The Polar Vortex Over Our Nuclear Plants?

update Jan 31

The is the second laterest nuclear facility in the USA. They are facing a permentant shutdown and everyone has been terrorizing the troops over this. 

Now the nuclear industry can't brag they were the superman over the polar vortex. This guy dropped in the polar vortex. What a disgrace. They should have had a employee manning the circ water trash screens. Waiting for the next one 

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53852
Facility: SALEM Region: 1     State: NJ Unit: [] [2] [] RX Type: [1] W-4-LP,[2] W-4-LP NRC Notified By: JASON MORGAN HQ OPS Officer: MARK ABRAMOVITZ	Notification Date: 01/31/2019 Notification Time: 04:23 [ET] Event Date: 01/31/2019 Event Time: 03:01 [EST] Last Update Date: 01/31/2019
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION	Person (Organization): BRICE BICKETT (R1DO)

Unit

SCRAM Code

RX Crit

Initial PWR

Initial RX Mode

Current PWR

Current RX Mode

2

M/R

Y

100

Power Operation

0

Hot Standby

Event Text

MANUAL REACTOR TRIP - CIRCULATING WATER ICING CONDITIONS "At 0301 [EST] on 1/31/19, with Unit 2 in Mode 1 at 100% power, the reactor was manually tripped due to icing conditions requiring the removal of 4 Circulating Water Pumps from service. The trip was not complex, with all systems responding normally post-trip. 21 CFCU [Containment Fan Cooler Unit] was inoperable prior to the event for a planned maintenance window and did not contribute to the cause of the event and did not adversely impact the plant response to the trip. An actuation of the Auxiliary Feedwater System occurred following the manual reactor trip. The reason for the Auxiliary Feed Water System auto-start was due to low level in a steam generator. Operations responded and stabilized the plant. Decay heat is being removed by the Main Steam Dumps and Auxiliary Feedwater System. "Due to the Reactor Protection System actuation while critical, this event is being reported as a four-hour, non-emergency notification per 10 CFR 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B). This event is also being reported as an eight hour non-emergency notification in accordance with 10 CFR 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) as an event that results in a valid actuation of the Auxiliary Feed Water System. There was no impact on the health and safety of the public or plant personnel. "The NRC Resident Inspector has been notified." The icing condition was described as frazil ice. Unit-1 reduced power to 88% because one circulating water pump was shutdown.

***Can you imagine a big accident at any of these nuclear plants in this weather. Is the flex equipment qualified for -70 degrees"? At this time of the year, all these plants are supposed to be at 100%. 

Is the grid getting ready to collapse?

Why are some not? Can you even imagine battling at outside fire in these temps? Does the employees have the outside clothes for this kind of weather? Certainly these plants aren't designed for this kind of weather. Is a fire fightable in these conditions. 

Chicago Tribune: "Chicago grinds to a halt as polar vortex cold snap begins: 'Today's about as cold as it can get in Chicago".

I will be closely watching these guys for the next few days...

Region 3

Unit	Power
Braidwood 1	100
Braidwood 2	100
Byron 1	100
Byron 2	100
Clinton	98
D.C. Cook 1	100
D.C. Cook 2	100
Davis-Besse	100
Dresden 2	100
Dresden 3	100
Duane Arnold	100
Fermi 2	100
LaSalle 1	100
LaSalle 2	90
Monticello	93
Palisades	100
Perry 1	81
Point Beach 1	100
Point Beach 2	100
Prairie Island 1	100
Prairie Island 2	100
Quad Cities 1	100
Quad Cities 2

Note to Self

It will save you a lot of money. If you smell propane near the water heater, your propane tank is close to empty.

Troubles in Vogtle 3/4 affecting 1/2?

January 25, 2019

 SUBJECT: REISSUE – VOGTLE ELECTRIC GENERATING PLANT – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000424/2018002; 05000425/2018002; 05000424/2018502 AND 05000425/2018502

That Is All There Is

Have you ever seen a facet of the world through new eyes? I guess I could use "new senses" instead of eyes.
Here is one of the most substantial movies I've seen in recent times. Watched it last night. It plays with our typical stereotypes we got stored in our heads. The judgement on the quality of the people we got surrounding us, usually tribal in nature. Stereotyping people does have it place.
Movie: "An Acceptable Loss (2019)" 
They say you can only understand truth and the infinite universe through Poems and Songs. Our bibles knows this.
So a significant issue shows up to move you. It causes you to look back on past and currant issues now through a completely different perspective. The New Eyes.
Does President Trump have something with "alternate facts" (Alternate facts are a feature of the infinite and can also be spun for pollical purposes). Two opposing tribes line up the best facts available. Both are absolutely sure of their position, based on really expensively gained information. Both could absolutely prove their positions in a court of law. Both are absolutely right in the system they grew up in. A binary choice system in a infinite universe. 
The final overseer of these two tribes makes a choice, then carries out the position of one of the tribes that changes the world...
So the position of those opposing tribes are both right. The only way to see the greater truth, or the next better facet of the greater truth, is to carry out one of the position. You have to so called roll the dice on the best of two choices, based on the summation of all the events of your life. All the experiences of you life you choose to retain. Both positions carry the same value. This is the sole purpose of life. You have always been a Sojourner in a Foreign Land, and always will be one. We are on a voyage across the infinite.
From a whistleblower’s perspective, this new information is extraordinary valuable independent of my initial position and my foes position. Can you see it? Are we really foes or actual brothers and sisters?
'Battle Hymn Of The Republic'

I listened to this song all my life. I never really listened to the words. It is beautifully rendered in the closing credits of the movie. This is my new eyes moment. This song is usually played in a primitive religious setting. It usually is about going to war somewhere with somebody. I think the words are so much bigger and broader than any religion or ideology. You got to juxtapose the issues with the movie; with the issues of our Civil War in your head, with the contextuality of the times and its distribution when the hymn was written and the contextuality of our days right now. Who is John Brown? Who are you! Who are you in the exact moment of the decision? Are you the old mike or new mike? Are we the sojourner across the universe or stuck in place? What is your next best choice? That is all there is.
What does the contextuality with the words in the “Battle Hymn Of The Republic” mean for you in today's reality?
Are you sobbing and crying yet.
CAN YOU SEE IT?
"Since God Is Marching On"...
Quantum Mechanics.  (edited)

T

I Know How To Get The Feds Back To Work

update Jan 25

New York (CNN)Air traffic is delayed at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Philadelphia International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey due to staffing issues at a Federal Aviation Administration regional air traffic control center, according to the FAA status website.

Reposted from Jan 11

***You are going to have to have guts and will go down in infamy.

The FAA head says the system is not safe and declares publicly he is going to shutdown all airplane flights over the USA in 24 hours like 9/11. That will get these politicians off their ass.

Is it really that bad to get fired by Trump?

NRC to Public: Fukushima Never Happened.

Union of Concern Scientist(basically the UCS is a obsolete organization much like the whole nuclear industry)

So basically the political backfit rule is sacrosanct over science and engineering. The industry creates a set of safety-wise weakly engineered plants and the politicians come back with, it is now illegal to bring a plant up to the safe standard.   

Burns

Baran  

January 24, 2019

NRC Guts a Critical Safety Regulation, Recklessly Disregarding the Critical Lessons of the Fukushima Disaster 

Decision Will Leave U.S. Nuclear Plants Dangerously Vulnerable to Major Floods and Earthquakes


WASHINGTON (January 24, 2019)

—The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Republican majority, in a 3-2 vote, approved a stripped-down version of a rule originally intended to protect U.S. nuclear plants against extreme natural events, such as the massive earthquake and tsunami that triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan in March 2011.

The commission majority struck a provision from the draft final rule the NRC staff recommended in December 2016 requiring plant owners to protect their facilities from the real-world hazards they face today instead of “design-basis” hazards that were estimated using now-obsolete information and methodologies when the plants were built decades ago.

The commission majority’s act will leave unresolved how the NRC will address new information showing that plants may experience bigger floods and earthquakes than they are now required to withstand. It is possible that the commission will not require all plant owners whose facilities face greater hazards to make structural upgrades.

“Nearly eight years after the Fukushima accident, the NRC continues to disregard a critical lesson: Nuclear plants must be protected against the most severe natural disasters they could face today—not those estimated 40 years ago,” said Dr. Edwin Lyman, senior scientist and acting director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

After Fukushima, an NRC task force recommended that the NRC “order licensees to reevaluate the seismic and flooding hazards at their sites … and if necessary, update their design basis and SSCs [structures, systems and components] important to safety to protect against the updated hazards.”

To date, the NRC has only implemented the first part of the recommendation: Owners have reevaluated seismic and flooding hazards. What they found is not reassuring. For instance, the flooding reevaluations revealed that roughly two-thirds of U.S nuclear plants face hazards beyond what they were originally designed to handle, including higher flood levels from extreme precipitation, upstream dam failure and storm surge. The reevaluated flood height for local intense precipitation for the Palisades plant in Michigan, for example, was more than 25 feet higher than the level considered in the plant’s original design. Similar concerns were identified in many seismic risk evaluations.

Despite these findings, the NRC failed to implement the second part of the task force recommendation to require plant owners to strengthen their defenses against greater hazards. The rule that was approved today was originally intended to close that gap. The commission majority’s action today removed that requirement and will simply maintain the uncertain—and inadequate—status quo.

“The NRC must require plant owners to upgrade their facilities based on the best current information, the most realistic analyses, and the potentially devastating impacts of increased flooding from climate change,” said Dr. Lyman. “Failing to do so will leave some nuclear plants dangerously unprepared and needlessly invite disaster.”

PSEG: Nuclear Plants Will Soon Close Without Subsidies

Second largest nuclear facility in the USA. They have long ago started reducing the maintenance budgets on these pigs.

PSEG: Nuclear Plants Will Soon Close Without Subsidies
01/24/2019 | Darrell Proctor

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) has again told New Jersey officials it needs subsidies to continue operating its three nuclear power units in the state, reiterating that without financial help it will begin closing its Hope Creek Generating Station and Salem Nuclear Power Plant as early as 2022.

The three reactors are the only remaining nuclear units operating in New Jersey, after the closure of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in September of last year.

New Jersey regulators on Jan. 22 published applications sent by PSEG to the state’s Board of Public Utilities (BPU) in December, in which the company said it should qualify for as much as $300 million in yearly subsidies, or zero emissions credits (ZEC), under the state’s ZEC Act, which was approved in May 2018. Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed legislation that requires the BPU to establish a program to help maintain the state’s nuclear plants, as part of the effort for the state to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
Permanent Closure Within Three Years

PSEG in its letter to the BPU regarding Hope Creek said, “As demonstrated in the materials and certifications provided to the Board as part of this application, PSEG has determined that it will permanently close Hope Creek within three years, absent a material financial change, as this plant is not projected to cover the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual expenditures required for safe operation and the inherent risks of running a nuclear power plant.” The utility said the same thing in its letter asking for subsidies for the Salem plant... 

Fermi: Massive Failure Of The Behavioral Observation Program

You notice it does specify when this event began. I hope they kicked the offending executive off the site. This is a falsification of a document, but the NRC never takes falsification seriously.  

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53830
Facility: FERMI Region: 3     State: MI Unit: [2] [] [] RX Type: [2] GE-4 NRC Notified By: JEFF MEYERS HQ OPS Officer: THOMAS KENDZIA	Notification Date: 01/16/2019 Notification Time: 18:38 [ET] Event Date: 01/16/2019 Event Time: 00:00 [EST] Last Update Date: 01/16/2019
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 26.719 - FITNESS FOR DUTY	Person (Organization): PATRICIA PELKE (R3DO) FFD GROUP (EMAIL) WILLIAM GOTT (IRD)

Unit

SCRAM Code

RX Crit

Initial PWR

Initial RX Mode

Current PWR

Current RX Mode

2

N

Y

100

Power Operation

100

Power Operation

Event Text

SIGNIFICANT FITNESS-FOR-DUTY POLICY VIOLATION "At 0900 EST on 01/16/2019, it was discovered that a licensee manager intentionally failed to re-approve the list of individuals granted unescorted access to verify each individual was subject to a behavioral observation program. Compensatory actions have been taken in response to this event. Personnel affected have had their access authorization suspended. "This is reportable under the provisions of 10 CFR 26.719(b)(3) as an intentional act that casts doubt on the integrity of the Fitness-For-Duty program. "The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector."

Hope Creek's Resident Staffing: What Does This Mean?

Update Jan 24

Here the NRC's response to the licensee. Why can't the NRC specially disclose if they got too many inspectors or not enough?  


***What does this mean? N+1 means Hope Needs three inspectors. A single plant is required to have two residents. Really this troubled plants need six inspectors.

Either Hope is requesting the NRC to reduce their NRC's resident staffing to three inspectors (four or more inspectors on site now) or they want more inspectors (only one or two residents inspector on site now) on site? 

The letter from Hope hasn't reached the NRC's Adams yet?  

January 16, 2019

SUBJECT: RESIDENT INSPECTOR STAFFING AT SALEM AND HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATIONS

Dear Mr. Sena:

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of PSEG’s letter (LR-N18-0122) dated December 4, 2018, regarding resident inspector staffing at Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations.  Your letter has been added to the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) for the information of the public, and may be found under ADAMS Accession Number ML18340A0241.  

By the December 4, 2018, letter, PSEG Nuclear, LLC (PSEG) requested that the NRC review the current resident inspector staffing at the Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations with respect to the policy described in SECY-99-227, “N+1 Resident Inspector Staffing Policy,” and align it with the level described in the policy for a multi-unit site consisting of three units.  The NRC intends to review PSEG’s request while considering applicable agency policy including, but not limited to, Inspection Manual Chapter 2515.09 through 2515.11 and provide you a letter documenting the basis for any decision.  Our goal is to complete this review within 90 days.

In accordance with Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 2.390 of the NRC’s “Rules of Practice,” a copy of this letter, its enclosure, and your response (if any) will be available electronically for public inspection in the NRC’s Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records component of ADAMS.  ADAMS is accessible from the NRC’s website at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html (the Public Electronic Reading Room).

 

Why No Recent Speeches and Reports From The NRC Commissioners and Chair On Issues Facing The Industry Since 2016?

Update

President Trump gained the presidency November 8, 2016

The Honorable Kristine Svinicki was designated Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Donald J. Trump on January 23, 2017. 

***Since the libertarian and republicans government hating utilities installed NRC Chainman Svinicki to her position, there are no more direct communications to the public by the commissioners. Is it managing the NRC in a dark closet with no light. Typical these speeches or reports from the commissioners was about pressing issues in the industry. An explanation of the NRC issues or report to the public by the political NRC commissioners and chair. 

This is just an example of massively increasing non transparency with the agency.  

This is the last one!!!!

"The NRC’s Post-Fukushima Actions as a Case Study for Regulatory Decision-Making Remarks of NRC Commissioner William C. Ostendorff 2016 Regulatory Information" Conference  March 8, 2016    

Dog Plant Palisades Trips Upon Startup

I am sure this is about a dead ender closing plant, employees issues, poor maintenance and grossly inadequate funding. We are in a aging plant crisis. This guy was suppose to be closed already, but it had a stay of execution. The stay of execution makes this plant stand out from all the other plants. 

53819

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53819
Facility: PALISADES Region: 3     State: MI Unit: [1] [] [] RX Type: [1] CE NRC Notified By: DAN GEERLINGS HQ OPS Officer: KARL DIEDERICH	Notification Date: 01/09/2019 Notification Time: 13:23 [ET] Event Date: 01/09/2019 Event Time: 00:00 [EST] Last Update Date: 01/09/2019
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION	Person (Organization): DAVID HILLS (R3DO)

Unit

SCRAM Code

RX Crit

Initial PWR

Initial RX Mode

Current PWR

Current RX Mode

1

A/R

Y

100

Power Operation

0

Hot Standby

Event Text

REACTOR TRIP FROM FULL POWER DUE TO RPS TESTING "At 1034 EST on January 9, 2019, with the reactor at 100% power, an automatic reactor trip was initiated. The trip occurred while Reactor Protection System testing was in progress. The trip was uncomplicated with all systems responding normally following the rip. Troubleshooting and investigation of the cause is ongoing. "All full-length control rods inserted fully. Auxiliary Feedwater System actuated as designed in response to low steam generator water levels. Operations stabilized the plant in Mode 3 (hot standby). Decay heat is being removed by the turbine bypass valve. "This condition has no impact to the health and safety of the public." The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.