Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Severely Uneconomic

Posted: Oct 15, 2013 6:51 PM EDTUpdated: Oct 15, 2013 6:51 PM EDT

JIM FITZGERALD | AP

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — The Indian Point power plants in the New York suburbs have been cited for more violations than any other nuclear site in the country, although 99 percent were low-risk violations, according to a federal report awaiting release.

The Government Accountability Office report, using figures from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said four of the 384 citations between 2000 and 2012 were for "higher-level" violations. Many plants around the nation have more in that category.

But no plant site had more total violations. The closest to Indian Point's total was at the Cooper plant in Brownville, Neb., which had 374 violations. Eleven of those were "higher-level" violations, the report says.

Cooper has just one reactor, while Indian Point has two.

Lower-level violations are those considered to pose very low risk, such as improper upkeep of an electrical transformer.

Entergy Nuclear, owner of Indian Point, issued a statement saying it "has received the most regulatory scrutiny of any plant in the country." It said, "Entergy's commitment to address even minor issues and enhance safety is unrelenting."

Phillip Musegaas of the environmental group Riverkeeper, an Indian Point critic, said of the plant's violations, "Even if they're low-level violations, they're still safety violations, and the NRC does not have an effective system for tracking them. ... The people of New York should wonder why Indian Point has twice as many as any other plant in the Northeast."

 

What a dog...this is a widespread collspe with plant reliability. Anybody who watched them last year with repetetive loss of power event in a blizzard last year realized the grid don't have the quality to support a nuclear plant. Entergy, the grid and Nstar have repetedly talked about plant trip after storms never allowing this to happen again...and it keep happening over and over again.

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station offline again

 

Krux('

HEATHER WYSOCKI

hwysocki@capecodonline.com

October 15, 2013

PLYMOUTH – The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is operating on generator power today after one of two power lines went down last night.

At 9:21 p.m. yesterday, the plant automatically shutdown after it lost one of its two 345-KV lines, owned by NStar, which provide offsite power to the plant, according to a statement from Carol Wightman, the spokeswoman for Entergy, the company that owns and operates the Pilgrim plant, said.

Last week, NStar removed the other line from use for planned maintenance, Wightman said. She would not comment on the operating level of the plant while it was under maintenance.

But a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Times he believed the plant reduced power output to below 50 percent while it flushed organic material off the water condensers for the reactor in a process called “thermal back-washing.”

The plant is now running on its emergency diesel generators, which “immediately started and are safely powering the plant,” Wightman's statement read. There is no impact on the health and safety of employees or the public from the shutdown, she added.

While the plant is shutdown, workers will “take advantage of this time to perform maintenance that cannot be done while the plant is operating,” she said. The plant will return to service after NStar restores offside power and completes maintenance.

Pilgrim has been shut down several times in the past few months for various reasons.

A heat wave in July reduced the plant's output by 15 to 25 percent when water temperatures in Cape Cod Bay, which is used to cool Pilgrim's systems, went over those allowed under the plant's federal license.

Then, starting Aug. 22, there was a monthlong trend of shutdowns and partial power-downs. The plant wasn't restored to full service until Sept. 18.

9/9/13: Basically I told neil, why is their so many different reports on the goings on at the Pilgrim Plant post outage.

Why can’t the agency write or force Entergy to write a concise report of these events. Why no event report? I know the rules.

I think the object is the NRC and Entergy give incomeplete information...they want the media to make mistake in reporting issues with nuclear power. That way, the editors will ask for perfect information, thereby mismizing reports in the media. It is a stratory to disrupt communication.

And the NRC has the power to make news...you have to call in to the public relation office. Thus the media owes a favor to the NRC for a free story.

They agency is playing the media becuase they don't have the independant skills and knowledge to understand the complex terms of nuclear power...

Region I says it is a leaking feed water heater and generally it is in restricted and isolated area. Certainly because of the high radiation around the heaters...people pass this area quickly. And stay times are limited.

It is absolute disgrace...they don't clearly tell us why they shutdown. All these tricky words. Now it is a safety relief valve...

Did they use it during the feed pump scram...

Monday morning around 5:25 a.m. the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth was shut down again to investigate a minor leak on one of the plant’s four safety relief valves.

You get it, they are still don't fully understand what happened to the power supplying those feed pumps...there is nothing more reckless than you don't know what is going on in your systems and starting up...

Sept 10: They don’t say where the leak comes from…the worst nuclear power plant accident in the USA comes from the Surry nuclear plant...which scalded to death 4 workers and severely injured two more in 1985...

You get that don't you, it hot water water under very high pressure...it is only steam when it is released to the air.
 
A big pipe at 400 degrees broke apart…

Mechanical Malfunction

By BY CHRISTINE LEGERE
clegere@capecodonline.com

September 09, 2013 10:25 PM

PLYMOUTH – A series of mechanical difficulties at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has kept the plant from operating at peak for more than two weeks.

Currently Pilgrim is completely off the electric grid, shut down Sunday evening because of a steam leak in a pipe supplying hot water to the nuclear reactor.

Spokesmen for both the plant and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stressed the problem did not pose a safety risk for the public, but Pilgrim opponents say such ongoing mechanical problems show the time has come to shutter the 41-year-old plant.

Diane Turco, a Harwich resident and founder of the Cape Downwinders, said recent events at Pilgrim make it the perfect time to deliver to the Statehouse a citizens advisory calling for Pilgrim's closure. The advisory was penned by the Downwinders and approved by town meeting or ballot votes in 14 Cape towns last spring.

“It calls on Gov. Patrick to request the NRC uphold their mandate and close the Pilgrim nuclear plant because the public safety cannot be assured,” Turco said. “We're supposed to be given a time and date to meet with the governor on Wednesday.”

Both Gov. Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley opposed the relicensing of the plant in June 2012. The NRC subsequently renewed the license for another 20 years.
The governor's office did not return a request for comment on an upcoming meeting with the Downwinders.

Dave Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, tracks nuclear plant shutdowns in the U.S.

Pilgrim has had “more than its share,” leading with seven shutdowns between January and June 30, Lochman said.

“Overall there have been 94 shutdowns at U.S. nuclear power reactors in 2013 through June,” Lochbaum said. “With roughly 100 reactors, that's an average of less than one shutdown per reactor. Pilgrim has had seven times that.”

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said his agency categorizes shutdowns into unplanned forced shutdowns and controlled shutdowns to make needed repairs. Since January, Pilgrim has logged four forced shutdowns, according to NRC records.

One of those occurred on Aug. 22. Workers forced a rapid shutdown when an electrical malfunction caused a loss of power to the three massive pumps that supply water to the reactor.

When the plant was being powered back up four days later, the motor on one of the three main water pumps failed. The plant stayed at 76 percent power while Entergy, the owner-operator of the power plant, secured a replacement motor. The replacement was installed last weekend, but the plant never made it back to full power.

Plant operators had been keeping an eye on a small leak in a steam pipe joint, according to Carol Wightman, spokeswoman for Entergy. On Sunday, workers noticed the leak was getting worse, and they decided to systematically shut down the reactor and address the problem.

Sheehan indicated issues with the electrical power to the water pump may not yet be fully resolved. “Troubleshooting activities are continuing.” Sheehan said in an email. “Further investigation involving the electrical supply system for the motor are ongoing.”

Meanwhile Plymouth officials, who recently signed a three-year agreement for $28.75 million in lieu of taxes from Entergy, are also closely watching power plant operations.

“It's very concerning,” said Selectman Belinda Brewster. “There seems to be an increase in the number of shutdowns over the last year.”

Plymouth Selectman John Mahoney, who also serves on the Plymouth Nuclear Matters Committee, said, “With a plant entering its fifth decade of operation, these problems are bound to happen.”

“The only thing we can do is keep pressure on with the NRC and our federal officials,” Mahoney said.

It sounds like they been watching the leak for days and they screwed up big time by not fixing it when they were shutdown for the feedpump trip.

"She said plant personnel had been monitoring the leak while they decided whether it needed an immediate repair. The plant was taken offline when the amount of the leak increased Sunday."

Sept 9: What in the hell is Pilgrim in the NRC status report at 0% power today...the NRC says they are shutdown last night... 

Originally posted 9/7

May 9, 2013

Entergy-Fitzpatrick Is Beginning To Be Unreliable?

First published on Sept 5

Believe me, Neal Sheehan gets it...I talk to him first and then the so called "foes" come in to clean up after me. Least it gives him time to gather the agency's information. Neal was kinda nice to me.

What was clear to me talking to Neal...I couldn't get a answer when was the first indication they were having troubles with the feed pump. Was it during the trip or did if fail during the startup....or weeks before? Did it have a intermittant or small ground for many days...then it failed.

Everyone including the NRC is pissing their pants wondering if Pilgrim will be next?

Pilgrim plant foes cry foul

By CHRISTINE LEGERE 

clegere@capecodonline.com

September 07, 2013

PLYMOUTH, Sep 07, 2013 (Menafn - Cape Cod Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Two weeks after an electrical malfunction caused the shutdown of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station's reactor, the plant is still not at full power.

Representatives from Entergy, which owns and operates the plant, initially attributed the delayed return to standard procedure. Shutdowns provide opportunities to address items on a reactor's "to do" list, they said.

But federal nuclear energy officials confirmed Tuesday that a failed motor in one of three massive pumps that supply water to the reactor was keeping the plant from operating at peak.

The burned-out motor, within days of the wiring problem, had nuclear watchdogs talking.

Diane Turco, a Harwich resident and founder of the Cape Downwinders, compared the 41-year-old plant to an old Volkswagen Beetle. "You keep repairing it bit by bit until the front wheels fall off," Turco said. "This is a far too serious situation to keep having problems. They need to close the reactor."

Mary Lampert, founder of Pilgrim Watch, called the two plant problems "an example of one thing after another."

"It's indicative they're not spending the money to make sure the equipment is in operable condition," Lampert said. A replacement motor was in stock at the plant, but it had last been refurbished in about 2007. Plant officials decided to send it out for an inspection before installing it.

The motor was checked and is now awaiting installation.

"It's fair to say any power plant has operational conditions that need to be managed, and we're doing a good job of responding and getting the plant back to full power," said James Sinclair, spokesman for Entergy.

Lampert said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be demanding better performance from Pilgrim. "The NRC doesn't seem capable of developing a backbone and making sure they're doing what they should be doing," Lampert said.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said feed-water pumps are a production issue, not a safety issue. They provide water for the nuclear reaction process. "Still we are certainly going to monitor the work," Sheehan said of the motor installation.

On Aug. 22, a breaker had tripped due to a faulty electric cable in the junction box, causing the three large feed-water pumps to shut down. Workers immediately halted the nuclear reaction process.

Pilgrim was at zero power from Aug. 23 to 25, then very slowly powered up over the next three days to 20 percent. On Aug. 29, power reached 74 percent and now hovers at about 76 percent.

While the lower production rate would seemingly result in lost revenue, Sinclair said Entergy does not comment on production-related issues for business reasons.

In its mid-year performance review released Wednesday, the NRC appeared satisfied with the Plymouth plant. "Pilgrim operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and met all cornerstone objectives," the review letter said.

The NRC will continue to oversee Pilgrim at the level used for plants that meet performance standards.

Sheehan said the August shutdown, the plant's fifth unplanned shutdown in the last 15 months, wasn't factored into the mid-year review, but will be considered as part of the NRC's third quarter report later this fall.

"We are still evaluating whether there will be any changes in oversight due to the number of unplanned shutdowns," Sheehan wrote in an email.

Sept 5: Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Severely Uneconomic

I mean, last cycle with all their shutdowns and power reduction associated with the defective "new" safety relief valves…now for the last five days the plant has been restricted to 75%. How can these guys be economically healthy?

As I said, I think Entergy has lost the capability to effectively and cost effective….to keep up with maintenance and upkeep. They aren't getting a big enough bang for their maintenance buck.

They have lost the capability to maintain increasing members of their nuclear fleet...to keep up at a economic high capacity factor.

One thing you can say about Vermont Yankee…they stayed out of the media’s eyes and have maintain very high capacity factor post AOG leak…

Right, Pilgrim now is on a special NRC watch because of all the shutdown issues?

...I mean, from the startup on Aug 27...they never exceeded 76% power. That is ten days at 75% power?

How has Fitzpatrick been doing?

Are we talking about the next 18 months at 76%?

Then the Palisades boondoggle with their refueling and their injection water tanks…

...Hmm, and Fitz has been at 90% since Aug 25...

...And the media and antis have been asleep about this since start-up.

...So region ii says they busted a main feed pump...they are staging the job now.

So Entergy-Pilgrim recently tripped by a botched maintenance job done during the the last outage... that shorted the pump cooling water power instrumention tripping all feed pumps. They were coming out of that screwup 10 days ago...when they discovered the bum feed pump. The moter is bad..

Don't drop the stator...