This guy has got to be a money maker for Entergy. What is it, a three week shutdown.
I believe this plant is a regulated plant. They get paid big bucks to make spectacular screw-ups! In other words, the state regulators (buddies) makes the ratepayers pay big bucks for the screw-up plus a godly profit markup.
update 2/3: It greatly disappointing River Bend is only at 57%.
2/4: cha ching- only at 78% last night?
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Monday, February 01, 2016
Columbia Fuel Defects
That is all we get on the
fuel pin defects in the new inspection report?
SUBJECT: COLUMBIA GENERATING STATION – NRC INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000397/2015004
November 8, 2015, power suppression testing to identify fuel defects
Columbia Nuclear Plant's Fuel Failure Problem
We need a timeframe on these event.
I believe in our pin steam explosion, this was a 2nd or 3rd time in the core. So it was leaking, then went through a outage and restart...then the pin popped.
I believe in our pin steam explosion, this was a 2nd or 3rd time in the core. So it was leaking, then went through a outage and restart...then the pin popped.
When I first arrived at VY, the primary system was pretty clean. In the early startup period (1970s), they have severe fuel leakage. This is how we got the AOG building. It was the pellet-clad interaction. We replaced our recirculation pipes in my early years. They chemically cleaned the primary system to reduce radiation for that. As a AO, I had to enter many high radiation rooms. Lets talk the clean up rooms and clean up heat exchanger room. I was required to enter these rooms in cloth cotton cloves, a lab coat and plastic booties. It was minimal radiation protection. All I had on me was my TLD to measure radiation. It took a minute to put my gear on and there was minimal rad protection bureaucracy to back me up. This is what you can with minimal radiation and contamination.
As I was leaving, I had to use a double full radiation suit on and a respirator. It take me about hour to get all dressed up. This was a result from our fuel failures. It was rad protection department intensive. A lot more of my precious time was devoted to getting dress up in full rad protection suits and getting undressed. There was a lot more plastic rad waste as a result. Cycle this through our plant and the industry in general in all the radiation jobs...the was a huge waste of money. You lost big time profits over this. It was a tremendous waste of resources. Remember if you contrast say a simple mechanical job in non radiation environment and same job in a radiation environment...we are talking about a huge expense. The contractor who does the job is going charge VY a lot more money for the job independent of the RP bills.
Our full cotton radiation suits had to be washed every time. They contracted these jobs out to laundry company in Springfield Ma. Their is a lot of people who never made though high school in my home town. I grew up in Springfield. It is a perfect environment for minimum wage jobs for life. So as our radiation problem built up, this laundry establishment got in trouble for discharging radiation into Springfield's sewer system.
All I am saying is, VY's radiation department budgets grew exponentially and especially with the foreign troops their brought in for RP protection in the outage. This justifies on a industrial scale not doing certain maintenance because our radiation levels were so high.
So here we sit on the razor's edge of profitability. I believe the huge radiation department budget is starving the safety and maintenance budgets. You can put off safety and maintenance jobs...the NRC will not let you cheap out on radiation budget. They will shut you down the job if you are skimpy and everyone knows radiation protection problems would be a big problem if it got into the papers.
I'd like to contrast the early operations of clean plant and end of operations with lots of fuel failures. Mostly you get a fuel failure, this radiation always stays in the plant...you going to be paying for the rest of the plant life.
So I believe you are stealing/shifting money for maintenance to plow into preventable radiation protection.
The fuel pin problems I discussed here was just the emergence of later huge problem with fuel problems by the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. The NRC had to intervene. The industry as a whole wasn't investing in cladding engineering. The fuel failure industry wide was massively proliferating. This is a reoccurring theme in many other areas. Not investing money in areas that are vital to the nuclear industry.
You know, contrast the lifetime dose of the "Board of Directors and CEOs"(minuscule) against the poor knuckle dragging slobs at the plant (huge). The guys at the plant have little control and "Board of Directors" call the shots. You can minimize dose to the your troops at the plant by spending a tremendous amount
That is what I always say as a whistleblower. It is a reoccurring theme. The company won't hurt you the most if they fire and blackball you when they steal your career. It is always the responses of your friends and family who will devastate you the most. Whistleblowers got around a 98% chance of getting divorced. My stupid wife is still married to me. We fought like maniacs in the years after my firing. It took her a decade to forgive me. My saving grace is I never drank booze in this period. I have been a recovering alcoholic since 1979. I still the jerk I always was and sober maybe worst.(I wrote this in 2010. I fixed it up a little from the first draft.)"In the early 1990’s, I am getting a little fed up with all the fuel failures in the plant...we can see contamination and radiation levels spiking up. The radioactive step off pads throughout the plant were proliferating...it was amazing. There is long lines at the final radiation detectors just trying to leave the plant. This is something new, we are all wondering if they got something wrong with the fuel load. The 1980’s were very clean years without fuel failures.
So I am up helping doing one start-up in the control room. We are taking turns pulling rods and doing the heat up. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, where we see huge spike in radiation throughout the plant. The alarms are going off everywhere, on the main steam lines, AOG...we watch them continue to trend up. We was completely baffled with what was occurring...panicking. Where is it going to end? The shift supervisor face was ashen colored. We are just about to scram the plant when the radiation levels leveled out. They stayed high for an hour just below the scram point...then they started coming down. But radiation level throughout the plant never returned to their original levels. Ever! Nobody ever seen this before. We continued on with the startup.
We had a terrible operational period, all sorts of pin hole leaks and high radioactivity. There was an assortment of symptoms...during rod exchange just months before the outage they had another huge radiation spike out of nowhere. It was during this period where I wrote my concerns to the Vermont governor. She responded.
As we got close to the outage, about a month out from it, I made another safety concern to the state and the New Coalition Of Nuclear Pollution.
So shoot me, this is my spin...England Coalition. I talked to one of the experts with the Union of Concerned Scientist. My crazy complaint was,
“they have fuel pellets rattling around freely in the primary coolant system”. Some fuel pellets separated from the pins. They were circulating in the coolant.
So it is about a year later. VY had canned me and I have talked extensively to the New Coalition of Nuclear Pollution. Their chairman says, I just got to tell you a story. You remember the fuel pellet story? After your teleconference with us and the Union of Concerned Scientist...the NECNP spokesman said what mike is talking about, with the fuel pellets being ejected from the pin had never happened in the nuclear industry before. That guy mike seems to be disgruntled and slightly mentally ajar (UCS). You need to stay away from him because he is untrustworthy. He is way out in space and his concern is preposterous. We at the NECNP believed him mike, the NECNP chairman said with a smile. That you are a little bit odd and fuel pellets being outside the pin. We didn't believe VY would operate in that condition. You can imagine our shock when after the first few weeks of that plant shutdown outage. The story was in a Brattleboro Reformer newspaper article. Actually the NECNP official got a call from the state nuclear engineer. We believed the UCS official that you were mentally unbalanced, but it ended up you were perfectly right. The article showed up saying a fuel pin at VY was mysterious discovered with a 8 inch gash in it. Eight fuel pellets were missing from the pin and nobody knows where they went. I told her I'd actually seen a picture of the gash from this outage. The lips of the gash were protruding out. There was a steam explosion in the pin and that expelled the pellets. The gash looked like a steam explosion!
You get it. Through this I dragged in a lot of NRC, state and media activity. The next step was telegraphing to outsider we are making changes at the plant and we got this under control. I am convinced Vermont wanted me out of the plant because I was giving the state a black eye. I am exhausted though all this activity. VY was in the process of yanking my license. Then we had the worst accident in the life of the plant. They were doing delayed and now improper maintenance in the switchyard. They were replacing the backup power safety circuits batteries. They were taking shortcut and they botched the job. They had degraded diodes in some circuits. It tripped at transmission breakers in the switchyard. We had degraded cooling to the Emergency Diesel generator, the only source of power at the plant. We had poor control of the plant by the control room and unexspected failure of safety equipment.I wanted to show everyone what I had under my hood. I made the concern known a few week before the shutdown through the state nuclear engineer, the newspaper article about the rattling loose fuel pellets in the recirc system. I wanted to get them on the record before they popped the reactor head off. VY responded to the article with ridiculing and belittled of my analysis saying it is absolutely impossible just before the outage. We know who made the complaint, he is a troubled employee. VY agreed with the Union of Concerned Scientist that it never happened before and it couldn't happen. This obviously was a very rare event.
When gash became seen a few weeks later from inside the fuel assembly inspection the state and the NRC demanded a thorough investigation. Vermont Yankee wanted to only inspect some limited bundles. The state made them inspect them all. It delayed the start-up. I told the state inspector VY is doing a very limited inspection and there is more damaged pins in the core. They even discovered more fuel failures over this in the state mandated inspection that the wasn’t seen on the first inspection. Can you even believe these guys with all their enemies closely watching them.
It should be admitted VY spent considerable sums of money doing an investigation of me on this. They back tracked the movement of the pin and me through history to see if I had the opportunity to sabotage the fuel. Me and the pin just never crossed paths!VY's theory was the pin developed a pinpinhole leak. The gas inside the pin escaped. It was replaced by some water. It turned into steam, then we cooled down. That created a vacuum. This drew in lots of water into the failed pin. It made the uranium pellets over moderated. We pulled a nearby rod to increase power during the startup, this severely overpowered the water filled pin with uranium pellets. It caused a rapid increase in temperature. A localized steam explosion was created leading to the pin 8 inch gash.
It was the first time this happened anywhere in the industry. I predicted it by analyzing the symptoms and what I observed in the control room. Got it written down as a safety concern in newspaper article before we could eyeball the damage.See, I don’t know about the worth on having ever decreasing margins of safety...trying to sit on the razor’s edge between unsafe and safe behavior. I have also thought we should define a barrier limit, say the integrity of the fuel cladding barrier, or our competence with absolutely containing radioactivity with the piping system and other components. This is not rocket science...it is simple and basic engineering.
It is a really big deal to have an uncontrolled release of radioactivity into the environment. I don't care how small it is! At least it is monitored and controlled. We know it before, and the magnitude, before the leak occurred and is discharged. That is called in total control of the radioactivity.
Basically, the symptoms of competence with a nuclear organization is the ability to contain radioactivity within these barrier pipes and reliable operation of the equipment. The behavior is independent of safety related. If a nuclear plant are breaching these barriers, it may not be safety related or a health consequence. But tho barriers we set independent of safety, no radioactive substance gets past these limits. If the radioactive substance gets past the barrier, that means the competence and skills of the organization are in steep decline. We have just become careless and lackadaisical with maintaining limits. There is something big going on what is incentivizing letting down our guard with maintaining a set barrier. If we were a really professional and competent organization, we never let our bureaucracy degrade to such a pathetic state. It is a leading indicator of a future breach of a safety (actual) barrier.
So an uncontrolled leak of radiation represent a collapse of basic engineering competence not necessity a safety barrier. What we know of these events it can cascade into further and deepening of engineering and organizational incompetence and carelessness. The idea that our engineering expertise, our highly expensive training and profession education...what we know is this carelessness and lackadaisicalness has the ability to pick up steam. It numbs us as the disease progresses. The inertia and velocity of the mental sickness is so severe it blows by us without any warning. It whizzes past the safety limit sitting on the razor blade edge of being safe/unsafe. The speed is so high the employees and the regulators can’t see the breaching of the safety barrier...or the complexity of the declining dynamic system are so enormous, we never understand a safety barrier has been breach or a new type of accident is developing.
The problem is what if we are juggling with too many balls in the air. Then a new stressor shows up. This is when we lose track of all the balls, and they all fall to the floor.
When Entergy withholds information from the community...the first one they hide information from is the offending organization itself. You blind yourself before you blind the community. Entergy blinds themselves.
If the community can see, that means you can see?"
Entergy Going Through Chief Nuclear Officers Like Diarrhea
Entergy names 30-year industry veteran and global business leader chief nuclear officer
Monday, Feb 01, 2016
Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) announced today that A. Christopher "Chris" Bakken III has been named executive vice president and chief nuclear officer for Entergy Corporation, effective April 6. Bakken replaces Jeff Forbes, who announced his retirement last year. As a member of the Office of the Chief Executive, Bakken will report to Leo Denault, chairman and CEO, and he will be based at Entergy's nuclear headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi.
In his new leadership role, Bakken is responsible for executive oversight of the safe, secure and reliable operation of Entergy's nuclear plants located in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Michigan, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, as well as the company's management services to the Cooper Nuclear Station for the Nebraska Public Power District. Bakken will also be responsible for building and strengthening relationships with external stakeholders, while becoming an engaged company representative to the industry...
In his new leadership role, Bakken is responsible for executive oversight of the safe, secure and reliable operation of Entergy's nuclear plants located in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Michigan, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, as well as the company's management services to the Cooper Nuclear Station for the Nebraska Public Power District. Bakken will also be responsible for building and strengthening relationships with external stakeholders, while becoming an engaged company representative to the industry...
How Much Are You Worth?
I am waiting for the USC to work on risk perspectives and PRAs. Basically the chance of a accident or incident per year.
I'd say it corrupt by the complexity of the calculation corporations uses. The calculations are not based on science and facts, but on these official's assumption not understandable and qualified.
We should all start by the maximum possible economic damages a local community and nation could face in the worst meltdown possible.
Risk is consequences plus frequency...
December 22, 2015U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission //Washington, DC 20555-0001Union of Concerned Scientists Comments on Draft NIRG-1530, Revision 1, "Reassessment of NRC's Dollar Per Person-Rem Conversion Factor Policy," Docket IDNRC-2015-0063Dear Ms. Bladey,I am pleased to submit the following comments on Draft NUREG-1530, Rev. 1, on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). UCS apologizes for its late submittal and would greatly appreciate NRC consideration of these comments.
Summary
UCS strongly supports the proposal to update the badly outdated $2000-per-person-rem conversion factor and to develop a process for periodic review. The NRC continues to rely on a parameter that has not been updated in 20 years and is based on a value of a statistical life (VSL) far lower than the values used by other federal agencies. Use of this dated and out-of-step parameter is simply bad regulatory practice and leads to flawed analyses that undermine the credibility of NRC decisions. It is essential that federal agencies strive to achieve consistency in their respective regulatory analyses to enable meaningful assessment of federal actions that may have cross-cutting environmental and public health impacts across different sectors.However, as a caveat, UCS does not support the use of regulatory cost-benefit analysis based on overly narrow definitions of costs and benefits and reductionist formulas to monetize the public health benefits of regulations. The federal government should undertake a comprehensive reform of these practices. However, as long as the NRC and other federal agencies continue to rely on such analyses, it is imperative that the methodology they use is rigorous and is based on technically sound quantitative data.Derivation of conversion factor
The proposed approach the NRC staff uses to choose an updated value of a statistical life appears generally reasonable. The best estimate value of $9 million in 2014 dollars, as well as the low and high estimates for use in sensitivity analyses, was chosen to be consistent with the current VSL values used by other agencies.However, UCS has concerns about the NRC staff's choice of radiation risk coefficient, which is the other parameter that is used to derive the conversion factor. The underlying risk coefficient of 5.7xlO0- per rem, chosen to be consistent with International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) publication 103, is supposed to represent the weighted risk associated with both fatal and nonfatal cancers, as well as heritable effects. However, the parameter is smaller than the risk coefficient for cancer mortality alone recommended by the National Academy ofSciences' Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) VII conmmittee, which is approximately 5.8xlO0- per rem, and well below the BEIR VII recommendation for cancer incidence, 1.16xl0-3 per rem. Moreover, the coefficient does not take into account the risks associated with other diseases now understood to be associated with ionizing radiation exposure, such as cardiovascular disease. NUREG-l1530 Rev. 1 itself concedes that its choice of risk coefficient "may underestimate the U.S. population risk by as much as 30 percent," but does not explain why that is acceptable.Consequently, UCS believes that the best estimate parameter for exposure to low-dose and lowdose-rate low-linear-energy-transfer (LET) radiation of $5,100 per person-rem (2014 dollars) is not clearly justified and is likely too low.UCS also strongly endorses the adjustment of the conversion factor to take into account high dose and high dose rate scenarios, as well as exposure to high-LET radiation, where appropriate, as outlined in Appendix B of NUREG-1530, Rev. 1. NRC currently does not take these important considerations into account in its regulatory analyses. In fact, the MACCS code used in the NRC analyses does not compute separate population dose values for those exposures where a dose and dose-rate effectiveness factor (DDREF) should not be used. Thus, these analyses generally underestimate the magnitude of cancer induction associated with a given population exposure.Periodic updating of conversion factors
UCS supports the approach outlined in NUREG-1530, Rev. 1, to systematically review and update the conversion factors to keep them current by considering both changing economic conditions and new scientific developments. To that end, UCS agrees that the conversion factor should be expressed to two significant figures. However, the NRC staff should make clear that this choice is needed to properly account for updated values but does not reflect a technical judgment that this highly approximate concept can be quantified to such precision.Thank you for your consideration of these comments.Sincerely,Dr. Edwin S. Lyman ASenior ScientistUnion of Concerned Scientists1825 K St, NW Ste. 800Washington, DC 20006(202) 331-5445elyman~ucsusa.org
Natural Gas Plant Also Eyed In "Hinsdale, NH"
Originally published on 9/20/15 Republished.
Updated 1/29/2015
Keene Sentinel reporter Meghan Foley cold called me yesterday. It was ok she called me and we had a pleasant talk. She wanted to know where I got information on a natural gas plant coming to Hinsdale reported on this blog article. I told her the Hinsdale residents knows me as a crazy old loony tunes whistleblower who is always is riding his mountain bike on the town roads and trails. I told her a highly connected Hinsdale resident cued me that people were looking at town property hoping to put in a large natural gas plant in town. I reminded her these power plant speculators are alway planting bum stories in competing towns hoping to get a better deal from the hard up and depression towns. Generally I am a information hound. If you come to me for information, then I expect you to give me similar quality information back. We are trading information between us. She was pretty closed lipped about why she was looking for this information from me. God damn newspaper reporters all of them.
Republished from 9/20/3015
Yep, they been eying a specific piece of property and doing studies in Hinsdale. A huge solar project and now a giant natural gas plant in Hinsdale's future.
“We’re likely not the only town in this corridor that’s thought of this,” Rasmussen said."If it is big enough it could make up for VY and Pilgrim.
It just remind us of how we are in such a deflationary environment.
We'd be way sympathetic to a business in Hinsdale. Bet, you wouldn't have to pay taxes for a decade here?
Hint, the Vernon selectmen are erratic and extremely unreliable... they are all fruit cakes over there...can't keep their word.
Hinsdale is really hungry.
Right, they are playing Hinsdale against Vernon...
Just saying, what site has the shortest natural gas pipeline distance to the main line? They'd have to go back across the Connecticut River. This is really expensive :)
Looking at this area's highest interest, I am completely and utterly a natural gas electric plant proponent. It would be way better than foreign electricity from Canada. We have a American source of energy and it would be produced in the USA.
GO USA!
Natural gas plant eyed in Vernon
Mike Faher Sep. 20 2015, 11:30 amVERNON – In a town hit hard by the shutdown of Vermont Yankee, officials say a natural-gas plant – with development costs estimated at $750 million – may be in the works.
The optimism in Vernon is carefully qualified, however. For one thing, the plant is far from a sure bet, and it’s not yet been disclosed which sites are under consideration. Also, there have been a few recent hints of opposition from the general public, though the town government has been generally supportive of the concept so far.
But this much is clear: Vernon Planning Commission has been meeting regularly with a coordinator and potential developer who is interested in pursuing a gas plant that would tie into the proposed Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project in neighboring Massachusetts.
Power lines cut across a Vermont hillside. Photo by Josh Larkin/VTDigger
“We’ve probably got four or five sites under consideration,” said Don Campbell, a Winhall resident who has experience in utility finance and is guiding the gas-plant effort. “The one that we would go forward with is the one that has the most appeal to Vernon.”
A meeting to gauge the public’s support for a plant proposal may be imminent, and those who are backing the project say time is of the essence.
“We have an opportunity to cause this to happen now,” Campbell said. “We won’t have that opportunity in another year.”
Vernon, like all of Windham County, still is in the early phases of grappling with the economic blow of Vermont Yankee’s shutdown. The workforce has been cut roughly in half since the plant stopped producing power Dec. 29, and more job losses are scheduled for 2016.
Decommissioning the plant is expected to take decades, and spent nuclear fuel will be stored on site for the foreseeable future. So those involved in the gas-plant effort are quick to say that they are not looking to redevelop the core Vermont Yankee property that will be encumbered with long-term nuclear-regulatory issues.
At the same time, the group sees value in the electrical infrastructure that served Vermont Yankee for four decades.
Bob Spencer, chair of the Vernon Planning Commission, said at a recent meeting that a natural gas plant in the vicinity of the Vermont Yankee plant is “the most-obvious choice.”
“And it’s an economical choice for the developer because of the connection to the existing power lines and the other infrastructure that’s there – whether it’s on Entergy property or adjacent property,” Spencer said.
Campbell said the town is evaluating “all the options” for reusing the Vermont Yankee infrastructure “that has continued value.”
Campbell and a partner in the venture, Brattleboro resident Hervey Scudder, are no strangers to Vernon. Last year, they sat down with the Selectboard to discuss the possibility of a biomass-fueled power plant with a possible natural-gas component.
Complications with that proposal, including the controversy that has plagued some biomass projects, led to the idea being scuttled. “We just concluded that would be too heavy of a lift,” Campbell said.
Now, attention has turned to a fully gas-powered plant. The key component of Vernon’s idea is the proposed Northeast Energy Direct gas pipeline, pursued by Houston-based Kinder Morgan as a way to bring large quantities of relatively cheap natural gas from the shale fields of Pennsylvania to the New England market.
Kinder Morgan maps show the pipeline curling out of New York state and into northwest and north-central Massachusetts before turning north into New Hampshire and ultimately terminating in Dracut, Massachusetts, on that state’s border with New Hampshire. The project has not yet received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but Kinder Morgan is projecting that the pipeline could be in service by late 2018.
Advocates for a Vernon gas plant can see that, on the pipeline’s route through Massachusetts, it passes tantalizingly close to the Vermont border. Campbell said a 7-mile spur running along existing utility infrastructure could reach Vernon.
Campbell said he has been in touch with Kinder Morgan, where a spokesman for the pipeline project did not respond to a request for comment. He has not yet contacted federal or state officials.
But Campbell said he has been busy assembling a “first-tier” development team for a potential Vernon gas plant including technical, financial and legal partners. He declined to name those partners but said they “are very close by. I’m going back to New York on a regular basis.”
Campbell said he is relying on his experience and expertise to piece together the Vernon proposal. He worked as an investment banker “specializing in investor and publicly owned electric and gas utilities for two decades.” He lists Kidder, Peabody & Co.; Credit Suisse First Boston; and Paine Webber on his resume. In Vermont, he has set up a company called Stonewall Energy Advisors LLC.
But those credentials, and the groundwork already laid for the gas project, may not mean much without a go-ahead signal from Vernon. Campbell repeatedly said that, without broad support in the town, the project won’t proceed, and he resists the term “developer” at this stage of the game.
“We’re supporting Vernon as facilitators,” Campbell said. “When Vernon says, ‘Now you’re charged (with pursuing a gas plant),’ then we’re wearing the developer hat.”
“If it’s right for the town, and there’s town support, then we’ll go the next steps,” he added. “We have zero commercial relationship with anybody. The only master we have is with Vernon.”
Vernon Planning Commission, given that its mission includes land-use planning and economic development, has been talking with Campbell and Scudder throughout 2015. At a recent meeting, Spencer assured Selectboard members and residents that the commission has been acting in an advisory and information-gathering role. He also noted that Vernon has no zoning regulations.
“We have no authority or approval process as a planning commission,” Spencer said. “We’re doing this more as informational and actually trying to give feedback when they ask us a question.”
While not advocating for a Vernon gas plant, Spencer and other planning commission members say they believe there is a place and a need for such a project in the area. They cite the loss of Vermont Yankee’s 650 megawatts of power generation, and they argue that renewable energy alone cannot keep the electric grid stable.
“If we’re going to achieve our (renewables) goal, we’re going to have to do things like this gas plant,” said Patty O’Donnell, a former Selectboard chairwoman who now serves on Vernon Planning Commission. “There is going to be a gas plant somewhere, because the region needs it.”
Such a project would not come without controversy. If the Vernon initiative moves forward, there will be questions about the safety and environmental impact of a gas plant, not to mention concerns about natural-gas extraction itself: Both Vermont and New York have banned the practice of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.
Later in the Aug. 31 Vernon Selectboard meeting where Spencer gave his presentation, resident Bronna Zlochiver flatly declared, “For the record, I am opposed to a gas-powered plant coming to Vernon.”
Officials say they expect to soon take the gas-plant proposal – with more detail than is currently available – to the townspeople. Vernon Selectboard Chairwoman Chris Howe said she believes the Planning Commission is “doing a fantastic job,” but she wants more public input soon.
“As far as the gas plant goes, I don’t have any comments to speak of one way or the other as of yet,” Howe said. “I really think, though, that it is important to let the people of Vernon decide if we should pursue this any further.”
Planning Commission member Janet Rasmussen said that’s the intent, but not before there is more to talk about. The idea is that, “when we come to the town, we can present you with as much information as we possibly can, which we don’t have yet,” she said.
Looming above the debate is the idea that, even if Vernon decides it wants a gas plant, it may not get one.
“We’re likely not the only town in this corridor that’s thought of this,” Rasmussen said.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Saturday, January 30, 2016
End of Giant El Nino January 2016
It is crazy me on the bike. I am having a utter blast on the ice.
Snow fell on wet ice and refroze. The snow is about a quarter inch thick. My wheels have a lot of friction, but the snow is thin enough it doesn't exhaust me. This is the Connecticut River setback in Hinsdale NH. I was all over miles of this setback and it was so sweet. There is alway a bit of excitement being on ice with a bike.
We are at the end of January, with so far mostly above normal temperatures. The setback just began freezing up about three weeks ago for the first time. We had about of week of really cold weather since then. Thus the ice fishermen tell me the ice is six to eight inches thick. Plenty thick. I have been riding my bicycle this winter more than I did last summer. My resting heart beat in a day last week in the morning was 51 beats per minute.
The sun was recently going down a depressing before 4:30 pm. It is now going down at about 5:05 pm. Got another week of warm weather ahead of us. So that is three weeks left of winter. Is the winter really over for us already? It is really sweet with that extra half hour of daylight. The pace or rate of increasing minutes per day is just starting to pick up big time.
I am going to experience another spring green-up :)
More Columbia Whistleblower
Updated 2/1
(fixed up better)
(fixed up better)
05000397
My early problem (VY) was picking an issue I though would motivate the officials I was communicating to. We were amidst a blizzard of big problems. I had to pick two or three problems I thought would stick. I worried if I pick my biggest concern, the suits would easily shoot it down and I would have no credibility. So I picked three issues out of hundreds or thousands.
1) If we had a big fire at Vermont and had to shutdown and cool the plant down remotely...we were required to prove we had a workable system for this. This came fro the Browns Ferry fire and TMI accident. The system was never even tested for the life of the plant. This system was unworkable at the plant. It still is unworkable. I call this a show system for public consumption never designed to work. It was a paper Mache safety system. In paper only
2) We are required to have two operable fuel pool pumps at the plant. One is operating and the other was in standby. This is the one that captured the imagination of Vermont and Gov Kunin. One pump was damaged with a shorting motor. We were required to shutdown the plant in a month if they couldn't fix the broken pump. We were out a year and the pumps was still broken. We operated another year with NRC permission. It bother all the employees we were openly violating the NRC rules and it was acceptable to the NRC. This particularly perturbed Vermont. We always knew Vermont was a paper tiger at the plant. The Vermont nuclear engineer couldn't even come on to the site without permission and scheduled visit. We always scoffed on how stupid Vermont was?
This concern were designed for this. VY was supposed to keep the state up to date with all safety components that had problems and off normal conditions. Vermont thought they violated this voluntary agreement. Vermont Yankee and Vermont then wrote up a memoranda of understanding with interaction of each other. Vermont never had to play the "mother may I" game ever again. You get it, the issue was always about a greater policy issue.
3) Fix and understand our massive fuel failure problem.
It is a horrible situation to be in, when all the organizations around you are brain dead. Your group, the state and Feds, the news organization itself...it is a horrific situation to be in. Washington state has a much higher nuclear related economic percentage than Vermont. So the head winds are much more severe than my situation. Many more jobs are on the line.
People think reporters and the media are liberal leaning. The retail, local business establish and corporations are the guys who pays the freight mostly with the new media. These guys are predominantly teabagger republicans. They think we are all mushrooms. Insiders know it is just the opposite the news media is liberalism. It comes to the point when you see all your issues(nuclear power)in your letters as being expressed through individual and corporate lens. They will put their own spin for their own reason on your issues. The media is hyper circulation sensitive. The news media is particular afraid of expensive legal suits. The pro nuclear forces have a huge infrastructure. So these forces can create a expensive legal suit independent of the facts for a struggling newspaper. The newspaper people are basically ignorant about nuclear plant issues, so they can't understand the risk of publishing your concern. Their ignorance translates they fear a legal risk...so they won't publish your issues.
These corporate structures like a nuclear plant are wizards at not putting on paper the shortcuts and risk they take for profits...their vulnerabilities. They got a pretty big infrastructure for that. I'd get pretty frustrated over the newspaper idiots. These reporter idiots would whisper in my ears translated into, we would never trust you,(they thought I was a idiot)you got to steal documents from the plant order for us to publish your issue. That is when I start spiting and screaming into their faces. I'd tell them with my intelligence, I am the guy who forces the plant bureaucracy to write the documents you want me later to steal. My fundament job here with you reporters is to force my organization and the feds...to cause the bureaucracy to document the known secrets, risk and vulnerabilities they are all afraid to put in paperwork. You just got to get over it, everyone hates you. This really is a deep corporatized system at all levels. It's the 1 percenters against everyone else. What you are doing is uses power and influence on your own accord. On a fundamental psychological level with the bottom-mid level people like reporters and outside people...your are upsetting the corporatized apple cart. Everyone realizes(outside your plant) in their own endeavors, a whistleblower could justly and unjustly disconnect them and their family from their income stream by expressing a secret truth everyone already knows. The good life could be over. You make everyone nervous by using power for your own reason. So there might be a façade people who shallowly admire whistleblowers and truth tellers...but in 99% of their minds everyone hates you. Believe me, just by getting these truths out to the all, whether successful or a grand failure... your life, what is in your head, will never be the same again. There is no going back. Most people get use to or are content with just being rock no boat.
***I am going to tell what is going to haunt you for the rest of your lives being a ex whistleblower. I don't think you can ever undo being a whistleblower, the mental disease is irreversible. Going into this thing you think its the 1%ers or corporatist. It is the elites selfishness and narrow-mindedness. Post whistleblower, you are going to know its the multitudes who knew what was going on and didn't have the fortitude to act on what they knew. It was your blood brothers and sisters buddies who you worked with for years and decades who are the root culprits. You will see this same theme being played out for the rest of your life. You will be among the few who see the magnitude of our problem. You will be fighting losing battles for the rest of your life. It is the multitudes whose souls that are spoiled. God or the universe has chosen you to fight losing battles for the rest of your life. If you are carefully self reflecting on your life's history, you will see your soul as spoiled as any of your brothers and sister in the multitudes. Maybe even much more worst. It huge income stream at VY I was worst. One day I just woke up. Your first cry to outsiders for help was when the train jumped the tracts permanently. I can not overstate this....it is a massively transformative point in your life. Nobody will understand you for the rest of your life. Everyone is going to hate you for the rest of your life because you are unnerve everyone's so called stability. From now on, when the multitude see you, your will become a mirror. You will remind people they lead their lives on leash and they are enslaved. You will always carry a wisp freedom most people don't have...they will be jealous of it and it will always unnerve their slavish existence. Everybody will deeply and psychologically always hate you for the rest of your life. You will be forever reflecting back to the multitudes the world woes.
The God that I know is perfect and ever loving.
The body and soul who houses me is weak and insecure.
The problem with new whistleblowers is they can't imagine how future events will psychologically affect them. So after years of the system ignoring them, they realized the power they really got. It goes to their heads. I have to the power to change any event I want. This stuff is terrifically addicting.
***********
- These events are traumatizing the whole staff.
- When I was a active anonymous whistleblower at VY, they affectionately called me the anonymous alligator. We all had a wicked sense of humor. They would talk about me right in front of me. They didn't know who I was.
- We had in plant newspaper...the plant of the day. Everyone, even when plant management was around, would kid the "plan of the day" is junk. If we what to really want to find out what's going on at the site, we'd read the Brattleboro Reformer. The newspaper is more up to date and accurate than plant communication and the plan of the day.
- Everyone at the plant was excessively talking about the whistleblower especially in the highly technical cohesive jobs. The site becomes consumed by the speculation if issues were being driven by the whistleblower. I got blamed for a lot things I didn't do and they all missed the big things I was involved in. I even had to admit I was becoming a distraction to safe plant operation.
- If there is a wiff of knowing who the whistleblowers are... other employees will go the whistleblower hoping he will fix their problem. I had security guard come to me with their problems. Upper management put me under special watch by the security guards, they figured out I was the whistleblower. I reformed the security department over these secrets. Got a expensive main security gate house replaced and they brought a knew security vendor to come in a run the plant over our secrets.
- Lets say a middle manager is angling for the job his boss has. He'd come to me with dirty linen on the boss hoping I could take him out. I took out a few executives this way. A middle manage would have a grudge on his boss, he'd come to me with dirty linen hoping to settle scores.
- I had a scandalous issue with a operation big wig. Had him dead to rights. This guy railed about the enemy whistleblower. I knew his family and kids. I had his career in my hands. I withheld my fire on him. It is my big regret at the plant. I should have immediately called a news conference.
- You get it. I eventually filed six whistleblower lawsuits. In the pretrial hearings, they disputed all the prior issues I was involved in. We was looking to gain my credibility. I wish I could get a do over. They either said they never got my message or the issues was created by somebody else. Where is you proof? You got to find a way document everything with court level quality.
Our cell phones and modern internet connections...our new interconnectedness....goggle, yahoo, blogging and cell phone pictures ...I don't have that in 1992. These miracles with new technologies confer a lot of power to the whistleblower in you know how to leverage it.
- "Energy Northwest officials have signed non-disclosure agreements and are ethically and legally bound to uphold them, said Energy Northwest spokesman John Dobken."
January 29, 2016 7:23 PM
Energy Northwest board hires independent investigator
Unsigned letter says unsatisfactory performance of Richland nuclear plant being hidden Energy Northwest official says letter’s allegations lack context Executive board says results of independent investigation will be made public
By Annette Cary
The Energy Northwest executive board is hiring an outside attorney to investigate allegations in unsigned letters sent in the past few weeks to some board members. The letters allege information about sub-par performance of the nuclear power plant near Richland is being hidden from Energy Northwest governing boards, employees and theThis is from one scared employee trying to encapsulate the feeling of his buddy employees. He know all the other employees are too terrified with losing their jobs.
public. Although unsigned, the letters say they are from a group of unnamed Energy Northwest employees. “The executive board takes this matter very seriously,” said Sid Morrison, executive board chairman, in a letter sent to employees Thursday.
Operations at the Columbia Generating Station compare poorly to many of the other 98 commercial nuclear power plants in the nation, the letters allege, based on rankings prepared by the nonprofit Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, or INPO.Energy Northwest is a public agency, but it does not release INPO ratings. It says that all nuclear plants agree that INPO measures are proprietary to ensure the free flow of information among the owners of the reactors.
Energy Northwest officials have signed non-disclosure agreements and are ethically and legally bound to uphold them, said Energy Northwest spokesman John Dobken.We have seen a steady decline of the index with a return to low levels.Unsigned letterThe first letter, which is not dated, reminds board members that Energy Northwest was rated as one of two nuclear plants in the nation in greatest need of operational and human performance improvement in 2010.
Its INPO index rating improved as a new leadership team, headed by Mark Reddemann, was put to work. However, the improvement was not sustained, the letter said.“We have seen a steady decline of the index with a return to low levels,” the letter said, adding that the plant has ranked in the bottom 25 of the nation’s 99 operating commercial reactors since the end of July.That coincides with the conclusion of a refueling outage that was planned to be longer than usual. Energy Northwest’s intent was to improve productivity long-term, but the longer outage would reduce productivity short-term.However, the outage had unanticipated consequences. It lasted longer than planned, and the plant was operated at reduced power for several weeks after the outage as a stuck valve was repaired. Index points also were lost because of worker exposure to radiation.By September, the plant’s INPO rating had dropped to the 85th worst in the nation, the letter said.
Three months later, employees were told it then was ranked among the bottom 25 plants because of two pinhole fuel leaks discovered in the fall, according to the letter.The letter accuses management of keeping the plant online at all costs, pointing to the decision to continue operating at 65 percent power during the valve repair. Unwanted material that got into the reactor core during the valve repair may have been responsible for the pinhole leaks.Letter alleges $35,000 Nuclear Regulatory Commission fine stemmed from two guards taking nude photos while on duty.The letter also addressed the $35,000 fine Energy Northwest paid the Nuclear Regulatory commission, which was unrelated to the outage. The fine was paid after two security officers were found to be inattentive at their posts. The letter said the guards were taking nude photos while on duty.It also alleged that a security officer was playing a geocaching game on duty. Gamers were invited to attempt to enter a controlled area for the nuclear plant via an online game app.In another incident, a contractor employee fell from a ladder at the Energy Northwest Industrial Development Complex, suffering multiple broken bones and requiring a stay at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Energy Northwest had been touting a safety record of millions of hours without a lost-time accident. It then switched to touting millions of hours without a lost-time accident at Columbia Generating Station, missing an opportunity to let the organization learn from the accident, the letter said.The second, brief letter said that no improvements had been made.The message from management is that the INPO index score does not matter because the plant is producing so much electricity, the letter said. However, the letter alleged that all but seven commercial nuclear plants are better producers based on how close they come to producing at their full capacity.The outage gained us 30 more megawatts, which means Columbia’s cost of power is now even lower.John Dobken, Energy Northwest spokesmanThe performance data included in the letter does not provide full context, Dobken said. The nuclear industry uses hundreds of measures, from maintenance backlogs to collective radiation exposure to generation targets, he said.The outage gained the plant 30 more megawatts of generation capacity, which lowers the cost of power production, Dobken said. In December the plant, operating at 100 percent capacity, produced more power than any other month in its 31-year history.Before the refueling outage, the Columbia Generating Station had generated power for 683 straight days, a goal that only about 5 percent of nuclear plants achieve. “It speaks volumes to equipment reliability,” Dobken said.After the outage, the plant has operated continuously for more than 200 days. The industry-recognized milestone for continuous operation after an outage is 150 days, he said.
In addition, the plant set a new safety record for an outage with no recordable injuries by Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.The collective radiation dose to workers during the outage was higher than anticipated, however, after checks of piping led to a decision to remove some contaminated pipes. The collective dose to workers was still well below federal safety limits, according to Energy Northwest.
The plant is meeting all Nuclear Regulatory Commission performance goals, and overall has no significant performance issues from the NRC’s perspective, said Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman. It is among 92 of 99 plants that receive the lowest level of inspection because it has no significant performance issues.The plant rolled out a performance improvement plan in 2011.“Resident inspectors have seen improvement in the areas of human performance, work planning and risk management,” Dricks said.
However, the plant’s corrective action program continues to have room for improvement and is a focus of the NRC, he said.We unanimously decided to hire an outside attorney who will independently investigate the charges.Sid Morrison, Energy Northwest executive board chairmanThe board discussed the letters this week in a closed session in Lacey. The senior leadership team of Energy Northwest had a chance to discuss the issues with the board, then the board met without them in the room, according to the letter sent to employees.A unanimous decision was made to hire an attorney to investigate and to publicly share the results of the investigation, the letter said.“We intend to accomplish these actions in a reasonably timely manner, balancing a proper sense of urgency that recognizes the seriousness of the concerns, with our commitment to ensure a full and thorough review of all the issues,” the letter said.
The process the board will follow underscores Energy Northwest’s commitment to give employees the right to bring forward concerns with confidence their concerns will be addressed, the letter said.The decision to hire an attorney to investigate should not be seen as validation of the issues raised in the letters, but the issues should be taken seriously, Dobken said.Chuck Johnson, representing Oregon and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, attended the Lacey meeting and said he was encouraged that the board took the letter as seriously as it did.“I hope they will hire someone who truly is independent, who is grounded in nuclear power knowledge,” he said.
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