Junk Plant Seabrook Trips On Bum Transmission Work

Update 3/3

Equipment problem shuts down nuke plant 

 

SEABROOK — An equipment malfunction triggered the safe shutdown of NextEra Energy Seabrook nuclear power plant early yesterday morning, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

According to NRC Region I spokesman Neil Sheehan, at 2:53 a.m. Wednesday, Seabrook Station plant experienced an unplanned shutdown because a turbine tripped, or went offline.

“That triggered, as expected, a reactor shutdown,” he said. “The shutdown was uncomplicated. Turbines are considered to be the secondary, or non-nuclear, side of the facility.” 

Sheehan said the NRC’s resident inspectors assigned full-time to Seabrook Station were promptly notified about the shutdown. 
“The senior resident inspector responded to the plant, reviewed the sequence of events, performed visual inspections, and discussed the shutdown with key plant personnel.” Sheehan said. “The inspectors will continue to follow up on the company’s assessments of what occurred, (as well as) any repairs and planning for the restart of the unit.” 
The NRC monitors all happenings at the nation’s nuclear power plants, even when they are not related to the nuclear side of the plant. 
“We care about a turbine trip because it initiated the reactor trip,” Sheehan said. “And any time that occurs, you’re putting unnecessary stress on the (power plant’s) operators.”
NextEra Energy Seabrook spokesman Alan Griffith confirmed the plant’s shutdown. Griffith said the plant is designed to shut down when such issues occur to ensure safety, and it functioned appropriately Wednesday morning. 

As of yesterday afternoon, Griffith said, the exact cause of the equipment issue that triggered the shutdown had not yet been determined. 
“As safety is our highest priority,” Griffith said, “a complete and thorough analysis is being conducted on the exact cause of the shutdown. While there is no timetable, the plant will be returned to full power once repairs are completed.” 
Sheehan said along with plant personnel, the NRC’s resident inspectors will be involved in all aspects of the assessment.

 

 

So Seabrook tripped yesterday and why isn't this reported on?

So it happened last night at 02:52.

Check out how sensitive our grid is to the lost of Seabrook. It tripped around 3 am. It is getting doubtful the transmission work caused the trip. NEISO electricity has been pretty inexpensive this mild winter. This has made a lot of long term contracts bankrupt?

Power Reactor	Event Number: 51762
Facility: SEABROOK Region: 1 State: NH Unit: [1] [ ] [ ] RX Type: [1] W-4-LP NRC Notified By: ANDY CARAMIHALIS HQ OPS Officer: MARK ABRAMOVITZ	Notification Date: 03/02/2016 Notification Time: 04:27 [ET] Event Date: 03/02/2016 Event Time: 02:53 [EST] Last Update Date: 03/02/2016
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION	Person (Organization): WILLIAM COOK (R1DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
1	A/R	Y	100	Power Operation	0	Hot Standby

Event Text

TURBINE TRIP CAUSING A REACTOR TRIP "The turbine tripped for an unknown cause followed by a reactor trip. All systems are functioning as designed. Operators have transitioned out of the EOP [Emergency Operating Procedure] network into normal operating procedures. The plant is stable in mode 3." All control rods fully inserted during the trip and no safety or relief valves lifted. The plant is in its normal shutdown electrical lineup. Emergency Feedwater actuation occurred to restore steam generator levels. The plant expects to make a press release. The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.

NRC Makes Huge Mistake Publishing Comments in Power Reactor Status Report

(Bet you the leap year was implicated with this???)

The NRC made a rare mistake yesterday. The published the comments  on the power reactor status report. Or did they do this on purpose. They usually wait 30 to 60 days for competitive reason to publish the comments.

My comments about this:

Indian Point 2: The coast down to refueling for the past month has been highly erratic.

Seabrook: Did the maintenence on the 345 line or its downpower cause the scram?

Pilgrim: they explain the computer upgrade has caused its downpower to 98%.

Fermi 2 junk: runback on junk heater drain parts.

Arkansan 2 shutdown: junk check valve parts.

*Grand Gulf: my bad, in refueling outage?

Junk Plant River Bend: problems with breakers. Did the NRC shut them down?

Power Reactor Status Report for March 1, 2016

Unit	Power	Down	Reason or Comment	Change in report (*)	Number of Scrams (#)
Beaver Valley 1	100			*
Beaver Valley 2	100			*
Calvert Cliffs 1	0	02/15/2016	REFUELING OUTAGE	*
Calvert Cliffs 2	100			*
FitzPatrick	100
Ginna	100
Hope Creek 1	100			*
Indian Point 2	81		COASTDOWN TO REFUELING OUTAGE	*
Indian Point 3	100
Limerick 1	94		COASTDOWN TO REFUELING OUTAGE	*
Limerick 2	100
Millstone 2	100
Millstone 3	100
Nine Mile Point 1	100
Nine Mile Point 2	100
Oyster Creek	100
Peach Bottom 2	100		100 MVAR RESTRICTION DUE TO TURBINE BEARING VIBRATIONS
Peach Bottom 3	100
Pilgrim 1	98		HOLDING POWER FOR PROCESS COMPUTER UPGRADE	*
Salem 1	100			*
Salem 2	100			*
Seabrook 1	100		DOWNPOWER CONTINGENCY DURING 345 kV LINE MAINTENANCE
Susquehanna 1	89		COASTDOWN TO REFUELING OUTAGE	*
Susquehanna 2	100			*
Three Mile Island 1	100			*

Region 2

Unit	Power	Down	Reason or Comment	Change in report (*)	Number of Scrams (#)
Browns Ferry 1	100
Browns Ferry 2	100
Browns Ferry 3	0	02/19/2016	REFUELING OUTAGE
Brunswick 1	0	02/26/2016	REFUELING OUTAGE	*
Brunswick 2	100
Catawba 1	100
Catawba 2	100
Farley 1	100
Farley 2	100
Harris 1	100
Hatch 1	0	02/07/2016	REFUELING OUTAGE
Hatch 2	100
McGuire 1	100
McGuire 2	100
North Anna 1	100
North Anna 2	89		COASTDOWN TO REFUELING OUTAGE
Oconee 1	100
Oconee 2	100
Oconee 3	100
Robinson 2	100
Saint Lucie 1	100
Saint Lucie 2	100
Sequoyah 1	100
Sequoyah 2	100
Summer	100
Surry 1	100
Surry 2	100
Turkey Point 3	100
Turkey Point 4	100
Vogtle 1	100
Vogtle 2	100
Watts Bar 1	100
Watts Bar 2	0

Region 3

Unit	Power	Down	Reason or Comment	Change in report (*)	Number of Scrams (#)
Braidwood 1	100
Braidwood 2	100
Byron 1	100
Byron 2	100
Clinton	99		100% ELECTRICAL CAPABILITY
D.C. Cook 1	100			*
D.C. Cook 2	100			*
Davis-Besse	85		COASTDOWN TO REFUELING OUTAGE	*
Dresden 2	100
Dresden 3	100
Duane Arnold	100
Fermi 2	58		RECEIVED POWER RUNBACK FROM LOSS OF HEATER DRAIN FLOW	*
La Salle 1	0	02/14/2016	REFUELING OUTAGE
La Salle 2	100
Monticello	100
Palisades	100
Perry 1	100			*
Point Beach 1	100
Point Beach 2	100
Prairie Island 1	100
Prairie Island 2	100
Quad Cities 1	100			*
Quad Cities 2	91		COASTDOWN TO REFUELING OUTAGE	*

Region 4

Unit	Power	Down	Reason or Comment	Change in report (*)	Number of Scrams (#)
Arkansas Nuclear 1	100
Arkansas Nuclear 2	0	02/23/2016	MAINTENANCE OUTAGE TO REPAIR CHECK VALVE LEAKAGE
Callaway	100
Columbia Generating Station	100
Comanche Peak 1	100
Comanche Peak 2	100
Cooper	100
Diablo Canyon 1	100
Diablo Canyon 2	100
Fort Calhoun	100
Grand Gulf 1	0	02/19/2016	REFUELING OUTAGE
Palo Verde 1	100
Palo Verde 2	100
Palo Verde 3	100
River Bend 1	0	02/17/2016	FORCED OUTAGE - BREAKER MAINTENANCE
South Texas 1	100
South Texas 2	100
Waterford 3	100
Wolf Creek 1	100

Junk Plant Pilgrim's New NRC inspection

That is the problem with the agency. Is their black hole risk determinations low enough to keep a plant safe. The long history of Pilgrim is neither the Entergy or the NRC could correctly determine the risk significance when a problem first emerged like the SRVs.  

Additionally, the inspection assessed whether Entergy’s evaluations into  these significant deficiencies were of a depth commensurate with the significance of the issue,  root and contributing causes of risk-significant deficiencies were identified, and corrective  actions were taken to correct immediate problems and to prevent recurrence.

This is a example of what I am talking about. If you can't trust them to be accurate and have integrity on the little problems then you can't trust them on the bigger issues. The difference between the last blizzard shutdown and the one before is calling the 23kv line operable or inoperable. They called the 23kv line operable in the 2015 blizzard. The 2013 blizzard was called a full Loss Of Offsite Power ( LOOP) while the 2015 blizzard LOOP was called a partial LOOP. If you wanted to take responsibility for the position you place the plant in you would call the 2015 Blizzard  a full LOOP. If you wanted to minimize your responsibilities you would inaccurately call a partial LOOP.

The 23kv line always had way to many uncertainties, as a example Entergy doesn't own or control the quality of the line. There is no equivalencies between a emergency diesel generator and this line. As another example, Entergy because they don't own the line, they have no power to see and understand all the vulnerabilities of the line as in the below NRC example.

Calling the line having the capability to wholly support the plant in a emergency is just a public relation job. You need to always call this line conservatively inop or not available.   

NRC Inspection Report 05000293/2014002 (Agencywide Documents Access and  Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML14129A282) documents an NCV  (2014002-02) related to an inadequate procedure for determining operability of the shutdown transformer. Specifically, an NSTAR calculation concluded that certain  alternative offsite power lines did not satisfy Pilgrim’s minimum voltage criteria for the  shutdown transformer, but this information was never incorporated into the degraded  23kV line procedure for determining the operability of the shutdown transformer. 

Entergy procedure EN-LI-102, “Corrective Action Program,” requires Entergy staff to  document the receipt of NRC violations as a CR; however, this did not occur. The  inspectors noted that EN-LI-102 would have likely directed performance of an apparent  cause evaluation and could have prevented the receipt of a second NCV for a similar  issue in 2015. NRC Inspection Report 05000293/2015003 (ADAMS Accession No. ML15317A030) documents an NCV (2015003-03) issued for an inadequate operability assessment of the shutdown transformer because Entergy staff did not appropriately evaluate changes made to the shutdown transformer when an alternate offsite power  configuration was used that resulted in the transformer being inoperable. The inspectors  noted that the degraded 23kV procedure contained incorrect information at that time,  which the operations staff used during the operability evaluation. The inspectors  determined that Entergy’s failure to document NCV 2014002-02 as a CR and perform a  cause evaluation in accordance with EN-LI-102 was a performance deficiency. Because  this issue is an additional contributor to the inadequate operability assessment, and the  enforcement aspects of the inadequate operability assessment are already addressed  as NCV 2015003-03, this issue is not being documented as a separate finding. Entergy

entered this issue into their CAP as CR-PNP-2016-00302 for further evaluation.

Junk Plant River Bend controlled Vessel Level Professionally

Just saying, they started up without fully understanding and fixing the switchyard.

I am happy to see they controlled the reactor level professionally.

Lot of scrams and problems nationally with switch-yards.

I wonder if this well controlled vessel was a function of dumping the feed system, becoming isolated behind MSIVs and using the SRVs to cool the core.    

Automatic Reactor Scram Due toPartial Loss of Offsite Power Caused by Fault in Local 230kV Switchyard
Licensee Event Report 50-458 / 2015-009-00
On November 27, 2015, at 4:31 a.m. CST, with the plant operating at 100 percent power, an automatic reactor scram occurred following the loss of power to both divisions of the reactor protection system (RPS). This condition resulted from a single-phase fault in the local 230kV switchyard. The initial response of the protective relays for the switchyard caused the breakers connected to the north 230kV bus in the switchyard to trip. The fault caused a voltage transient on the in-plant switchgear sufficient to trip the scram relays in the Division 2 RPS, resulting in a half-scram. The action of the protective relays continued, eventually causing the de-energization of reserve station service line no. 1. This lead to the loss of Division 1 RPS and a full reactor scram. The Division 1 and 3 emergency diesel generators started as designed to restore power to their respective safety-related onsite electrical distribution subsystems. Both trains of the standby gas treatment system started, and the primary containment isolation system logic responded as designed. No safety-related systems were out of service at the time of the scram, and reactor pressure and water level were promptly stabilized. All reactor control rods inserted properly. Multiple actuations of the main steam safety-

Seems there was abnormal operation of SRVS. These are rather delicate devices. Will there be future problems with the SRVs: leaking and misoperation. 

relief valves (SRVs) occurred during the event. The nuclear steam supply system vendor reported this action was likely due to a localized pressure transient in the SkV instrumentation lines. SRV tailpipe temperature recorders indicated that all valves re-seated correctly following the initial transient. This event is being reported in accordance with 10 CFR 50.73(a)(2)(iv)(A) as an automatic actuation of the reactor protection system, the primary containment isolation logic, and the Division 1 and 3 emergency diesel generators. The root cause of this event remains under investigation. The results of that evaluation will be provided in a supplement to this report.