Junk Arkansas Nuclear 2 Cat 4 plant At Half Power For A Week

The trembling under out feet. What implications does this have for the grid and nukes?

"Shale Billionaire Hamm Says Industry Binge Can ‘Kill’ Oil Market"

Will they become another FirstEnergy? Declare bankruptcy and dump their nuclear plants. Contracts all broke. Effectively they are bankrupt now.

I'll bet you there will be a massive stampede out utility bonds and stocks when the first walking dead declares bankruptcy.

A Black Swan level event...  

It is a cat 4 plant like Pilgrim...

I'll bet you if any plant was undergoing the intense NRC intervention as Pilgrim they would have a 80% average capacity. They can't have in the high 90% capacity factor without breaking rules... 

Why is the southern Entergy fleet more capacity factor impaired than the northern boys. There has got to be a two tier system here somewhere?

You get it, its a regulated plant. The politicians will make the rate payer pick up the tab. I guarantee the advantage of a regulated plant is coming to a end.

Junk Plants Hope Creek, Salems and Beaver Valleys (5 plants) On The Chopping Block

Did the recent downgrade of Hope Creek come from the financial pressures.

Junk Plants Hope Creek, Salems and Beaver Valleys on the Chopping Block

March 7, 2017

Tom Johnson
Posted with permission from NJ Spotlight

CEO tells energy analysts 'We are not saber rattling. We are not bluffing'

Public Service Enterprise Group is continuing to make the case that it needs help to keep its fleet of nuclear power plants afloat, this time to a roomful of energy analysts.

Chief executive Ralph Izzo said yesterday that if the plants are not economically feasible to operate, the company will not continue to keep the units in service, a prospect that could occur within three years. Nuclear provides nearly half the electricity used by customers in New Jersey.

"We are not saber rattling. We are not bluffing. We are not trying to be alarmists,'' said Ralph Izzo, who also serves as chairman and president of PSEG, telling analysts at the company's annual investors' conference at the New York Stock Exchange. "We will not operate those plants long term if they are not earning their cost of capital.''

The nuclear sector has been rocked by early plant closings across the nation, battered by low-price natural gas, which has made it difficult for the nuclear units to compete. Some states, including Illinois and New York, have approved generous subsidies to keep nuclear plants afloat, an option being pursued by PSEG with legislators, regulators, and policymakers at the state and federal levels.

PSEG Power, a subsidiary, operates three nuclear units at its Artificial Island complex in South Jersey and also owns part of Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania. For months, the company has been talking with officials about economic conditions.

Currently, PSEG Power invests $100 million in new capital each year at its nuclear plants. Even with hedges in place to reduce financial risk, the plants are not earning their cost of capital, according to PSEG. As those hedges roll off, the plants could go cash-flow negative, Izzo said.

While the company is talking with state and federal officials about the problem, as well as with PJM Interconnection, the grid operator, officials indicated a solution at the state level is most likely…

Nuke Executives Massively Increase(28%) Threatening Employees as They Face Historic Crisis

The NRC uses a too high standard to identify and prosecute employee intimidation. I'll bet you it is really fifty times more prevalent. The NRC needs unobtainable perfect evidence to investigate and prosecute corporate and management intimidation.


able 1 Cases Opened by Category

Category FY 2012 FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 Total 176 149 135 138 119 Material False Statements 18 20 35 33 24 Violations of Other NRC Regulatory Requirements 73 52 38 43 29 Discrimination 48 50 33 36 46 Assists to Staff 37 27 29 26 20

  

Increase in NRC OI Discrimination Investigations in FY 2016 Coupled with Increased Investigation Demands

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

The recently published US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of Investigations (OI) Annual Report noted a 28% increase in the number of discrimination investigations in FY 2016 as compared to FY 2015. “Discrimination” in this context refers to retaliation for engaging in protected activities established in Section 211 of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended. OI conducts investigations at both reactor and materials sites, either at the request of specific NRC officials or on its own initiative. Of the 119 cases opened in FY 2016,

39% were discrimination investigations;

20% were investigations into suspected material false statements;

24% were investigations into potential violations of other NRC regulatory requirements; and

17% were assists to NRC staff.

Although there was a 14% decrease in the overall number of OI cases opened in 2016, discrimination investigations increased to 2012–2013 levels, despite declining or holding steady for the last couple years. This comes at a time when we have observed notable increases in the number of witnesses being interviewed and the number of documents requested as part of each investigation. We are consistently seeing a greater level of scrutiny regardless of the complexity of a given case or the nature of the issues involved. As a result, OI investigations have been more time-consuming and have created a greater burden for licensees, particularly materials licensees who have historically had less experience with these types of investigations. 

Of the 137 cases closed in FY 2016, OI substantiated willfulness on one or more of the allegations of wrongdoing in 41 investigations. Several investigations resulted in the NRC issuing Notices of Violation (NOVs) or Confirmatory Orders to individuals or licensees. In at least three cases, the NRC issued the licensee a civil penalty.  

Notably, after one of the cases was referred to the US Department of Justice for prosecutorial consideration, a former Quality Control inspector pled guilty to deliberately falsifying visual weld inspection reports on a nuclear project in federal district court, and was sentenced to 36 months of probation and to pay $29,385 in restitution.

Junk Plant Grand Gulf: How to Make the NRC Nervous

Sometime yesterday Grand Gulf came up from 75% to 91% power as reported on the NRC site this morning. These guys have a notorious capacity factor and the staff is becoming increasingly erratic. Seems they are too incompetent to maintain a decent capacity factor and make money. It's a death spiral...

So late yesterday afternoon (eastern time), I tried to make a call to my buddy senior resident inspector. The Grand Gulf inspector's phone wasn't answered. I had to leave a recording. Better yet. The unanswered phone indicated the inspectors were busy with this very troubled licensee's staff and plant. It just verified the tipoff I received. They recently started up, then came down to 75% for a week or more. I wanted to know what equipment broke down as the excuse to call with my question.  

The basically theme of the recording, I summed up the plant's pathetic capacity factor in the last year and reminded him of the unscheduled recent three month shutdown based on the incompetent licensed operators. I ended the phone call with a "over emphasized", "I know you guys are busy".

I left no doubt I was operating under insider information...

You just have to rip apart the dysfunctional "administrative state" and replace it with a functional one.  

Bannon: Trump administration is in unending battle for ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’

Junk Plant Grand Gulf: 2016 Capacity Factor Troubles Continues Upon Start-up

Feb 10

100% river bend seems to have a slow start post outage.


Feb 9

Beyond absolute disgrace, back down to 76%.

Feb 8 update

absolute disgrace, still at 91% power

Reposted from 2/24

March 7

Grand Gulf has gone up to 91% last night or yesterday afternoon. Congratulation. Will it take a week to come up to 100% power?

Feb 27

Certainly looks like "a big extended down power event" with 74% power.  

Update Feb 24 (reposted from 2/7/17)

Their operational and maintenance issues is still dogging this plant. I see the plant is at 76% power today. You can't make any money at this level. What a disgusting capacity factor record. This indicates the plant is unsafe. It's exactly as I predicted on Feb 8 upon startup from a extended shutdown based on the operators' were incompetent. This is still a very troubled nuclear plant.

(Feb 8)"I predict within a month these guys will have a scram based on equipment problems and/or a big extended down power event."   

Feb 9

They didn't even get up 100% power for one day, now they power down yesterday from 96% power to 91%.

Feb 8

They are up to some 96% today. Seven days to get up to 96% is ridiculous and indicates still a profound weakness in the plant's staff.

I predict within a month these guys will have a scram based on equipment problems and/or a big extended down power event.

The NRC says sometimes it takes four years to correct for a big decline in plant performance.

Update Feb 7

This got to be the world record power assentation program. Now they are struck at 58% for two days. A week to just get up to 58% power? Can't make money this way?

Reposted from Feb 2

***These guys have been shutdown for three months based upon the licensed operators were incompetent and not safe.

I called the Grand Gulf senior inspector two days before they started-up. I wanted him to know I had special insider information. He told me the licensed operators were extensively retrained and they spent a lot of money on fixing equipment. They had high industry experts coming in and out of the plant to try to get a handle of their problems. 

They started sometime on Jan 30^th.

1)     At midnight on Jan 30^th they were at 9% power.

2)     Next night 20%

3)     Last night struck at 19%

With three months planning for this day, they should have been up at power much sooner. This has been a very troublesome start-up much like the capacity factor issues of the 2016. A good plant should take up to 24 hours to get up to way in excess of 90% power.

Junk Plant Entergy's Cooper-Document Falsification ( looks like another Grand Gulf event)

Well its managed by Entergy through a contract. Will this become another Grand Gulf with a three month shutdown to retrain the licensed operators? Exact same event at Grand Gulf. Why is Entergy's fleet wide training so ethically challenged? I think the system of Entergy creates a high proportion of  ethically challenged Employees? Obviously Entergy has fleet wide issues with managing valve lineups. Why couldn't you put a computer chip on a valve, then bring your smart phone into the room and it detecting the position of every valve in seconds.  Hand checking valve position consumes so many invaluable ops man-hours at a critical time period just before startup. This is so 1950s mentality. As of a few weeks ago, the special inspection hasn't come out.    

Grand Gulf Nuclear Station stays closed as feds inspect (Oct 31, 2016)

Entergy shut the plant down on Sept. 8 to repair a water cooling pump. On Sept. 23 after work on the pump was completed, according to an NRC release, workers discovered that "misalignment of valves" had rendered a backup heat removal system unavailable. The plant is required to have that alternate system available when one of the plant's two heat removal systems is out of service.

"The following day, when preparing to restart the reactor, control room operators caused an unexpected increase in reactor vessel water level due to a misalignment of valves," the NRC release said.

It is felt this plant is one mistake away from permanent shutdown based on it being non competitive.

During a high intensify outage just prior to a start-up, the operators have to hand check manual and remote operated valves. For maintenance and testing, they have to manipulate many thousands of valves during the outage. Its too complicated to keep track of valve position from job to job and the error rate is too high. It eats up man power. So just prior to the startup, the ops trogs carry around the plant a valve line sheet paper with all the valves needing to check the valve positon. Your check the valve position and realign the valves to the require position. It really is a high skill job to do this right. It could be a system one sheet of paper with list of valves in one room or fifty sheets of paper on a clip board with valves all over the plant.

It's common practice throughout the industry, the trogs "radio" (the lingo and the phrase began in the Navy)these valve lineups. Its really falsification of paperwork. The majority of the list of valves are infrequently operated or almost never operated valves. So you just check off(mark down on paper) on valve list the correct valve position without actually visually looking or touching the valve. I radio'd many valve line-up sheets. Never got caught once for doing this. You can't be a dummy radioing valve line-up list. It's a high intelligence operation to do it right.

(the assumption here is everyone are not radioing)A new employee on shift is just given a valve list(easy one)and told to do the valve lineup. You have to understand the system to do this right. It usually takes the new guy hours complete the "valve lineup". He has to hunt for the location of the valves in a humongous plant. An experienced employees could do this very quickly because he knows location of that tiny instrumentation root valve from memory. You get a good reputation in the control room if you can do valve lineups quickly and not get into any issues. Its the sliding slope of corruption (look up frog boiling)...

The plant upon startup has a procedure...basically another check-off list. It dictates how you startup the plant in a approved and standard manner across all shifts. You have a check off that all valve lineups are complete in the plant startup procedure. If all valve lineups are not complete, then you can't startup the plant. The NRC doesn't enforce paperwork falsification because it is deemed as safety insignificant. 

(more about safety significance)     

Cooper today

Commission will inspect PPD's response to error at nuclear plant

By Cole Epley / World-Herald staff writer

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission on March 13 will begin a special inspection of the Nebraska Public Power District’s response to an error at its nuclear plant that may have taken a heat-removal system out of operation for about four months.

NPPD on Feb. 5 found that two valves — which had been closed during a scheduled refueling outage on Oct. 7 — were not reopened once the Cooper Nuclear Station was brought back online. The plant is near Brownville in southeast Nebraska.

The heat-removal system was backed up by a second system, but the NRC will also look into whether both were inoperable for about 72 hours when the other system was offline for maintenance.

Such systems are “used to mitigate the effects of a variety of accidents,” the NRC said.

Drew Niehaus, a Cooper spokesman, said nothing went wrong as a result of the valves not being reopened and no equipment was damaged.

The finding prompted the “special inspection” by two NRC inspectors. Special inspections are the least aggressive of NRC examinations of problems at plants, with “augmented” inspections being more rigorous and “incident” inspections being the most aggressive.

“This special inspection will help us better understand the circumstances that led to the operator error,” said Kriss Kennedy, the NRC’s Region IV administrator.

TVA and Sequoyah in Disarray

TVA names new bosses for Sequoyah nuclear plant

March 1st, 2017

by Dave Flessner in Breaking News

The Tennessee Valley Authority today announced organizational changes for its Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, naming Anthony L. "Tony" Williams as site vice president and Matt Rasmussen as plant manager.

Williams will join TVA on March 13 after working at Entergy Nuclear where he was general manager of plant operations for Palisades Nuclear Plant. He has worked in the power utility industry for 26 years at Entergy and Public Service Electric & Gas plants. Williams earned his MBA from Rutgers University and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University . He was a licensed senior reactor operator at both Salem Nuclear Generating Station and Indian Point Energy Center.

Junk Pilgrim Plant: Defective Component Engineering Musical Chairs

What going on for decades with these valves... is massive public fraud. The valves would perform poorly or leak…they would tell the NRC and public they are going to remove the valves and replace the defective design with a big redesigned valve. They would tinker with replacing the seat surface with some new material or change the dimension on some insignificant component. They would never fully test the new redesign. They never had any intention to change positively the characteristic of the valve. This says a lot about the NRC. Then they would put in the so called newly redesign valve, it would fail similarly or worse than the old design. It was just a scam to give the appearance they fixed the problems with the first defective design.

Prior to 2010 Pilgrim had notorious two stage safety relief valves (in the plant now. They decided to replace their two stage safety relief valves with even more defective three stage valves. Basically within a month of first installation, with the new three stage SRVs, one began to leak. I picked up on this early and made many complaints to the NRC. They had horrendous leakage and other performance problem leading to the 2015 blizzard where two valves failed. Seems there was so called test stand damage to all the valves. I conservatively think all four valves were inop since first installation. It would have been a much more severe violation if the NRC agreed with me. Damage to the internals is a much better indicator of valve failure than the miss-operation of the valve.

I believe the NRC allowed Pilgrim to operate post blizzard to the outage(a month or two) with  the three stage valves. Based on no ability to have confidence with the three stage, Pilgrim replace their three stage with two stage Safety relief valves in this outage after the 2015 blizzard.

I told the NRC, how can you dopes allow Pilgrim to operate with the two stage SRVs, when Pilgrim's opinion of the two stage was so poor in 2010 license amendment request (LAR)...to OK the three stage ending with a permanent shutdown decision shortly after the 2015 blizzard. Check out Pilgrim’s the bad mouthing of the two stage in 2010 (these valves are in the plant today).

Proposed License Amendment to Technical Specifications: Revised Technical Specification for Setpoint and Setpoint Tolerance Increases for Safety Relief Valves (SRV) and Spring Safety Valves (SSV), and Related Changes

March 15, 2010

The SRVs require replacement because the current two-stage Target Rock SRVs have been unreliable performers with respect to leaking while in-service and the subject of setpoint drift. SRV pilot valve leakage has led to multiple plant shutdowns and the setpoint drift problem resulted in exceeding current TS limits and numerous Licensee Event Reports (LERs). It has been determined that pilot valve leakage is due to low simmer margin and high as-found lift setpoints are due to corrosion bonding at the pilot valve disc/seat. To address current SRV performance problems, Entergy has performed extensive investigations and feasibility studies. The preferred option for correcting these problems is to replace all SRVs and SSVs during the next refueling outage. RFO-1 8 is currently planned to start on or about April 17, 2011.

This popped up in the last inspection report. I called Pilgrim’s inspectors…they told me they took it out because it was leaking. No one but the NRC and Pilgrim new it was leaking. There was no requirement for a complete explanation with ether the NRC or Pilgrim. You get it? A component(s) who failed effectively forcing the permanent shutdown of a nuclear plant, who fails again, there is no requirement to report on the new failure. The whole system is rigged.       

Remember this is the two stage and it’s in the current inspection report.

Replacement of safety relief valve ‘B’ on October 6, 2016

What I found hysterically funny from the dopey NRC, because of the leaky and poorly designed two stage, Pilgrim is going to reinstalled the three stage into the last operating period of the plant this spring's last outage. Do you think there are doing it because they got perfect proof the three stage SRVs are fixed?    

NRC's Herold Denton: A continual Example of our Loser News Media

This is how crazy the new media, bureaucracy and establishment are. It’s like giving a presidential medal of freedom to a arsonist who set the fire and then called it in. We got to see the world much deeper than how the news portrays our world!!!

Can you imagine the USA without a TMI. Denton understood the dysfunction as the chaos was developing in say 1977 and fixed the industry and NRC. People, that kind of person is a real hero

• The Office's current Director is William Dean. It has deputy directorates for two areas: (1) Reactor Safety Programs and (2)Engineering and Corporate Support. It has program management, policy development and analysis staff as well as an array of divisions.                                                                                                                                                           The Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation is responsible for ensuring the public health and safety through licensing and inspection activities at commercial nuclear power plants. However, the actual evaluation of license renewal applications, known as LRA's, is conducted by the Division of License Renewal, a subordinated Division of the multifaceted NRR.

As director, he held a job that allowed him to see a extremely high granular view of the NRC and the nuclear industry. He was another failed bureaucrat who came to the request of another failed president. Carter is implicated, as he has special knowledge of the nuclear industry.

• Harold Ray Denton (February 24, 1936 – February 13, 2017) was the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) and is best known for his role as President Jimmy Carter's personal adviser for the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident.
  
  After graduating in 1958 with a Bachelor of Science in nuclear engineering from North Carolina State University College of Engineering, Denton first worked at DuPont as an engineer for several years, before being hired by the USNRC. After 10 years, he became the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, a position he held until his retirement in 1998

• 
  

As director, he held a a job that allowed him to see a extremely high granular view of the NRC and the nuclear industry. He was another failed bureaucrat who came to the request of another failed president.

Harold Denton, Three Mile Island Hero, Dies at 80

POWER

Harold Denton, a career federal civil servant who helped prevent panic during the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island March 28, 1979 and days after, died February 13 at his home in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 80. The cause of death was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease coupled with complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Denton was an obscure bureaucrat at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, head of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, when Three Mile Island Unit 2, a quite new nuclear generating unit, suffered a small loss of coolant accident. It was deemed improbable and trivial at the time. It became the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, as neither the operators nor the regulators grasped what was happening at the time.

As the TMI economic catastrophe unfolded, Denton and the newly-created NRC watched the response of the utility, Metropolitan Edison, to the events at the plant not far from Pennsylvania’s capital in Harrisburg. The utility was dancing around the event, offering conflicting and unconvincing explanations about what had occurred, what they were doing to respond, and the severity of the accident. As it became clear later, they were uninformed, confused, and, at several points, just plain lying.

President Jimmy Carter, a nuclear engineer selected by the legendary nuclear pioneer Hyman Rickover to staff the nuclear Navy, decided to visit the reactor. The White House staff asked the NRC to send an expert to accompany Carter. Denton was the man of the hour.

As director, he held a a job that allowed him to see a extremely high granular TMI view of the NRC and the nuclear industry. He was another failed bureaucrat who came to the request of another failed president.

Junk Plant Pilgrim Getting Really To Take Down The NRC And The Whole Industry?

Junk Plant Pilgrim and Oyster Creek preventing entry into electric market? 

Faulty Valve Discovered During Pilgrim Power-Up

February 14, 2017

PLYMOUTH – Workers at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station have discovered another equipment problem at the plant, a week after a separate problemforced the station to curb its operations.

Officials found a leak in a feedwater valve after reconnecting to the grid early Sunday morning. That valve has since been taken offline and other lines will be used to provide hot water to the reactor before repairs can be made.

Pilgrim was preemptively disconnected from the grid before last Thursday’s blizzard. The station has been plagued by unplanned storm-related shutdowns in recent years, which have in part led to the station’s safety rating being downgraded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2015.

Before the shutdown, Pilgrim was operating at reduced power after officials discovered a separate leak in a condenser tube connected to the system that is responsible for cooling the reactor. That program has since been repaired.

The station had reached 50 percent power as of Tuesday morning, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Pilgrim has not operated at full power since February 6.

Prices plummet in ISO-NE capacity auction-Its Only Just Started?

Where is the big break for the consumers and businesses electricity?

Entergy went into a buying spree gaining power plants throughout country outside their home territory of Louisiana. The speculation game. Most of the other big dog utilities have done the same businesses plan. It made sense in the high priced electricity era and rising electric prices for as far as your eyes can see. This is much bigger than just the nukes. I believe all electric utilities resources outside their home territories has turned effectively into "stranded assets" in this low electricity price environment.

Prices plummet in ISO-NE capacity auction, raising questions about new generation plans  

                                   

By

Robert Walton @TeamWetDog

•

Published

Feb. 14, 2017

Dive Brief:

• ISO-New England completed its annual capacity auction last week, easily procuring needed resources at low prices for delivery in 2020 and 2021.
• The 11th annual auction closed with a system-wide clearing price of $5.30/kW-month, compared to $7.03/kW-month in the previous auction. The prices were the lowest seen in the auction since 2013, according to the ISO.
• The lower prices and ample reserves have allowed some to question if the region needs new generation. The Conservation Law Foundation argued the region's ample capacity proves Invenergy's planned 900 MW Clear River Energy Center in Rhode Island is unnecessary.

Dive Insight:

New England's grid operator easily procured the resources needed to ensure sufficient capacity from June 2020 through May 2021, a welcome change from just three years ago when the region came up short. But the auction results have some questioning if the grid now has all the power plants it needs.
No new large resources cleared the auction, but 640 MW of new energy-efficiency and demand response did. The grid operator needed to procure about 34,000 MW and wound up with more than 35,800 MW.
The New Brunswick interface closed in the sixth auction round, as opposed to the rest of the auction which closed in the fifth. The New Brunswick zone, which has excess capacity saw payments finalize at $3.381/kW-month.
The ISO said forecasted demand reductions from its forecast of behind-the-meter solar PV growth reduced the capacity target by 720 MW.
"The lower clearing price and surplus capacity are indicative of a market that works," ISO Vice President Robert Ethier said in a statement.
Ethier said supply shortfalls pushed up prices in previous auctions, after more than 3,000 MW of resources announced their retirements in 2013. "The higher prices have attracted new competition, which has helped lower prices while keeping the lights on in New England," he said.
In a post on the Conservation Law Foundation's blog, the organization's senior attorney said the auction results the Clear River gas plant is unnecessary.
"The ISO’s figures do not lie; they tell a very simple story," wrote Jerry Elmer. "Invenergy’s fracked gas and diesel oil power plant is just not needed, which is why the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board should simply reject its application now and be done with the project for good."
The foundation and the town of Burrillville have filed with the siting board for rejection of the new power plant. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 16, according to ecoRI News.

The Implosion At Toshiba Just Got Much More Worst

Lets see, the three plant meltdown in Japan, Mitsubishi's botched steam generator job killing two plants at San Onophe and now the collapse of Toshiba based on US new Nuclear plants.

I see the Southern Company is bragging about the strict contracts protecting the rate payers of George. I'll bet talking about bankruptcy means they will disconnect them from the new nukes.

How can you now ever trust the Japanize with anything nuclear?

And the fish rots from head down...    

Chaos at Toshiba: $6.3 billion write-down, chairman resigns, bankruptcy looms

The inside track on Washington politics.

By Anna Fifield By Anna Fifield

World

February 14 at 4:36 AM

TOKYO — The chaos at Toshiba, the Japanese corporate giant, deepened Tuesday, with its chairman resigning and the company saying it would book a $6.3 billion loss related to its U.S. nuclear business.

Analysts are now speculating about the possibility that Toshiba, which employs almost 200,000 people in Japan and has significant investments in the United States, will have to file for bankruptcy.

“This is one of Japan’s historic corporations and it’s very important to the Japanese economy, so this could be very significant for Japan,” said Tom O’Sullivan, a Tokyo-based energy analyst. “It would even impact Japan’s sovereign credit rating if there’s a knock-on effect.”

The news came a day after government statistics showed that the Japanese economy grew by an anemic 0.2 percent in the three months to December, the third consecutive quarter that growth in the world's third largest economy had slowed.

Toshiba executives were due to deliver the company’s quarterly earnings announcement Tuesday — the deadline for the Tokyo Stock Exchange rule to report earnings within 45 days — but they failed to show up. Instead, the company said that it was “not ready” to make the announcement and asked for another month to file.

The company’s shares fell 8 percent in local trading Tuesday.

Then, after the stock market had closed, Toshiba said that it would take a $6.3 billion hit related to Westinghouse’s acquisition in December of Stone & Webster, a nuclear construction business, from Chicago Bridge & Iron in December.

Shigenori Shiga, its chairman, would step down Wednesday to take responsibility for the losses, the company said.

Toshiba, which bought a majority stake in Pennsylvania-based nuclear power company Westinghouse in 2006, earlier said that it had received internal information late last month about irregularities during the acquisition. It had learned that controls at Westinghouse had been “insufficient” and that the company had used “inappropriate pressure” to make the acquisition.

CONTENT FROM GOLDMAN SACHS

 “We concluded on Monday afternoon that we need further research on the internal reporting … and its impact on financial results,” the company said in a statement, adding that its lawyers and an independent auditing firm were still poring over the details.

Japanese media reported that the delay was due to a disagreement between Toshiba's management and its auditors. O’Sullivan, the analyst, said he thought there had probably been a dispute about whether to issue “going concern” notice, often a precursor to liquidation or bankruptcy.

“My guess is that the auditors wouldn’t sign off on the accounts with a going concern order,” he said.

The Nikkei business newspaper, which has a record of eerily precise leaks from Japanese companies, had earlier reported that Toshiba would say it faced “material uncertainty” about its prospects for remaining in business.

Toshiba, which makes everything from televisions to nuclear reactors, has had a rocky few years. In 2015, it was discovered to have exaggerated its profits, leading to wide-ranging restructuring and asset sales.

This has compounded huge problems with its international business. The company has been trying to deal with huge cost overruns at its at nuclear plants in Georgia and South Carolina. Although it says it will finish building those reactors, its has curtailed expansion plans in the U.K. and elsewhere.

The company’s market capitalization has already plummeted by $7 billion to sit at the end of Tuesday at about $8 billion, and it is reportedly considering selling some of its profitable businesses, including its memory chip arm, to help stem the losses.

Junk Plant Pilgrim Shuts Down Before Snow Storm

Katie Lannan State House News Service

After operating at reduced power this week, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station shut down Thursday morning, Feb. 9, ahead of a winter storm forecast to bring over a foot of snow to Massachusetts, the plant's operator announced.

The plant has been operating at a reduced power level of 30 percent since Monday, when a seawater leak was found in a condenser tube, and work to prevent future leaks will continue while the plant is down, Entergy Pilgrim Station spokesman Patrick O'Brien said in a statement.

The tube where the leak was identified has been repaired, and Pilgrim is now working to plug additional tubes to prevent similar issues, said O'Brien who called the decision to shut down the plant a preemptive measure.

Pilgrim officials decided at 8 a.m. to shut down the reactor, based on National Weather Service forecasts and station operating procedure.

In addition to the snowfall, the NWS advises of potential wind gusts of up to 55 to 65 miles per hour across Plymouth County, Cape Cod and the Islands and a higher risk of power outages in southeastern Massachusetts due to the high winds and wetness of snow.

Coastal flooding and beach erosion is also possible.

"A date and time of when Pilgrim will return to 100% power is considered business sensitive and we do not disclose that information," O'Brien said.

Seismic Gap Issues On Junk Plant Pilgrim From NRC: Everything is OK

I don't trust the NRC's definition of safety and significance. Mr. Cline is a good guy. I am just worried about ground water leakage into Pilgrim's turbine building or reactor building to the tune of 1000 gals per day which the NRC found acceptable.

Mike,

I am writing to you in response to a conversation that you and I had back at the end of November 2016 regarding seismic gap leakage issues at the Vermont Yankee plant and whether it was possible that these same issues could be occurring at Pilgrim.  I think that you were already informed that the NRC was not aware of any significant groundwater leakage in the Pilgrim turbine or reactor buildings.  I also wanted to let you know that we completed our review related to the concern you raised.  We reviewed the design of the Pilgrim turbine building and reactor building subsurface structures and did not identify a seismic gap configuration at Pilgrim that was similar to Vermont Yankee.  Most significantly there is not a metal barrier at Pilgrim.  We also reviewed the design of the Pilgrim configuration, including the features used to limit water intrusion into these structures, to confirm their purpose and function, and have concluded that the water intrusion features have no safety function at Pilgrim.  Based on this information we plan no additional follow-up related to this concern.  We hope that we have addressed your concern and thank you for bringing the issue to our attention.

Leonard Cline

Sr. Project Engineer

Pilgrim & James A. FitzPatrick

USNRC, RI

610-337-5373

 

Astronomical Radiation Level In Fukushima: Media Just Parrots Any Old Crap That Is Sensational

update Feb 9

I was the first one to realize this story was bogus in the world :)

I think the japs were pulling a Trump. A information disruption game.

Bloomberg

Tepco Struggles to Communicate Radiation Spike That Wasn’t

by

Stephen Stapczynski

@SStapczynskiMore stories by Stephen Stapczynski

‎February‎ ‎9‎, ‎2017‎ ‎12‎:‎27‎ ‎AM‎ ‎EST ‎February‎ ‎9‎, ‎2017‎ ‎7‎:‎03‎ ‎AM‎ ‎EST

There was just one problem -- there was no rise in the radiation readings at all.
By putting a camera inside of the primary containment vessel of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 2 reactor, which experienced a meltdown in the 2011 disaster, Tepco collected data closer than ever before to what could be the source of radiation.

While these figures are much higher than the previously recorded peaks -- 73 sieverts an hour, taken in 2012 -- and many times greater than the lethal dose, the readings were taken closer to the source of the radiation.

“Very high radiation readings near any of the used fuel would be expected,” Peter Lyons, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said by e-mail. 

Continuing Fear

By comparison, a nuclear fuel rod a day after a reactor is halted has a surface radiation of several tens of thousands of sieverts an hour, Yukako Handa, a Tepco spokeswoman, said by phone. Tepco also notes that the 530 sieverts figure has a margin of error of 30 percent.

The alarm shows the struggles Tepco still faces communicating with a population afraid of the consequences of nuclear power, and suspicious of the utility after its obfuscation while the accident was unfolding. Last year Tepco was forced to apologize when reports emerged that management at the time of the disaster ordered staff not to use the word “meltdown.”

Bottom of Form

“There is a continuing fear regarding the effects of the accident, which was reinforced by poor information from Tepco and the Japanese government in the early days,” Azby Brown, lead researcher for Safecast, an independent organization that compiles radiation data, said by e-mail. “While it was clear to people who have been following the technical issues that they did not intend to suggest there had been a rise in radiation levels, we can see why some people misunderstood.”

I would say these readings would be normal for a core meltdown within the vessel. Somewhat mild for the condition. Exposed fuel to the atmosphere would get you to millions of Sieverts per hour or incapable of being measured. If there was a huge clump of core ruble  on cement floor in that compartment we'd be talking millions of rems. It just doesn't make sense?

The nuclear plant's Rainforest.

I was in a similar area many times. It is the bottom hemisphere of the vessel. So you are in center of the room looking up, its looked like seeing a huge basketball above your head. Except a lot of long sticks (CDRMS) protruding out of the basketball. Cables would be coming out of the sticks looking like vines in a forest. It was damp in there and had water leaks dripping on the floor. If you had a big imagination it looks like a upside down rainforest. If you were called to go down there to work, you knew you pissed off somebody big time. 

Believe me, we all had a great since of humor .   

Japanese nuclear plant just recorded an astronomical radiation level. Should we be worried?

Washington Post TOKYO — The utility company that operated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan — the one that went into triple meltdown after the enormous 2011 earthquake and tsunami — has released some jaw-dropping figures.

The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor two has reached as high as 530 sieverts per hour, Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco as it’s known, said last week. This far exceeds the previous high of 73 sieverts per hour recorded at the reactor following the March 2011 disaster.

Browns Ferry 2 Stuck At 80% Power for Two Weeks

Arkansas 2 Stuck At 80% Power for Two weeks.

This guys are the worst Plant is the USA. Why are they stuck at cat. 4 for for so long?

Junk Plant Pilgrim Down to 28% Power Today

The Toshiba Meldown: Grand Flaw was the Southern US Conservative Political Ideology

I think the fallout of this is will be to reset the politics of Georgia. Do you close down construction now and take a big quick hit? Or drag it out till the plant are connected to the grid and the public sees and feels the cost of high electricity and poor plant reliability.

We are all getting ready to see the rats jumping ship.

Costly Delays Upset Reactor Renaissance, Keep Nuclear at Bay

Stephen Stapczynski 

February 3, 2017, 10:13 amFebruary 2, 2017, 4:00 pm

Bloomberg) -- Costly delays, growing complexity and new safety requirements in the wake of the triple meltdown at Fukushima are conspiring to thwart a new age of nuclear reactor construction. 

So-called generation III+ reactors were supposed to have simpler designs and safety features to avoid the kind of disaster seen in Japan almost six years ago. With their development, the industry heralded the dawn of a new era of cheaper, easier-to-build atomic plants. 

Instead, the new reactors are running afoul of tighter regulations and unfamiliar designs, delaying completions and raising questions on whether the breakthroughs are too complex and expensive to be realized without state aid. The developments have left the industry’s pioneers, including Areva SA and Westinghouse Electric Co., struggling to complete long-delayed projects while construction elsewhere gains pace. 

“The cost overrun situation is driven by a near-perfect storm of societal risk aversion to nuclear causing ultra-restrictive regulatory requirements, construction complexity, and lack of nuclear construction experience by the industry,” said Lake Barrett, a former official at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Toshiba Corp., Japan’s biggest maker of nuclear power plants, is the latest to join a list of companies facing impairments in the pursuit of cutting-edge reactors.

Tokyo-based Toshiba said in December it may have to write down billions on an acquisition by its Westinghouse unit due in part to cost overruns at two nuclear plants it’s building in the U.S. The company aims to announce the details of the impairments on Feb. 14, which Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects to be 551 billion yen ($4.9 billion), while SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. forecasts 500 billion yen. 

“We are reviewing the future of our nuclear power business outside Japan, but nothing has been decided at this time, including future development,” spokeswoman Yuu Takase said by e-mail in response to questions about the size of the writedown. 

The March 2011 Fukushima meltdown that shuttered Japan’s industry sent ripples around the world, forcing companies and regulators to seek safer designs. The U.S. shale boom, meanwhile, slashed prices for gas, coal and oil and undercut rising costs to develop nuclear energy. 

Ballooning Costs 

In 2015, the investment cost to develop a new nuclear plant was $5,828 per kilowatt, up from $2,065 in 1998, according to a World Nuclear Association report. In Europe, construction of a new nuclear facility in France seen costing $7,202 per kilowatt, compared with $2,280.

Toshiba isn’t alone. France’s Areva SA is seeking a 4.5 billion-euro bailout from the French government after running into delays and escalating costs at its next-generation EPR reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland, which is almost a decade late. It’s also selling its nuclear reactor construction business to Electricite de France. An Areva spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday. 

Two EPRs at Hinkley Point in southwest England to be built by EDF are expected to run 18 billion pounds ($22.5 billion). The cost of an EPR being built by the company at Flamanville in France has tripled since construction started in 2007. The project is six years behind schedule. A spokesman Wednesday said the issues can be attributed to an industry, which has lost skills due to a building lull, struggling with a cutting-edge design.

Toshiba, one of Japan’s three biggest reactor suppliers, first made a bet on the future of atomic power in 2006, when it purchased a controlling stake in Westinghouse for $5.4 billion. 

As recently as March, nuclear power business was seen as a growth driver, accounting for almost a fifth of net sales by fiscal year 2018, according to a company presentation at the time. The business comprised 13 percent of net sales in the latest fiscal year. 

Westinghouse boasted that its generation III+ AP1000 reactor was the safest on the market, employing a simpler, modular design that could be rolled out in record time. In 2015, Westinghouse took over construction of two nuclear projects in Georgia and South Carolina when it bought contractor CB&I Inc.’s nuclear business for $229 million. The purchase also resulted in a settlement between Westinghouse, CB&I and the utilities that owned the plants over delays and cost overruns. 

U.S. Overruns 

Following the purchase, Westinghouse was sued by CB&I over a $2 billion accounting dispute related to cost overruns at four reactors in the U.S. While the case was dismissed, CB&I is appealing the decision and moved forward on a process with an independent auditor to decide who bears the charge. 

The projects, split over two sites and overseen by utilities Southern Co. and Scana Corp., incorporate the AP1000. Cost overruns have ballooned, with Southern’s share at about $1.3 billion and Scana’s at least $831 million.

“I don’t know of any recent examples of new, large, complex technological construction projects that have come in on time and on budget,” Allison Macfarlane, a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said by e-mail.

The industry has no agreed-upon definition for generation III+. Broadly, the reactors are expected to withstand an airplane strike and the cooling systems should operate for at least three days without electricity. 

‘Get Up To Speed’ 

While the industry works through the challenges of the technology in Europe and the U.S., competitors in Asia are moving forward. South Korea started its first APR-1400 last year, and the U.A.E. picked the design for its first batch of reactors. China says its homegrown Hualong One, which it’s building at home and aims to sell overseas, uses third-generation nuclear technology. 

Hualong One is part of China’s state-backed nuclear program that plans to boost capacity more than 70 percent by 2020. The world’s second-biggest economy will almost triple capacity to nearly 100 gigawatts by 2026, making it the biggest market globally, according to BMI Research. 

And in Hungary, Russia has agreed to finance 80 percent of an estimated $12 billion to build two Rosatom VVER-1200 reactors. Russia is ready to raise that to 100 percent by “tweaking” the deal, President Vladimir Putin said at a joint briefing with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday. 

One fundamental problem facing developers is the slowed pace of construction since a nuclear building boom in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program. 

“You get better at building reactors when you can keep at it,” Hibbs said by e-mail. “At some point Areva and Westinghouse may get to the point of doing that with generation three, but they would have to get up to speed first.”