Millstone and NRC falsifies documents in order to keep plant at power

Check out all that warmer water in the ocean off the coast of NE. It is 2 degrees warmer than normal.



Jan 22: 12 January 2013 Last updated at 17:07

I don't know, so this sudden stratopheric warming transfers very cool air from the polar vortex into the wider open ocean? I don't know? But it brings warmer air to the artic. 

Sudden stratospheric warming responsible for UK's icy blast

You catch that spin of the blocking high over Europe...it is pumping intensified moisture from the intensified Gulf Stream into a mega snow making monster. Ask Mosco?

Jan 21: So what would our world look like if our Thermohaline Gulf Stream Intensified...what would we look like if we had a runaway Gulf Stream? 

　

NYT's article about Braidwood's safety cooling limits on July 17...

 Intentional Inaccurate Documents By The NRC and Millstone

All documents associated with the Millstone nuclear plant Long Island Sound Ocean high temperature shutdown in Aug 2013 are grossly inaccurate.  

 

 Labrador Current/ Gulf Stream
Drastic changes ahead in our coastal areas.

...The next two videos were made Jan 19..

More on Millstone's Inaccurate Documents...

More on the Labrador Current and The Gulf Stream Diversion...

We a seasonal computer model of the Labrador and Gulf Stream Current.



...I'll put it is simple terms. The Virginian southern carpetbaggers think it is their only prerogative to extract profits at any cost out of Millstone and the NE electric customers. Their only priority is to squeeze every penny out of Millstone just short of melting down the plant or pissing off the state regulator so they get kicked out of New England.

Basically Dominion  is saying the Millstone facility is not profitable if they are fully forced to handle global warming...if both plant have to easily pass the rigger of any conceivable climate for the rest of the plant's life.

It just gets you wondering if grid prices and state financial recovery to Millstone can support nuclear safety and vital New England societal electric reliability responsibilities.  


...What I can say about this, the NRC's nuclear plant license amendment process has become nothing but a corporatize public relation spin operation. Just pick and chose the facts you want to use. It's nothing about painfully explaining truthfully the predicament you got in.

The bottom line here for Millstone is, we have seen global warming coming and we are too cheap to fix it. And we don't want to tell anyone.

The societal implication, what if all the electric utilities could make more money by shutting down for a month in a grid and heat crisis, by not having an adequate cooling systems? It's called spiking electricity cost and an unstable grid.

Millstone looking to adjust operation to warmer water

Temperature data collected by environmental scientists at Millstone shows average temperatures of the waters around the plant have risen by 0.67 degrees per decade since 1976, Holt said. In 1976, the annual mean temperature was 51.6 degrees, compared to 53.4 degrees in 2009.

WATER TEMPERATURE, THEN AND NOW
Temperature data collected by environmental scientists at Millstone shows average temperatures of the waters around the plant have risen by .67 degrees per decade since 1976, Holt said. In 1976, the annual mean temperature was 51.6 degrees, compared to 53.4 degrees in 2009. The mean temperature in August 1976 was 67.3 degrees, compared to 69.8 degrees in August 2009. The next year, the temperature went still higher in August. In a 2010 annual environmental report, Millstone scientists noted that April and May of that year had the warmest temperatures on record, and that the mean August temperature was 70.3 degrees.

Last year, the mean August temperature was slightly lower, 69.9 degrees, while the annual mean for 2011 was 53.8 degrees.

Aug 15: fixed it up a little to read better. I am always a work in progress. 

This is my theory on what is going on at Millstone. Yea, there are some serious climate change events going on in the Long Island Sound. You can clearly see it on my NOAA's 10 hottest Julys. I am saying the Millstone facility weather is pretty mild and incremental compared to the Midwest this year. I will bet you each year's the peak summer heat sink temperatures for a decade or more the (inlet temperatures) have shown a clear increasing indication. Millstone knew it in their late July panic LAR filing after we brought up the Braidwood high cooling water temperature problem that their site was going to be screwed in August. Millstone should have seen this day coming from a million miles and had prepared their site for it. 

The spotty summer peak heat sink temperatures have repetitively challenged regulations at Millstone for decades. Millstone’s and the NRC’s biggest sin was not seeing the big picture 15 years ago and causing the site to fudge numbers to stay up at power. So everyone had to come up with tricks, jacking up the limit of a degree or so, playing around with shifting seawater measurement from the control room indication into temperature averaging at far flung areas of the plant without automatically recording the temp and its time. You began fudging 8ths of a degree to keep the plant up at power. And we know there are lots of seawater temperature noise out there, maybe plus or minus 3 degrees of slugs of different temperatures and tons of swirling eddies directly outside plant. A ridiculously small 2 degree swing from a normal year to the hottest summer since 1895 with heat sink temperature could make you start banging the plant up and down in power. You are smart enough to cherry pick the temperatures you want. It is insanity!

So you would have a huge crisis keeping the plant up at power one hot summer over 8ths of a degree decades ago. I don't know, maybe you wrote it off as a fluke after the crisis is over. Maybe the next summer was cooler and you never challenged the limit. A few years down the pike, another hot summer of operational challenges and you would use the experience of the last crisis to get thought it. You just got into a repetitive pattern of squeaking through a hotter than normal summer and never constructing new cooling water capacity in defense of the good public you serve.      

I ask, could incremental climate changes lead to subtle heat sink increases, a struggle to not be impacted by the approaching legal cooling water without plant expenses? Then sliding into widespread lying and falsification by the utility and the NRC...into destroying the plant safety culture. I am saying it is a widespread known agency and utility problem over decades....the utilities will fight to death and destroy the NRC if they have to spend one more penny on a plant if a new problem shows up no matter how justified it is. The fact don’t matter and they will rip the agency apart over spending pennies. It is these ideological nuts on K street and the Washington politicians.   

If you are lying and falsifying, everyone knows you have to have plant enforcers.

So one employee "plays the game" and fudges numbers in unrecorded far flung dark corners of the plant and gets promoted. The new guys wonder, do i have to do the same thing to be respected and have a job. It always rips the plant safety culture apart and pits one innocent employee against another innocent employee.

So unattended climate change threatens the nation...lying and falsification can destroy almost immediately the culture of a huge facility and also an invaluable government regulator.

I think it is a big deal when a NRC official says the climate is the hottest since 1895 to cover-up fudging 8ths of a degree temperature of cooling water while NOAA says it only the 9th hottest summer around Millstone. The NRC did not fully express to the public and understand, what they were really dealing with with this emergency amendment request. They are just picking facts for their own agenda and not explaining the whole story.

I think the Millstone facility, with the help of the NRC, should have seen this day coming many years ago and spent the appropriate amount of resources to make the hot summer of 2112 a insignificant blip on the radar. The Millstone staff this summer should have had many excess luxurious degrees of cooling capacity to enjoy another endless summer without any worry in the air...

It drives me really crazy when highly educated employees play stupid and then gets away with it.

That just might big threat of climate change to a nuclear plant. It “frog boils” everyone into complacency and fudging 8ths of degree of water temperature at a time ...then the lying destroys the safety culture of nuclear plant without insiders knowing it.

Drought Washing

Using a drought emergency to improperly get regulatory, corporate and business sympathy to make more pennies and profits. 

Using the drought emergency as an excuse and accepted, which gets a federal and state regulation reduction without a breath of a connection to a drought emergency.

Gaining obscene totally unjustified profits with blackmail over a drought emergency and screwing the vulnerable.

August 14, 2012, 2:51 pm
A Nuclear Regulator’s Wish List
By MATTHEW L. WALD

August 13, 2012, 4:58 pm
Heat Shuts Down a Coastal Reactor
By MATTHEW L. WALD


July 14: Using a local measuring location, nothing specifies how often the temperatures needs to be recorded. It is a huge hole. In the control room it is not a issue because the points are automatically recorded by regulation and stored on the paper recorder roll or on the computer.

You got crawling under ocean sand dunes at the tip the discharge peninsula...when was the last time Millstone dredge this area. You got an assortment of hurricanes or their ruminates, lots of nor'easters, big waves, big and small tides to churn up the Sound, Hurricane Irene gravel and sedimentation shooting down the Connecticut River and like rivers. Hurricane Irene walked right up the Connecticut River. It raked massive amounts of gravel and debris from Vermont.

How about a list of all the peak summer time heat sink inlet temps and their dates since beginning of operations with Millstone unit 2?    


I still don't buy it. AP:

Robert Wilson, a professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, said readings show temperatures in central Long Island Sound are nearly 80 degrees, much higher than the more typical 74 degrees.

...Basically, the central LI Sound, whatever that is, is a million miles away from the Eastern Sound's high velocity throat flow directly opposite the open Atlantic...

 I dare you to do a Google search on this:

"Water temperatures in Long Island Sound, warmest on record"

Don't you find it suspicious as hell nobody outside the Millstone site reported record breaking hot waters in the Long Island Sound this year? There is nobody else reporting the warmest water temperatures ever on Long Island Sound. Isn't that news...

So what would it take to cool my jets on this. Say the last five hottest summers...a comparative graph of inlet time versus temperature for the whole year with the 5 hottest summers and this year. I'd want the all the data points on one graph...with the granularity to see the results of the tides on temperatures.     

Aug 13 11 AM : The NRC says they wouldn't be surprised if Millstone 3 has to shutdown in the near future as they are also on the edge...same temperature limit.

They have been asking questions about the discharge heat backwash into the suction in recent days and are closely watching temperature parameters to see if there are any changes with Unit 2 as being down associated with backwashing heat.

Ok, so what is the evidence the unit 3 suction takes a deeper suction from the bay, they are less than 50 away from each other...or are these blind assertions by Millstone accepted by the NRC without a shred of proof.  I asked, so why doesn't Millstone blast out a channel similar as unit 3 allowing access to similar cool bay water? Got a "good question mike?

I asked, as there are four or five worst hotter Julys since construction...then Unit 2 must have a large record with heat sink temperature shutdowns? So why hotter summer climates and no shutdowns?

Warm water in Sound causes Millstone unit to shut down
By Judy Benson  

Published 08/13/2012 12:00 AM
Ken Holt, spokesman for Millstone owner Dominion, said this is the first time Unit 2 has had to shut down due to water temperature since it began operating in 1975.
The plant’s license states that it must be shut down when the water temperature is 75 degrees or higher over a 24-hour period. Water temperatures in Long Island Sound this summer are the warmest on record. (So Ken, what is the proof of that...)

The above added at 3 PM

A  news story like the NRC infers, but two week ago. Like, "The Long Island Sound seawater temperature is on pace to beat 1895 records"...the hottest temperature since 1895. "The Long Island Sound seawater temperatures are the hottest its ever been for this time of year since records began. How come there are no news stories like that before last Friday...?    

The NRC is oblivious to the heat sink temperature historical record at the Millstone facility and it is astonishing for an engineering organization!!!

Yesterday:

Notification Date: 08/12/2012
Notification Time: 01:48 [ET]
Event Date: 08/12/2012
Event Time: 00:44 [EDT]
Last Update Date: 08/12/2012

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION REQUIRED SHUTDOWN DUE TO ULTIMATE HEAT SINK EXCEEDING TEMPERATURE LIMIT

Millstone Unit 2 reported that it is in a technical specification shutdown condition based on the ultimate heat sink average water temperature exceeding a temperature limit of 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The ultimate heat sink is supplied by water from Niantic Bay. At the time of this report, the bay water temperature is slightly below the 75 degree temperature limit but the time average calculation for the ultimate heat sink temperature limit still exceeds 75 degrees.

The Ultimate Heat Sink Technical Specification, TS 3.7.11.a, requires the unit to be in hot shutdown within 6 hours when the average temperature limit is exceeded. The licensee is in a slow power ramp-down while monitoring the ultimate heat sink average temperature for water temperature conditions to drop below the limit. The high heat sink temperatures are based on natural environmental conditions and not from plant operation.

Millstone Unit 3 is not impacted at this time.

The licensee has notified State and local authorities and will notify the NRC Resident Inspector.

* * * UPDATE AT 0518 EDT ON 8/12/12 FROM WOLLERY TO HUFFMAN * * *

The licensee reported that it had exited the Technical Specification LCO based on a current average heat sink temperature below 75 F. However, the licensee will hold power at 65% to ensure the temperature is stable and will remain below the limit during the day shift.

The licensee has notified the NRC Resident Inspector. R1DO (Burritt) notified.

* * * UPDATE AT 1001 EDT ON 8/12/12 FROM NICHOLS TO HUFFMAN * * *

At 0943 EDT on 8/12/12, the average ultimate heat sink temperature on Unit 2 exceeded the 75 degree limit again. The licensee re-entered TS LCO 3.7.11.a and commenced to shutdown the unit from a starting power level of 65%. The licensee plans to proceed to Hot Standby in compliance with the TS action statement even if the heat sink temperature drops back below the TS limit.

The licensee has notified State and local authorities and the NRC Resident Inspector. R1DO (Burritt) notified.

* * * UPDATE AT 1650 EDT ON 8/12/12 FROM PATRICK SIKORSKI TO JOHN KNOKE * * *

At 1645 EDT on 8/12/12, Unit 2 is in Hot Standby and the heat sink temperature is below the 75 degree limit.

The licensee has notified State and local authorities and the NRC Resident Inspector. R1DO (Burritt) notified.

...Why unit 2 and not unit 3...because the warmer plant discharge water gets sucked into unit 2 preventing most of it from getting to unit three plant suction...
Right, the most important thing for a nuclear plant is to know how the plant and components interact with the environs...to have a perfect model with how the flow interacts...   

At Vermont Yankee we'd seen plant discharge heat climb 500 feet upstream and uphill on a fast moving river. In the winter, we'd seen the heat signatures of discharge climbing upstream to our suctions of the plant. There would be a free area of ice from the discharge to the intake?  

July 18 to NRC:

"Pathetic, you people think a drought just uncovers the low rocky shoals and sand bars of our baking steams, river and waterways. I know a drought mostly uncovers a staggering build up and amount of fraud and corruption in our society. A 50 and 100 year drought of staggering dimensions is really an amazing transparency device or tool..."

July 13 allegation to NRC...

"I suspect the NRC is going to be confronted with a pan on the stove of popping popcorn amount of NOEDs at many plants before the summer is over.

"All I can think of is in the drought of 1998 thru 2000, the massive amounts of paper whipping NOEDs and tech spec changes that occurred back then. Braidwood did it." 

This below quote is a sickening intentional falsification...the NRC is gaming the national drought crisis in order to gain pennies of profits for an undeserving facility who is not in the bulls eye of a historic drought. A national emergency is not a reason to reduce safety margins to every undeserving nuclear facility...

It is strictly illegal for anyone to falsify NRC documents...this is surprising for highly educated NRC engineers.

"Ambient air temperature in July were the hottest on record in the contiguous United States since record keeping began in 1895 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and temperature continue to remain high in August." 

"The Braidwood nuclear facility safety cooling water temperature limit is 100 degrees, while Millstone's is 75 degrees. It is well within the state of the art of engineering to design and updated a plant to make the limit 100 degrees. The Millstone facility has been banging around this facility's defect of not being designed for the 1970s climate, as with today's and tomorrow's climate.

As example, the Millstone facility could tunnel out in into the Long Island Sound and take a suction into deeper water like Seabrook or cooling towers or increase plant cooling capacity....

Is should be noted, the NE ISO has been surprising clear of grid alerts and warning so far this summer with the Connecticut climate hotter than anything since 1895?  

CONNECTICUT

July 2012: 9th warmest July on record

Top 10 July temperature anomalies
1st July 1913 +5.4°F
2nd July 1912 +5.1°F
3rd July 1955 +4.1°F
4th July 1994 +3.9°F 
5th July 1949 +3.7°F
July 1999 +3.7°F
7th July 2010 +3.6°F
8th July 2006 +3.4°F 
9th July 2012 +3.2°F 
10th July 1952 +3.1

Is it a much hotter than normal summer in Conn. this summer?

The New London Day today:

Holt said the difference between the highest temperature and the average of three temperatures taken at different locations is just a few tenths of a degree, but it can make the difference when it comes to the water being within the limits. 

Intake water used to cool Unit 3 is drawn from a deeper part of Long Island Sound, so it is a few degrees colder than the intake water used for Unit 2, he said.

I'll bet you plant discharge heat is backwashing into plant two's suction and it only shows up in hot weather? It is like shitting in your own nest?

Last serious drought in 1999: 

 

ATTACHMENT TO LICENSE AMENDMENT NO. 257 FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE NO. DPR-65 DOCKET NO. 50-336

" NNECO indicated that tidal effects in the Long Island Sound can cause the UHS to experience temperature swings of 2 to 3 degrees during hot weather conditions. In its application, NNECO reported that a review of plant data for the past 18 years revealed that the 75 F UHS temperature limit has been exceeded approximately five times, each with a duration of less than 2 hours. During hot weather conditions, in anticipation of exceeding the UHS temperature limit, NNECO has previously sought, and the NRC has granted, temporary relief from the shutdown action required by TS 3/4.7.11. Most recently, on July 10, 2000, the NRC approved a TS\ change of this nature that was valid through October 15, 2000 (License Amendment No. 247).
The TS change allowed continued plant operation for up to 12 hours if the UHS temperature limit was exceeded, provided that NNECO confirmed on an hourly basis that the UHS did not exceed 77 F while the temperature was above the TS limit. DNC expects the UHS temperature to continue to approach the TS limit during hot weather conditions and, on rare occasions, expects the UHS temperature to exceed 75 F for short periods of time. The proposed change is expected to enhance safe operation of MP2 by avoiding (a) the risk associated with unnecessary unit shutdown transients, and (b) the administrative burden of processing temporary relief requests during periods when weather conditions are expected to be hot and dry for prolonged periods of time.
3.0 EVALUATION
Licensees have historically experienced elevated UHS temperature conditions during prolonged periods of hot, dry weather and, on occasion, TS temperature limits have been exceeded. Typically, these situations are infrequent, of short duration, and do not pose a challenge to accident mitigating systems and components. Unfortunately, when these conditions arise, prompt action is required by licensees to address TS requirements, which typically include a request for the NRC to exercise enforcement discretion. The Nuclear Energy Institute’s TS Task Force (TSTF) proposed a change to the Standard Technical Specification (STS) requirements in order to deal more efficiently with short-lived elevated UHS temperatures that...

****August 10, 2012

SUBJECT: MILLSTONE POWER STATION UNIT 2 -ISSUANCE OF EMERGENCY AMENDMENT RE: REMOVAL OF LICENSE CONDITION, PROPOSED TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS BASES CHANGE AND FSAR CHANGE FOR ULTIMATE HEAT SINK TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT (TAC NO. ME9108)

In it's July 17, 2012, and August 9,2012 (2 supplements) letters, the licensee requested that this amendment be treated as an emergency amendment. In accordance with 10 CFR 50.91 (a)(5), the licensee provided the information regarding why this emergency situation occurred and how it could not be avoided.
This emergency situation results from prolonged adverse environmental conditions in the area.  Under these conditions, ONC could not have reasonably applied for this emergency license amendment in advance of the event or in a more timely manner following the event.
The current situation at MPS2 satisfies the criteria for an emergency situation in that MPS2 TSs require shutdown of the unit in the event that the temperature of the UHS exceeds the 7S of temperature limit in TSs. This emergency situation is caused by environmental factors beyond the control of DNC. Approval of the subject license amendment request would allow continued operation of the unit by providing additional operational margin for measurement of UHS temperature.
In this instance, an emergency situation exists in that failure to act in a timely way would result in derating or shutdown or a nuclear power plant. Based on the above, the requirements for an emergency situation as stipulated in 10 CFR 50.91 (a)(5)has been satisfied. 

10 CFR 50.91 (a)(5)

The Commission expects its licensees to apply for license amendments in timely fashion. It will decline to dispense with notice and comment on the determination of no significant hazards consideration if it determines that the licensee has abused the emergency provision by failing to make timely application for the amendment and thus itself creating the emergency. Whenever an emergency situation exists, a licensee requesting an amendment must explain why this emergency situation occurred and why it could not avoid this situation, and the Commission will assess the licensee's reasons for failing to file an application sufficiently in advance of that event.

Taking about Braidwood to NRC on July 15  13...