Boston Globe On Pilgrim's Fire Protection Lapse.

Updated 10/8

Right, with the newspapers, the NRC and nuclear industry; all you are really getting is the extremely prettified version of events based on the so-called greater interest of the nation.

 Pilgrim plant failed to address 1992 safety advisory

The Pilgrim Nuclear power plant in Plymouth.

By Peter Schworm Globe Staff  October 07, 2015

Operators at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station have acknowledged a longstanding safety lapse after a review of its fire protection system revealed the plant had failed to comply with a government advisory issued in 1992, the latest setback for the Plymouth facility.

On Monday, engineers at the nuclear plant discovered vulnerabilities in two areas that required “fire watches,” where trained personnel monitor sections of the plant for any evidence of a fire. The lapse raised the alarming -- though remote -- possibility that the plant would be unable to

This the problem with the dopey and technically uneducated Boston Globe reporters. They are poorly educated on the operation and management of these nuclear power plants. The have little capability to know if the NRC officials and Entergy officials are telling the whole truth and accurate. Their technical skills just get them to parrot these official. They won't talk to anyone without a professional credential, because basically their too stupid to know even the basics of what is going on. A professional reputation as the all lawyers, know will keep a legal suit away from the newspaper. They are held hostage to the corporate professional class...they assume the like minded professional class are straight shooters.

There just is no evidence where the shorts are coming from with the NRC and Entergy. It is highly unlikely the fire threat comes within the control room. It will come from underneath the control room in the cable spreading room, the cable vault or below that in the 4160 volt switchgear room. It not fire they are worried about in the control room, its suffocation from the smoke, fumes and Freon they are worry about. Usually this is about separation of redundant instrumentation wiring or redundancy of safety grade electrical cables in the cable trays. The cable trays hold up numerous wires snaking throughout the plant. In a fires in the cable trays with redundant component wiring, the insulation burns out and there is shorting in the wiring. It can stop, start pumps, disrupt the involved instrumentation...basically leads to a runaway plant outside the control of the operators in the control room.
Cable trays fires are very hard to put out.

In my days, only water can put them out. They use to teach us over and over again, you might have to put fire water on energized trays in emergencies. There might be up to 4160 or 480 high current volts being shorted out in the cable trays. They tell us, either agree to put water on high voltage shorting cable trays or you can't work in this job. This is highly contrary to the offsite fire fighting training. Wires have to be positively de-energized if in the vicinity with a fire hose and spaying water.
  
So the dimwits Boston Globe statement "fire in its control room" is completely wrong...the BG reporter misheard what the officials were saying. We'll see a inspection report in three months, the details with that. As Donald Trump would say, I am right. 

***So basically we are worry about is fires in the cable vaults, switchgear rooms, and cable trays that snake through the plant for miles. It is a cheap work-around based on a fundimentally defective fire protection design of a plant. It is basically about redundant instrumentation and electrical supply congregating in one location at the plant. If a fire occurs in one of these unbelievable vulnerable area...the idea is to the locally operate equipment important to safety shutdown shutdown the plant. We bypass the control room, the cable vaults, cable separating rooms and cable trays...the whole ball of wax because a fire in a vulnerable area could led to a uncontrollable and runaway nuclear power plant. There generally is very little training and testing on these systems. It is a phony system for public consumption...these systems are just for show.

***After the Browns Ferry fire and TMI, basically the USA came to the conclusion most nuclear plants were of a defective design and dangerous in their current forms. We invented these add on systems to remotely shutdown the plants. These systems were constructed shortly after I arrive at Vermont Yankee in 1980. These half ass and corrupted safety systems have the high potential to corrupt the humans and safety cultures all around them. The employees, managers, officials, utilities, the regulatory agencies and the politicians...the communities all around them for economic reasons.

***When you have to hide problems for survival; lie, cheat and be deceptive just to make a buck and feed your family. It suffocates the human spirit in a broad manner. You see what I mean, when you have lie, cheat and be deceptive for survival, then you have to invent a corrupt enforcement system to keep the human system spinning. It kills the human spirit in a wide manner on both ends: the enforcers and victims. Don't you hear MLK. The whole deal with excessive privacy, secrecy, non-transparency, corrupt enforcement systems and giving a advantage to some and not the others...forced living a human life in shadows. It is a natural corruption systems. It corrupts people and humans by the billions. As Pope Francis tells us with the term: "the god of money"? You people just keep living your shallow lives just for money and security? Don't you people read the bible and listen to the peoples Pope Francis?          

I considers add-on systems as highly dangerous. The plant is not holistically designed. It gives outsiders the illusion the plants are safe. I call these systems papermacha safety systems... safety systems only made in paperwork forms. Basically cheap add on systems not holistically designed in one system, basically systems not thoroughly designed and tested as one system in the beginning of life. It is a safety system inherently with a lot of uncertainties still in the plant. The engineers just hasn't cleared out all the uncertainties. Usually we do this all for money and status.             

All these NRC and Entergy officials know there is a golden hour in public relations and in the news media. Basically a golden hour in hospital emergency care says if you get a serious injured person in the emergency room within the first hour after an injury...most people will survive the serious injury. The golden hour in the public relations and nuclear power plant news, people only listen to the nuclear news in the first 24 hours. The papers are only interested in publishing articles within 24 hours of the event because there after nobody listens.   

shut down the reactor in the event of a fire in its control room. 

The plant said it will conduct watches “as an additional layer of protection” until the underlying problem is resolved. The plant says it already patrols the areas in question every four hours.

“It had never been properly addressed, for whatever reason,” said Neil Sheehan, a NRC spokesman. “We’re going to have to assess why it took them until now.”

Sheehan said it was not clear why NRC inspectors had never identified the lapse.

“Why this particular area never caught our attention, that’s something we’re going to have to look at, too,” he said.

The revelation, first reported by the Cape Cod Times, follows a downgrade in the plant’s safety rating, raising the prospect that the plant may shut down to avoid millions in required improvements. A series of unplanned shutdowns in recent years, along with substantial safety problems, led to the demotion.

On average, the 43-year-old plant provides about 12 percent of the state’s electricity. It has been run by Entergy Corp. since 1999.

In a statement, Entergy said that the station has established “robust levels of manual and automatic fire detection and suppression in all critical areas.”