What is Brown's Ferry Unit 1 Red Finding?

Browns Ferry: Shrinking the safety margin at Alabama's largest nuclear plant

Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant on the north shore of Wheeler Reservoir in Limestone County. Browns Ferry was TVA's first nuclear plant and was the largest in the world when it commenced operations in 1974. (submitted file photo)

 

on July 07, 2013 at 7:00 AM, updated July 07, 2013 at 8:20 AM

Browns Ferry: shrinking the safety margin

• Browns Ferry: Shrinking the safety margin at Alabama's largest nuclear plant
• Browns Ferry engineer never expected to be nuclear plant whistleblower
• Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant by the numbers

 

By Challen Stephens and Brian Lawson
ATHENS, Alabama – For more than two years, the largest nuclear plant in Alabama operated without a fully functioning failsafe system.
A massive cooling pump didn't work. Bearings were installed backwards. Emergency cooling lines sat blocked and unnoticed for years. The last was a safety lapse so dire Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens received the federal notice of a "red finding" – the final warning before being forced to shut down.
Now a TVA engineer tells The Huntsville Times/AL.com that both the mechanical and managerial shortcomings were worse than what has been reported by federal regulators. Joni Johnson, a 52-year-old who's been a TVA engineer for half her life, contends that a worst-case scenario – overlapping failures of a broken line and a rapid loss of coolant in Unit 1 – could have led to a meltdown.

What federal regulators have said in recent years:
• Browns Ferry received a red finding, the federal government’s most serious warning before shutdown.
• Browns Ferry failed to notice a blocked low-pressure cooling line.
• Inspectors discovered wider problems with safety culture at Browns Ferry.
What a search of TVA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents also shows:
• The backup low-pressure line also malfunctioned.
• The high-pressure core spray was installed incorrectly.
• The Unit 1 reactor operated for years with overlapping, malfunctioning emergency cooling systems.
What a whistleblower alleges, and paperwork supports:
• TVA ignored or obscured failing safety tests for malfunctioning equipment.
• TVA hurried to install equipment based on managerial bonuses.
What TVA acknowledges in their own paperwork:
• The plant operated for years with a bias toward power production over safety.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says the danger from a nuclear accident is public exposure to radiation caused by the release of radioactive material from the plant.
Johnson points to managerial bonuses for rapid installation of equipment. She also blames an emphasis on continuous running of three boiling water reactors, which need to be shut down to allow for major repairs. But Browns Ferry generates about $1 billion a year, or about 10 percent of TVA's annual revenue, and maintenance shutdowns cost money.
For the past two months, a 23-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspection team has been poring over records at Browns Ferry. Federal scrutiny in 2011 over one blocked failsafe line soon led to concerns about TVA's broader safety culture, prompting the NRC to expand its investigation from Unit 1 to all three reactors at the Athens plant.

TVA, in preparing for federal inspections, acknowledged shortcomings.

"Employee morale was low and because we were so wrapped in a production-first mentality, we didn't realize just how bad things had gotten."

Nuclear, perhaps more than any other industry, is built around a vocabulary of safety. Yet, in a recent newsletter preparing employees for the NRC visit, Keith Polson, site vice president at Browns Ferry, is quoted in large bold letters saying Browns Ferry had slipped.
"Our performance declined," Polson said. "Employee morale was low and because we were so wrapped in a production-first mentality, we didn't realize just how bad things had gotten. Even when outside experts told us we needed to get better, we really didn't listen."
Whistleblower
Johnson, who is trained to conduct a "root cause analysis" of plant malfunctions, said she's speaking out now to restore the focus on safety. She said initial concerns voiced at the plant drew retaliation, that she was labeled a "man-hater," pulled from assignments and given poor performance reviews.
She has since engaged in a failed mediation with TVA. She alleges she was discriminated against for raising safety concerns. Regulators with the NRC wrote her a letter in October saying her case met the standards for a federal investigation. Johnson said she has met with NRC investigators on multiple occasions.

Browns Ferry (Huntsville Times file)

TVA and the NRC won't discuss legal matters or an ongoing investigation.
Johnson said the basis for her complaints was that TVA officials attempted to manipulate her team's findings related to equipment failures and how those findings pointed to organizational failures. A report by TVA's own inspector general backs up Johnson's equipment concerns about overlapping failures in the emergency cooling system.
The discrimination investigation remains open.
"You retaliate enough and people aren't going to come forward, and that's the real safety significance," said Johnson, who declined to be photographed for this report.
Slot machine
It's not that Browns Ferry experienced an accident, explains David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. It's that Browns Ferry had reduced the odds the plant could avoid an accident.
Imagine a slot machine, he says. You sit down to find that three cherries are already up. Five cherries win a million. You pull the arm.
With that head start, you get to watch just two dials spin.
That was Browns Ferry for three years, running with faults in three of five emergency cooling systems.
Worst-case scenario

The top floor of the reactor building at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant shows the cover of Unit 1 and the spent fuel storage tank where 29 feet of water covers the rods. (Michael Mercier/ The Huntsville Times)

In 2007, TVA restarted Unit 1 at Browns Ferry. It was a massive undertaking. The reactor had gone online in the early 1970s, but had sat dormant since the mid-1980s after being shut down for safety reasons.
The five-year restart cost $1.9 billion and was completed in May 2007. President George W. Bush visited Browns Ferry in June 2007 to mark the recovery. But problems surfaced almost immediately, and the plant had five emergency shutdowns in six months in 2007.
Three years later, a blocked cooling line would result in the costly federal probe and bring to light other equipment failures.
During a shutdown cooling in October of 2010, a 600-pound steel angle-wedge valve in Loop Two failed to open. Water could not reach the core. But safety calls for redundancy. Operators turned to the back-up low-pressure system, Loop One.
The NRC report in February of 2011 states that the residual heat removal pump in Loop One "had been in service for shutdown cooling for approximately 94 hours prior to experiencing a catastrophic failure of the motor on October 27" of 2010.
Redundant malfunctions
Johnson was on a team that studied the pump failure in the backup loop. She wrote the root cause analysis report.

Workers at Browns Ferry in 2004 move the Unit 1 main generator rotor from the generator on the turbine floor to the turbine access hatch. The 207-ton rotor was lowered through the access hatch to the main floor about three stories below. The restart of Unit 1 cost $1.9 billion. (Submitted photo)

TVA and NRC have said the second system was considered to have been functional up until the pump died.
But Johnson's team found the pump could never have cooled the core for its mission time of 30 days, that the van-sized motor had been installed hurriedly and incorrectly. The rotor was rubbing against a stationary part of the motor.
Again, nuclear safety relies on redundancy. There are two massive pumps in each loop. When the first one burned up, that left just one working pump in one back-up loop.
Polson at first said one pump would work. It was enough to complete shutdown. But one pump could not move enough water to control temperatures in a worst-case scenario.
Both pumps in a system must operate for containment cooling, according to Emergency Core Cooling specifications for Browns Ferry. Some of the worst scenarios, such as recirculation suction breaks, call for four working pumps.
Polson later acknowledged he was not talking about a worst-case scenario when commenting on the adequacy of one pump.
Backwards bearings
In addition to the low-pressure loops, there is also a high-pressure system, which can inject water into the core while it is under pressure. But during the restart, the bearings had been installed backwards in a turbine.
TVA officials say the high-pressure system would have worked. Polson said the high-pressure spray met its mission time of 14 hours after the April 27, 2011, tornado severed external power lines and forced the plant into shutdown. But Johnson said mission-time cooling is not as long as required for emergency cooling and the spray wouldn't have lasted long enough in a worst-case scenario.

Keith Polson, TVA Site VP for Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, during an interview in 2012. (Huntsville Times file)

Polson said the plant has since stripped the high-pressure system and replaced all parts.
"Safety is the number-one priority," he said on the phone last month. Polson, who started at Browns Ferry in 2009, said perhaps TVA underestimated the extra work necessary to restart Unit 1, that the recovery took "a big toll on the trust of the people."
"I think the trust has been improved," he said, alluding to internal surveys that show improvements in morale last year. "Are we perfect? No, we're not perfect."
Three cherries up
Catastrophe is just that, a plane crash, an earthquake, an EF-5 tornado like the one that just barely missed the Athens plant in 2011. A tsunami. The plant loses external power. Fire burns up control cables. The largest coolant pipe to the reactor breaks, requiring continuous operation of the low-pressure loops.
Nuclear plants are designed around such scenarios.
"It's not one broken pipe or one power outage away from disaster. It takes a lot of steps," said Lochbaum with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Catastrophe assumes failure of the normal cooling system. Beyond the three problematic failsafe systems at Unit 1, there is also a pressure relief system, basically a steam release system. There is also a last-ditch, smaller core spray system.
But malfunctions in the high-pressure and both low-pressure failsafe systems represent an alarming drop in what the industry calls "safety margins." That's the three cherries up. And that invites federal scrutiny.
Winning performance
The inspector general for TVA, in a report requested by The Times/AL.com, backs up Johnson's mechanical concerns, as well as finding the same "unrealistic timetables" for installation.

A TVA worker in 2011 comes out of the reactor vessel while carrying out refueling operations on the Unit 2 reactor. (Michael Mercier/ The Huntsville Times)

The inspector general wrote that the pump in Loop One was installed in 2005 just one week before the deadline for a "winning performance" bonus. That was despite "dangerously high" readings on vibration tests, Johnson said. And that was despite the fact the pump wasn't needed for nearly two more years.
"Some personnel involved did not agree with the direction or findings of the root-cause analysis team," noted the TVA inspector general of Johnson's work, finding that Browns Ferry in general quickly reacts to broken equipment but "fails to perform the causal analysis necessary to understand why the problem occurred and how to prevent it."
NRC inspectors last month told reporters that the pump failure in Loop One is not considered overlapping with the original blockage in Loop Two.
But NRC in its own lengthy 2011 inspection paperwork writes that the pump was required to be able to run for 720 hours to fulfill its safety role, and that the pump "had been incapable of meeting its required mission time, and thereby considered inoperable, since at least November 2007."
But that's not why the plant was given the costly red finding.
Bad bet
In the event of a fire or some unforeseen disaster, NRC inspectors say, TVA planned to kill power to other systems and flood the core using Loop Two. That means Browns Ferry would have, at least during crucial early steps, bet everything on a failsafe system that was blocked. That's why the red finding.

President George W. Bush sits in the control room at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala. Thursday June 21, 2007. His visit marked the restart of Unit 1. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

TVA at first said the valve had separated from its stem due to poorly manufactured metal threads and undersized welds. TVA argued it couldn't be held accountable for a manufacturing defect. It also argued that, when needed, vibrations from massive amounts of water would have forced the valve to become unstuck.
NRC didn't buy any of what it labeled TVA's poor methodology and "unvalidated assumptions and calculations." Instead, NRC in a "final significance determination" in May of 2011 said TVA was at fault for inadequate testing of its own equipment. It also concluded the valve would never have opened. Johnson said it took two men with a jack hammer two days to free the valve.
Bill Baker, manager of the Browns Ferry Integrated Improvement Plan, spoke at length in the same employee newsletter ahead of the current NRC visit. The article says that, as Baker delved into historical data around the undetected valve failure, he came to a realization. "He needed to stop justifying continued operation and start putting nuclear safety first," reads the employee newsletter.

On April 27, 2011, a deadly EF-5 tornado crushed Independence Tube across the river from Browns Ferry. The tornado also flattened dozens of transmission towers, forcing a shutdown of the nuclear plant. (The Huntsville Times/ Michael Mercier)

Polson said eliminating "production bias" has been a priority in reshaping TVA's culture, and "that's changed 100 percent now."
But in April 2012, TVA seemed to remain focused on production, announcing that all three units at Browns Ferry had set records for continuous running without an outage.
With Unit 1 operating for 114 days, Unit 2 for 302 days and Unit 3 for 188 days, the site's record for continuous operation of all three units was three days longer than the previous best set in 2011, TVA said in a news release last year. Polson said at the time that the record reflected the overall health of the plant.
"Browns Ferry is a big plant. We account for about 10 percent of all TVA revenue," Polson told reporters last month. According to SEC filings, TVA grossed about $11.1 billion from selling power in 2012.
"They call it the cash cow," said Johnson of Browns Ferry.
As for the blocked line, Johnson said they didn't find it sooner because plant managers didn't do adequate testing. When testing the pump motor, according to the TVA inspector general, the vibration and oil tests didn't match expectations. "So they reset the set points," said Johnson.
Other equipment tests were not conducted, Johnson said. "You are encouraged to make it look better than it is," she said. "It's institutional bullying."
Selling power
On May 15, the NRC spoke to the press at Browns Ferry. It was not a flattering account. They said TVA initially challenged the findings related to the faulty angle-wedge valve.

NRC Engineering Area Assistant Lead Inspector Atif Shaikh examines pipes in May, 2013, at the Browns Ferry plant. (Photo courtesy NRC)

Federal regulators began to probe "overall issues," said Bill Jones with NRC, and those "were broader than we originally put down." NRCexpanded its investigation from Unit 1 to the entire plant. "The more we looked, the more type of problems that were revealed."
Browns Ferry remains in Column 4 on the federal watch list. "Column 4 is as far to the right as you can get without being shut down," said Joey Ledford with NRC.
However, Jones appeared to disagree with Johnson's warnings, even though her charges are supported by some of the NRC paperwork. "Everything else was working. It was just that one valve," Jones said. "But that valve was important."

NRC representatives Joey Ledford, left, and Bill Jones (Brian Lawson /blawson@al.com)

Jones also acknowledged that the high-pressure system was malfunctioning due to backwards bearings.
"They are in business to sell power. It's not here for us," reminded Jones of the plant. He said it's the duty of NRC to ask cultural questions: "Do you run the plant even though it's compromised? What kind of tone does management set?"
In the end, despite the red finding and poor testing of failsafe equipment, Jones said: "Bottom line is even with the event that occurred, the plant is being operated safely." He explained: "What we've seen are challenges to that margin of safety."
NRC is expected to release the results of its inspection during a public meeting on July 11.
For Johnson, speaking out has had consequences, as she said she ran up substantial legal bills without expectation of a resolution with TVA. But she became more concerned about the costs of not speaking out.
"I found myself in the position of becoming a whistleblower when TVA management altered root cause reports I authored to subdue their findings," she said last week. "I hope that bringing this story to public light will force TVA to address the safety significance of altering the findings of teams of engineers and experts for the sake of protecting production and their own bonuses."

Millstone NRC Security Inspection Report: Documents One or More Findings Greater Than Very Low

Thanks for the update? 

Millstone Power Station may face possible enforcement action after inspection

Published January 13. 2015 1:28PM

Updated January 13. 2015 1:33PM

By Judy Benson

Publication: theday.com

Waterford – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has notified officials at the Millstone Power Station that the plant faces possible enforcement action after a Nov. 24 inspection uncovered two findings related to security requirements, one preliminarily determined to be higher than very low safety significance, and the other of “very low” significance.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said today that the agency has asked Millstone owner Dominion Resources to participate in a conference to discuss the findings. It plans to issue a final determination on the findings within 90 days.
In a letter to David Heacock, president and chief nuclear officer of Dominion, the NRC said that “one or more of the findings are also apparent violations of NRC requirements and are being considered for escalated enforcement action.” The NRC may determine that additional inspections, regulatory actions and oversight of the plant is warranted, the letter said.
Sheehan said the deficiencies were “promptly corrected or interim compensatory measures put in place” as soon as they were found by the inspectors.
Ken Holt, spokesman for Millstone, confirmed that the security issue has been “addressed and corrected.” The company has agreed to participate in the conference with the NRC, he said.
Both he and Sheehan said they could not comment further because the inspection involved security systems and procedures, which are protected from public disclosure.

You think this security violation is just a coincidence with recent past violations on the inability of them trouble shooting and fixing the TDAFP for years and them yanking out the switch yard transmission system slots safety circuit without NRC permission leading to a two plant LOOP.  

Bottom line, why can't they publicly disclose one, two, three or ten security violation without this secrecy veil over it??? 

Are they protecting these plants against terrorist, or are they protecting licencees from the public? 

"The attached report documents one or more findings that have preliminarily been determined to have greater than very low security significance...regulatory actions and oversight."

I think the NRC is allowing hidden and not corrected security violation...covering up systematic weakness with the licencees in managing security. You get it, if they immediately disclosed all security violation or maybe after a delay of a few weeks or months, that would force them to completely fix it in this time frame. As it now stands, the NRC could/does secretly allow them months or years to fix it without the public knowledge. This is basically nuclear plant security deregulation dressed up as withholding nuclear plant security information to protect against telegraphing security vulnerability to terrorist.

There is a much greater danger here. It is the government hiding security vulnerabilities from the public in order to protect the licencees from spending a few more pennies for the proper security. Say in a crisis, maybe in a terrorist event at a nuclear plant, we find the plant's security stance was a lot less than was advertised in the licencees and government happy-land PR to the people for profits. The greatest national security vulnerability for all of us is we lose faith in government in a widespread national security crisis.           

I think we would all be much more safe if all security violations were reported to the public. Post 9/11 and specifically the 2008 sleeping guards at Peach Bottom, the NRC and licencees were thinking the media and whistle-blowers were talking advantage of our national insecurity with  9/11 terrorism and issues with nuclear plant security problems. They were drumming up insufficient security stories and this threatening the Nuclear Renaissance. Instead of beefing up the bad actor licencees, they decided in the greater good of us all security events would no longer be reported publicly.  

This just goes to the power of the licencees over the real public good and I think it is corruption. 

January 5, 2015
Mr. David Heacock
President and Chief Nuclear Officer
Dominion Resources
5000 Dominion Boulevard
Glen Allen, VA 23060-6711
SUBJECT: MILLSTONE POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3 - NRC SECURITY
INSPECTION REPORT 05000336/2014201 AND 05000423/2014201
PRELIMINARY GREATER-THAN-GREEN FINDING 

Dear Mr. Heacock: 

On November 24, 2014, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) completed a security inspection at your Millstone Power Station (MPS), Units 2 and 3 and the inspectors discussed the results of this inspection with Mr. Scace and other members of your staff.

Inspectors documented the results of this inspection in the enclosed inspection report. The attached report documents one or more findings that have preliminarily been determined to have greater than very low security significance that may require additional inspections, regulatory actions and oversight. 

Each finding was assessed based on the best available information, using the Physical Protection Significance Determination Process for Power Reactors. The deficiencies were promptly corrected or compensated for, and the plant was in compliance with applicable
physical protection and security requirements within the scope of this inspection before the inspectors left the area. The NRC will inform you in writing when the final significance has been determined.

One or more findings are also apparent violations of NRC requirements and are being considered for escalated enforcement action in accordance with the NRC’s Enforcement Policy, which appears on the NRC’s Web site at:
http://nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/enforcement/enforce-pol.html.



The enclosure transmitted herewith contains Safeg

Millstone's and the NRC's management has been Negligent!

The NRC has a habit of disclosing troubling information about a plant, sometimes many years after the event...they wait until the crisis is over and well settled. I think this basically is the agency's strategy of sugar coating event... basically giving us false and incomplete information when the situation is on going to protect the plant. Then dishing out the bad news months after the crisis is complete. The agency knows that the bad news more sticks to a bad actor with a on going crisis than it released months after the situation.
The inspection staff is nothing but whore for Dominion.

"(Jan 11) And Raymond McKinley, an NRC official who oversees inspectors at Millstone and two other plants, wrote in a December 2013 email that Millstone considered asking for a one-time change in guidelines "to buy some time" to fix a problem."

We think this more has to do with mismanagement with Region I...they don't know how to sent a strong signal to the top of the corporation demanding a immediate turnaround with a sinking ship. Pilgrim Reflects this also with their many shutdowns and we are waiting on the inspection on this. So the NRC's polities are dysfunctional with emergent on problems...The agency just doesn't have a big enough hammer to get the attention of upper management.  

It should be noted with North Anna that was extremely unprofessional...their large fuel damage accident. So if you ask me what is going on here, NRC management is Region 1 and Dominions management with nuclear is declining together. 

Millstone: UFSAR Safety Valves not fixed because of "scheduling, engineering, and funding challenges". 

My above article indicates Millstones had severely declining right under the eyes of the NRC for many years and the NRC just hasn't been enforcing their regulations and tech specs on Dominion. 

The recent switch yard LOOP and they yanking out a important protective circuit without permission and the NRC not catching them on it indicates the profound weakness of the NRC and Dominion?

Feds privately rap Millstone over response to pump problem 

By Associated Press Published: January 11, 2015, 11:37 am

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — As Connecticut’s nuclear plant struggled for months last year to fix a critical water pump, federal regulators expressed concern among themselves that the Millstone Power Station was slow to grasp the scope of the issue and make corrections, according to internal emails. 

The auxiliary pump, which cools the reactor in emergencies if offsite power and diesel generators fail, did not operate properly during tests in November and December 2013 and again in January 2014 before the problem was fixed. In February, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a team for a closer inspection and, six months later, issued a finding of low to moderate safety problems. 

The handling of the issue also raised alarms at the local Nuclear Energy Advisory Council, which questioned Millstone officials last September about the repeated problems. 

“What concerned us the most is that it seemed out of character,” said John Sheehan, chairman of the council that oversees Connecticut nuclear power plant issues. “In previous years they were very alert to problems and correcting them. They seemed to miss this time.” 

Stephen Scace, Millstone’s site vice president, wrote to Sheehan on Nov. 10 and said there is “room to improve” how it identifies and evaluates problems. 

Ken Holt, Millstone’s spokesman, told The Associated Press the owners of the plant have revamped their approach to trouble-shooting following its work with federal regulators. 

“If it’s not immediately obvious why it’s not working, we put a team to work on it,” he said. 

Millstone, which is owned by Richmond, Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc., operates two reactors in Waterford and generally supplies half of all power in Connecticut and 12 percent of New England’s. 

Privately, NRC inspectors voiced concern of Millstone’s handling of the problem, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press in a public records request. 

Brian Haagensen, a resident inspector at the plant, wrote to NRC colleagues on Aug. 28, 2014, that Millstone missed opportunities over several months before the problem was identified in January 2014. He said plant officials were wrong to insist that the faulty bearing was the only pump problem.

The NRC seen the developing problems for many years and they never appositely response...mainly budget and inappropriate priorities.  I mean, the inspectors and their bosses seen it coming, but I doubt higher management understood what it means. Bottom line, the agency is engineered to be reactive.  

November 8, 2013: NRCINTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000336/2013004 AND 05000423/2013004 AND NOTICEOF VIOLATION AND INDEPENDENT SPENT FUEL STORAGE INSTALLATION REPORT NO.07200047/2013001

(2013004)"The valves were initially scheduled to be restored to full qualification during refueling outage (RFO), 3RFO12, in October 2008, but the repairs were deferred to 3RFO13 due to maintenance schedule conflicts. Subsequently, repairs were not completed in 3RFO13, 3RFO14, or 3RFO15 due to scheduling, engineering, and funding challenges."

“I believe we make it clear that the incorrect bearing was only a small part of a much larger problem,” he wrote, citing Millstone’s failure to determine that an incorrect bearing had been installed sooner.
He pointed to a violation cited by the NRC that said Millstone should have identified sooner that an incorrect bearing had been installed in the pump. “While it was ultimately identified in January 2014, there were opportunities to identify it beginning in August 2013,” the inspection team wrote.
And Raymond McKinley, an NRC official who oversees inspectors at Millstone and two other plants, wrote in a December 2013 email that Millstone considered asking for a one-time change in guidelines “to buy some time” to fix a problem.
“No indication that they believe there is a problem, but I am sure they have heard enough questions and want to put the issue to bed,” he said.
Josephine Ambrosini, an NRC senior inspector, said in a May 7, 2014, email that the “earliest indications” of a problem with the pump were evident in the spring of 2013. Millstone took a long time to address the concerns, she said.
Sheehan, chairman of the local advisory council, told the AP its members were worried that problems in the 1990s when Northeast Utilities operated Millstone — such as safety issues and whistleblower complaints — were at risk of recurring. Dominion purchased Millstone in 2001.
“We were concerned it was the start of what happened in the 1990s when NU ran the plant, that their strict culture was starting to break down,” he said. “We wanted to catch it before it catches you.”

An Example Of The Enormus Influence With The Electric Utilities In The USA

This goes to the example with how powerful and well connected the large utilities are. They are a enormous influence in our political system.

Typically the Democratic governors in NH are moderate Republicans!

Utility giant among top sponsors of Hassan’s inaugural ball

By KATHLEEN RONAYNE

Associated Press

Saturday, January 10, 2015
(Published in print: Saturday, January 10, 2015)

Utility giant Public Service of New Hampshire and a law firm that lobbies heavily at the State House are the top donors to Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan’s inaugural committee.

PSNH and Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell each gave $25,000, according to a list provided by the committee. Hassan is holding inaugural balls in Manchester today and in the North Country next week.

Fifty-eight businesses, law firms, political committees and individuals donated at least $1,000 to rank as sponsors. Tickets for the public cost $200 for today’s ball and $100 for the Jan. 16 event.

Hassan’s inauguration activities have promoted New Hampshire products, and her inaugural balls will feature a Franconia band. Donations to the committee can be spent on inaugural events and governor’s office activities such as the governor’s Easter egg hunt, committee spokesman Aaron Jacobs said.

Albany International Corp., a textile manufacturer in Rochester, gave $15,000 for the title of Gold Sponsor.

The New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association, Beacon Capital Partners, AT&T, Liberty Lane Service Company, NextEra Energy, Ocean Properties, Waste Management Inc. and businessman Shawn O’Connor each gave $10,000.

Law firms Rath, Youth and Pignatelli, and Demers and Blaisdell – which both lobby for a long list of clients in Concord – and Liberty Utilities each gave $5,000. Other $5,000 donors were: AstraZeneca, Centene Corporation, Comcast, the Constitution Pipeline, Fidelity, Holloway Auto, Liberty Mutual, New Hampshire Distributors, Pfizer, PhRMA, Pier People, Pierce Atwood, Pike Industries, Wal-Mart, Xerox and law firm McLane, Graf, Raulerson and Middleton.

PSNH has proposed the $1.4 billion Northern Pass project, a 187-mile electrical transmission line that would carry 1,200 megawatts of electricity to power-hungry southern New England markets. Supporters say the line will help hold down energy costs. Opponents say the project would mar the scenic beauty of the state, hurting tourism and property values.

Hassan’s spokesman, William Hinkle, said she remains opposed to a mostly overhead power line and believes that the company must investigate burying more of the line.

“Many groups and individuals have contributed to the Governor’s inauguration, and the Governor is thankful for all of those who have committed to supporting the State of New Hampshire and the institution of the Governor’s Office,” Hinkle said in a statement.

Obama Has Moved NRC to the Right...Upcoming Massive Deregulation and Down Sizing the NRC.

It sure looks like Obama anticipated his lost of the senate...thus drastically reducing regulations. He is pulling a president Clinton, angling favoritism to the nuke industry as he lost popularity.  

The deal with over regulation is when a plant gets into big troubles and it become public...as self protection with not earlier doing their job, they come back with new rules. If the NRC could anticipate problems and strongly interact with a plant to change their bad behaviors before the event...then you wouldn't need half the rules they got. 

I can't think of one time in accident and a drastic decline in plant and corporate performance...there wasn't a prolong period of decline that the agency didn't act on before the plant got into a accident. These things give plenty of warning. 

This follows similar political cycles with the NRC. The mad dog Republicans take over the Presidency, congress or all, there becomes a drastic reductions of regulations and oversight of the NRC in their cycle. When the Democrats get similar levels of power, they claw back minimal amounts of regulations and increased oversight. We have had declining levels of transparency,regulations and oversight for many decades...the public really see little with what is going on in a nuclear power plant.


As a tactic to destroy the Nuclear industry, maybe it is better to get the commissioners into pro nuclear profile and then they will destroy themselves with giving the utilities what they want.  

New US NRC chairman says structure, safety, regulation among priorities for 2015

Washington (Platts)--9Jan2015/447 pm EST/2147 GMT

In the 33 years he served on the staff of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Stephen Burns says, he never imagined he would be appointed to the commission, let alone become its chairman. 

Nonetheless, Burns was sworn in January 1 as the agency's 16th chairman, replacing Allison Macfarlane, who resigned to become a professor at George Washington University.
Burns discussed some of his near-term priorities for NRC in an interview Wednesday. He noted that he is "still in the process of getting reacclimated and learning the ropes" at the agency, which he left in April 2012 to serve as head of the legal affairs section in the secretariat at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency, based in Paris. 

Burns has held a variety of positions at NRC, most recently as general counsel from 2009 to 2012. 

Burns said he is "trying to reach out to the other commissioners and talk about what's on their minds." A closed commission meeting will be held the week of January 12 "to kick around organizational issues and make sure I get their feedback on how I can be most effective in terms of helping them and helping the commission itself move forward," he said. 

Some of his priorities for the coming year will include reviewing NRC's organizational structure to assess "how we're configured" and to consider whether the agency is "right-sized." 

Continuing oversight of safety enhancements being made at nuclear power plants in response to lessons learned from the 2011 accident at Fukushima I in Japan will also require a good deal of time and attention, he said. 

Burns also noted the importance of reviewing NRC's approach to regulation of power reactors undergoing decommissioning. On December 30, the commission unanimously approved staff's proposal to undertake a rulemaking on the matter. Currently, reactors in decommissioning must request exemptions from operating reactor regulations in areas such as security and emergency planning on a case-by-case basis. Staff will consider whether a better approach can be developed. 

Burns said he has "heard a lot from the hill [Congress] and industry about whether it's time to really look at how we structure the decommissioning process." The new rulemaking will look at the decommissioning exemption process now being used, to see if it is "the right fit under the circumstances," he said. 

EFFECTS OF REGULATION 

Asked if he believed the US nuclear power industry is overregulated, Burns said, "Some are going to say they're overregulated, and some are going to say we're underregulated."
NRC staff is considering how the agency's decision-making process can address the so-called cumulative effects of regulation, Burns said.

"This is not only an issue for the nuclear industry; it's an issue in regulation generally," he said, noting that the White House Office of Management and Budget has also been looking at ways to address those effects 

"Our ultimate responsibility is public health and safety, and common defense and security," he said. "Understanding that ultimately that's our mission, I think it is also incumbent on us to look at those criticisms" alleging overregulation. 

The US Government Accountability Office said in a report last month that NRC does not always follow its own guidance when developing cost-benefit analyses of proposed regulations and suggested ways those analyses could be improved. Burns said he will read the report and consider its recommendations. 

"That's something we need to take a serious look at," he said. 

Burns said that "ultimately, questions of in terms of the economics [of nuclear power] are not issues the NRC can solve. I think we have to keep focused on the public health and safety, the safety and security mission of the agency. But we have to listen to the questions that come about the impact of regulation and ensure that we're doing a good job of understanding what those impacts are when those questions are raised." 

WORKING WITH CONGRESS 

Asked about criticisms by some members of Congress that NRC was withholding some information needed to oversee the agency, Burn said, "I want to make sure I understand what some of those issues are, because ... coming back in, I'm not sure I have a full appreciation of where some of the controversies have been." 

Burns said that, "for the most part, Congress has got a lot of authority or power in terms of the information it should be able to get from the agency. And there is a general obligation for the agency to provide information to Congress. I think there are some areas -- and I think those are relatively few -- where there may be some, you know, controversy or some push and pull with respect to certain types of documents or information. I think we should try to minimize that. 

Burns said he would seek "to make sure I understand what those issues are and try to work through them." He said he would emphasize "establishing good rapport with our oversight committees, with their members. That's what I'm trying to do in terms of reaching out."

"I don't think I can envision a perfect world of no conflicts, but I think we do our best to minimize" such conflicts, he said

Pilgrim's Astonishing Number Of LOOPs: NRC's Historical Record Of LOOPs in Nuclear Industry.

Loss of Offsite Power Initiating Event Historical Data (1980-2014) Here is the NRC's list of all LOOPs since 1980. They missed a lot of LOOPS of the 1970s. The two plant Millstone, once a three plant facility...has a total of 10 LOOPs.  Most astonishing is the one plant facility Pilgrim having 19 LOOPs. In a recent talk with a high NRC official, he says risk perspectives predicts a plant on average has one LOOP ever 100 years.  LOOPs are very dangerous accidents!!!! One thing to be happy about, there certainly is a lot less LOOPs in recent years.

NRC’s Safety Culture Trait Talk: Raising a Safety Concern

Bottom line, how your managers answers your safety concerns wholly depends on the difference of power between you and your boss. Generally how the hierarchy works, is the bottom line management filters out the troubling concerns of lower level employee to their managers. How the lower mangers get promoted is if they protect their bosses. To tell you the truth, confidentially and anonymity gives you the weakest hand against the powerful. I wonder why the NRC portrays this in your weakest hand...doing the bidding of the nuclear industry.

Safety Culture trait Talk: Environment For Raising Safety Concerns

Safety Culture trait Talk: Environment For Raising Safety Concerns

What Is The Definition Of Environment For Raising Concerns?

The NRC’s SCPS defines Environment for Raising Concerns as maintaining a safety-conscious work environment where personnel feel free to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation, intimidation, harassment, or discrimination.

Why Is This Trait Important?

Fostering an environment for raising concerns is an important attribute of a positive nuclear safety culture. Organizations should have a work environment where employees are encouraged to raise safety concerns and where those concerns are reviewed promptly, given the proper priority based on their potential safety significance, and appropriately resolved, with timely feedback to the originator of the concerns and to other employees as appropriate.

Employees should feel free to raise safety concerns to their management without fear of harassment, intimidation, retaliation, or discrimination. The organization must not take adverse actions, such as retaliation and discrimination, against employees who have raised concerns, because it is unacceptable and potentially unlawful. When allegations of discrimination or retaliation arise, the appropriate level of management must be involved to review the facts, evaluate or reconsider the action, and, where warranted, remedy the matter. In addition to the hardship caused to the individual employee, the perception by fellow workers that raising concerns has resulted in retaliation can generate a chilling effect that may discourage other workers from raising concerns. Any reluctance on the part of employees to raise concerns can be detrimental to nuclear safety.

The organization should clearly identify the processes that employees may use to raise concerns, such as discussing issues with their supervisor or filing deficiency reports for problem identification and resolution. However, it is important to recognize that some employees may not always be comfortable raising concerns through the normal channels, such as with their immediate supervisor. From a safety perspective, no method of raising potential safety concerns should be discouraged. Therefore, the organization should focus on achieving and maintaining an environment where employees feel free to raise their concerns directly to their supervisors, as well as ensuring that alternate means of raising and addressing concerns are accessible, credible, and effective. These alternative approaches may include an “open-door” policy that allows the employee to bring a concern to a higher-level manager, an ombudsman program, or an employee concerns program.

An organization that reinforces an environment for raising concerns typically has well-developed systems for prioritizing problems and directing resources, effective communications for openly sharing information and analyzing the root causes of identified problems, and management that promotes employee confidence in raising and resolving concerns.

I am surprised the NRC’s tack on safety concern for everyone isn't “ transparency” and your safety concerns would be “guaranteed by the government to be “put in an non erasability in-house log or outside log”. To even think the NRC is talking anonymity and confidentiality says the government is powerless to stop safety concern intimidation. The NRC fears and knows there is widespread retaliations going on ...or a widespread fear of retaliation by lots of employee. All your bosses and executives (licensees and NRC) should be big enough to handle a safety concern on a totally open venue. A byproduct with watching this kind of full throated conflict in an open venue is the outsiders gains irreplaceable trust and respect of the Nuclear industry.

The NRC’s Adams document system is a credible and trustworthy log type vehicle. There are other forms of electronic and internet public logs. A newspaper or other news media is another form of a log. The limitation with the NRC internet Adams is it is under the control of the NRC. You have to be aware when your information is under your total control or when other powers control your message. But the NRC will let you put what you need on there.

Course, there is always your own blog. From my days, it is just amazing how much more miraculous inter-connectivity we have. With less inter-connectivity, means a smaller group of people wholly get to control your message.

Here is another thumb rule, those you trust and love the most will hurt you the quickest and deepest.  

Transparency is the tool that equalizes power and influence between the powerless and the powerful. It puts you on a fair playing field.

You won’t get much credit for this way…but I would put your information on a type of a log. I put my e-mail and phone number on the top of my blog for this reason. If you just want to get the problem fixed…just throw me some documents and information about your safety concern. I’d put it up on my blog without any connection to you. I promise you I’ll get your concerns written down on an agency process like the NRC Allegation Process or on the 2.206 process. I have connections with many NRC officials and high OIG officials. I promise I’ll get your concerns written down in your plants licensing docket. You just might get the NRC to make a response to your concern. I would be certain high NRC and licensee officials would carefully read your complaints or concerns. If they don’t respond to your concern and then fix it…when the shit eventually the fans they will pay a price. This is the power of transparency. The idea here, this stuff is really powerful; is to get the problem written down before the deterioration evident or before event or accident occurs. These officials know, pre-knowledge of a upcoming event or accident can be devastationally transformational to the organizations.

(steamshovel2002@yahoo.com, cell 1-603-209-4206) 

If I was an engineer, licensed operator or some other invaluable technical person…I want people to listen and respect what I say. I worked too hard to get to this position for you not to hear my opinions. I’d be working to raise my reputation and amplify my voice. I’d establish a relationship with the NRC. If you are working in a plant and are a technical person, the NRC will treat you with super professional respect. I wouldn’t get talking to my supervisor on the bigger safety concerns…I write up and submit a public 10 CFR 2.206. This forces the agency into a process, you would talk to in a meeting to maybe 10 to 15 officials…it would all get into the public record. The agency and your licensee will treat you with the utmost respect…they would allow you to paw over all their internal documents to support your assertions. The NRC would be required to answer you. Chances are they wouldn’t support your concerns, the NRC officials hardly ever support a full 2.206 to anyone…but everyone would see a facet of your character. You would develop a reputation in the plant unlike anyone else. I am convinced this would protect you from retaliation.

I would caution you it would have to be a legitimate safety concerns or at least cover new safety territory not discussed before. Like I said, even if denied, they would all fear your problem could show up in a future incident or accident. Then you hit a gold mine.

The best place to raise a safety concern is in a Catholic confessional booth with a priest. You get that don’t you, all the licensee and NRC is promising you, is the right to “raise”a safety concern to your supervisor. Nobody is talking about a fair and objective process to adjudicate your safety concern based on nuclear professionalism and following all the policies, rules and procedures in the plant and within the NRC. At best the NRC is promising you a confessional booth with a priest.

Nuclear Power Too Pricey?

Jan 7

So they are double dipping on corporate welfare. What would you do if somebody paid off all your morgage. You'd borrow agaisnt value of your house like hell getting all the grown up toys you only dreamed of and paying for your kids college eduation. I think most nuclear plant do the same. Why not pick a boat load of bonds based on the value of the plant and property? I think they done that.

January 07, 2015

 

Playing chicken with Illinois' electric rates won't improve the climate

By: PETER BRADFORD

The recent demand by Illinois' nuclear power plant owner, Exelon, for a breathtaking $580 million per year in rate increases to keep running its plants raises serious questions as to wise ways to fight climate change and assure energy security. Illinois customers have paid dearly to bail these same reactors out of past economic peril. They should understand that bailing them out a second time will be more expensive and less effective than charging for the emissions that cause climate change.

When Illinois turned power generation from a monopoly to a competitive industry in the 1990s, the nuclear plants seemed too costly to compete effectively. Illinois legislators and regulators included measures assuring that customers, rather than investors, would bear the risk that reactor costs could not be recovered under competition.

Consequently, the nuclear units needed only to recover their relatively low operating costs through competition to be profitable. For a decade, the reactors did so well that many in the industry trumpeted them as “cash cows” producing cheap electricity in an expensive marketplace.

Good-bye to all that. Nuclear economics have gotten so shaky that yesterday's cash cows are said to be today's vulture bait.

The U.S. nuclear industry has benefited immensely from government expenditure ever since the Manhattan Project gifted it with reactors, fuel enrichment and trained personnel. It also has the advantages of a limit on liability for accidents and the unique governmental commitment (as yet unfulfilled) to take its most radioactive wastes.

The $580 million in rate increases sought by Exelon amounts to several hundred dollars per customer, much of it paid in the electric bill, some of it in the cost of other goods and services.

THE RIGHT ANSWER

The price of putting carbon into the skies must reflect the reality of climate change.

This reform will raise the price paid for the natural gas-fired power that has undermined nuclear profitability. Nuclear profits will increase, but so will those of all other low-carbon measures, especially energy efficiency and renewable energy. The lowest-cost measures will win out. They may include the existing reactors, but—given the lower costs of energy efficiency and some renewables—they may not.

Targeting subsidies to reactors instead of taxing carbon may well pay too much for too little climate improvement. The claim that nuclear reactors provide unrewarded reliability benefits does not reflect the reality of today's power markets, which are capable of providing round-the-clock electricity in other ways. As to jobs and property taxes, paying higher-than-necessary electric rates merely transfers jobs and taxes from electricity-consuming companies and other power producers to nuclear power plant sites. This will not improve Illinois' economy.

Closing many nuclear plants abruptly is not in the climate's best interest, but neither is lobbying-induced subsidy panic in Springfield or Washington. Charging to use the sky as a carbon sink protects the environment while preserving reliable power markets. That's the reform worth enacting.

articlePara

Peter Bradford is an adjunct professor at Vermont Law School, former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and former chair of New York's and Maine's utility commissions.

 

Do you believe these guys...I believe nothing they say is true. Nobody enforces truth-telling in our electric sector.

Is this relevant for the nuclear industry also: 

(WSJ Jan 6)American oil and gas companies have gone heavily into debt during the energy boom, increasing their borrowings by 55% since 2010, to almost $200 billion.

Their need to service that debt helps explain why U.S. producers plan to continue pumping oil even as crude trades for less than $50 a barrel, down 55% since last June. 

The fuel cost of a nuclear power plant is very small. $400 million dollars is cheap for the purchase price of a large power plant. Most older nuclear power plants should have payed off their new construction mortgage. Basically a older nuclear power plant just pays for upkeep and fuel. Electricity should be very cheap coming out of these guys...pure profits.

So Vermont Yankee and Ginna were once owned by local or state corporations until about 2003….Central Vermont Public Service and Rochester Gas and Electric. These companies were more directly controlled by the state legislators and the state grid authorities. The state officials were more directly in communication with the plant official.  Is this a flaw in the model with selling nuclear power plants to far flung mega corporate owners…the local politicians were getting the same cut as before and they became more mistrusting of distant corporate owners? I know it was the state who would not take a long term contract from Entergy.

Course, CVPS might have dumped VY in order to get taken over by  Gaz Metro.

I believe if we subsidized these poor boy nuclear plants, most of the money would get sucked into utilities bureaucracy and onto the politicians...very little of it will translated into pouring monies into upgrading these ancient plants. Later as the utilities waste this subsidization, there just go back to the trough begging for a increase of the subsidization. Then everyone who is a  losers in competition will want to copy the nuclear industry model. 

They are plowing savings from fracking into their stock price...not into cheaper rates for the consumers and businesses.

The Utilities sector surprised many by posting the best price performance in the market in 2014. Electric utility companies were a particularly strong subset of the sector, posting an average gain of 31% during the course of the year.

Below is a table showing which stocks in the group are the most undervalued:

click to enlarge)
Source: QuantifiedAlpha.com

I got an idea, this is getting just too complicated. Lets just pay anyone who produces electricity for the grid $100 per megawatt-hour. This is what our electric systems would looks like without a credible referee and totally dysfunctional government. And you know most of well off and powerful will be paying a lot less for electricity than the middle class and poor. A dysfunctional system like this always forces the poor and powerless to subsidized the electricity and utilities for the rich.    

Believe me, in recent times we lost the word of competition in the electricity industry. Mostly is is all collusion with all the players to jack of the price of electricity. So I think the mega utility model is failing...basically they are sucking the blood out of the ratepayers and our nuclear system to bolster the failing  model of our electricity system and the utilities. This is only going increase as the average age of the nuclear plants increase.  

Do you remember the days when you had to pay long distance charges on you phone bill? Now it is a standard rate if you talk locally or to California. Long distance charges are a thing of the past. I think this stagnant and brain dead electric system model is the reason why electricity doesn't serve us more efficiently like our telephone and cell phone system. These rich and powerful utilities and like minded colluded together and basically got our political system captured...they no longer serve the interest of the country. But there are some drawbacks phone systems. We no longer have telephone booths. Everyone now has cell phones and many young people don't have primary home telephone lines. Why isn't the electric system like that. 

What if the coal, natural gas and green electricity blackmailed us like the utilities are doing now with the nuclear plant systems. i think we could invent a much more efficient and inexpensive nuclear system...but the forces blocking this now are the ones making money hand over fist and who gain enormus status over this frozen system. i get it, they mostly destroyed the positive image with the nuclear industry in the last three decades.  

Once the utilities serve the greater interest of our nation, our families and societies...serve a greater cause than themselves such as bulwark against the savages from afar lands. Now they primarily serve these modern mega corporation structures, their rich executives, CEOs and mostly serve these monstrous Frankenstein institutional players.  Basically our electric system of years back was in a socialist model...their purpose was to reliable serve society and the greater cause of increasing modernity and as "the" model to the rest of the world as the USA was the best country on the planet. In years back, electrification was the worldwide model of development and modernity...justice for us all tracked the development of electric system. Now all we are is financial clerks and we serve these monstrous soulless corporations without hearts. Remember when the world trembled at our greatness, the business class served a much smaller role there, we were the image to the world you can't go wrong if you model and develop your country like the USA. 

I telling folks most of the big utilities are a libertarian and the anarchy type models. They rather destroy us in their independence, than belong to something great...instead of being just a piece of something great. They hate everything the USA stands for...mostly they hate national centralized codes and standards. They are out to destroy democracy and truth telling. They will push out any false image to throw your opinion towards their direction...they will make sure they secretly obscure the facts so you won't know what direction you are heading. Most of these CEOs want to be dictators...they want their own standards and morality. They want deeply in their hearts to make the USA and the world severe their selfish ideals and causes. King and gods over the lands with their own special ethics and morality...I telling you, they want to own your souls.

So here we are with most of us being so disfranchised we don't vote or pay attention to government...we never had such a pervasive media news presence and they being so shallowly corporatized. The default with most of us, we want to pay to feel better (booze, drugs, status, entertainment). We don't got the guts like our forefathers, to make a world that would inspire all of us with its beauty! 

It is like with our modern interconnectivity (cell phones, computers, internet among others), we collective chose not to use any of it because we are afraid of change and the future. We should be ashamed of yourself!         

New York reactor's survival tests support for pricey nuclear

By Naureen S. Malik and Jim Polson, Bloomberg NewsBloomberg

NEW YORK — Exelon Corp., the biggest U.S. owner of nuclear reactors, needs to almost double power prices to keep a New York plant running in a move that promises to show just how far regulators will go to keep uneconomic plants operating.

After recording losses that exceeded $100 million from 2011 to 2013, Exelon will need to charge about 83 percent more than wholesale prices to earn a profit at its Ginna plant, based on company cost estimates. State regulators have set a Jan. 15 deadline for a new power contract that's rich enough to keep the Rochester-area plant running.

Last month, Entergy Corp. shut Vermont's only operating reactor citing low power prices. Ginna is one of 10 other nuclear plants that can't compete in current markets, Moody's Investors Service said in November. Retiring the reactors, which account for 10 percent of the nation's nuclear output, would undercut a push to produce power without greenhouse gases as renewables such as wind and solar are just emerging.
"Ginna nuclear power plant is an important asset in the state's generation fleet," Patricia Acampora, a commissioner for New York's Public Service Commission, said at a Nov. 23 meeting. "It's important, reliable, carbon-free energy."

Exelon acquired the plant when it bought Constellation Energy Group Inc. in 2012. Constellation paid Rochester Gas & Electric $401 million for the plant in 2004 and agreed to sell power back to its former owner at $44 a megawatt-hour for 10 years. The average wholesale power price in the Rochester area was $38.83 a megawatt-hour during the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Power prices have dropped as booming natural gas production from shale cut costs for competing power stations that burn the fossil fuel.

"The two game changers have been the shale gas and the distortive effect of subsidies" for renewable energy projects like wind, said Joseph Dominguez, Exelon's senior vice president for governmental and regulatory affairs and public policy. "Those things really started to seriously impact the economics of plants probably around 2010."

Exelon won regulatory approval in November to begin talks with Rochester Gas on a new contract with the utility, which is owned by Iberdrola and serves about 371,000 homes and businesses in nine counties.
Exelon isn't alone in its struggle with at-risk plants. Four U.S. nuclear reactors were shut in 2013 because they weren't profitable or needed repairs that owners decided were too costly. Entergy's Vermont Yankee was closed after it failed to find a buyer. The company blamed "artificially low" power prices for the shutdown.

A single-unit reactor like Ginna needs as much as $71 a megawatt-hour to earn an 11 percent return and $56 to $64 to break even, based on 2016 forecasts, Exelon said.

The average Rochester Gas customer probably will pay an additional $18 more a month to keep Ginna operating, based on figures provided by Exelon in its state filing, said Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Institute. The group estimated the operating costs for the Alliance for a Green Economy, an antinuclear group.

"Ginna will likely request a contract approximately $80 million a year greater than the market cost of electricity," said Jessica Azulay, program director of the Syracuse, New York- based Alliance, in a filing. "This is an extraordinary amount of money to be demanded of ratepayers to prop up a private company that has become uncompetitive in the market."

The 581-megawatt Ginna nuclear reactor produces power without heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Closing it "presents potentially serious reliability problems for New York," the Independent System Operator, which runs the state power grid, said in a filing.

Retiring nuclear stations that produce power without greenhouse gases would undercut President Barack Obama's plan to cut emissions. The United States and China, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, last month pledged to reduce climate pollution in an effort to curb global warming.

Other plants at risk of closing include Exelon's Clinton station in Illinois, Entergy Corp.'s Pilgrim station in Massachusetts and FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse plant in Ohio, according to Moody's. All three are single reactors, where costs can be higher than at multi-unit plants.

In Ohio, state regulators are considering FirstEnergy's proposal for 15 years of customer subsidies to keep the 908- megawatt Davis-Besse reactor and some coal-burning plants in service.

"Markets have not, and are not, providing sufficient revenues to ensure continued operations of the plants," Donald Moul, a vice president for commodity operations at FirstEnergy, said in Aug. 4 testimony. While prices eventually will rise, "the plants may not survive long enough to see the higher prices."

Illinois legislators in May ordered agencies to propose "market-based solutions" that would keep Exelon's nuclear plants open in the state. The company expects to hold off any retirement decisions until May 2015, awaiting any new laws, Chief Executive Officer Christopher Crane said Oct. 29.

A new power contract to keep Ginna open would be an "interim measure" to meet reliability needs, Paul Elsberg, a spokesman for Exelon, said in an e-mail. It would also maintain 700 jobs as Exelon seeks "longer-term, market-based solutions for its nuclear fleet," he said.

Other power generators in New York, including NRG Energy Inc. and Entergy, owner of the Indian Point nuclear plant, oppose the premium contract, saying competitors should be allowed to offer alternatives to Ginna. Options include adding power plants or power lines from existing plants to supply the Rochester area, NRG said in a filing.

"For what Exelon is asking to keep Ginna running, we could replace this plant with lower cost sustainable energy, like efficiency, like wind and like solar," said Judson, whose group opposes nuclear energy.
Rochester Gas is reviewing six alternatives, said Daniel Hucko, a spokesman for Iberdrola, declining to identify the proposals.

"It's about reliability," Hucko said in an emailed response to questions. "We will work in the best interests of our customers with considerations of cost at the forefront while recognizing the importance of continued network reliability and reaching reasonable terms for all parties."