue a press release.

She said the reactor must be shut off for workers to access the five installed electromatic relief valves inside the plant’s drywell, the containment vessel around the nuclear reactor. They are part of the plant’s automatic depressurization system, linked to the emergency core cooling system. In the event of a loss of coolant from a small pipe break — when pressure inside the reactor area remains high — the valves are there to quickly lower the pressure so the emergency system can inject water into the reactor core.

Electromatic Relief valves come right out of the Stone Age. Remember the Pilgrim safety Relief Valves fiasco…they bought new valves and the parts were all loose. Pilgrim took a lot of shutdowns and power downs over these defective valves. They had so called main steam line vibrations problems damage the SRVs. Vermont Yankee with their new SRV…improper seal material.

The potential problem began in late June during a maintenance inspection of the valves, NRC officials said. That raised a red flag with nuclear critics, who questioned why a plant shutdown was not required sooner by the NRC.

“The valves are designed so you can do without one, you can possibly do without two,” said Arnie Gundersen, an independent nuclear analyst whose Fairewinds Associates firm often consults for anti-nuclear groups. “That’s the question. When did they know the two valves were inoperable, and when did they decide to shut down?”

The valves are operated by solenoids, powerful electromagnets that slam the valves open when energized. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said plant workers “found more than expected wear” on valve springs and supporting parts. Gundersen said the valves are routinely tested in place, but also that kind of wearing can come from the machinery vibration that’s part of the environment inside a nuclear plant.

Sheehan said the agency was on top of the situation as it evolved: “Our resident inspectors assigned to Oyster Creek on a full-time basis have been closely following developments involving the evaluation of the valves and the decision to take the reactor offline to address the issue. They will continue to do so until the problem is satisfactorily resolved.”

According to a formal notice posted by the NRC, the problem with the electomatic relief valves was confirmed Monday and “based on this new information, all 5 of the currently installed EMRVs were conservatively declared inoperable.”

In those instances, a shutdown is required, according to the notice.

Gundersen said he wonders why the shutdown did not happen sooner.

“Were they waiting for parts?” he said. Technically, the indications that valves could have a problem should initiate what’s called a “limiting condition of operation” that needs to be resolved soon under NRC rules, Gundersen said.

“That said, the decision to declare it in operable is less defined,” allowing the NRC to cut operators slack, he added.

The valve issue shows why reactors such as Oyster Creek need filtered vents to control discharges during emergencies, said Janet Tauro of the local group Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety, which have pushed for the NRC to impose that proposed rule.

But the economics of building improved vents won’t work for the plant in Lacey, Gundersen said: “Oyster Creek will shut down before they would install them.”  

***"The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant was shut down last night (Monday) in response to degradation of electromatic relief valves (ERVs) that has been identified," NRC spokesman Neil A Sheehan said. "Five such valves are involved."

Oyster Creek personnel replace the solenoid-operated valves that operate the plant's five electromagnetic relief valves (EMRVs) during each refueling and maintenance outage. The solenoid valves are then tested in the maintenance shop to determine their condition.

"In late June, Oyster Creek staff tested five solenoid-operated valves that had been removed from the plant previously and determined that two of the five valves did not operate properly," Sheehan said. "Oyster Creek staff disassembled the valves and identified more than expected wear on the solenoid-operating valve springs and support parts."

Oyster Creek operators decided a plant shutdown was needed on July 7, to inspect the currently installed solenoid operated valves associated with the EMRVs might be affected, Sheehan said.

The EMRVs and their associated solenoid valves are not accessible when the plant is in operation, he said.

NRC inspectors will independently assess the condition of the installed EMRV solenoid-operated valves once they are accessible during the current plant outage, Sheehan said.

The ERVs are part of the plant's automatic depressurization system (ADS), which supports the emergency core cooling system. The ADS is designed to depressurize the reactor during a small (pipe) break loss-of-coolant accident to permit the low-pressure core spray system to inject water into the reactor core, Sheehan said.

Ya, they are all critical for the public good as the companies can't afford to run them anymore...

Ginna owner seeks deal to keep nuclear plant open

The owner of the Ginna nuclear power plant, hoping to stave off closure of the facility, has asked New York regulators to help secure a deal with RG&E to sustain Ginna's operations.

Exelon Corp., which owns the Wayne County nuclear plant, wants Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. to sign a contract promising payments keep the plant running. Chicago-based Exelon filed a petition Friday asking the state Public Service Commission to enter into a multiyear contract by the end of 2014.

The contract would be based on the conclusion that Ginna, which provides a good part of all the electricity used by RG&E's customers, must continue to operate to ensure the continued reliability of that service.

With no contract, Exelon said in its petition that it likely would close the 44-year-old Ginna, one of the oldest commercial nuclear plants in the country. Located on the Lake Ontario shoreline, it can generate 577 megawatts of electricity, or enough to satisfy the needs of about 400,000 residential customers.

"It is no secret that our plant, like others in the region, faces financial challenges. But this filing is actually good news for the hundreds of hardworking men and women that work at the plant and for the community that we serve because it is an encouraging step toward continuing to operate the plant for the foreseeable future," Joe Pacher, Ginna site vice president, said in a statement released Friday.

About 700 people work at the plant, which is by far the largest property taxpayer in the town of Ontario and likely is the largest in Wayne County.

In statements issued Friday afternoon, RG&E and Exelon both pledged to work with the PSC on the proceeding. Exelon will continue to operate the plant while the process unfolds, spokeswoman Maria Hudson said.

RG&E built the plant in the late 1960s and named it for a former chairman, Robert E. Ginna. As part of a move to deregulate energy markets, the PSC ordered utilities to sell off their power generation, and in 2004 RG&E sold Ginna to Constellation Energy for $423 million. Constellation now is part of Exelon.

Under terms of the Ginna sale, RG&E was given the right to buy up to 90 percent of the electricity generated at Ginna at fixed prices, an arrangement cast at the time as a good deal for both parties. That 10-year arrangement expired June 30.

Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear-plant operator, has talked openly about the possibility that it might close some of its facilities because they're not economically viable.

In the petition filed Friday, the company said that as the expiration of the long-term arrangement with RG&E loomed, it examined Ginna's finances and concluded it was likely to lose money and was a candidate for closure.

But Exelon then asked for a study to determine what effect Ginna's closure would have on the reliability of electric service in RG&E's service territory. According to the petition, that study, finished in May, concluded that Ginna remained essential.

So Exelon now has invoked a regulatory procedure under which, if the PSC issued the requested order, RG&E would pay a fixed amount of money each year to keep Ginna in operation. The amount, the number of years and other terms remain to be negotiated after the commission acts, if it does.

A similar "reliability support services agreement" exists between the owners of a coal-fired power plant in Tompkins County and New York State Electric and Gas Corp., RG&E's sister company.

That deal drew criticism from environmentalists because NYSEG was paying to prop up a polluting coal plant. It remains to be seen whether an RG&E-Exelon deal with provoke similar criticism from opponents of nuclear power, some of whom have stated publicly they hope financial pressure would lead to the shuttering of Ginna and other plants.

Arkansas Nuclear One: Reactor Power Running Completely Out of Control

Arkansas Nuclear One and Arkansas are ground zero for tornadoes!

US tornado risk map: This map features the US regions which are prone to strong winds, hurricanes and destructive twisters. Found on: blacksamcashinterestingthigs.blogspot.com

Right, these guys have tornado warnings all the time. Basically I bet you the history is they come and go harmlessly within a half an hour or so. Bet you the shift supervisor thought, I will lollygag around trying to shutdown…it will all clear away in minutes and I will save my company tons of money instead of scramming both plants.  

This hasn't been covered in a inspection yet...these guys are so dangerous...the whole entergy fleet. They are dangerous for our nation!

The most recent NRC inspection 

Wiki: Overall, the tornado remained on the ground for an hour, from 7:06 p.m. to 8:06 p.m. (0006 – 0106 UTC), and traveled along a 41.3 miles (66.5 km) path. Sixteen people lost their lives due to the tornado,^[16] making it the deadliest in Arkansas since an F4 killed 35 on May 15, 1968.

Tornado path  

Tornado Path  

Russellville is about where ANO was.   

So the massive EF 4 tornado passed about 50 mile east of the plant. Why didn’t they just scram? If the tornadoes was directly heading right for them,  would they bungle it by doing the normal shutdown. Right, the time frame in the LER is from 1912 to 2002. The EF 4 tornado was passing 50 miles to the east of them...between them and Little Rock. I bet you the whole front that passed directly over them had dire warnings of intense tornadoes.  The tornado began at 7:25 pm and completed at 9:24 pm.  You get it, the Tornado began at 7:25 pm on April 27, 2014, with the system operator saying we are in a grid emergency telling the ANO to come off the line as soon as possible at 7:34pm…
Man, have these plants been off the line so much for stupidity in the last few years...

This gives you an idea of how much planning time they got before a tornado hits.

Description. On April 23, 2010, Units 1 and 2 were notified of a severe thunderstorm warning at 1:50 p.m. Procedure OP-1203.025, "Natural Emergencies," Revision 30 was entered. At 3:25 p.m. the licensee received a tornado warning, transitioned into a tornado watch at 4:12 p.m. and exited the watch at 8:00 p.m. The resident inspectors observed entry into the procedures and subsequently performed a site walkdown to ensure all potential missile hazards were identified and controlled as directed in the natural emergencies procedure.

>>>You got to the know the stimulator should have picked up the bum reactivity procedure...bet you the simulator modeled this inaccurately...

...to go over the high ponts of how they are going to shutdown or downpower the reactor and the issues near refueling.

... By the way, I doubt they could see real power level. They had no idea where power was…the power reading shown by the detectors and meters up in the control room were wildly are inaccurate. Don’t worry, this is normal…

 Arkansas Nuclear One: Reactor Power Running Completely Out of Control

The NRC’s ROP’s is tolerating nuclear plants running widely out of control and this government regime or oversight don’t cause bad operator to change their bad ways.

This is the same event as 2010...they don't learn from earlier near misses. So Entergy has all this NRC activity concerning the stator yellow finding, killing of the one and injuring 8 others, the so called internal changes out of this...and these events happen over and over again as if the NRC has just the power of a gnat.

These guys are extremely dangerous and are a threat to the whole US nuclear industry, for that matter, nuclear power worldwide.

A review of the ANO corrective action program and Licensee Event Reports for the previous three years was performed. There was a similar condition relative to the effects of ASI found in 2010 at ANO-2. The ASI TS limit was exceeded during a planned down power. The cause was identified to be an inaccurate reactivity management plan which contributed to the crew not being aggressive enough with ASI control.

Unit 1: March 31, 2013,

Axial Shape Index Trip at the End-of-Life During Rapid Plant Shutdown

ANO: 04 26 2014

Licensee Event Report 50-368/2014-003-00

During severe weather on April 27, 2014, both units at Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) were informed of a system-wide grid emergency and were ordered to come off-line as soon as possible. Both units commenced a rapid plant shutdown. ANO, Unit 2 (ANO-2) was at the end of the core life. During the shutdown, the Axial Shape Index (ASI) became more negative (power rising to the upper portion of the core) during the shutdown.

This led to one channel of the Plant Protection System (PPS) to be actuated on an ASI auxiliary trip. At this time, the direction to manually trip the reactor was given, but before the action could be taken, an automatic reactor trip occurred due to the two-out-of-four PPS logic being made up for the ASI conditions. The cause of this condition was not effectively executing the reactivity management plan by delaying insertion of Control Element Assemblies (CEAs) and not inserting CEAs deep enough to maintain ASI within the desired control band.

Crane accident had ‘substantial’ safety significance,reports US regulator

2 July 2014

A March 2013 crane accident at Entergy's Arkansas One nuclear power plant that killed one worker, injured eight others, damaged the plant and required days of backup emergency diesel power was judged to be of substantial safety significance by the US nuclear regulator.

Workers were moving the 525-­ton main generator stator out of the plant's turbine building during maintenance when a temporary lifting assembly collapsed, causing the component to fall, damaging plant equipment, killing one person and injuring eight others.  

Unit 1 was in a refuelling outage at the time, with all of the fuel still in the reactor vessel, safely cooled. 

The stator fell on and extensively damaged portions of the Unit 1 turbine deck and subsequently fell over 30 feet into the train bay. The stator drop resulted in a Unit 1 loss of offsite power for 6 days and a Unit 2 reactor trip and loss of offsite power to one vital bus. The dropped stator ruptured a common fire main header in the train bay, which caused flooding in Unit 1 and water damage to the electrical switchgear for Unit 2. The alternate alternating current diesel generator (station blackout) electrical supply cables to both units were pulled out of the electrical switchgear and the diesel was therefore not available to either unit, according to a 24 March 2014 follow-up inspection report (NRC document ML14083A409). 

Unit 2, which was operating at full power, automatically shut down when a reactor coolant pump tripped due to vibrationscaused by the heavy component hitting the turbine building floor when it fell. Unit 2 never completely lost off-­site power, and means existed to provide emergency power using the diesel generators, said the regulator in a press release. 

In September 2013, the US government's Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Entergy and three contractors, Precision Surveillance Corp, Bigge Crane and Rigging and Siemens Power Generation for 26 safety violations. 

The nuclear regulator blamed Entergy for approving a temporary gantry design not supported with adequate documentation, for failing to identify load deficiencies in the vendor's calculations, failing to identify a component of the wrong size in the north tower. It also said that the tower was not designed for 125% of the load, and inadequate load testing (including a 125% proof load test) was carried out before the lift. 

Initially, the regulator assessed the risk significance of the event at the highest level, red, for unit 1, and at the next lower level, yellow, for unit 2, but reduced the unit 1 significance to yellow after Entergy gave evidence in a 9 May conference arguing that there was a high likelihood of success (90%) for recovering electrical power to cooling pumps before water in the core boiled away, exposing fuel. 

An Entergy spokeswoman said: "Entergy is dedicated to the safe operation of Arkansas Nuclear One, and we take the NRC's findings very seriously. We are committed to learning from this tragic incident, sharing our knowledge with the industry, and ensuring that it never happens again." 

As of early July, the nuclear regulator was still determining what its response to the incident would be.

Training material is being modified to include details on the dynamic effects of ASI change that occurs at the end-of-cycle. Additionally, improvements to the guidance in the reactivity plans that involve rapid plant shutdowns are being made as are changes to the standards for use of CEAs during transients.

During the shutdown, the operator performed manual turbine load reductions, CEA insertions, and was responsible for the boration. Multiple alarms were received throughout this event due to the continuous storm activity (lightning strikes on the grid). In addition, there were multiple phone calls from the SOC dispatcher concerning the state of the grid, the down-power, and related issues. These distractions were determined to be a contributing cause for the automatic reactor trip.

The reactivity management plan was not effectively executed due to lack of specific training on understanding the magnitude and rate of ASI shift that occurs at the end of a fuel cycle and the optimal approach to control ASI during the performance of a rapid plant shutdown at the end of core life. 

Not have adequate procedures or training issues is an excuse...

The approved reactivity plan that was being used during this event included target CEA positions that reflected CEA insertions of 17 to 19 inches being necessary to keep ASI on target between each of the provided 15-minute intervals. Reactivity plans are written to 15-minute intervals for timing the expected CEA insertions and boration rates needed to maintain ASI on target through the prescribed maneuver. The rate of CEA insertion needed was only evident in the numerical CEA position targets provided in the plan. There was no additional guidance on rate of insertion or size of insertion steps provided in the text of the plan. The operator delayed CEA insertion over the initial interval because it was noted that ASI was tracking closely with the target ESI early into the maneuver. This delay in CEA insertions was found to be a direct contributor to the challenges associated with maintaining ASI in the desired control band which ultimately led to the automatic reactor trip.

In other words, when the moderator temperature coefficient heads towards the postive direction the safety feedback of  the cofficient become much less...when the coefficient becomes positive, as the coolant temperature increases, this adds reactivity uncontrollably. This is the Chernobyl. This is the ABC's of nuclear professionalism.  

Due to the negative moderator temperature coefficient that exists at low boron concentrations, control of ASI in the ANO-2 core, is challenging during end-of-cycle maneuvers. The magnitude of the temperature-driven ASI shift requires aggressive insertion of CEAs during end-of-cycle power reductions. The delay in the insertion of the CEAs and the smaller rate of insertion than needed resulted in the TS limit being exceeded.

A review of the ANO corrective action program and Licensee Event Reports for the previous three years was performed. There was a similar condition relative to the effects of ASI found in 2010 at ANO-2. The ASI TS limit was exceeded during a planned down power. The cause was identified to be an inaccurate reactivity management plan which contributed to the crew not being aggressive enough with ASI control.

Defective Scot 29er Aspect 940 Bike?

OMG: two full days of bike riding and no flat tires yet...

July 8: This company is such a dick....I am so happy I am out of them. Bought a equivalent Treck. Around my house and even in some pretty ratty tires, I get about one flat a year, if that. Within two hours of bringing the new bike home, a flat in the front tire, then next day after another two hour ride, another flat tire but on the back...come on!

Treck Excalibur 6 with bobterger tires…abouts$ 700. We like the Scot paint job better but maybe the cars will see me better.

To Me

Today at 12:37 PM

Hi Mike,

Thank you for contacting SCOTT SPORTS.

I’m sorry to read that you have gotten some thorns in your tires and punctured the inner tube. This is a very common, unfortunate part of riding bicycles. We do not consider thorn punctures a defect, but rather a part of normal riding. Please work with Norms to repair this 2nd flat tire, and I’ll hope that you’re luckier than you have been during your first few rides.

Take care, thank you for buying and riding SCOTT Bikes

Ben

Ben Chournos
Warranty & Technical Dept
SCOTT SPORTS USA
651 West Critchlow
Ogden Utah 84404

OFFICE: 888-607-8365 ext 2019
FAX: 801-627-8014
SKYPE: benchournos
warranty@scottusa.com
bchournos@scottusa.com
www.scott-sports.com
JOIN US ON FACEBOOK!
www.facebook.com/scott-sports

July 8: Well, I am off to Concord to purchase my new bike again. I don’t really feel good about it like the first time. I don’t want to get hurt again. These bikes are come from China and use the same parts…

 


I bought a Scot 29er Aspect 940 Mountain bike in a Keene bike shop this past Thursday for $650. I took two rather light bike rides around town during this. Spent about two hours riding on the road and less than an hour riding on mostly railroad trails on each trip.

I woke up on the morning after the first ride…my front tire has a flat tire. My bike has a warranty on it. I am smart enough to bring it back to the shop. I watched them change the tire…they find a really small thorn that pushed through the middle of the tire thread. I can hardly see the bush thorn it was so small. My first instinct was the tires are defective. But I am in love with the bike…so I didn’t say anything. I am thinking the owner would throw me a new tube because I am so unlucky or patch it up for free…but he charged me for it. A little more than two hours on a brand new $650 bike…I told them I must have won the million dollar lottery with this kind of luck. I intentionally told them I don’t have the $5.00 for the new tube and I will come back on saturday with the five bucks.

I take the second right on the bike. I become even more in love with the bike. But I am still a little irked about the flat tire on the first ride. I saying it is a one off…I probably won’t have another flat for two years. Next morning, well two days later because Friday was the Fourth of July...I wake up to an unbelievable second flat tire and now it is the back tire. I am outraged. I have a talk with the owner of the little shop on the phone…I can tell he becoming irked with me. I tell him I consider him as a professional…he sees bike troubles all the time. He tells me this kind of thing is normal and I say my extensive experience with bike riding says this is extremely abnormal.

I head right out to his shop. I bring the back wheel off my old bike. The tire on it is three years old and I purchased it from his shop. I never had a flat on this tire. The puncture is on the side of the tire and he can't tell what caused it. Well, he said something small punctured the tire and it didn't stay stuck in the tire. He says something punctured it without any evidence. I say it is a tube defect. So show me your proof it was pierced I asked. He becomes incensed with my attitude.

I can see the angle he was taking was everything was my fault and this happens all the time.I can see it from the very first flat when the technician asked if I took a hard fall off the bike...like I was abusing the bike. I never raised my voice to him…but I kept saying I don’t trust what you are saying anymore and this whole event poisoned my experience with this shop and the Scot brand. I would have been happy if he just put on new tires. I surmised he might refund my purchase price. He ended up unhappily refunding my money. He made a few nasty remarks as he was writing the check…I said, as our relationship has come to an end, it is pointless for me to make any further comments.

I was really happy with the brakes and shifting …the feel of the bike  was really good. It is just about the tires. I kept thinking the future is nothing but maintence problems with the bike because of cheap parts. I realize it is on the rather cheaper end of the price of mountain bikes...but not the $500 bikes or walmart bikes.

I bet you this would have been a great bike and I would have been very happy over it...if they would have put good quality tires on it. Or if I had enough money to waste another $60 to put good quality tires on it.

I am exhausted and bummed by the whole deal... 

Palisades Annual Proctoscopy

I spoke by phone in the annual meeting. It was horrendous all the sweet talking going on with Palisade and Entergy…they had finally seen the light. I said, this Entergy company killed one employee and injured 8 other by maliciously not following procedures a year ago.

I talked about the repetitive nature of events like security, the safety injection cooling water tanks, all the leaks and replacement of the CRDM, and the RCP pumps...it is disgraceful the NRC can't turn around a company at the first opportunity. The NRC just doesn’t have the skills and education to figure out what it takes to turn around company like Entergy. It is in all our interest not letting a company get this bad and it waste rate payers monies

 

Former Palisades workers claim retaliation for raising concerns

Former workers at the Palisades nuclear plant are accusing management of lying to regulators about attempts to fix a work environment where managers put a chill on critical feedback from employees.

The Palisades nuclear power plant near South Haven.

Thursday night’s meeting to review Palisades' performance last year started out pretty typically.
Regulators noted a survey that found security officers fear retaliation if they raise certain concerns.
Company officials got a chance to respond. Otto Gustafson, Director of Regulatory and Performance Improvement at Palisades, said management is taking the concerns very seriously and outlined a plan to correct the problem.

But then Chris Malich stepped to the microphone during the public comment portion of the meeting and called Gustafson and other officials out.

“I’ve seen it over and over,” Malich told regulators, “They’ve said things are going to change, things are going to change, and they stay the same.”

Malich says he worked security at Palisades from 2009 until he quit earlier this year.

Jessica Tenhagen followed Malich with more complaints. She worked at Palsisades since 2008. She believes she was fired last month because she continued to raise concerns about excessive overtime and a number of safety-related issues. She says management is well aware of the chilled work environment.

“I feel that Palisades management, all the way up the chain, is acting completely unethical. I believe they lie in their responses to (federal regulators). I believe they lie to the public. And the safety of the security officers, the public and the environment are put at risk if they’re allowed to keep running the facility under the same management,” Tenhagen said.

Chris Mikusko followed. He worked security at Palisades for 28 years. He says over the past three years, he and his co-workers repeatedly raised concerns to Palisades’ top manager, Site VP Tony Vitale.

"I believe they lie.... And the safety of the security officers, the public and the environment are put at risk if they're allowed to keep running the facility under the same management."

“It wasn’t just a sampling of the security force. It was the whole security force. All four teams brought up concerns of hostile work environment, chilled work environment, no communication. He listened to all four teams, all four of them and he says ‘I’m hearing the same message from all four’ and nothing was ever done,” Mikusko said.

Malich said he and others within the department believe Mikusko and another supervisor were fired in retaliation for continuing to raise concerns.

“They were looked at as being, as having a bad attitude because they weren’t going with management’s expectations – basically let it go, just let it go, keep letting it go, eventually (regulators) will forget about it and they’ll move on,” Malich said.

Entergy, the company that owns Palisades, would not comment on personnel issues.
But Gustafson did admit during his presentation there's a “fundamental” communications problem within the security department.

He says no one is being terminated for raising concerns, even though that’s the perception according regulators’ inspection. He says security staff needs to know about the company’s plan to improve the “safety conscious work environment.” He also says the company will work to make sure workers who raise concerns are getting updated on whether those concerns are being resolved.

“You obviously have a sender, you have a receiver, but the sender needs to validate that the receivers understood the message – we have failed with respect to that and we vow to improve that.” Gustafson said.

Regulators say it’s too soon to tell if anything the three former employees specifically raised will change their enforcement actions at Palisades.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Kenneth O’Brien, Deputy Director of Reactor Projects Division, noted some frustration with Palisades. The plant had to completely overhaul its internal communication efforts after a series of safety-related issues in 2011 and 2012.

“The fact that we identified this as a continuing issue is a concern to us. We would’ve expected your process, your corrective action program, to have identified that before we got there.” O’Brien said.

Failed Bolts Bedevil a Nuclear Plant

July 30

$ 33 million is mere pennies for these guys...it like the cost of a hair cut.

 An extended repair shutdown at PSEG's Salem Unit 2 nuclear plant helped shave $33 million from companywide earnings during the second quarter of this year, with profits off 36 percent overall compared with the same period last year.
Despite the result, Public Service Enterprise Group Chairman Ralph Izzo on Wednesday said the diversified company still expects to finish the year with operating earnings as high as $1.395 billion, with its activities "well-positioned to generate solid earnings and fresh cash flow."
Net income for the quarter ending June 30 was $212 million, down from $333 million last year, with income of 49 cents per share for the second quarter of 2014 compared with 48 cents last year and an estimate of 52 cents for this year.
PSEG, one of the nation's 10 largest electric suppliers, is a New Jersey-based energy holding company with four operating units and $30 billion in assets. Its units include PSEG Power, which owns the Hope Creek Nuclear plant and a majority share of the Salem Units 1 and 2 reactors, all on Artificial Island along the New Jersey side of the Delaware River southeast of Port Penn

Failed Bolts Bedevil a Nuclear Plant

Neil Sheehan

Public Affairs Officer

Region I

Truly novel issues are, generally speaking, few and far between at U.S. nuclear power plants. Whether it’s a specific type of pipe that springs a leak or an electrical relay that goes on the fritz, chances are good that the problem has been experienced before somewhere across the nation’s fleet of commercial power reactors during the many decades they have been in operation.

An issue that has drawn attention at the Salem Unit 2 nuclear power plant, a pressurized-water reactor in southern New Jersey, has to do with the failure of small bolts contained in four reactor coolant pumps. The bolts, measuring 1 inch in diameter and 4 inches in length, are used to secure a turning vane inside the pumps.

Ok, the huge events the NRC reports on with inspection reports. Say a huge blade flung off a impeller that can be seen up on the control room recorders and like another huge impeller blade stuck between the vessel and core flow shirt like in this past outage at palisades. All the other rather small broken blades or recirculation damaged discovered in a outage inspection is not reported to the public. Or operating outside the manufactures recommendations are not reported on. The plant does a lot of internal investigation and documentation…but the NRC never reports on these events until a big incident arrives on scene that embarrasses everyone.

These pumps stand about 30 feet tall and provide forced flow of coolant, or water, through the reactor to transport heat from the fuel to the steam generators. The steam generators, in turn, make use of that heat by converting it to steam. The steam is then piped to the turbine to spin it and generate electricity.

(This is the NRC blog picture...it is not the Salem pump with defuser. It is the wrong picture and it doesn't show a diffuser or turning vane.)  



As can be seen in the graphic, water is drawn upward through the suction nozzle at the bottom of the pump via an impeller. The turning vane directly above the impeller then redirects the water toward an opening on the side, from which it flows into the reactor vessel.

When a refueling and maintenance outage began at the plant this spring and evaluation and maintenance work got under way, a number of turning vane boltheads were found in piping associated with one of the reactor coolant pumps and in the reactor vessel. (Similar discovery of these boltheads, albeit just a handful of them, had been observed in two prior outages.) Subsequent reviews, which have now included the examination of all of the pumps, have identified dozens of failed or sheared turning vane bolts in all of them.

Each pump has 20 such bolts. (The arrow shows the approximate location of the bolts.) A majority of the failed boltheads, though separated from the bolt shanks, remained in place thanks to mechanical restraints or tack welds.

While this is not a significant safety concern in terms of potentially causing a reactor core damage accident, there are several related operational issues. For one, the boltheads are considered foreign material that could have an adverse impact on reactor coolant system performance if they were to impact key components inside the system. For another, the turning vane could conceivably drop down and come into contact with the impeller and impede or halt its functioning.

The cause of the bolts’ failure remains under review, but one possibility is stress-corrosion cracking. Indeed, the NRC issued Information Notices to the industry in the 1990s regarding this phenomenon.
A 1994 Information Notice put out by the agency was designed to make the industry aware of stress-corrosion cracking that caused turning vane cap screws to fail at the Millstone Unit 3 nuclear power plant. Also, a 1990 Information Notice discussed the failure of turning vane bolts at a foreign reactor.
In a 1995 Information Notice, the NRC made plant owners aware of the loss of integrity for bolt-locking devices in the turning vanes of reactor coolant pumps at the Seabrook nuclear power plant but for a different reason: flow-induced vibrations.

PSEG, the owner and operator of the Salem and Hope Creek plants, will have to not only repair the Salem Unit 2 pumps but evaluate what went wrong. For now, the plant remains out of service while this work is taking place. NRC inspectors and specialists will closely follow these activities.

One area for consideration will be whether the problem could have been avoided based on previously available information.

(Note: I believe diffusers and turning vanes are the same thing)

My Response on the NRC Blog:

Mike MulliganJune 26, 2014 at 11:49 am

My blog: http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/

Well, another question, why didn’t the NRC have the skills and education to figure out the importance of this emergent new information and use their influence to head off a worsening situation? I do get it with the NRC and these utilities with their nothing-ever-matters philosophies and every egregious and unprofessional behavior is always safe. Why can’t the agency use their influence and power to head off events like this for the good of the nation and the rate payers? Why is their so much unnecessary secrecy with RCP?

I request all plants with identical and similar pumps to be immediately shutdown for inspection…
What is the worst sin in this deal, this has been a cover-up! Events like this aren’t reportable with the RCP and recirc pumps and disclosed to the public. Why are problems like this so secret? All broken parts like this and inappropriate maintenance issues should be in a LER and discussed thoroughly in a inspection report. This doesn’t happen now and you know it! The Palisades PCP broken impeller pieces and blades flung all around in the coolant for over decades is an example of this also.

By the way, we are wondering if the broken blades in Palisades and the shutdown for the seal job ongoing now are related? What pump is the seal job? Is the seal job the same pump who was found with two huge missing impeller blade pieces this last outage?

• steamshovel2002June 26, 2014 at 2:16 pm
  

  I bet you Salem was operating outside the pump design and plant licensing like Palisades…this is cavitation and NPSH related?

 

• Call me crazy, I don’t think the NRC used the right reactor coolant pump picture. They got up the one without the diffuser?