Dangerous Junk Plant Grand Gulf: Another Delayed Startup, A Host Broken Equipment and Chaos In The Control Room

Update

Dec 11 4% power: came out of refueling outage.

Dec 12 19%

Dec 13 14% core cooling safety bus failure and multiple equipment problems. 

***Basic licensed training cautions us from prolonged operation at low power levels(1-100%). The moderator void coefficient is less efficient in the low power area, than up at 100%. In other words, in the low power area, there will be less of a designed automatic feedback fuel protection mechanism than in the high power area.   


It seems a core cooling safety transformer or breaker failed beginning at 9:18. 

Then an additional core cooling system (RCIC) failed over valve issues.  

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53115
Facility: GRAND GULF Region: 4 State: MS Unit: [1] [ ] [ ] RX Type: [1] GE-6 NRC Notified By: RYAN MEYER HQ OPS Officer: STEVEN VITTO	Notification Date: 12/12/2017 Notification Time: 17:40 [ET] Event Date: 12/12/2017 Event Time: 09:18 [CST] Last Update Date: 12/12/2017
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION	Person (Organization): RICK DEESE (R4DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
1	N	Y	16	Power Operation	16	Power Operation

Event Text

AUTOMATIC START OF EDG DUE TO LOSS OF ESF TRANSFORMER "At approximately 0918 CST on Tuesday, December 12, 2017, the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station experienced a loss of the Engineered Safety Features (ESF) Transformer 11 which was powering the Division 1 ESF bus. Subsequently, the station experienced an automatic start of the Division 1 Emergency Diesel Generator [EDG], partial isolation of the primary and secondary containment buildings and the isolation of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System [RCIC]. "It is not currently understood why the RCIC system isolated during this event. A team is investigating this issue separately from the loss of the ESF 11 transformer. "The cause of the event is under investigation at this time. "No other issues or unexpected events occurred. "The NRC Resident Inspector has been notified of the event."

Then approximately 4 hours later a div 3 safety battery is questioned over connectivity issues. My guess this came from a annunciator alarm in control room. I wonder if the div 3 charger was power from div 1bus. I think the div 3 charger is powered from the div 1 bus. Basically I think losing the div 1 bus took out the div 3 charger when the transformer failed that went unnoticed for four hours. This made core spray broken.

The gist of this is look at all the safety systems we lost in a short time

A enormously important bus and transformer.

A host of important primary and secondary partial isolations.    

RICI 

and one side of core spray

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53117
Facility: GRAND GULF Region: 4 State: MS Unit: [1] [ ] [ ] RX Type: [1] GE-6 NRC Notified By: WESLEY MARSHALL HQ OPS Officer: STEVEN VITTO	Notification Date: 12/12/2017 Notification Time: 20:34 [ET] Event Date: 12/12/2017 Event Time: 13:30 [CST] Last Update Date: 12/12/2017
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(3)(v)(D) - ACCIDENT MITIGATION	Person (Organization): RICK DEESE (R4DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
1	N	Y	15	Power Operation	15	Power Operation

Event Text

HIGH PRESSURE CORE SPRAY DECLARED INOPERABLE "At approximately 1330 CST on Tuesday, December 12, 2017, Grand Gulf Nuclear Station declared Division 3 'C' Battery inoperable due to questions concerning battery terminal connection continuity. Technical Specification 3.8.4, DC Sources - Operating, Condition E, Required Action E.1, requires the station to declare the High Pressure Core Spray System inoperable immediately. The Division 3 'C' Battery and High Pressure Core Spray System was declared operable and the LCOs [Limiting condition of operation] were declared met at 1731CST on Tuesday, December 12, 2017. Based on field measurements of terminal torque and resistance, the as-found and as-left terminal resistance micro-ohm readings indicated satisfactorily all times. Formal evaluation of the as-found condition of the battery is in progress. "This report is to notify the NRC of a loss of safety function on the High Pressure Core Spray System." The NRC Resident Inspector was notified.

Junk Plant Watts Bar 2 Fortuitous Scram Report Today

So why is a northern boy interested on this particular plant and at this point and time? The below document was not publically available until this morning. 

My two Watts Bar 2 blog articles were written about at 5 and 6pm yesterday. 

The trip also occurred yesterday at 8:59am.

The official big dogs are closely going to be securitizing the timing of this all. Either I am a prophet or somebody called me up?

I called the two officials (NRC/TVA) identified in the document Watts Bar Unit 2 MSPI Effectiveness Date submitted on my blog. Explained my problems. The MSPI document is Watts Bars trying to be exampled from the ROP performance Indicator system because they are a new plant. Generally they blame initial startup issues on getting the bugs out of a new plant (bathtub curve). My theme is all the plant trips, scrams and down powers comes from construction related incompetence, poor quality workmanship and components. The Plant and TVA needs another kick in the ass to straighten up. They need the full force of the ROP and MSPI to be applied to the plant and it's resultant documentation and inspections.

My theme is TVA is trying to fraudulently gain exemption from the MSPI to April 1, 2018. As example, TVA blames the collapse of main condenser as construction issue in the 1970s, implying our new construction guys and quality processes are exempt from accountability leading to plant operations today.  

As far as the Fort Calhoun simulations justifying this all, none of this is facts or science based. It seem this guys can come up with any computer crack pot simulation based on nothing justifying anything they want.

The nice Watts Bar 2 senior resident reminded me the main condenser is not a safety related system. "We don't spend much time on these systems", he said. But is it really a balance of plant system, it is more a intermediate system between safety and balance of plant non safety system. If the main condensers is available, then you don't test the safety cooling system. I'll make the case TMI emerged from broken or degraded non safety systems that cascaded into a nuclear event.      

Power Reactor	Event Number: 53112
Facility: WATTS BAR Region: 2 State: TN Unit: [ ] [2] [ ] RX Type: [1] W-4-LP,[2] W-4-LP NRC Notified By: BRIAN McILNAY HQ OPS Officer: MARK ABRAMOVITZ	Notification Date: 12/11/2017 Notification Time: 11:06 [ET] Event Date: 12/11/2017 Event Time: 08:57 [EST] Last Update Date: 12/11/2017
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): SHAKUR WALKER (R2DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
2	M/R	Y	97	Power Operation	0	Hot Standby

Event Text

MANUAL REACTOR TRIP IN RESPONSE TO INDICATION OF MULTIPLE DROPPED CONTROL RODS "While operating at 97% power, the Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor was manually tripped at 0857 EST on December 11, 2017 due to multiple dropped control rods. All control and shutdown bank rods inserted properly in response to the manual reactor trip. All safety systems including Auxiliary Feedwater actuated as designed. The plant is stable with decay heat removal through Auxiliary Feedwater and the Steam Dump System. "The cause of the dropped rods is being investigated. "The manual actuation of the Reactor Protection System (RPS) is being reported as a four hour report under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(2)(iv)(B). The actuation of the Auxiliary Feedwater System (an engineered safety feature) is being reported as an eight hour report under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(3)(iv)(A). "The NRC Senior Resident Inspector has been notified for this event."

Junk Plant Watts Bar: How The NRC is Pulling Their Punches

Having issues with staying up at power. I just think there are a lot of crap components in the plant that is causing this.

November 22, 2017 

SUBJECT: WATTS BAR NUCLEAR PLANT –NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000390/2017003,05000391/2017003

Unit 2 began the reporting period shutdown for repairs to the main condenser.  The unit was started up on July 23, 2017, but was shutdown to hot standby later that day due to equipment problems.  On July 25, 2017, startup resumed, but the reactor was tripped before criticality due to rod position indication problems during the startup.  Startup commenced again on July 27, 2017, but was stopped due to additional rod position indication problems.  Unit 2 started up after rod position indication repairs on July 30, 2017, and achieved 29 percent RTP on August 2, 2017.  The unit remained at that power until August 8, 2017, when the turbine was tripped due to a steam leak on a turbine drain line.  The unit stabilized at 8 percent RTP and remained there until power ascension resumed after drain line repairs.  Unit 2 reached 100 percent RTP on August 8, 2017, and remained there for the remainder of the reporting period.

Very troublesome. The not counted violation is mostly not following procedures which is very serious.  

Six violations of very low safety significance, identified by the licensee, have been reviewed by the NRC.  Corrective actions taken or planned by the licensee have been entered into the licensee’s CAP.  These violations and the corrective action tracking numbers are listed in Section 4OA7 of this report.

So basically a NRC inspector below thought his peers were too tough on TVA. Was that the geneses of the not counted violations on the above inspection. 

Non-Concurrence Process.

Integrated Report 2017003 documents a self-revealing NC\’ when licensee personnel did not properly implement a surveillance procedure (See attached 4-part writeup.)

In the analysis section, the reason be a more that minor determination was the performance deficiency caused a depressurization that had to  be stopped by operator action.” The rational used was detailed in an e-mail to me from Alan Blarney (see attached e mail); the opening of the PORV impacted plant stability (depressurization) and challenged the critical safety function of heat removal (loss of inventory). However, as stated in the analysis section “the resultant leakage from the open P0kV would not have caused the current decay heat removal method to fail (lit went undetected and leakage would be self-limiting such that it would stop before impacting the operating method of decay heat removal This statement directly contradicts the rational tor a more than minor determination that either depressurization impacted plant stability or the loss of inventory challenged the critical safety function of heat removal…

Junk Plant Watts Bar: An Official Lying Zone Going On Here

No wonder the plant is having prolonged safety culture problems with official outright lying such as this?

Watts Bar Unit 2 MSPI Effectiveness Date

https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML17345A052

Event or circumstances requiring guidance interpretation:

During March 2017, during the first operating cycle Watts Bar U2, the Condenser failed and required extensive repair to return to service.  The reactor was shut down while the work on the secondary side was performed. This resulted in a loss of 3100 critical hours.  The cause of the failure was inadequate vendor design (1970’s) of the condenser wall support structure leading to support and wall failure.  In addition, a 35-day refueling outage is planned for fourth Quarter of 2017 with an additional loss of 840 critical hours.

The cause was the QA peoples not adequately scoping out the main condenser for quality and  a design sufficient for it’s duty. It ridiculous solely depending on a components 1970s  design especially with  the magnitude of  TVA or problems during the 1970s and 1980s. They are shifting blame on 1970s guys from the Unit 2’s employees who prepared the site in around the 2015.

Think I am going to talk to the project manager…  

Junk Plant Grand Gulf At 4% after Third Scram/Trip After First Scram/ Shutdown

Update: Dec 12

Least they haven't scrammed yet. Its looking like a very slow startup. Just 19% power today. Is the slowness carefulness or is it general incompetence or poor training.

***I think this guy is setting the low bar for everyone else. This is how bad everyone can get before we step in and shut you down. These guys have been pretty degraded for the last two or three years with no hint they got control of themselves.

Everyone is just waiting for a big accident out of these guys. With all these trips, scrams, shutdowns and down powers in recent years, one wonders if this kind of despicable behavior will lead to a type of accident never seen before???

Vogtle Death Spiral

Georgia regulatory staff calls the last U.S. nuclear construction project “uneconomic”

By Steven Mufson December 5 at 2:41 PM

Southern Company said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Toshiba to speed up a $3.2 billion payment to help salvage two nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia.

Under the agreement, Toshiba will make the payments by December 15 on behalf of its nuclear construction subsidiary Westinghouse, which is in bankruptcy.

The agreement was disclosed four days after three staff members of the Georgia Public Service Commission said that the project at the Vogtle power station “is no longer economic” given huge cost overruns, construction delays and the burden that would be thrust upon ratepayers while the company profits. The PSC commissioners will decide in February whether to let the project go forward.  

Junk Plant Grand Gulf @8%

Dec 6,

One day later, still at 8%. What a absolute disgrace.

Well, I screwed up this update. It is much worst than stated. The highest reported power reached this startup is

Dec. 3 4%

4 12%

5 8%

6 0% 

Millstone and Seabrook Are Walking Dead Man

Could all the state regulators and NEISO be corrupt? Absolutely. This is Matt Lauer with the NE grid. Everyone knows the grid is astonishing corrupt for years.

Vermonters join suit over alleged electricity price-fixing

Power lines in Monkton.

VTDigger file photo

Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2017 8:39 pm

By Mike Polhamus, VTDigger

MONTPELIER — Two Vermont residents are among a dozen plaintiffs suing on behalf of 7 million New Englanders who allegedly paid billions extra for electricity as the result of price-fixing by two of the region's largest energy companies, Avangrid and Eversource.

Montpelier resident John Odum and South Royalton's David Leighton, along with their fellow plaintiffs, claim the companies artificially constrained New England's natural gas supply in order to drive up wholesale electric prices.

As a result, the suit states, New England electricity customers paid $3.6 billion more for power between 2013 and 2016 than they would have otherwise.

Electricity prices during those years were about 20 percent higher than they should have been, according to the suit.

"Not since Enron's greedy heyday during the California energy crisis, nearly two decades ago, have American energy markets been manipulated for private profit at such expense to everyday electricity consumers," the suit states.

Odum referred questions to the attorney behind the case, Thomas Sobol, of the firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sobol did not immediately return a call for comment. Odum, who is the Montpelier city clerk, is participating in the suit as a private individual.

The suit comes on the heels of a study that found Avangrid and Eversource reserving large volumes of natural gas pipeline capacity every day during important times of the year, then canceling the sales at the last minute. These purchases occurred on a pipeline critical to New England's wholesale natural gas markets called the Algonquin Pipeline, the study states.

In addition to raising prices, market manipulation also may be falsely bolstering arguments for more pipeline construction in the region, according to one author of the study.

By buying up so much of the Algonquin Pipeline's capacity, the two energy giants blocked gas purchases by other New England energy companies, the suit alleges. This artificial shortage drove up the cost of electricity, as most of New England's generation comes from natural gas-fired plants.

Gaming the market

Avangrid and Eversource, as electricity wholesalers, could profit off their high-priced electricity to a greater degree than was possible through natural gas sales, the study found. Unlike the natural gas distribution market, the New England wholesale electricity market doesn't cap utilities' return at a percentage of the value of their capital.

The potential for manipulation exists in certain cases where companies have multiple roles: selling natural gas, buying natural gas for the electricity generation market, and selling electricity.

Such companies may be able to game a regulated market to realize otherwise impossible profits off an unregulated market, said Charles Mason, a co-author of the study and a professor of petroleum and natural gas economics at the University of Wyoming.

The Canadian company Gaz Metro is another that operates in both gas and electricity markets, as the owner of Vermont Gas Systems and the state's largest electric utility, Green Mountain Power. GMP owns a number of electricity generators, including hydroelectric dams, wind turbines and solar arrays.

But it would be "impossible" for Gaz Metro to profit off the same type of market behavior that the lawsuit alleges, said GMP spokeswoman Kristin Carlson.

Unlike with Avangrid and Eversource, which sold wholesale electricity on a largely unregulated market, in Gaz Metro's case Green Mountain Power is a regulated utility subject to the same rate-of-return limits as Vermont Gas.

However, one of the study's authors suggested that a parent company of Gaz Metro knew of the alleged manipulation of the natural gas supply but did nothing to stop it.

The owner of the Algonquin Pipeline is a Houston company called Enbridge, which owns 40 percent of Gaz Metro.

Enbridge undoubtedly knew what was occurring with the daily pipeline capacity purchases that were withdrawn at the last minute, according to the study.

But Enbridge chose to look the other way, the study claims, because the company could use the artificial supply constraints to argue for building more pipelines. Enbridge has proposed a project called the Access Northeast pipeline in partnership with Eversource Energy.

"It is a near certainty the pipeline operator is aware of the scheduling practices on its pipelines that result in underutilized capacity," the study states. However, it says, pipeline companies make more money selling pipeline contracts than they do from ensuring those contracts actually fill their pipelines with gas. That means "their incentives lead them to favor constructing new pipeline capacity — to sell more contracts — rather than ensuring existing capacity is fully utilized," the study says.

"In New England, this incentive took the concrete form of the proposed Access Northeast pipeline expansion project " the study states.

Mason said that while the pipeline operator must have known about the companies' alleged behavior, he's not convinced Enbridge sanctioned it in order to push forward another pipeline project. Mason said that assertion was made by another of the study's authors.

Enbridge is not the only one calling for more New England natural gas pipelines.

Pipeline push

Among the more influential proponents of expanded New England natural gas pipeline capacity is Gordon van Welie, who runs the organization that operates the region's electrical grid, ISO-New England. Van Welie has said repeatedly in recent years that the region is threatened by a shortage of natural gas pipelines.

Mason's study and the lawsuit that followed it haven't changed van Welie's or ISO-New England's positions on the subject, according to a spokesperson for the grid operator.

Neither van Welie nor ISO-NE has the data to evaluate the validity of the suit's claims, media relations specialist Marcia Blomberg wrote in an email. Blomberg also said ISO-New England has no opinion on the suit and that its claims are outside her organization's jurisdiction.

"That said," Blomberg wrote, "ISO New England's concerns about the reliability impacts of natural gas infrastructure constraints have not changed.

"The challenges of maintaining reliability on a power system that is increasingly dependent on natural-gas-fired generators have been apparent in New England since a January 2004 cold snap, and those operating challenges have only intensified since then. The use of natural gas for power generation continues to increase, but the capacity of the region's natural gas infrastructure has not been expanded at the same pace and it is not always adequate to deliver all the fuel needed for both heating and power generation during winter."

For its part, Eversource said the lawsuit spurred by Mason's study is groundless.

"We are aware of the lawsuit and are reviewing it," said Al Lara, a media relations officer with Eversource. "However, the facts remain unchanged: The allegations underlying this lawsuit are untrue and baseless. The expenditure of resources to further these false claims is regrettable for all parties involved."

Avangrid representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Green Mountain Power is watching the case closely, Carlson said.

If the widespread overpricing the suit alleges turns out to be true, Carlson said, and if GMP recovers any money its customers were overcharged, all of it will go back to the utility's ratepayers.

Representatives at the Public Utility Commission and the Department of Public Service weren't able to say immediately whether their agencies might take action of their own against Avangrid or Eversource.

The chief of Attorney General T.J. Donovan's Public Protection Division, Christopher Curtis, said his office doesn't as a rule comment on investigations the AG's office may or may not be doing. Curtis did say Donovan's office is reviewing the study, and monitoring the lawsuit.

Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday that he's "not familiar with" the matter. But he added that "obviously the cost of electricity is of great interest to me.

Headwinds At Hope Creek and Salem

You can't tell me this facility isn't facing destructive budget...

Is Showdown in Offing over Nuclear Subsidies in New Jersey?

Tom Johnson | November 30, 2017

Foes worry that those in favor of scheme will try to push a bill through in lame-duck session

In what is likely to be the opening salvo of a nasty legislative battle, lawmakers will convene early next week to discuss how to prevent the state’s nuclear plants from shutting down prematurely.

The bigger and unanswered question is whether they also are planning to act on a yet-to-be-introduced bill that some say could provide up to billions of dollars in ratepayer subsidies to the Public Service Enterprise Group over the next decade.

The Senate Environment and Energy Committee and Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee plan to hold a rare joint session Monday on economic challenges facing nuclear power plants, an issue that is splintering the energy sector not only here but in Washington D.C. and elsewhere.

News of the joint hearing yesterday jolted a coalition opposed to efforts to prop up nuclear units. They fear the proceedings may foreshadow a legislative initiative to award lucrative financial incentives to PSEG and Exelon, (a co-owner of two of the plants) during the lame-duck session, which ends early in January.

“We’ve seen this special-interest strategy before on bad bills,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, an opponent of subsidies to nuclear plants. “It’s how a bad bill gets passed in a lame-duck session.’’

Addressing subsidies

Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo (D-Mercer), the chairman of the Assembly committee, however, discounted that scenario, at least for now. “At this point in time, I don’t have a bill,’’ he said, although conceding the issue of subsidies would likely be addressed during the hearing.

Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the chairman of the Senate panel, did not return a call seeking comment. In the past he has been guarded about the subject, saying only the issue is being studied.

A quick fix is still possible, if the political will is there. After today’s session, the Legislature only has seven scheduled days in the current term. Foes, however, say the issue is too important to be tackled in a lame-duck session, although it would not be the first time for it to happen.

“I haven’t seen a bill of this magnitude go through this quickly in this kind of time period,’’ said James Benton, the longtime executive director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council. “There’s a lot of information that we don’t have at this point.’’…