Near Miss: Nuclear Industry Ending Event Level at Salem Nuclear Plant.

7/17@4pm

So I got that call back from the Salem senior NRC resident. They are a kind of a neat resource not many people use. He says they were having troubles with a turbine driven feed pump…they had to replace parts and test it. That was why the delay or hold at 46% power. He says these guys have been pretty problematic of lately with the MFP causing scrams and down powers.

I got done with all my questions, and then he started to ask me how I am doing. I talked about my new mountain bike, going all over the place. He talked about a couple of bike rides he has had…the most memorial of his recently was a ride through Manhattan. These guys are really trying to be personable. Way more than a few years ago.

He going to ask NRR my scenario...a much higher probability of a double pump seizure in a DBA earthquake with the diffuser bolts all broken and the diffuser loose. He says they are covered in a single pump seizure.  

Again, this is much more dangerous than the possibility of an accident for the condition of the pumps. The Salem and Hope Creek plants has millions of components and thousands of systems…they are probable treating all their millions of components all in a similar manner. The plants could end up becoming very unreliable and if stressed in a transient or accident, a lot of component could show up to broken or degraded, confusing the hell out of the control room. Let alone, this behavior could demoralize the staff.   

So it needs two pumps to seize up simultaneously?

I think with a conservative maintenance PCP regime a locked rotor event his highly improbable. But under extremely poor maintenance regime leading to broken bolts on all the pumps and fallen down diffusers on three and for a prolonged exposure period…outside the well-treaded path of known engineering… then you have to assume a double locked  rotor event is probably . You have to treat this negligent behavior as punishment, with charging them as double locked rotor event is highly probable. This is how you get everyone else to never to go down this path again.

So what if we had a large earthquake in the area around Salem, as example? This jostles the loose diffusers in the four pumps leading to near simultaneous locked rotors in two pumps before the scram.   I think they should be punished severely just for being outside the well warn path of knowable engineering…way outside the licensing of the plant and design testing.

We are way outside the designed in protection for this plant...this kind of damage is uminmanageble to the plant designers amd licencing.  

I read a divergence between the 1984 NRC information notice and Westinghouse (Toshiba)?

Editorial: Stop and learn lessons from Fukushima before restarting Sendai reactors

"We must not forget that after the outbreak of the Fukushima disaster, the stance of thinking, "As long as we meet the standards, that's enough," came under criticism, including from overseas."

Why wasn’t Salem Forced to stay shut down until all safety inspections were complete and full disclosures, especially the NRC inspection. 

Honestly can you say the standards were adequate and with even the measly self standards they were unenforceable?

So why aren't we into a special or augment inspection...bet you they don 't want to disturb these bad actors.

Bet you this will be a yellow or red NRC finding like Palisades or Browns Ferry?  

Will Salem become one of the worst nuclear power actors in the nation in the eyes of the NRC...

7/17

Holy smoke, all the way up to 67% last night?

Updated 7/16

A letter to the CEO: 

 9 Twin Orchard Drive

Oswego, NY 13126

July 11, 2014

Dr. Ralph Izzo, Chairman & CEO

80 Park Plaza

P.O. Box 570

Newark, NJ 07101

Dear Dr. Ralph Izzo:

Since the Tokyo Electric Power Company/Fukushima Daiichi accidents, I believe that I have been a little more interested in nuclear plant preparedness. And, it would be my guess that those high level U.S. nuclear industry management people who visited that site are also more interested. (Maybe even you went there.)

Anyway, after reading the very scarce information available on your Salem 2 outage, I decided yesterday, (Thursday), at about 9:30 am, to call 856-339-1002 and talk with Skip. My feeling was that a plant that experienced the same problem outage after outage after outage probably isn’t too prepared for anything. I thought Skip could provide a fuller explanation. (Incidentally, I believe that I obtained Skip’s telephone number back a number of years when your Hope Creek plant had major problems with the “B”reactor recirculation pump, which you may remember, was run for many 10,000s of hours past the vendor’s recommended teardown inspection time.) Well, Skip was not there. Who did I want to talk to? Well, since I do not know who else is available, I said that I wanted to talk to anybody that could tell me about the reactor coolant pumps. But, why don’t you send me over to whoever is covering for him. Guess what? Nobody is covering for him at 9:30 am on a Thursday. No problem there: I just asked to speak to his supervisor. Can’t do that. How about I take your name and telephone number and I will try to get someone to call you back?

Can you tell me if I got a call back?

I didn’t. So, rather than talk to Skip, how about I tell you what I, a stockholder, see of your Artificial Island operation. First off is trending, a popular pastime today. A few years ago at Hope Creek, 1 of 2 reactor recirculation pumps was run in a bad state of repair. That is 50%.

Recently, it appears that all 4 of the Salem 2 reactor coolant pumps were run in a poor state of repair. That is 100%. Note that the trend shows that your Artificial Island major pump condition is getting worse.

Why would that be? Especially since the industry prides itself on telling the public of the many layers in the defense in depth theory. In your case, these layers seem to be missing.

Do you have a paid systems engineer responsible for the reactor coolant pump system? Do you have a paid function (pump) engineer? Do you have a paid plant thermal performance engineer? Does each of these 3 people have 3 additional supervisors? Does a QC program exist and include such safety-related items as reactor coolant pumps? Is there an active QA function on site? Do the plant operators do tours through the plant? Do you have a predictive maintenance program for rotating equipment? Do you follow vendor recommendations for (major) pump maintenance? Are there any installed (and operating) monitoring equipment on these pumps? Do you have an aging management program in operation?

Shouldn’t just about any ONE of these layers of defense in depth been sufficient to warn you that pump work was needed at the START of the outage?

So, how about doing two things? First, why don’t you have calculated the cost of all those people, functions, and programs who did not warn PSEG that the Salem 2 reactor coolant pumps needed work this outage, (starting from the end of the last refueling outage?)

Second, how about providing some transparency to the interested public to show you now have control of the situation?

Thank you,

Thomas Gurdziel

 

Yesterday morning I noticed in the Power Reactor Status Report Salem 2 was stuck at 46%. I thought it was abnormal …but it was less than 24 hours from start-up. Today it is still stuck at 46% power and that is highly abnormal.  

“Substantial safety hazard”

Palisades:

Information Notice No. 85-03: Separation of Primary Reactor Coolant Pump Shaft and Impeller

3) Although the event described here is apparently isolated, it demonstrates the credibility of a pump failure event which could lead to a rapid flow decrease transient of the type expected with a sheared shaft event. Most PWRs have a licensing basis analysis for that event or the similar seized rotor event. These analyses generally assume an automatic response of the plant's reactor protection system which generates a reactor trip as a result of low reactor coolant flow.

Plants which sense primary flow by pump shaft rotation rather than a fluid flow measurement for this automatic trip function are cautioned to the vulnerability of the protective system to a failure of the pump impeller.

 

***I got it, but it was always safe?

Probable Nuclear Industry Ending Level Event At Salem Nuclear Plant

This is the USA’s Fukushima…an extremely unlikely event, but one with enormous consequences( 9.0 earthquake with a huge tsunami)…this is a tricky judgment.

“Westinghouse determined that the dislodged parts could have created a “substantial safety hazard” had they suddenly locked up a pump, according to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC’s regional office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. He added that the company considered a pump freeze-up “extremely unlikely.”

Does the NRC think this was extremely unlikely? What is it based on?

What is the evidence that it is unlikely…did the Westinghouse build a mockup and try every way possible with all the bolt broken to get the locked flow? Or is this just a industry’s advantaged "opinion" not backed up by testing and real engineering.  

There you guys go using insider code words the outsiders can’t understand…name and explain in detail the least and worst scenarios that gets you to the “substantial safety hazard”.

*** I’ll bet you it would get you to significant fuel damage and then bring up terms like a meltdown…it would be a nuclear industry ending level event based on just a “opinion” a freeze up is extremely unlikely!  

Documents ShowGeneral Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes

Now, G.M.'s response, as well as its replies to queries in other crashes obtained by The New York Times from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, casts doubt on how forthright the automaker was with regulators over a defective ignition switch that G.M. has linked to at least 13 deaths over the last decade.

They provide details for the first time on the issue at the heart of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department: whether G.M., in its interaction with safety regulators, obscured a deadly defect that would also injure perhaps hundreds of people.a car crash.

The company repeatedly found a way not to answer the simple question from regulators of what led to a crash. In at least three cases of fatal crashes, including the accident that killed Mr. Erickson, G.M. said that it had not assessed the cause. In another fatal crash, G.M. said that attorney-client privilege may have prevented it from answering. And in other cases, the automaker was more blunt, writing, “G.M. opts not to respond.” The responses came even though G.M. had for years been aware of sudden power loss in the models involved in the accidents.

At the end of the day, the industry would say it was just a few fuel pins that burst, you know how the antis would term it..but what would the public think? Would it become a media circus trying to drive viewership and circulation? 

You catch how the dirty linen always comes out after the start-up? They never have a pubic start-up meeting and explain what happened.

Remember these pumps are as hot radioactively as a fire cracker? 

Warnings on Salem-type bolt troubles go backdecades

Bolts that failed by the dozen inside four Salem Unit 2 reactor coolant pumps, idling the plant for months, were made of a metal alloy deemed unsuitable for nuclear reactors as long ago as 1984, industry and Nuclear Regulatory Commission filings show.
 
Manufacturer Westinghouse Electric Co. determined that parts loosened by bolt failures could have created a “substantial safety hazard” at the plant along the Delaware River had they suddenly locked up rapidly spinning parts in one or more of the 30-foot-tall coolant pumps, according to Neil Sheehan, a regional NRC spokesman.
 
Sheehan added that although Westinghouse considered a pump freeze-up “extremely unlikely,” it considered it “prudent” to formally report the bolt issue Tuesday to the NRC and the owner of two other reactors near Newport News, Virginia, where the same bolts are still in use.
 
The Westinghouse notification also revealed additional details about the severity of the problem inside the Salem pumps, which circulate water from the reactor to a system that transfers heat to make nonradioactive steam for generators.
 
In three of the four damaged units, large metal assemblies that redirect water flows dropped from their regular positions just above water-moving impellers when retaining bolts broke or sheared off. In two of those three pumps, Westinghouse said, diffusers made contact with the impellers, which spin at thousands of rotations per minute.

Why didn't the noise monitors catch the diffusers rubbing the blades...bet you they were turned down. Why wasn't the pump pressure or flow changes noticeable?

Was reactor power level accurate?

“We’re still reviewing how PSEG responded to the bolting issue and will be documenting any findings in an upcoming inspection report,” Sheehan said. Although two of the loosened diffusers and spinning impellers made contact, “it did not cause any notable degradation” in pump flow or performance, Sheehan said.

*That sounds like there was detectable degradation, but they ignored it. 

NRC documents show that Brookhaven National Laboratory concluded in 1984 that the metals used in the type of bolts in Salem’s pumps should “not be used as a reactor structural material because of its susceptibility” to damaging changes under high stress and temperature. Reactor designer Babcock & Wilcox removed the alloy from its designs the same year, and the same alloy concerns were detailed in NRC notifications to industry in 1990, 1994 and 1995.
 
Salem’s bolt problems also prompted the NRC to notify inspectors and officials at Dominion Generation’s Surry Units 1 and 2 reactors northwest of Newport News, Virginia, the only other plants to use the same “A-286” alloy bolts in coolant pumps. The Virginia company is reviewing reports from Salem “to evaluate a course of action going forward,” Sheehan said.
 
PSEG Nuclear restarted Unit 2 over the weekend and reported the plant at 45 percent of its 1,180-megawatt capacity Tuesday morning. The 33-year-old reactor was taken offline in mid-April for a scheduled replacement of a third of its fuel, with the company reporting in mid-May that the shutdown would be extended because of the bolt problem. 

Bolt failures were discovered in the same PSEG pumps during two previous refueling shutdowns for Unit 2, which take place about every 18 months. All bolts were found to be broken or sheared off during the latest outage. Some broken bolt heads were found far out of place, including at the bottom of the reactor core.
 
Full details on the damage and cost of the repairs and shutdown have yet to be released.
 
Joe Delmar, spokesman for PSEG, said that pump-maker Westinghouse issued a technical bulletin on the issue in 1996. The bulletin, he said, noted that even if all bolts on a pump failed, “it would not affect the performance of the pump and, therefore, they did not recommend going in and replacing the bolts with others with different material unless you were going into the pump for another purpose.”
 
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and director of the Nuclear Safety Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Tuesday that PSEG might be found in violation of an NRC requirement that defective materials “are promptly identified and corrected.”
 
“Clearly, PSEG violated this requirement,” Lochbaum said on Tuesday, adding that the notification from Westinghouse “suggests that the defective material represented a significant condition adverse to quality.”

Dummy: why didn't they do that for the Palisades with their spewing PCP impeller blades all throughout their coolant going back decades?  Why are we getting a rash of primary coolant pump problems recently?  

PSEG’s neighboring Salem Unit 1 and Hope Creek reactors are equipped with different types of pumps and fasteners.
 
Westinghouse officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
 
Salem Unit 2 is one of three reactors that PSEG operates on Artificial Island along the Delaware River southeast of Augustine Beach.
 
Contact Jeff Montgomery at 463-3344 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.