Friday, November 20, 2015

Strange: New Senior Resident Inspector At Indian Point


Strange: New Senior Resident Inspector At Indian Point
November 20, 2015
CONTACT: Diane Screnci 610-337-5330
Neil Sheehan 610-337-5331
New NRC Senior Resident Inspector Assigned to Indian Point Nuclear Plant
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in King of Prussia, Pa., have selected Brian C. Haagensen as the new Senior Resident Inspector at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y. He joins NRC Resident Inspectors Sarah Rich and Garrett Newman at the two-unit site.
“Brian Haagensen has the experience and commitment to safety that will help the NRC in carrying out its mission of protecting people and the environment and ensuring the safe operation of the Indian Point units,” said NRC Region I Administrator Dan Dorman.
Haagensen most recently was a Resident Inspector at Millstone Station in Waterford, Conn. He joined the NRC in January 2005 as a reactor inspector and license examiner in the Region I office.
Prior to joining the NRC, Haagensen spent 22 years in private industry, working as the senior vice president at Sonalysts, in Waterford, Conn., and as the managing director and executive vice president of Performance Safety and Health Associates, Inc., in State College, Pa. He served in the United States Navy and Naval Reserves for 30 years, advancing from ensign to captain. Haagensen graduated first in his class and earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the United States Naval Academy. He also earned a master’s in physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. In 2001, he received the U.S. Navy Legion of Merit, which is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.
Each U.S. commercial nuclear plant has at least two NRC resident inspectors. They serve as the agency’s eyes and ears at the facility, conducting inspections, monitoring major work projects and interacting with plant workers and the public.
The Indian Point Resident Inspectors can be reached at 914-739-9360.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Lets "Red Team" Indian Point's Flooding Plan

Counsel On Foreign Relation

This isn't terrorism related...but how to severely disrupt the nuclear industry and NRC's self interested groupthink. To go at dangerous groupthink like a terrorist would. This below article explains how to do it?
 "“When you hear ‘best practices,’ run for your lives,” says retired Army Col. Gregory Fontenot, director of the “Red Team University” at Fort Leavenworth, Kan."
There is a big NRC and nuclear industry disruption story here over Indian's Point's flooding analysis. It is much like Arkansas Nuclear One's flooding barriers violations and it is a worst story than them. It is the NRC and Indian Point maliciously conspiring to violate the flooding regulations. It is a Walmart size cover-up. You can use a host of discombobulated engineering rationalizations to disable flooding protections because its just too expensive to back fit into a defectively designed mid 1970's era plant. You got a lot of crazy talk right in the documents?
You Tube: 'Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy'
If I was Entergy and the NRC, I would immediately shutdown Indian Point in order to protect the rest of the industry from the future blow back with the severe enforcement of safety flooding protection regulation. Maybe it is already too late. There is a nasty story to be told through what is in your documents. Just think about how this is going to look with all the vetting by Entergy and the NRC through relicensing. Nobody had the guts to pick up and clear the flooding violations? To make your flooding analysis and plans as pure are a virgin?
"Zenko interviews more than 200 experienced red-teamers, including white-hat hackers, senior corporate executives, former CIA directors and retired four-star generals, to assess the prospects for this small industry. Turns out, they’re an odd bunch. “Red teamers are weird,” Zenko writes. “They tend to be loners, mavericks, and arrogant, which is exactly why they think and act differently — the most vital skill of a red teamer.”" 
No question about it, I am a highly qualified "red team" person...
How to anticipate unthinkable terrorist attacks? Hire oddballs to think of them. 
D TEAM: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy
By Micah Zenko
Basic Books. 298 pp. $26.99 
The terrorists come to shore at the South Street Seaport and scatter throughout Manhattan on foot and in cabs. They detonate bombs and shoot civilians in Grand Central Terminal; they take hostages at Macy’s in Herald Square. Too late, authorities realize that the hostage-taking is a diversion allowing co-conspirators to massacre people in luxury hotels dozens of blocks away. The New York Police Department, outwitted and overmatched, quickly runs out of personnel to deploy. 
The events are fictional, but the failure was real enough, as Micah Zenko recounts in his grimly well-timed book, “Red Team.” It was a result of a simulation the NYPD carried out in 2008, a week after 10 members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group struck Mumbai in a horrific assault that hit luxury hotels, a train station, a Jewish community center, a cafe and other spots, using bombs and AK-47s to kill about 170 people. “It was considered such a potentially catastrophic scenario that additional exercises modeled on Mumbai were conducted in the following two years,” Zenko writes. 
It’s not entirely fair to read a book four years in the making in light of events that happen to occur at the time of its publication. But it’s certainly tempting. The coordinated Islamic State attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, which killed 129 people, have not just unleashed a transnational manhunt and the start of a “pitiless” war, in the words of French President François Hollande. They’ve also produced second-guessing about strategy and intelligence, as well as worries that soft targets around the world — including in Washington — could suffer similar tragedies. 
So, how to anticipate the unthinkable? Well, you could hire people to think of it. Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, lays out the uneven history and potential of “red teams” — small, expert groups of outsiders enlisted to find vulnerabilities, shake up preconceived notions and imagine the unimaginable, all in an effort to improve security and thinking throughout the military, intelligence and corporate worlds. 
The tale begins centuries ago, when the Vatican established the “devil’s advocate” to argue against proposed canonizations; ranges to the Cold War, when the Rand Corp. and the Pentagon assigned red teams to anticipate Soviet strategies and negotiating tactics; and expands in the post 9/11-era, when the CIA created its Red Cell team to “tell me things others don’t,” in the words of then-CIA Director George Tenet. 
Zenko interviews more than 200 experienced red-teamers, including white-hat hackers, senior corporate executives, former CIA directors and retired four-star generals, to assess the prospects for this small industry. Turns out, they’re an odd bunch. “Red teamers are weird,” Zenko writes. “They tend to be loners, mavericks, and arrogant, which is exactly why they think and act differently — the most vital skill of a red teamer.” They need a deep cultural understanding of the institutions they’re assisting, yet should remain independent of them. They must be talented writers and briefers, be skeptical of authority, have held multiple jobs in their fields, and be intimately familiar with “large systemic failures, which helps them envision future failures.” 
Indeed, Zenko’s most compelling stories are of failures, cases when red teams were not used or when their efforts were ignored, misused or precooked. He cites the after-action report on Operation Eagle Claw — President Jimmy Carter’s aborted rescue attempt for the American hostages in Iran — which found that Pentagon planners had “reviewed and critiqued their own product for feasibility and soundness as they went along.” (This underscores a key rationale for red-teaming: “You cannot grade your own homework,” Zenko reiterates.) After the 9/11 attacks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “was found to be conducting fraudulent testing of simulated terrorist attacks” against commercial nuclear plants, Zenko writes, including by giving a year’s advance notice so sites could beef up security. And in 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services hired McKinsey & Co. to “pressure-test” the Affordable Care Act’s federal marketplace, only to disregard warnings of likely glitches in the HealthCare.gov site. (Ask Kathleen Sebelius what happened next.) 
Zenko also highlights a 2002 war game that formed part of the Millennium Challenge, a congressionally mandated exercise aimed at exploring the military’s operational readiness for near-term conflicts. Widely considered to resemble the operational plan to disarm and depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Zenko writes, the effort was also meant to showcase the high-tech military transformation that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld championed. However, the red-team leader, retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, a skeptic of those efforts, quickly overwhelmed the simulated U.S. fleet with a barrage of missiles and speedboat suicide attacks. “The whole thing was over in five, maybe ten minutes,” he said. 
Except it wasn’t. Restrictions were placed on the red team’s subsequent actions — such as forcing it to position its air defenses in the open so the blue team could easily destroy them — that compromised the exercise. Van Riper sent a blistering e-mail to several military colleagues that was promptly leaked. (“Fixed war games? General says Millennium Challenge ’02 was ‘scripted,’ ” read the Army Times headline.) The problem, Zenko writes, is that both the red team and the military leadership had preconceived objectives going in, undercutting the exercise. 
The author highlights successes as well, notably the red-teaming of the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011 — both of the underlying intelligence and the logistics of the SEAL mission itself. Various analysts placed the probability of the al-Qaeda leader hiding out in the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, at 75 percent, 60 percent and even 40 percent, leaving the president to conclude that he basically had a coin-toss decision. “We were at 0 percent for a decade,” counterterrorism official Andrew Liepman explains, “so going from 0 to 50 percent meant a lot to everyone.” And the red-teaming of the raid prepared the SEALs for multiple eventualities, including, as transpired, the malfunction of one of their helicopters. 
Zenko outlines best practices for red teams, even though, he admits, that very notion is anathema to red teamers, who mistrust rules or guidelines. “When you hear ‘best practices,’ run for your lives,” says retired Army Col. Gregory Fontenot, director of the “Red Team University” at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where officers receive training in how to think critically, avoid groupthink and improve cultural empathy. Perhaps most essential to red-team effectiveness is that the boss of the organization undergoing the red-team effort must buy in to the idea, otherwise the team will be marginalized and underfunded, its findings ignored. 
Though sympathetic to his subject, Zenko is careful not to oversell. There can be a faux sex appeal to red teams. He notes that the CIA’s Red Cell team has cultivated “an air of mystery,” in part because of the eye-catching titles of its internal memos — “The View from Usama’s Cave,” for example — which it deliberately contrasts with the more staid reports of the intelligence community. Zenko says that in 2012, the team’s members even met with Foreign Policy magazine staffers for headline tips. “They wanted to know how our stuff went viral,” recalls Blake Hounshell, then the magazine’s managing editor. “The techniques that we considered to be ‘click bait’ were what they were most interested in.” Not the most encouraging use of tax dollars. 
So, could red-teaming somehow have prevented the Paris attacks? Zenko explains that the NYPD’s Mumbai-style simulation yielded specific improvements in preparedness, so there is hope. But anticipating all potential acts of terrorism is an impossible task, no matter how imaginative a team might be, especially when multiple institutions — spanning local and national authorities, military and intelligence agencies, and even cultural and sports organizations — must get involved. Still, Zenko offers a compelling argument for forcing ourselves to think differently, which is ultimately the main purpose of a red team. Even if we won’t know exactly what to expect, we might be better equipped to respond when the unexpected strikes.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Trusting Westinghouse at the New Plant Vogtle?

Toshiba stock price is down about 60% since the first of the year and Japan just entered a recession.
A big nuclear power plant project like this needs humongous financial forces behind them to complete the problem. These guys are all hobbled by credibility problems and are all financially weakened. The Southern Company is backing this big project and are in Cat 5 natural gas hurricane weakening their financial security though dropping grid electricity price problem.
Wiki: The AP1000 is a nuclear power plant designed and sold by Westinghouse Electric Company, now majority owned by Toshiba. The plant is a pressurized water reactor with improved use of passive nuclear safety.
Westinghouse being the reactor designer and now the construction contractor implies a conflict of interest and ethical problems over all safety issues. This project is heading towards a giant crash.
Reuters 11/18: Japan's securities watchdog is likely to recommend Toshiba Corp be fined about 7 billion yen ($57 million), a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in what would be a record in the country for accounting-related violations. 
Knowing the South, they will blame it on government and pawn off all the bad debts to the tax payers.

Japan’s securities watchdog eyes record ¥7 billion fine for Toshiba

Kyodo  
                
The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission plans to recommend imposing a fine of some ¥7 billion on Toshiba Corp. for falsifying its financial reports, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
The recommendation by the nation’s securities watchdog is expected to be made to the Financial Services Agency by the end of November, based on the financial instruments and exchange law, the sources added. 
Since improper accounting practices at its major divisions came to light earlier this year, Toshiba has made a spate of downward revisions to its past financial statements, totaling ¥224.8 billion on a pretax basis from April 2008 to December 2014.
The commission has judged that Toshiba falsified its financial statements and earnings summaries from fiscal 2010 to 2014, the sources said. 
Toshiba issued bonds valued at over ¥300 billion for that five-year period, which apparently led to the massive fine, according to the sources. 
The fine will top the previous record of ¥1.6 billion slapped on IHI Corp. in July 2008 for issuing falsified financial statements. 
Toshiba has set aside ¥8.4 billion for fiscal 2014 that ended this March to pay for potential penalties based on its own calculations. 
The systematic inflation of profits spanning nearly seven years has hurt public confidence in Toshiba — the manufacturer of products ranging from chips and personal computers to nuclear power plants — and raised the need for restructuring of its unprofitable businesses. 
Following the scandal, Toshiba revamped its management and increased the number of outside directors to improve governance. The company is seeking ¥300 million in damages from five former executives for their negligence. 
On Tuesday, Toshiba disclosed details about past write-downs totaling around ¥115.6 billion by its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. for fiscal 2012 and 2013.
It came after the Tokyo Stock Exchange took issue with Toshiba’s failure to disclose the write-downs worth ¥76.2 billion for fiscal 2012 due to the huge size of the loss.
Westinghouse to complete construction at Plant Vogtle, Georgia Power says

Westinghouse bought out nuclear construction business from orginal contractor CB&I

By Walter C. Jones Wed, Oct 28, 2015 @ 7:33 am
Westinghouse Electrical Co. will complete the contract, taking over for CB&I, the original contractor. 
Georgia Power is the largest owner and operator of the plant, along with Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and Dalton Utilities. 
Westinghouse and CB&I announced separately that Westinghouse bought CB&I’s nuclear-construction business for $229 million, which includes a contract to build two reactors at Plant V.C. Summer in South Carolina and nuclear plants in China, as well as the Vogtle contract. 
Westinghouse, in turn, hired Fluor Corporation to manage most of the construction. All the reactors are using the AP1000 design and represent the first reactors build in the United States in more than 30 years.  
CB&I will continue to supply some modules for the reactors as a subcontractor, the company said. Not included in the transaction is CB&I’s contract for work at the MOX nuclear-fuel conversion at the Savannah River Site. 
Construction at Vogtle has been dogged by delays and budget overruns. 
The Vogtle owners and CB&I were suing each other in federal court over who was responsible for costly delays. Tuesday’s announcement said those suits had been settled, with Georgia Power making at $350 million payout. The other owners are also paying additional amounts. Oglethorpe, which owns 30 percent of the plant, is paying $230 million.
“This settlement is extremely positive for the Vogtle project, and now the contractors can focus 100 percent on project execution,” said Buzz Miller, executive vice president of nuclear development for Georgia Power. 
According to Georgia Power’s announcement, construction at Vogtle will continue with Unit 3 coming online in 2019 and Unit 4 in 2020. 
The Georgia Public Service Commission hasn’t determined if customers will have to pay for any of the budget overruns. It will also have to decide who pays for Georgia Power’s share of the legal settlement.
Toshiba Shares Dive as Westinghouse Disclosure Spooks Investors

Impairment charges of $1.3 billion is latest news to shake investor trust

The Toshiba logo seen through a roof panel at its headquarters in Tokyo. Shares fell sharply Friday after the latest in a series of unusual disclosures. Photo: Reuters

By Takashi Mochizuki

Takashi Mochizuki

The Wall Street Journal


Nov. 13, 2015 4:50 a.m. ET

TOKYO—
Toshiba Corp. TOSYY -0.28 % shares fell sharply Friday after the Japanese electronics and industrial giant said its U.S. nuclear business, Westinghouse Electric Co., booked $1.3 billion in impairment charges, raising investor concerns about a new phase in a drawn-out accounting scandal.

It was the latest in a series of unusual financial disclosures that have shaken investor trust, even after Toshiba overhauled its board and senior management this summer to try to move on from
the scandal.

Toshiba said at an earnings briefing last weekend that Westinghouse’s plant construction business stalled after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan four years ago, but didn’t reveal the amount written down until late Thursday. The company confirmed the $1.3 billion impairment charges, which took place during the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years, after a report in Japanese magazine Nikkei Business.

“It’s a big amount,” said Naoki Fujiwara, fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management. “It would have been fairer had they disclosed that from the beginning.”

Toshiba shares closed at ¥295 on Friday, down 6% for the day and well below the ¥500 level in March, before the accounting problems came to light.

Toshiba said Friday that Westinghouse booked net losses in fiscal 2012 and 2013 as a result of the write-down, but it declined to provide figures, saying it is not the company’s policy to reveal detailed financial information on affiliates.

Tohiba said its evaluation of the nuclear business is consistent with U.S. accounting rules. It said Westinghouse took the charges because some of its product lines struggled, but added that Toshiba didn't need to write down the value of Westinghouse on the parent company’s books because the nuclear business is profitable and will remain so.

Helped by solid demand for nuclear fuel and maintenance work, Westinghouse turned a profit of $200 million to $300 million annually, on average, from 2007 through 2014, Toshiba says. Toshiba acquired a majority stake in Westinghouse for $5.4 billion in 2006, setting its nuclear unit as a core growth area. The company calculates the value of Westinghouse at ¥515.6 billion ($4.2 billion).

Toshiba shares closed at ¥295 on Friday, down 6% for the day and well below the ¥500 level in March, before the accounting problems came to light.

Toshiba is trading well below its book value, which is equal to assets minus liabilities. The company’s market capitalization stands at about Y1.25 trillion, compared with a book value of Y1.46 trillion, as of Sept. 30.

Analysts say the company’s drip feed of disclosures undermines the credibility of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to bolster the transparency of company finances and governance in a bid to attract more foreign investment.

“This is a typical example of Japanese companies, which often lack accountable management and get behind the curve when bad things happen,” said Akie Iriyama, an associate professor at Waseda Business School.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange has put Toshiba on its watch list.







A Old Security $70,000 Special Inspection At RIver Bend finding Decorum Problems

I wonder how these guys are doing today? 
OFFICIAL USE ONLY SECURITY RELATED INFORMATION 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

REGION IV 

EA-14-009 

December 3, 2014 

SUBJECT: CONFIRMATORY ORDER, NOTICE OF VIOLATION, AND CIVIL PENALTY- NRC SPECIAL INSPECTION REPORT 05000458/2014407 AND NRC INVESTIGATION 

REPORT 4-2012-022- RIVER BEND STATION 

Dear Mr. Olson: 

The enclosed Confirmatory Order is being issued to Entergy Operations, Inc. (Entergy), as a result of a successful Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mediation session. The enclosed commitments were made by Entergy as part of a settlement agreement between Entergy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The settlement agreement concerns an apparent violation of NRC security requirements as discussed in the non-public enclosures to our letter dated July 16, 2014 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) ML 14198A338). The apparent violation involved the willful actions of an unidentified security officer which occurred at Entergy's River Bend Station on March 18, 2012. The willful actions of the unidentified security officer caused Entergy to be in violation of Title 1 0 of the Code of Federal Regulations (1 0 CFR) Part 73, "Physical Protection of Plants and Materials." Our letter also informed you that the apparent willful violation was being considered for escalated enforcement action in accordance with the NRC's Enforcement Policy and provided you an opportunity to (1) respond to the apparent violation in writing; (2) request a predecisional enforcement conference (PEC); or (3) request ADR. In response, Entergy requested ADR to resolve differences it had with the NRC concerning the apparent willful violation. An ADR mediation session was held on September 22, 2014, during which a preliminary settlement agreement was reached. The elements of the preliminary agreement were formulated and are incorporated in the enclosed Confirmatory Order (Enclosure 1 ). 

This Confirmatory Order confirms the commitments made as part of the preliminary settlement agreement. In addition, this order includes a Notice of Violation (NOV) documenting the final significance determination of Apparent Violation 05000458/2014405-01 opened in NRC Inspection Report 05000458/2014405, dated July 16, 2014. The NRC and Entergy
Nobody knows what security officer did the dirty deed? Was it porn? Kinda impugns the integrity of all the security officers when nobody rats on their buddies.  
agree that the actions of an unidentified security officer at River Bend Station, on March 18, 2012, constitute a willful violation of 10 CFR Part 73. However, the NRC and Entergy disagree on the specific aspects of the willful characterization of the violation. At the ADR mediation session, Entergy agreed that a Notice of Violation would be issued. In addition, Entergy agreed to pay a civil penalty of $70,000 as part of the settlement.
Did not identify the individual responsible?  
While the NRC investigation did not identify the individual responsible for the security-related violation, the 01 Region IV Field Office did establish several facts that are germane to the conclusion of the investigation. Details of the security event and the subsequent inspection and investigation are described in Attachment 2 to this Order. Attachment 2 includes Security Related Information (SRI); therefore, it is not publicly available. 
A willful violation on a individual they can't identify?
The NRC determined that as the result of the willful actions of an unidentified individual, Entergy failed to comply with 10 CFR Part 73. 

The NRC and Entergy agree that a willful violation of Title 1 0 Code of Federal Regulations (1 0 CFR) Part 73 occurred on March 18, 2012, at River Bend Station. However, the NRC and Entergy disagree on the specific aspects of that willful characterization of the violation. The details regarding these aspects are described in the non-public Attachment.
What does SRI mean?  
Within 3 months from the date of this Confirmatory Order, Entergy will, at each of its nuclear plants, conduct a review of its controls for SRI and communicate to the NRC the results of the review. Within 6 months from the date of this Confirmatory Order, Entergy will establish new controls and will provide its proposed controls to the NRC for its review… 
I get it now, they didn't know compliance to rules was mandatory?  
Entergy will develop a "commitment to compliance" statement or a similar document highlighting the special responsibilities of nuclear security personnel. This document will explain that nuclear security personnel need to comply with regulations and procedures, and it will describe the potential consequences if compliance does not occur. Within 12 months from the date of this Confirmatory Order, Entergy will require at each of its nuclear plants that nuclear security personnel read and sign the statement (subject to any collective bargaining obligations it may have). Entergy will include the reading and signing of this statement in the initial qualification process of nuclear security personnel.
This secrecy isn't protecting us from terrorism> It's protecting Entergy from accountability. This is undermining our confidence in government using the fear of terrorism as a means to protect a corporate interest. 
The details are described in the non-public Attachment. 

Within 6 months from the date of this Confirmatory Order, Entergy will identify those security posts in each of its nuclear plants that should be subject to certain decorum
What is decorum standards?   
standards that will ensure a professional environment in those areas. Once identified, Entergy will establish decorum protocols for those security posts. In addition, within 6 months of the date of this Confirmatory Order, Entergy will provide its proposed decorum protocols to the NRC for its review. The NRC will communicate to Entergy any concerns regarding the proposed decorum protocols within 60 days of submittal for resolution in a manner acceptable to both parties. Entergy will implement the decorum protocols within 12 months from the date of this Confirmatory Order. 

Within 6 months from the date of this Confirmatory Order, Entergy will ensure that an independent third party
The NRC fears Entergy has a security force safety culture problem? It won't be the first time...Palisades has the same. How does the public know if they will be protected from a terrorism event at River Bend with security culture problem and decorum problems? The terrorist just by reading this NRC document would know this site is the weak link nationwide?  
conducts a safety culture assessment of the Security organization at River Bend Station. The results will be incorporated into Entergy's corrective action program as appropriate. A copy of the completed assessment will be made available for NRC review.

Monday, November 16, 2015

River Bend At Reduce Power Again

23 99%

22 99%

21 94%
 
11/19 98%

If this is some rendition of a rod pattern exchange, what a horrible was of money and capacity factor.  

update 11/18

Something is wrong here. A core misload or something? Are they battling wide spread fuel failures? This is occurring much too frequently and its deeply damaging plant capacity factor.
87%
November 10, 2015


River Bend Station began the inspection period with operators performing power ascension activities following a forced maintenance outage until 100 percent reactor thermal power was reached on July 4, 2015. It departed from full power as follows:

• On July 13, 2015, power was reduced to 65 percent for control rod suppression testing. Upon completion, power ascension activities were performed to reach 100 percent power on July 19, 2015.

• On September 4, 2015, power was reduced to 65 percent for control rod sequence exchange and scram time testing. Upon completion, power ascension activities were performed to reach 100 percent power on September 8, 2015.
 
Power remained at essentially 100 percent for the remainder of the inspection period.
Update 11/17

I guess if you are regulated it doesn't matter what your power history is.
June/July 2015 power problems
Maybe averaging 70% for the last three or four days. How can they make money this way?

The last five days power history:

88% 11/17

75%

65%

65%

100%

WSJ:More On Stranded Assets In the Ohio Electric Markets?



AEP, FirstEnergy proposals for users to bail out unprofitable plants spark critic

By Cassandra Sweet


Nov. 16, 2015 2:12 p.m. ET 

What should electric companies do with money-losing power plants when there is more than enough electricity available to satisfy day-to-day demand?

The answer isn’t to close the unprofitable plants, say two of the nation’s biggest electricity producers, but rather to shift the financial burden to consumers.

American Electric Power Co. AEP 2.09 % and FirstEnergy Corp. say they don’t make enough money selling the power from seven old, coal-fired generating stations and one nuclear plant in their home state of Ohio. They have set off a firestorm of criticism by proposing that consumers and businesses in the state should cover the cost of operating the plants.

The power companies argue they need to keep the surplus production capacity to make sure there is enough electricity when consumption spikes—such as during heat waves and blasts of Arctic cold.

  • October 1998

    Stranded costs, the potential losses to electric power utilities as their industry is deregulated, play an important role in the debate about restructuring the industry. Various electricity restructuring bills have been introduced into the House and Senate, but the questions of whether and how to compensate utilities for stranded costs remain a contentious and uncertain factor in the debate about restructuring.
  • This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper, prepared at the request of the House Committee on Commerce, provides a primer on the subject of stranded
    costs. It examines the economic implications of compensating utilities for such costs and discusses various actions that states and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have taken to address the issue. It also reviews various options for compensation and helps put possible federal actions into context. In accordance with CBO's mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, this paper contains no
    recommendations.

But consumer advocates, environmental groups, industry rivals and some of Ohio’s big electricity users, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., WMT 2.57 % don’t buy it, and the staff of the state’s Public Utilities Commission has recommended rejecting the companies’ request. Critics say the proposal could add as much as $600 million a year to customers’ utility bills over 15 years and give AEP and FirstEnergy an unfair competitive advantage.

Ohio regulators are expected to make a decision by March.

The Ohio battle is the latest chapter in a nationwide debate over who should foot the bill for power plants that could provide an extra margin of security during periods of extreme weather. It also shows how newer plants that burn cheap natural gas are reshaping the economics of producing electricity in many markets, putting a squeeze on aging coal and nuclear plants.

That is particularly true in Ohio and roughly a dozen other states where power plants compete against one another to offer the lowest-price electricity to the grid and utilities aren’t locked into buying power from a particular producer. In many other states, power markets are regulated, with producers selling electricity to their customers at prices monitored by regulators.

Columbus-based AEP has shut down two Ohio coal plants and plans to switch to natural gas to generate power. But the company’s older coal units will be necessary for several years to prevent power outages, said Nick Akins, the company’s chief executive.

“You’re looking for state backup to support these units running for a period of time until you can make the transition” he said.

The company, which delivers electricity to households and businesses in the state though its Ohio Power utility unit, wants those customers to pay its share of the costs of operating and upgrading six coal plants it co-owns.

In return, the utility would get AEP’s share of the power from the plants, which it would sell in the wholesale market. That would be a money-losing proposition under current conditions, but AEP says wholesale power prices are
These Electric utilities have constantly and vastly underestimated how the fracking miracle is going to effect their bottom line. They don't have any credibility anymore. In the coming years, it is going to be mind boggling shocking how persistent the low priced natural gas and all indications are the gas is going much more lower and profitable for the drillers. The efficiency of scale.     
bound to rise in the future, and utility customers would recoup the costs.

AEP’s plan would cost its customers $3 billion to $4 billion over the first decade, according to the Sierra Club, which opposes the plan because of concerns about pollution from the coal plants.

If regulators don’t go along, AEP says it might sell its shares in the plant. The company, which owns utilities in 11 states, reported a 5.2% increase in third-quarter profit to $519 million, but its revenue from selling power on the open market fell 7% from a year earlier.

Akron-based FirstEnergy says it would probably have to shut down a large coal plant south of Youngstown and a nuclear plant near Toledo if it can’t get the financial help it is seeking from utility customers.

“We wouldn’t have proposed something like this if they weren’t at some degree of risk,” said Bill Ridmann, a vice president at FirstEnergy.

FirstEnergy’s plan would cost its customers $3 billion over 15 years, according to Bruce Weston, the state Consumers’ Counsel, who represents residential utility customers in regulatory and court proceedings.

Last month, FirstEnergy reported third-quarter profit of $395 million, up 19% from a year earlier, but revenue at its unregulated power-plant business fell 6% to $1.3 billion.

The Ohio Energy Group, which includes large industrial energy users such as  NUE 1.16 % Ford Motor Co. F 0.86 % , support FirstEnergy’s plan, saying customers will benefit in the long term. The group’s lawyer, Michael Kurtz, said it doesn’t support AEP’s proposal because the plan would allow AEP to earn a profit of as much as 16% on investments in the plants, even if they lose money.

Ohio residents currently pay about 12.6 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity, up 3% from a year ago, but slightly below the national average, according to federal data.

Meanwhile, the amount of power generated has slipped 8% this year through August, compared with a year earlier, according to data from the Department of Energy.

Wholesale power prices in Ohio have averaged $46.44 a megawatt-hour this year, down 27% from 2014. But AEP and
Check out how wholesale prices on the NEISO gird have collapsed this summer, while consumers prices have been skyrocketing.  
FirstEnergy predict that prices will jump as early as 2019, allowing their utilities to make money from power sales, profits which they can pass on to customers.

AEP estimates higher prices in the future will bring its Ohio utility about $675 million over the first nine years, plus additional profit through 2050, while FirstEnergy estimates its utility customers will gain $2 billion over 15 years.

My Indian Point Nuclear Plant Problem: Huge Plant Design Flaw

Update 11/16: 

Hey, amazing timing.
Cuomo administration to NRC: Shut down Indian Point
 
November 16, 2015 at 3:47 PM
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Director of State Operations Jim Malatras on Monday penned a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calling for it to deny Entergy a new license to operate the Indian Point nuclear plant.

 “To be blunt, Entergy’s aging management plan is woefully inadequate,” Malatras wrote, pointing to aging infrastructure and recent “unplanned shutdowns.” Cuomo has long opposed the relicensing of the plant, due to its age as well as the unique security risks associated with its proximity to New York City and its northern suburbs.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks to reporters near the main entrance of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y. on Saturday, May 9, 2015, following a transformer fire. (Craig Ruttle, AP)
“Allowing Entergy to operate these facilities for another 20 years puts the lives of too many New Yorkers at risk and cannot be justified by Entergy’s present plan to address these defects,” Malatras writes.

The NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold an evidentiary hearing this week on Entergy’s application.

Entergy is expected to make the case that Indian Point is both safe and a necessary component of New York’s power supply system.
First published on Nov 15. Republished 

Why does the NRC treat Point Beach diesel generator postulated flooding as the severing of the eight inch fire water fire water piping, while the NRC at Indian Point uses only the piping on the deluge valve small bore automatic drain valve piping. It is similar to the small bore piping with the service water relief. The magnitude of the differences is some 50 grm versus 4300 gpm. 
“Near Street New” The Department of State in New York is attempting to block the relicensing application for the Indian Point generating station 24 miles north of New York City on grounds that it is harmful to the fish habitat of the Hudson River and a threat to the city's population. 
About 17 million people live within a 50-mile radius of the plant. The state says that it would be impossible to evacuate the area in the event of an accident, which is a risk given the seismic fault lines near the plant. 
The state also says this threatens the New Croton Reservoir, a major source of drinking water for millions of people. In addition, the plant kills billions of fish larvae each year, drawing 2.5 million gallons each day for cooling. A major estuary region downstream is affected, the state claims.”
It just might come down to keeping a fire water main pressurized to fight a fire or shutting down the fire main in order to not drive the plant into a station blackout by flooding out the safety 480 volt switchgear room. 

On the far side of the switchgear room is another door. It opens to one of two diesel generators. I think IP 3 has two diesel generators. Surprisingly the next leak in the deluge room threatening the safety switchgear buses, the NRC is allowing Indian Point to open up diesel generator room door such that the flooding switchgear room water drains into the diesel generator sump. Seems it has a larger sump pump.
“The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel will hold a hearing next week to gather information on whether Indian Point is ready to handle safety-related challenges for the next 20 years. 
Entergy Corp., which owns and operates the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, is seeking to extend licenses for its two reactors for 20 more years.
The panel's three administrative judges will ask questions to experts representing groups — including the state and Riverkeeper — who have raised safety concerns over license renewals because of Indian Point's aging facilities. 
A similar hearing was held at the same location in the fall of 2012, when the panel listened to concerns over both safety and environment. The upcoming hearing will focus on the remaining safety concerns, according to Diane Screnci, spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the panel's parent organization. 
"This is a very important part of the process," Screnci said of the hearing. "The license renewal process has the NRC staff look at whether there are safety issues, whether there are environmental issues that should preclude the issuance of licenses."”
Obviously Indian Point has large defective design problem. Check out how much this design vulnerability eats up precious and limited on shift human capital.