The Brooks Brother Suits Wants Budget's Slashed 30% at Nuclear Plants

Republished from 12/8/2015

Update 12/9

Another example of terrible waste:  "Indian Point's other reactor, Unit 3, is now running at 100 percent, but has been shut down for two scheduled and four unscheduled outages in 2015."

As one insider says:

"Over paid execs who are just sending gold bars to their headquarters" 

 

In other words, the NEI and electric utilities finally see themselves in a severe death spiral. It is time to begin hacking and slashing budgets in order to survive. If these guys were really fiducial professional, they would already be funding these plants without any extra financial waste or slack. It would already be going back to the stockholders.   

Did the nuclear utilities order the NEI to pressure plants to cut cost 30% across the board?

Not a worry a bit about this ultra-high capacity factor degrading safety. How are they going assure us no safety will be cut.

I got the first big cut, wind down the NEI. This is only basically a no work or easy work nuclear industry welfare.  

I am glad they are finally seeing the magnitude of their financial problems.

The NRC should send out a mandatory anonymous questionnaires to every technical employee and management in the industry. Ask them if they now are adequately resourced? Will you be able to safely operate with budget cuts of upwards to 30%?

List the 3 top weak links with severe budgets cuts?

I got another great ideal, anyone making over $150,000 a year should begin with a 30% reduction in salary and the higher paid Brooks Brother suits should take a much bigger percentage hit as a symbol of the crisis.

 

You just got to know the rank and file guys who really run the plant, the Brooks Brother suits are going to be focusing their wrath at cutting the wages and benefits at the bottom half.

When A Strike is a Possibility at a Plant

You notice how Entergy took care of their Union and strike problem at FitzPatrick...they are just going to shut them down.     

US nuclear power fleet aims to cut costs by 30%: industry official 

Washington (Platts)--8 Dec 2015 517 pm EST/2217 GMT

• You mean the electric utilities have demanded this goal.

The US nuclear power industry has launched a wide-ranging initiative with the goal of cutting its electricity production costs by 30% by 2018, an industry official said Tuesday. 

Maria Korsnick, chief operating officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said during a media briefing at the National Press Club in Washington that despite record-high capacity factors achieved by US nuclear power plants in recent years, the average production cost of the electricity they generate rose significantly from 2002 to 2014. 

• “despite record-high capacity factors” for last 12 years.  

• "total electric generating costs at US nuclear plants have increased 28% in twelve years” despite record capacity factor. 

NEI said in a statement Tuesday announcing the initiative that "total electric generating costs at US nuclear plants have increased 28% -- to an industry average $36.27/MWh -- over the past 12 years," including fuel, capital and operation and maintenance costs. 

Since 2013, Entergy's Vermont Yankee and Dominion's Kewaunee in Wisconsin have been permanently shut "for economic reasons," and Entergy has announced it will shut its Pilgrim in Massachusetts and FitzPatrick in New York in the next two years "largely due to financial losses," NEI said. 

"We are operating in markets with a glut of natural gas at historically low prices, concurrent with low electricity demand nationally," Korsnick said in the statement. "We are seeking to redesign fundamental plant processes to significantly improve operational efficiencies and effectiveness, and in the process make nuclear energy facilities more economically viable." 

NEI said in a fact sheet provided at the briefing that "[a]n analysis at one US nuclear plant site found that supervisors spent over half their time on administrative duties and only 14% of their time supervising employees. In addition, little time was being spent on process improvement efforts or problem-solving activities." 

Other factors contributing to increased productions costs, Korsnick said during the briefing, include significant increases in regulation of nuclear plants and electricity markets that do not adequately recognize and compensate the benefits of nuclear power, such as its reliability in extreme weather, she said during the briefing. 

Industry working groups have identified initial potential savings in several areas, including improvements in corrective action programs, work management, engineering, security and regulatory efficiency, she said. 

Korsnick said the groups' recommendations are being reviewed by a steering committee of chief nuclear officers from companies that operate power reactors. 

Preliminary estimates indicate that the potential savings identified by the working groups could result in "30% cost savings across the industry," amounting to "hundreds of millions of dollars" annually, Korsnick said. Korsnick emphasized that the initiative is being closely coordinated with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and "safety reviews are built into the process" of selecting and implementing the savings proposals. 

• So what about running this across independent safety advocates and representative community. You do well with people who are skilled at communication and highly skeptical.

In fact, by encouraging operators to take a fresh and critical look at practices and procedures at nuclear plants, the initiative is expected to enhance safety, she said. 

•  Most if not all the big events in the industry and certainly watching a plant or their management spectacular failing…all of it revolves around emerging financial priorities and budgets cuts. These guys are spectacularly stupid at budget cutting.

Korsnick said in response to a question that the initiative is considering various proposals to modify regional electricity markets to better value the benefits of nuclear power, including low-carbon portfolio standards that would provide additional compensation to carbon-free generators using funds from a surcharge on electricity sold in the state adopting the standard. Exelon, operator of the country's largest nuclear fleet, has proposed such a standard be adopted in Illinois, saying that would benefit its economically struggling nuclear plants and help assure reliable electricity supply. 

Such market reform proposals, however, are far more complex than plant-specific efficiency improvements, and so would take longer to consider and implement, Korsnick said. 

• So it is a voluntary program plant by plant? What if going through this program they find more money needs to be spent. 

Proposals approved by the steering committee will be either offered for adoption by individual nuclear plants at their discretion or, in the case of actions that must be undertaken by the industry as a whole to be effective, submitted for a vote of NEI's Nuclear Strategic Issues Advisory Committee, a standing group of chief nuclear officers, Korsnick said. Initiatives approved by that committee are binding for the entire industry.