Hinsdale Bridge Vibrations

2009@5300 vpd  for a year gives us 1.9 million cars

2012@7300 vpd    2.7 million cars

2013@ 9700 vpd    3.5 million cars

2015@12775 vpd  4.7 million cars

There is an anomaly between the environmental assessment and the state count.

Average annual daily traffic counts in 2010 for the main artery between Hinsdale and Brattleboro stood at 9,700. Projected counts for 2032 increase to nearly 15,000.

Well, they estimated in 2012 the traffic volume would be 12,775 in 2015…

According to the NHDOT at Pierce Road and Brattleboro Road the average daily traffic rate was:

1) 2009 at 5300 vehicles a day

2) 2012 at 7300 vehicle

So it averages 667 vehicles a day increase per year.

Now the most recent Hinsdale bridge project estimates in 2013 it is 9700 vehicles per day…

That is a difference on average of 4400 more vehicles a day going across the Hinsdale Bridges in one year verses 667 vehicles on average a day per year in between 2009 and 2012.

You see the amazing increasing trends…the rate of change of vehicles going across the bridges are staggering.

*** 9700 vehicles per day gives us a 3.5 million (3,540,500) vehicles going across bridge in one year at a 2013 year rate.

This isn't including the "Tractor Supply" store and this place just opened. 

June 16: 

It is common knowledge to everyone in our surroundings our bridges bounces up and down and sways terribly as cars a trucks use the bridge. People in buses notice it when they are stopped on the middle of the bridge, as with everyone in the cars. It makes everyone terribly nervous! Everyone involved with this should spend time on the walkway of the bridge.

The enormously dangerous situation most people don't "get"... understand ...is the traffic volume across this bridge is trending up at a fast rate. The rate of change intensified with the new Walmart and now the recent business development such a "Tractor Supply". It is going up a a fast rate. God knows what is going on in other development. And many big corporation look at the functionality of the Hinsdale bridge with future economic development and better jobs. Why build a big and expensive facility next to a dilapidated bridge that you need to get to the interstate. You can't predict the life of the 1921 bridge based on the traffic rate of two years ago. This is absolute and utter insanity! Just think of the increase of tractor trailers and cars these bridges have seen in the last few years coming out of these stores...

Right, people who hate government so much they are domestic terrorist...instead of aiming 911 airplanes at NYC skyscrapers, they blow up our government by defunding it and turning everyone else against government.

I do get it, not many media people have the technical capibilities to be able to protray these events to the public in a way they understand...

And a trillion dollars wasted on Iraq and climbing...

 

Originally posted on 9/26/13

 

Sept 30: This kind of crap is going on throughout NH government...these are domestic terrorist trying to disassemble NH government... 

　

NH Corrections: “We often wonder where the breaking point is going to be,” he said.

NHDOT: This is a message I got out of him: “Many years ago when I first got here we had about 120 employees. We have now around 70 employees.

N.H. Corrections Staff Feels Budget Losses

By Jeremy Blackman

Concord Monitor

Monday, September 30, 2013
(Published in print: Monday, September 30, 2013)

Concord — Patrick Bettens didn’t become a corrections officer for the overtime. But in the past six years, as budget constraints and declining staff counts have gripped the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, it has become a defining facet of his career. Nearly every week Bettens is asked or told with little advance notice to tack four, sometimes eight hours onto at least one of his five eight-hour evening shifts.

Walk into any division of the state prison and one theme will eventually surface: getting by with less. Education and vocational training programs have fewer instructors, industry facilities are open fewer hours per day, mental health and substance abuse services have been trimmed, correctional councilors are in short supply.

It seems unlikely it will get any easier. According to Department of Corrections spokesman Jeffrey Lyons, the department’s operating budget for the 2012-13 biennium was cut by $13 million after it passed, and the new, 2014-15 budget is $2 million less than that.

“We certainly have gone past trimming the fat and gone into cutting into the meat of the system,” Bettens said.

The Effects

His division has perhaps felt the greatest strain. Corrections Major Jon Fouts, who oversees security at the state prison, estimated that he’s lost more than 100 officers — about a third of his staff — through layoffs and attrition in recent years. As a result, he and other watch commanders are left with few options other than to compel existing officers to working extra hours just to meet what he called “safe minimal” staffing.

Security is not in jeopardy, Fouts insisted, but morale and workplace effectiveness has taken a hit.

“We often wonder where the breaking point is going to be,” he said.

Overtime expenses have also blown a hole in the department’s budget, swallowing nearly $8 million in the last two years and projected to do much the same through 2015, according to legislative finance documents.

Between 2004 and 2012, the department eliminated nearly 250 positions, including 25 percent of its corrections staff and instructors, 52 percent of its administrators, 22 percent of shop supervisors and 17 percent of its correctional counselors and case managers. The department had 97 staff vacancies last year, according to department records.

Despite the reductions, about 75 percent of the Corrections budget is allocated for personnel expenses.

“Other departments have been asked to live in their means, but the Department of Corrections is at a disadvantage, in my opinion, because when times get worse their job grows in demand,” he said.

Feb 27:

There was one more issue I wanted to talk about but forgot to mention it. If a problem ever came up that your bosses wouldn't let you touch and your conscience still bothers you...I could be a conduit to leak NHDOT documents and issues to the public. I am a well know nuclear whistleblower. A lot a employees leaked document or issues to me. I raised publicly a lot of big issues. I told them in order to protect your identify, I would gladly go to jail indefinitely before I would give up you name. You need a really sexy issue to get the public's attention...something really controversial.

The largest whistleblower issue I ever singerly instigated...it was American Tissue and  it involved $500 million dollars. Put a lot of bad guys in jail. I am afraid of nothing (except my wife).

I talked to Dave this morning. He was a really nice guy.  We talked for an hour or so...he would have let me talked longer if I wanted too.

He says the vibrations are normal. They basically stand up on the deck during an inspection...if it doesn’t sway or vibrate noticeable it gets passed. I basically said vibrations are an indicator of bridge deterioration.  I am one for science...I need a detector measuring and recording vibration for a prolonged period of time. Then you monitor the vibration trends. He basically said there are no state and federal requirements with vibrations or movement requirements. I’d like to see them do a vibration test once a year.

So what is the science and engineering that guides the NHDOT into making a judgment about the strength of a totally 1921 rusted gusset? They would remove old rusted gussets,  then measure the forces it would take to when a gusset fails. Right, an assortment of rusted gusset, maybe even intentionally corroded, maybe rusted 10%, 20% or 50%, whatever, rusted in a assortment of areas (top)...where we got the data, science and engineering knowledge to be assured we know "when" a rusted gusset would fail.

Check out the vertical member...there are holes that are just corroded through the iron beam. Look at the rivet heads...you got to know a lot less force than when new would pop those rivets  So we see a diagonal and vertical rusted member attached to the gusset...along with the vertical outside member...with all that rust, how do we really know the real force it would take to fail these connecting members?

 Basically they are washing away the uncertainty(not disclosing) on these degraded areas...while unjustly amplifying the certainty (the wasted away top doesn't matter) with the gusset's structural integrity.

  Got any independent academic reports or government studies...destructive testing... on the integrity of rusted gussets like this? When an old rust gusset will fail?

We talked about my grossly corroded gusset...he says it mostly on the top. It hasn’t much degraded the strength of gusset. They are working on getting a sonic metal detector to inspect the gussets with heavy rust. I asked him according the Minneapolis NTSB findings on their bridge collapse...did you carry out the required gusset inspections. He said they did!

Come on, that horizontal runner under the gusset...from footing to footing all across the bridge..with all that debris and dirt covering up the member, how strong is that member? Right, that dirt or debris says wet for a long time, along with the salt...you know that is a intensely corroded area. 

Don't get you panties wet...I took these picture in the spring...

They are still in the 19^th century paperwork world...all their paperwork isn’t digitized yet.

I told Dave the NHDOT is as much a victim to our dysfunctional political process as Hinsdale NH...

...I decided  to bug the NHDOT about bridge movement, sway and vibration today. I always had issues in any NHDOT agency getting to talk to the right person. Once you say I got a problem, then all you get is everyone is out of the office.

I called the district 4 people asking to talk about the Hinsdale Bridge vibration problems. She said nobody is in right now, can I take you name and number? I say irked, I leave my name and number, then nobody ever gets back to me. There is a pause; she then says maybe you need to speak to Mark Richardson over in bridge inspection and she gives me the number. I call up the number for inspections,  but bridge new construction office answers. I give him my spiel, he says the bridge inspection office is not available...we are just answering their phones. I go into irked, I always have so much trouble getting to talk to the right people in any NH agency.  He says are budgets are tight, bridge inspection only has one secretary, and she is out. So we got into a little conversation about the NHDOT. Anyways Mark is not around, you can call him in the morning...but the real guy to talk to is Dave Powelson.

This is a message I got out of him: “Many years ago when I first got here we had about 120 employees. We have now around 70 employees. He says they perform an inadequate amount of inspection on new bridge construction...we are so overloaded and overwhelmed we can’t adequately vet the designs and oversee even the construction of new bridge. Many things are getting passed us.

This is the “ New Hampshire Advantage”...

Grand Gulf is Going bonkers on us?

Welcome Grand Gulf to the world of Pilgrim and Palisades...didn't they have a power uprate of late?

Huge plant: Grand Gulf's reactor is the most powerful in the United States, with a core power of 4408 MWth[1] yielding a nominal gross electrical output of about 1500 MWe.

Grand Gulf Station, a supplemental inspection team is being chartered - White PI for Unplanned Scrams per 7000 Critical Hours

Submitted by NUCBIZ on June 13, 2014 - 14:43

by Bob Meyer

June 12, 2014, The NRC Director's office sent out a memorandum to Jim Drake, Senior Reactor Inspector, Plant Support Branch 2, Division of Reactor Safety designating him as the team leader for the Supplemental Inspection Team.

Since December 29, 2012 to March 29, 2014, the station experienced six unplanned scrams.
As a result of the licensee experiencing three unplanned scrams between December 29, 2012, and January 14, 2013, the Performance Indicator for “Unplanned Scrams per 7000 Critical Hours,” crossed the threshold into White. The following are the descriptions of each of these scrams:

December 29, 2012 - Scram from 100% due to phase A unit differential signal resulting in a main generator lockout and turbine trip

January 4, 2013 - Scram from 94% power due to a phase A unit differential signal resulting in a main generator/turbine trip. Returned to 100% power on January 11

January 14, 2013 - Scram from 100% power due to a turbine generator trip caused by a generator neutral time overcurrent relay tripping. Commenced startup activities on January 27

The licensee had originally indicated that they were prepared for the IP 95001, “Supplemental Inspection for One or Two White Inputs in a Strategic Performance Area,” to be performed in August 2013. However, the licensee experienced another reactor scram (below), which resulted in their request to delay the inspection while they evaluated this new event against the planned actions that they had developed for the previous events.

July 30, 2013 - Scram from 100% power due to high reactor pressure. Cause was a failure of the B turbine stress evaluator (TSE) transmitter

On February 28, 2014, the licensee notified the NRC that they were ready for the IP 95001 inspection.

Subsequently, the licensee experienced two more reactor scrams.

March 17, 2014 - Operators inserted a manual scram from 41 percent thermal power due to a steam leak in the turbine building

March 29, 2014 - Scram from 87% power due to a main generator load reject, resulting in a turbine control valve fast closure

As a result, the licensee contracted an outside firm to perform an independent evaluation of these events and the licensee’s proposed corrective actions.

This supplemental inspection is being performed to obtain a better understanding of each of the referenced events; to assess the licensee’s understanding and response; and to assess whether all underlying contributing causes were appropriately considered and evaluated in the development of the licensee’s corrective actions.

Preemptory Blue Ribbon National Commission on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

June 22: It is 1.7 trillion dollars...so that is another 140 nuclear plant for a total of 340 nuclear plants.

What are we talking about, 70% of the electricity we use in the USA? 

June 21: 

So we spent a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000) on Iraq…we and the world got nothing out of it. Ok, 5 $billion per new nuclear plant. We could build 200 standard size nuclear plants with the best of technology,  with the cost of the Iraq war not including Afghanistan. I get it, the war is like a giant public works program except we got to kill 100,000s of people. It a is public works and jobs program without the ability to enjoy the fruits of our labor and taxes.

We could have shut down our obsolete operating nuclear plants while doubling the capacity of nuclear sector. Basically all our economy would have to pay for is the fuel and upkeep of the new plants for the next 60 years...   

June 16: Mr Meyer has remove his entry from his webs site?

Mr Meyers is saying these plants have a set budget for the operations. If they are spending money on Fukushima, they are withholding funds from training for the same budget.

President Obama and VP Biden,  thi is a cry for help deep within the nuclear industry for a National Commission on the NRC:  

Initial Licensed Operator Exams - Lowest Pass Rate in Five Years - INPO Reveals Shortcomings

Submitted by NUCBIZ on June 14, 2014 - 08:08

By Bob Meyer

Information is available from the NRC website for all the numbers. The industry on the whole is failing on training. Fukushima rigor does not apply in training, a predicted outcome by PROS that training would suffer, hence plant performance will decline. Fukushima resource requirements make other areas of the nuclear model weaker.

INPO/NRC meeting I revealed the disaster of the Initial Licensed Operator Training Programs and the training programs endevour to conform to the NRC inconsitent regional requirements. My exposé stated that as an industry, we are not doing well managing our resources. High failure rates, poor programs, lesson plans out of date, line that does not have the manpower to see an initial class through. These are not new concerns. It is often a revelation to many managers, INPO and the NRC that the Initial Licensed Operator classes are performed on back shift, midnights. An often asked question, "How would you perform going to college on the midnight shift?" INPO and the NRC staff appear to be disconnected. If you have a dual unit plant, you should be required to have a dual unit simualtor (DC Cook). Single units need two simluators to keep trianing programs from double bunking. Simulator training is the choke point.

The new document issued by INPO on June 12, 2014 concerning deficiencies in training clearly shoots INPO in the foot. Ineffective in ensuring a 10CFR50.120 requirement is met, the systematic approach to training breakdown, not following training procedures (T.S. Violation). This is the best job INPO has done in delineating short comings for the second time. As I see it INPO is in noncompliance with the 2012 Memorandum of Understanding with the NRC. This Memorandum allows the NRC to pass off regulatory oversight to INPO (Board of Directors all Industry CEOs or equiv.) may be a big mistake for nuclear safety.

Fukushima, Chernobyl, and TMI happened for different reasons, but they all have one thing in common.

This article does not reflect the views of the Professional Reactor Operator Society. This is an opinion.

 Show me one issue that would show how corrupts the NRC is…I would point to how the NRC didn’t do a public operability determination on the Palisades primary coolant pump.

It is risk perspectives, it makes all rules plastic.

June 12 NYT blog: Lochbaum offered this reaction:

First, the good news. The indications of elevated tritium levels strongly suggest a leak of radioactively contaminated water from Indian Point (it’s not irrefutable evidence of an ongoing or recent leak since it could be past leakage finally reaching the monitoring wells due to recent rainfall.) This is good news in the sense that all the monitoring wells are fairly recent additions to the site. More than 12 years ago, leakage would either not have been detected or only detected after people started dying, a la Love Canal. So, strange as it seems, awareness is a good thing. It provides time to implement measures to protect people and the environment.

Turning to the bad news, the NRC needs to get off the bench and into the regulating game. All the rhetoric about 20,000 picocuries per liter and neighbors drinking two quarts a day for a year is totally irrelevant.

N.R.C.’s regulations do not allow a drop of radioactively contaminated water to leave Indian Point except via monitored and controlled pathways. Even if the monitoring wells constituted a monitored pathway (which they don’t despite the name), it’s not a controlled pathway. Thus, N.R.C.’s regulations are being violated. But N.R.C. does not enforce those regulations. N.R.C. could impose a fine of $130,000 per day. That would give Entergy ample incentive to quickly find the leak (and stop the fine tally) and to implement steps to prevent future leaks (and future fines).

But nooooo. The N.R.C. instead invoked the “no blood, no foul” rule and becomes Entergy’s ally in allowing ongoing leaks (and ongoing crimes.)

The regulations were adopted following a public rulemaking process. That process allowed the public to chime in if the proposed regulations seemed too tame. The process allowed owners to chime in if the proposed regulations seemed too onerous. The final regulations adopted by the N.R.C. by definition became Goldilocks standards, neither too harsh nor too lean.

The regulations are essentially three-way contracts between the N.R.C., plant owners, and the public. The regulations protect owners from the N.R.C. requiring more stringent, and more costly, measures. The regulations should protect the public from the N.R.C. accepting less than compliance with the regulations.

But the N.R.C. is breaching its contract with the public around Indisn Point. It is allowing Entergy to leak radioactively contaminated water from Indoan Point as long as that leakage dies not kill people.

The N.R.C. should enforce its regulations or change its name to N.C. For the R in N.R.C. stands for Regulatory and the N.R.C. needs to do something to deserve such labeling or the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] should get after them for false advertising.

I documented the regulations the N.R.C. had established but the ignored in my September 2010 report Regulatory Roulette.

Originally posted on 6/9

(I am always in a  continuing process to update this entry and fix my errors. I will cue you into I changed something.)

June 13: This would be the accident I’d be concerned about with large scale popping of pins and freeing up large amounts of reactivity. This kind of accident would emerge within a few seconds. We’d still have the rods out and supplying feed water to the core. Many fuel pellets would be exposed to the water and moderator...would be freed from the cladding. You would have that cascade accident with one assembly after another being damaged. We would have a tremendous insertion of reactivity...the end result would be a steam explosion.(hyperbole) It might have enough energy to blow off the reactor head, remember the exploding Fukushima plants...then it would disperse fuel all over the local environments.   

SL-1

You should talk to me about the Vermont Yankee event I exposed with their one “pin”  in core steam explosion. It tore open the cladding of one pin and dispersed pellets into the coolant. Coolant leaked into the pin surrounding the fuel pellets, they pulled a rod nearby...which caused the fuel pellets to overheat and created the opportunity of a nuclear reactivity steam explosion.   

Ok, this is the smart question...this is the cover-up.

Salem 2 PCP potential event

(fixed this up a bit on 6/11)You notice the pump seizure with a bolt is an issue with Salem and threatening fuel damage, while a 5 by 12 inch impeller blade, with the lost blade being an inch thick, is not analysed as pump seizure stoppage accident at Palisades. The disparity between these two plant's accident analysis are shocking.

Fuel assembly:

So a fourth of the water flow in the core quickly stops...hot spot and areas where there is higher local power levers begin to quickly heat up. May be one fuel pin burst open, may be 10 pins burst open, may be a whole fuel assembly's pins burst open... You could consider any fuel pellet coming in contact with coolant water as super moderated and being able to quickly generate a lot more power and heat than normal at normal power operations. If don’t think it would take a lot of fuel pellets to put out so much power and heat only steam and water vapor would remain in the assembly. So that would cause addition pins to pop. Say the majority of pins popped in a assembly, the pins would be scrambled in the assembly, the fuel pellets would congregate at the bottom of the assembly and clog up the flow. Does those broken fuel pellets at the bottom of the assembly end with in a local "steam explosion", then bend and damage the assembly through the tremendous heat and power being produced there? Is there enough energy in the steam and vapor to seriously damage the neighbor assembly?  It is the beginning of a cascaded where pins in another neighbor assembly start to pop and damage the assemble, then another, then another. In this process we might not have scrammed yet.

How the assemblies are nestled together:

May be one, two or three assemblies get destroyed, maybe a rod can’t get all the way in the core...but the nuclear reaction stop. diverse cooling to the core is never threatened. What emergency classification would you be in? It would telegraph to outsider how serous the accident is. There is going to be a tremendous amount of freed radioactivity in the core if just one assemble gets destroy...lots if only one or two pins are destroyed. It is going to be a nasty cleanup of the core and it would be questionable if it is worth the price of a cleanup. But there would be little off plant release of radiation.

How do you think the outsiders would portray this? The antinukes would say there was a core meltdown. The NRC and plant would say they were always safe. This is just normal and expected. The UFSAR and plant licencing allows this. Can you imagine the media and political debate out of this?

Thanks NEI. Fuel pins or rods:

See, basically risk perspective only protects us from a severe core melt...this was mostly a small partial core meltdown with diverse core cooling always available. That is what they mean when they say its safe...safe mean less than severe core meltdown and it wouldn’t happen very often. I saying the political and public fallout would be severe, industry threatening...but it is all really a small partial meltdown. See how the nuclear industry doesn’t protect themselves from such a close near death experience and risk traumatizing a significant segment of our population. One, two, or three destroyed assemblies would be defined a safe and acceptable...but the outsiders would think you are bsing them on a meltdown and loss of another plant.

I am just saying this would be a severely painful and damaging event for the nation... but the NRC treats a partial core meltdown as a walk in the park in their analysis. Risk perspective does not capture public and political risk...it just looks at not having a severe core melt and limiting its off site release.  Risk perspectives should carry public credibility or political fallout and limiting a severe core melt and resultant unacceptable off site doses. All this is a profit!  

The problem is, most media outlets don’t have the money to hire nuclear expert reporters. There just is not a big audience for this. So they have to depend on a very limited group of experts for advice.  

You might have a good story...the reporter has no idea what you are talking about. The nukes don’t talk, they only have a limited amount of pro safety people. So they don’t know what you are talking about...that defaults into looking for a so called credentialed experts. Who says they know what their talking about, even if they got a engineering degree or PhD? That what their lawyers need. If they still don’t get it...the safest thing is to drop the story. They are always inclined to drop the story. More than not today, news is entertainment driving circulation...it is unrelated to what information you really need about the world today.  

So lets see, I sent an e-mails to Senator Shaheen, Senator Markey, President Obama and VP Biden Enformable...

How do you contact the NYT with a story idea?

June 10: Bam...got the managing editor of the NYT Mr. Baquet on my side?

I know, just throwing a pebble in a ocean's worth of internet data...

(Shit…I made a spelling or word mistake to the president and VP :) Was the word I was looking for preemptory or peremptory. I hate English, but it is the only language I know? I think I got it right. I was hoping I was going to look smarter than I am.).

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And ABC news...

Also Aljazeera and The Japan Times...

Washington Post...

Dear Senator Shaheen, 
 

To Sarah_Holmes@shaheen.senate.gov

 

Today at 9:27 PM

 

Dear Senator Shaheen,

 

Could I get your help with asking president Obama to set up a “Preemptory Blue Ribbon National Commission on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? We had a set of recent very troubling events in the nuclear industry...Millstone’s loss of all outside electricity being one of them among others. Please look over my blog at your convenience with other recent events.

http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/2014/06/preemptory-blue-ribbon-national.html

“Preemptory Blue Ribbon National Commission on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?

“Think, if they threw a blue ribbon commission at the anomalies in the off shore oil well industry before Deepwater, or Fukushima? Say the president throws five presidential blue ribbon commissions at the world, what would we discovered and learn about in our greater world just by mistake, with only one blue ribbon commission really being productive in preventing another Deep Water Horizon type accident. Wouldn’t it be worth our waste of treasure? You are dam lucky I am not president.”

This below is e-mail I sent to president Obama.

Dear President Obama,

This is about the dysfunction in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and my worry about the nuclear industry. I have actually spent countless hours talking with NRC inspectors and their bosses. I got many documents submitted on the NRC Adams wed site and have been involved in many NRC internal processes (10 CFR 20: 2.206). I have been watching and monitoring these guys for decades. Years ago I was a worked at nuclear plant and was a licensed operator. I was in Navy between 1974 and 1980...I served on the experimental fast attack nuclear submarine the USS Lipscomb SSN 685.

I am nether pro or antinuke...I am a transparency nut. All I want to see is honesty and truth. I need no confidentiality or anonymity of any kind.

I know two NRC commissioner might be stepping down in the next few months...got a huge issue with commissioners Apostolakis.

We need a reset with the NRC. I am asking for a preemptory presidential blue ribbon national Commission on the NRC. I got a lot of recent industry issues written up on my blog...we are in serious trouble.

Call me anytime?

Sincerely,
 

Mike Mulligan
Hinsdale, HN
16033368320

National Commission On the Role of Nuclear Power in the United State

Report to the President

National Commission on the Adequacy of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Future of the Nuclear Power Industry

Then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2007 that the five-member NRC had become "captive of the industries that it regulates" and Joe Biden indicated he had absolutely no confidence in the agency

 

What the hell happened to these guys: Joe Biden in the Keene Sentinel in 2007 just a few miles from my home?

“What kind of confidence do you have on the regulatory capacity of the NRC (Keene Sentinel reporter)? “NONE NONE (candidate Biden).”

“I have been the biggest nemesis when I was on there for the NRC”

“It’s like getting homed, ah, coming into a small town playing at basketball championship with the local referees.” 

“On that NRC, there would be watch dogs, not house dogs. There would watch dogs.”

“I would restaff the NRC differently. “

“I would reconstitute the NRC.”

“If they were fundamentally reconstituting the plant”  

Your choice, you can have the presidential report before the debilitating accident or after the accident?

The DeepWater Horizon Presidentual commission.

National Commission On the Role of Nuclear Power in the United States

Report to the President

National Commission on the Adequacy of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Future of the Nuclear Power Industry.

Here is my pitch to President Obama on throwing a full scale “Presidential Blue Ribbon Commission” (like Challenger, Columbia and Deepwater Horizon) on the NRC and nuclear industry. From soup to nuts:
(If he only had the guts)

Dear President Obama,

“OK, this link is just for general interest, or is it? Check out for yourself if this shutdown is on the internet anywhere. The NRC PR guy was the only one allowed to talk to me…this wasn’t how I discovered it. She talked about a sump leak rate who took them out. They wouldn’t tell me what the leak rate was and the limits. I utterly hate talking to these PR guys, but I’ve learned to put an artificial polite face on it now and a smile! You made me just like the rest you 

Secret Cooper Nuclear Related related shutdown

I am the designated crazy guy with poor communication skills in this, I mean no harm.

I think a presidential code of ethics is a great idea for people in and around the NRC….a Obama edict. If you got Obama’s ears, why don’t you throw in a presidential blue ribbon commission on the nuclear industry and especially the NRC?

Mark my idiot words; we are going to be dealing with this in the nuclear industry.

“The hazard analysis requirement stipulates the analysis must be appropriate for the complexity of the operation, and the hazards identified from the analysis must then be managed.( pg 82)”

Think, if they threw a blue ribbon commission at the anomalies in the off shore oil well industry before Deepwater, or Fukushima? Say the president throws five presidential blue ribbon commissions at the world, what would we discovered and learn about in our greater world just by mistake, with only one blue ribbon commission really being productive in preventing another Deep Water Horizon type accident. Wouldn’t it be worth our waste of treasure? You are dam lucky I am not president.

Let me paint you a crazy man’s picture in a couple of e-mails…”

Yep, the agency would be more credible if the board had anti nukes and safety activist on the board or higher. Constructive antis not obstructionist.

Ok. you got to get rid of these academic types as commissioners with no direct nuclear plant experience. These academic people are invaluable, but they have the wrong skill sets and experience base for this kind of work.

I’d separate the Nuclear Power (NPE) enterprise from everything else. I put the NPE under the executive branch…but I won’t wet my pants if I can’t get my way. You got to get this this away from the senators and congressman.

I’d put the new gov agency under a single agency head or CEO thingy. Maybe a board of director thing under the agency head. All these guys would have deep NPE roots, maybe utility Ceos, nuclear power fleet Vps and union executives overseeing their plants with direct experience. I don’t care if you load up the board with utility executive guys…but you need one union guy in there to keep everyone straight. Exactly, get senior engineers on the board with direct nuclear experience. If it is construction time, a construction industry CEO and engineer on the board.

Maybe a advisory board or department to get the government rules thing right.

I’d swear to god, I’d love a experience politician on the board or even in the agency head spot.

What is the NTSB chairwomen up to today?

I mean, if you are thinking about an industry reset? And the rebuild?

mike

Regulatory Capture

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

According to Frank N. von Hippel, despite the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has often been too timid in ensuring that America's 104 commercial reactors are operated safely:

Nuclear power is a textbook example of the problem of "regulatory capture"—in which an industry gains control of an agency meant to regulate it. Regulatory capture can be countered only by vigorous public scrutiny and Congressional oversight, but in the 32 years since Three Mile Island, interest in nuclear regulation has declined precipitously.[

Then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2007 that the five-member NRC had become "captive of the industries that it regulates" and Joe Biden indicated he had absolutely no confidence in the agency.

The NRC has given a license to "every single reactor requesting one", according Greenpeace USA nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio to refer to the agency approval process as a "rubber stamp".[55] In Vermont, ten days after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japan's Daiichi plant in Fukushima, the NRC approved a 20-year extension for the license of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, although the Vermont state legislature had voted overwhelmingly to deny such an extension.[55][56] The Vermont plant uses the same GE Mark 1 reactor design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant.[55] The plant had been found to be leaking radioactive materials through a network of underground pipes, which Entergy, the company running the plant, had denied under oath even existed. Representative Tony Klein, who chaired the Vermont House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said that when he asked the NRC about the pipes at a hearing in 2009, the NRC didn't know about their existence, much less that they were leaking.[55] On March 17, 2011, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a study critical of the NRC's 2010 performance as a regulator. The UCS said that through the years, it had found the NRC's enforcement of safety rules has not been "timely, consistent, or effective" and it cited 14 "near-misses" at U.S. plants in 2010 alone.[57] Tyson Slocum, an energy expert at Public Citizen said the nuclear industry has "embedded itself in the political establishment" through "reliable friends from George Bush to Barack Obama", that the government "has really just become cheerleaders for the industry."

There have also been instances of a revolving door. Jeffrey Merrifield, who was on the NRC from 1997 to 2008 and was appointed by presidents Clinton and Bush, left the NRC to take an executive position at The Shaw Group,[55] which has a nuclear division regulated by the NRC.

A year-long Associated Press (AP) investigation showed that the NRC, working with the industry, has relaxed regulations so that aging reactors can remain in operation.[59] The AP found that wear and tear of plants, such as clogged lines, cracked parts, leaky seals, rust and other deterioration resulted in 26 alerts about emerging safety problems and may have been a factor in 113 of the 226 alerts issued by the NRC between 2005 and June 2011.[59] The NRC repeatedly granted the industry permission to delay repairs and problems often grew worse before they were fixed.

Bottom line, why I do this. If the big accident comes, I am betting on it, I going to be able say I did 1000 times  more stuff than any ordinary person. I am still go to terrible regret or be guilty I didn’t do enough to stop it though.

Fired for Taking Pictures in a Nuclear Plant with a Cell Phone

Sounds like the pictures were put on the internet...was he blowing the whistle?

U.S. nuclear commission ends Fort Calhoun security probe

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has wrapped up an investigation of a security violation at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station that happened during the 2011 floods.

The agency says the violation involved an employee who “willfully failed to perform required duties,” according to a letter sent Friday to Lou Cortopassi, chief nuclear officer at the plant.

Thank you for reading and relying on Omaha.com for your news and information. You have now viewed your 30 day allowance of 15 free articles.

 

Omaha Public Power District spokesman Mike Jones said the incident involved an employee’s “inappropriate use of a cellphone camera in the protected area.”

The employee no longer works for the district, he said, and the incident didn’t pose a risk to public safety. He noted that the violation is classified in the second-lowest severity category.

 

PPL to Spin Off Susquehanna like Vermont Yankee?

PPL stock price has been extremely weak 2008 crash....down big time today!


Are they pulling a Vermont Yankee...except including impaired fossel plant. I won't approve it for the Nukes.

PPL to Spin Off Susquehanna Nuclear Plant and Other Generation Assets

Rate This

Nuclear Street News Team

Wed, Jun 11 2014 9:26 AM

Is Susquehanna and other power plant PPL's dogs... right. they keep the regulated plants.

PPL Corp. has announced that it plans to spin off its reactors at Susquehanna and other merchant power plants in a deal with Riverstone Holdings.

The new publicly traded company, called Talen Energy Corp., will operate 15,320 megawatts of nuclear and fossil generating capacity. PPL will retain its regulated plants while divesting itself of the Pennsylvania reactors and other assets in a deal that distributes 65 percent of new Talen shares to PPL stockholders.

The spinoff is subject to regulatory approval, including that of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Susquehanna uses two General Electric Type 4 boiling water reactors licensed in the early 1980s to generate about 2,600 megawatts. In a release Monday, PPL said it expects layoffs after the deal closes, although it hasn't determined which plants or positions will be affected.

Entergy Nuclear Spinoff Taps Rising Plant Values

By

Rebecca Smith

Updated Nov. 6, 2007 11:59 p.m. ET

Entergy Crp plans to spin off about half of its nuclear-power plants and create the nation's first stand-alone, publicly traded nuclear-energy company, underscoring how the once-shunned nuclear sector is getting a lift from increasing anxiety about other methods of making electricity.
Less than a decade ago, Entergy was picking up distressed nuclear assets on the cheap. In one case, it bought a plant for little more than the value of fuel on hand. Now Entergy, a New Orleans company with utilities in four Southeastern states, estimates it will be able to take assets for which it paid about $2 billion and put them in a new company with a market value approaching $20 billion, according to Chief Executive Officer Wayne Leonard.
The move puts pressure on other big nuclear operators to consider similar action. CEO John Rowe of Chicago's Exelon Corp., the biggest owner of nuclear capacity in the U.S., said: "It's something we constantly look at." The company reaped most of its third-quarter profit from its nuclear fleet, not its regulated utilities.
U.S. policy makers are giving nuclear power new respect out of concern about emissions blamed for global warming from existing coal-fired plants, and they are increasingly pessimistic about prospects for new ones. Existing nuclear plants have more value as the estimated cost of building new units rises.
There are other factors. Entergy, Exelon and other consolidators have increased the productivity of nuclear plants, and they are able to collect rising prices in deregulated markets as supply margins shrink, including new "capacity" payments in organized Northeast markets.
During the next five years, sales contracts on the output of the five plants that Entergy intends to spin off are expiring. It is negotiating new prices that are as much as triple the old ones.

See, the future dogs of Entergy?

The new company will be based in Jackson, Miss., and will have about 5,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity, including the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth, Mass.; the FitzPatrick plant at Oswego, N.Y.; the Indian Point plant at Buchanan, N.Y.; Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt.; and the recently acquired Palisades plant in Covert, Mich. As an unregulated, standalone company, the new company could carry a higher debt ratio. 

None of the plants is owned by a regulated utility. Entergy's remaining nuclear units, all in the Southeast, are part of utilities currently and will remain so.
Mr. Leonard said he doesn't expect the new company to build nuclear plants, as Entergy is considering doing through its regulated utilities. "If they were going to do a merchant plant, I'd sell my stock in the company," he said, referring to the new company. He said the board decided to spin off the units as a "payday for shareholders" that would capture values they aren't accorded as part of a largely regulated company.
He said the five units currently have earnings, before certain reductions, of about $800 million a year but that they will soon rise to about $1.4 billion as power sales terms are renegotiated. He said a reasonable estimate of earnings in the near future is $2 billion. At 10 times earnings, that would value the company at $20 billion.
Entergy shares rose $5.46, or 4.6%, to $124.15 as of 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading