NRC And BWROG Taking Greater Interest In SRVs, Or Angling to Hide Problems

They should invite me to this meeting?

LER Reduction, they guys make me laugh. It is probably the only reason of this meeting. These guys constantly violate tech specs and don't shutdown when required.

If they change their Teck Specs, they won't fix the problem. They will just hide the problem from outsiders. On the positive, they won't ruin the integrity of the employees by constantly violating meaning and intent of the tech specs.

Basically I have been working on this for many years. Do a google search on Popperville Town Hall and Mike Mulligan

BWROG/NRC Meeting September 12, 2018
Copyright 2018, BWR Owners’ Group, All Rights Reserved
BWROG Target Rock SRV Performance Improvement Committee
2
History/Scope
Formed in 2016
Committee Scope:  address the common causes of repetitive Target Rock 2-stage SRV as-found set-point test failures in the fleet. • Technical Exchange Meetings:  share site set point drift performance, best practices, roadmap planning • 2-stage valve focus • Scope focused on setpoint drift
Membership:  DTE/Fermi, Duke/Brunswick, Exelon/FitzPatrick, NPPD/Cooper, PSEG/Hope Creek, TVA/Browns Ferry
Copyright 2018, BWR Owners’ Group, All Rights Reserved
3
2017/18 Activities
• Industry-shared IBAD procedure (application of Platinum to disc surface) • Autoclave Screening Test - used to help develop sputtering application process of Platinum on test coupons and comparison to IBAD.  Obtained positive results. • Plasma Enhanced Magnetron Sputter Coating of (Quantity 3) pilot discs with Platinum.  Performed steam validation testing with positive results. In process of obtaining BWROG product for utilizing Sputtering for application of Platinum on SRV pilot discs. • Static Autoclave Material Screening - baseline conditions of corrosion bonding with control group and screening other materials. (Started Aug. 24, 2018)
Copyright 2018, BWR Owners’ Group, All Rights Reserved
4
2019 Planned Activities
Test different thickness of (sputtered) Platinum coated on pilot discs in valve lift tests. • Sputtering opens process space for different thicknesses of Platinum Coating. • Potential for fleet usage – Know that current thickness of Platinum coating provided step-improvement in set point drift performance.  – Does increase in thickness provide more protection from corrosion bonding?

LER Reduction 

Initial scoping effort to understand current Tech Spec Limits and alternative licensing approaches. • Not a funded project at this time. • Initial discussions among multiple BWROG committees.

NOAA Says The Two Plant Bunkswhick Nuclear Plant Are Heading For a Meltdown in a Cat 4 Hurricane

Still working on this

Cat 4 Hurricane Hugo had a storm surge of 18 feet in North Carolina. I don't know if it was in the high or low end of a Cat 4 hurricane? Remember Florence is 21 feet about sea level. You know, what is your definition  sea level?  There is many of them. I got my measurement of Brunswick's above sea-level height of 21 feet from google earth. I kinda thought over topping the Brunswick's site was not probable in a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane. I did not believe these plants could be constructed so closes to sea-level. I figured these plants could easily survive high in the Cat 5 level. I now know it is probable ocean overtopping the site in a cat 4 or 5 is a certainty. I totally believe the NOAA's cat 4 or 5 storm surge calculations. Remember the hurricane ocean over topping is 3 feet at Brunswick per NOAA.

I am shocked at this latitude this plant is so poorly situated. I suspect more plants are in the same situation.

Now I consider it a high probability there will be a guaranteed of meltdown at Brunswick in a cat 4 or 5 hurricane. This is our Fukushima. Are the reactor building, turbine building, diesel generator rooms or the switchyard are not designed for a 6 feet or more ocean over-topping of their site. Can the flex system over come this kind of defect with a 6 feet or more over-topping of their site. In the best of any ones computer models, they is just too much uncertainty.

I think the turbine building and reactor building would quickly fill up with ocean water rendering all ECCS inoperable. I think the ECCS safety busses are on the ground floor. They would become inoperable. As far as the diesel generators, they are probrably on the ground floor. Certainly the diesel generator's local breakers are on the ground floor. There is your blackout where the flex system being useless too. You going to helicopter a flex system big DG or pump into 6 feet of water?  

I make the case in climate change, these big hurricanes will be much more probable.

Questions

1) Is it in plant licensing all US are nuclear plant are supposed to survive all cat 4 and 5 Hurricanes without a meltdown?

2) Think about the movement and safety of operators on site in a over-topping conditions. There would be no movement.

3) Would the hardened vent be usable or accessible?

I request a emergency investigation on this Hurricane ocean surge issue on a Cat 4 and 5 levels at Brunswick. Can this plant survive a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane without a meltdown? Is there a extremely high likelihood these plants would not meltdown? Actually, if a plant can't survive a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane without meltdown, these plants should be emediately shutdown in the greater interest of the USA?

I am considering a 2,206?

Sincerely,

Mike Mulligan
Hinsdale, NH

Cell: 1603 209-4206
steamshovel2002@ yahoo.com            

September 12, 2018 Contact: Roger Hannah, 404-997-4417                Joey Ledford, 404-997-4416 NRC  

Preparing for Hurricane Florence The Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspectors at nuclear plants in the Carolinas and Virginia are reviewing the plant operators’ preparations in advance of Hurricane Florence, currently projected to make landfall in the Southeast later this week. 

The NRC is also sending additional inspectors to those plants and will activate its regional incident response center in Atlanta, to provide around-the-clock staff support during the storm. 

Duke Energy’s Brunswick nuclear plant south of Wilmington, N.C., could face hurricane-force winds, major storm surges and heavy rain. Other plants near the storm’s projected path are also taking precautions.

Nuclear plant operators would declare an emergency if conditions are expected that would require that declaration.

Plant procedures require operators to shut down the reactor well before hurricane-force winds arrive on site. In preparing for Hurricane Florence, the staffs at Brunswick, Surry in southeastern Virginia, Harris near Raleigh, N.C., Robinson near Hartsville, S.C., and some other plants are working through their severe weather procedures, including ensuring that all loose debris and equipment have been removed or secured, and conducting walk-down inspections of important systems and equipment. 

NRC inspectors are verifying that all preparations have been completed, and the plants’ emergency diesel generators are available with ample fuel if the storm affects off-site power. 

The NRC has also been in touch with officials at the Global Nuclear Fuels-America facility near Wilmington, N.C., the research reactor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and other NRC licensees in the area to verify their preparations for the storm. 

From the NRC Region II incident response center in Atlanta, NRC staff members will monitor Hurricane Florence while remaining in contact with plant operators, NRC on-site inspectors, the NRC’s headquarters operations center, and state emergency officials in the Carolinas, Virginia and all potentially affected states. 

The additional NRC inspectors will remain at the nuclear plant sites and the incident response center will remain staffed as long as conditions require. 

Ok, do a google satellite search on the two plant Brunswick nuclear facility. Carefully memorized the  two canal entrench and discharge from the plant. This is very important. Then do a search on Southport NC on the NOAA hurricane surge page. Increase the magnification all the way down to where you can only see the street level detail on the map. You do not want to see any of the colors of the hurricane surge levels. Carefully going a little north, find the canals ends going into the plant. They erased any indications of the plant for bogus security consideration. All you can see is the canals ends. Or it is plainly a cover up with the risk of a possible meltdown risk. Find the two ends of the canals...the empty space between the canal ends is the plant. Remember what you seen in the google street search. Now decrease the magnification until the hurricane surge color levels appear on the NOAA page. On the top of the NOAA page are links to the Cat 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hurricane  surge levels. Click on the cat 3, 4 and 5 hurricane surge levels. Now do you see the site water inundation level. It says the site is going completely covered on cat 4.    

Update Sept 12

NOAA says for a Cat 4 hurricane, the site is going to be inundated by 3 feet water. A cat 3 might not get inundated but it will be a close call.

Should the site now be in a anticipatory site area emergency in preparation for a two plant meltdown. They would absolutely change the nation. 

It will be like Fukushima where the meltdown overwhelms the recovery actions.    

Wrightsville Beach might get a 13 feet surge. Multiple tide surges. Cape Fear river. The might regret building those intercoastal canals to the plant? 

The plant is 23 feet above sea level. 

AP: In simulation, Category 4 hurricane devastated East Coast

Florence is much worst than the simulation. They guy might hang around the region for 3 to 5 days in a stalled condition, or more. They are talking about 30 inches of rainfall. What is going to happen Friday is just too complicated to predict. All they are talking about now is primitive probabilities  It is looking like it is siding more south right now.  

In simulation, Category 4 hurricane devastated East Coast

By JEFF MARTIN Associated Press

Sep 11, 2018 Updated 15 min ago 

ATLANTA (AP) — Just months ago, disaster planners simulated a Category 4 hurricane strike alarmingly similar to the real-word scenario now unfolding on a dangerously vulnerable stretch of the East Coast.

A fictional "Hurricane Cora" barreled into southeast Virginia and up the Chesapeake Bay to strike Washington, D.C., in the narrative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory.

The result was catastrophic damage, which has some experts concerned that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005's Hurricane Katrina and in a part of the country that is famously difficult to evacuate.


The simulated hurricane knocked out power for most gas stations in the Mid-Atlantic region, damaged a nuclear power plant and sent debris into major shipping channels, among other problems, according to a Department of Energy simulation manual.

"What they were trying to do was create a worst-case scenario, but it's a very realistic scenario," said Joshua Behr, a research professor at Virginia's Old Dominion University who is involved in disaster modeling and simulations.

Florence is also a Category 4 storm and is now forecast to strike the same general area. On Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center's "cone" displaying Florence's projected path included the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region where Cora supposedly made landfall.

Senior leaders from the White House, along with more than 91 federal departments and agencies, participated in the "national level exercise" in late April and early May, FEMA said.

The fictional storm made landfall in the heavily populated Hampton Roads region, bringing a 15-foot (4.5-meter) storm surge and up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain to some areas within the first six hours. That cut off main routes — used for escape as well as for rescuers — in the Hampton Roads area and elsewhere.

In the scenario, Cora also slammed hurricane-force winds into three nuclear power stations. One was damaged. Thirty-three major power substations were at risk from storm surge and major flooding.

Key roads and bridges were also damaged, and debris blocked the Newport News Channel and other waterways. Coast Guard Station Cape Charles lost power, and Coast Guard Station Chincoteague was severely damaged by high winds. The ferocious fictional storm also damaged and closed Reagan National Airport in Washington.

The make-believe hurricane threatened hundreds of cell towers, and the area where power was knocked out included 135 data centers in Virginia and another 60 in Maryland.

The Cora scenario projected hurricane-force winds inflicting "catastrophic damage" to homes and significant damage to critical infrastructure within a 50-mile radius of the hurricane's center.

The manual makes no mention of deaths and injuries, focusing instead on infrastructure.

Another striking similarity between the scenario and Hurricane Florence's path: already saturated ground on that part of the Mid-Atlantic coast.

"What I fear is that saturation, combined with a storm that kind of stalls out," said Behr, who has studied vulnerable populations in the paths of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Hampton Roads region.

If parts of the East Coast are deluged with water, it could result in a catastrophe on the scale of Katrina, Behr said. And recovering from a disaster in the Hampton Roads region would also parallel Katrina's aftermath, he added.


"I believe that those patterns are also going to manifest in Hampton Roads if and when a large storm hits," he said. "The vulnerability of our populations are quite similar to New Orleans. Displacement, pain, suffering, property loss. All those things are going to play out in a fashion that has parallels to how Katrina played out."

Evacuation is known to be challenging in Hampton Roads, a coastal region inhabited by 1.7 million people in cities such as Norfolk, Virginia, and Virginia Beach.

"I've heard people say Virginia Beach is the world's largest cul-de-sac in the sense that there are not a lot of ways to evacuate," said Michelle Covi, an assistant professor of practice with Old Dominion University and Virginia Sea Grant, a science group that works with other universities in the region on coastal issues.

"You can't go north because of the Chesapeake Bay," she said. "You can't really go south, and in this case you wouldn't want to because the storm is that way. You generally want to go west, but again there are lots of water bodies."

In Charleston, South Carolina, where the average elevation is only around 11 feet (3.4 meters) above sea level, storm surge and flooding from a hurricane's drenching rain has the same effect — cutting off access, said Norman Levine, an associate professor at the College of Charleston.

"It inundates roads, and it ends up reaching the point where you become isolated little sea island communities," he said.

Junk Plant Nine Mile Point 1: Grossly Insufficient Maintenance

Grossly insufficient maintenance on the turbine control system. Run to failure. Is more troubles on the way. It sounds line steam or water got into the hydraulic system. They shifted to the standby system. It questions the readiness of all standby systems. 

Licensee Event Report (LER) 2017-002, Manual Reactor Scram Due to Pressure Oscillations

On March 20, 2017 at 02:27, Nine Mile Point Unit 1 performed a manual scram of the reactor due to pressure oscillations. This event is reportable under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(2)(iv)(B) and 10 CFR 50.73(a)(2)(iv)(A) as any event or condition that resulted in a manual or automatic actuation of any of the systems listed in 10 CFR 50.73(a)(2)(iv)(B).
The Unit was offline and reactor shutdown was in-progress at the time of the scram. The cause of the scram was manual scram. The scram was required at approximately 4% reactor power when pressure oscillations occurred exceeding the procedurally required limit. The apparent cause of this event was Mechanical Pressure Regulator (MPR) oscillations caused by a combination of the fouling of the MPR' s pressure sensing bellows line and a bypass relay linkage passing through a worn bushing which created a friction induced sticktion of the linkage.
The event described in this LER is documented in the plant's corrective action program.

Monstrous Cat 4 Hurricane Florence Heading To The East Coast

Update Sept 12

This is going to severely test our southern breakaway states. The extremist conservative republicans who hate the federal government and national codes and laws. These guy's road map is minimal taxation, terribly underfund their state government and beg for the feds to bail them out. In other words, everyone else picks up the tab for their crisis.      

NOAA says for a Cat 4 hurricane, the site is going to be inundated by 3 feet water. A cat 3 might not get inundated but it will be a close call.

Should the site now be in a anticipatory site area emergency in preparation for a two plant meltdown. They would absolutely change the nation. 

It will be like Fukushima where the meltdown overwhelms the recovery actions.

Wrightsville Beach might get a 13 feet surge. Multiple tide surges. Cape Fear river. The might regret building those intercoastal canals to the plant? 

The plant is 23 feet above sea level. 

Hmm, Adams Normal search is working. The content search seems to be overloaded. 

Weakened a bit. Still heading for Brunswick. Big swing to south Carolina. Still stalling. Might rake the coast of South Carolina. Vogtle might get a lot of water and lesser winds. The final path is still highly questionable. The weaker side and then the stronger side might slowly go over the plant. Lost of power and no regular communications for a prolonged period of time...total devastation and unprecedented flooding in the surroundings of the plant.      

Is Brunswick designed for 30" of rain and 9 feet of surge?    

Update Sept 11 

There is a really high concentration of nuclear plants in the foot print and precipitation potential of this massive storm. It is like at the casino playing the slot machines. Play one line gives you a minimal playout. Playing 15 lines for the same odds might give you a gigantic playout.    

That is a ridiculously short period of time. It should be 8 to 12 hours. Just check out the Turkey Point hurricane. How hard it was on the employees at the plant and too the families. They were soon short food at the plant and their families couldn't get cash because of the widespread power outage. They brought in cash my helicopters. Many families fought life threating flooding without their men in the house. These guy should get a humongous bonuses for voluntary staying at the plant. This is why they should be in cold shutdown many hours before the hurricane hit. Minimize employees at the plant. Can you imagine having to run around outside the plant to try and prevent serous damage. There is a high fatality potential in this kind of storm.         

"The company is also preparing for potential shutdown of nuclear reactors at least two hours before the arrival of hurricane-force winds. Duke operates 11 reactors at six sites in the Carolinas, including the Brunswick Nuclear Plant located south of Wilmington near the mouth of the Cape Fear River."

No domestic nuclear plants were operating back them. It is going to be very dangerous to keep a nuke plant operating in the vicinity. The grid load drops in the area around a nuclear plant. There is no reason to keep a plant open. They should be shut down. There is going to be unprecedented flooding over a extremely large section of the south and the tip of the north. They should be situationally aware and very cautious.  

What is different in the hurricane, shortly after landfall the storm is supposed to stall and go in circles for days on end. We have a hurricane warning deep into encompassing most of North and South Carolina. There is a lot of nuclear plants in this region.  

By The Associated Press

The last time the midsection of the East Coast stared down a hurricane like this, Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House and Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were newlyweds.

Hurricane Florence could inflict the hardest hurricane punch the Carolinas have seen in more than 60 years, with rain and wind of more than 130 mph (209 kph). North Carolina has been hit by only one other Category 4 storm since reliable record keeping began in the 1850s. That was Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

On the far side of side of Cape Hatteras, Surry is the next plant North. Right near Virginia Beach. A little north of that is the Chesapeake Bay. The warning cone has already shifted north. A direct hit on the Chesapeake Bay would be ominous.  

Update

Is the dam above Oconee at threat?

Threats 
Summer 
Cataba 
Harris 
Vogtle 
Harris

There are three or four hurricanes lined up behind Florence heading for the USA? 

***Heading to North Carolina Now. Just jumped to cat three to four in about two hours. It's supposed to stall shortly after hitting the coast. Huge rain maker. It been shifting towards the North it seems. If it slides to the far north side of Cape Hatteras a lot more people and plants are going to be involved  

Brunswick is in the bullseye today.  

Hmm, rip a roof off a nuclear power plant (Turkey Point)would surely change our nation -meltdown or no meltdown. Would the incoherence of the Trump administration make the public relations catastrophe worst for the industry?

I don't like the flex safety equipment add-on. They don't have the same standards, quality and testing as safety related equipment on site. We have been having realistic catastrophic drills in ever colors and stripes in the USA. Realistic shooter drills in our schools without notice. The nukes get them all the time. Not with our fake flex system. You know, like the worst accident imaginable and the longest distance from the nuke safety depots. So you would stage the equipment on site and operate all the equipment just like the real accident. Actually pump water with equipment. But we don't test like that in the USA with our weak political system. 

NEI: After the 2001 terrorist attacks, U.S. nuclear energy companies took steps to safeguard plants against a large fire or explosion that potentially could disable vital equipment. Because it was not possible to predict exactly which equipment would be affected, the industry focused on what would be needed to keep the reactor and used fuel storage pool cool if the usual safety systems were not available. Companies purchased portable equipment—such as generators, battery packs, pumps and battery chargers—that could be stored and used to respond, regardless of the location of an explosion, aircraft impact or massive fire.

FLEX expands on this approach with multiple sets of additional portable equipment at each nuclear energy facility to provide backup power and inject cooling water into the reactor and the used fuel storage pool. The backup equipment has preinstalled connection points (“plug and play”), making it reliable at various locations at the facility. 

The industry also established national rapid response centers with the same portable equipment in Phoenix and Memphis, Tennessee that can be dispatched if additional equipment is needed. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations has upgraded its emergency response center to better facilitate the sharing of equipment and expertise whenever and wherever it is needed, within 24 hours.

Imagine being in a cat 5 hurricane in a nuclear plant and the roof gets ripped off the reactor or turbine building. There would be multiple fires and electrical shorts all over the plant and maybe more than one roof gone. The Diesel Generators gone. The transmission system and our roads down everywhere. The roofs aren't safety related. Do you trust the engineering in the 1960s and 1970s? Do you think the Trump administration will get it early on in the accident?

We could be testing our transmission system any day now. I think our transmission system in NE is only designed for 70 mph winds. 

Japan’s power supply system weak link in times of disaster

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 7, 2018 at 16:45 JST

Japan's ultramodern conveniences, its zippy bullet trains, automated ticketing systems and smart homes work just fine, until the power goes out.

The blackout across entire northern island of Hokkaido after a powerful earthquake struck early Thursday showed the weak link in all that technology.

It's a problem shared by most affluent countries, but seems more apparent in this seismically overactive nation, where earthquakes and tsunamis are a constant threat and even the high-tech toilets have electronic flushes.

The magnitude 6.7 quake on Hokkaido's southern coast knocked out power to nearly all 3 million households on the island, forcing essential services such as hospitals and traffic lights to use generators or other backups. Damage to some generators was likely to delay the full restoration of power for more than a week, officials said.

On Friday, with power restored to about half of all Hokkaido households, Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko urged residents to conserve electricity.

"Unplug appliances. Families should try to all stay in one room," he said. "That can help us more quickly restore power in more places."

The vulnerability of the electric grid was driven home most painfully in 2011 by a massive earthquake and tsunami on the northeastern coast of the main island of Honshu, and subsequent meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Shutdowns of reactors for safety checks put a chunk of Japan's power generating capacity out of commission--straining supplies in this resource scarce nation.

Some 3 million households on Hokkaido, whose power supplies generally are only based on the island, were without electricity for nearly a whole day after the quake. After a long, dark night a large share of the lights were back on early Friday in the prefectural capital of Sapporo, a city of 1.9 million.

Without power, most tap water systems didn't work. Traffic and street lights were dark and cellphones ran out of power. Some landlines were also silenced, though public phones were working--for free, carrier NTT said.

Hokkaido Electric Power Co., or HEPCO, said the large-capacity Tomato Atsuma power plant--source of most power to the region and located relatively close to the quake's epicenter--will take about a week to restart. As a stopgap, the company restarted three other plants with less generating capacity and switched on dozens of small hydroelectric plants.

Officials at METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is in charge, told reporters the utility lacked a contingency plan for the failure of all three of Tomato Atsuma's generators--echoing the lack of emergency planning that caused massive problems at the Fukushima plant. HEPCO had only anticipated the possible loss of up to a third of peak power demand, or up to 1.3 million kilowatts, they said.

Likely mindful of complaints over the handling of the aftermath of the 2011 disaster by Tokyo Electric Power Corp., operator of the Fukushima plant, the industry minister, Hiroshige Seko, ordered HEPCO to be sure to provide quick and thorough updates.

Japan's nuclear regulator said that external power was restored at Tomari, Hokkaido's only nuclear power plant, after it temporarily switched Thursday to backup generators to power cooling systems for spent fuel from its three reactors.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said there was no abnormality at the plant, which has been idled since 2012 for routine safety checks, its reactors emptied of fuel.

Hokkaido Electric says the island's average peak demand is about 3.8 million kilowatts. By drawing on secondary generators and possibly importing power from elsewhere in Japan, the utility said it could provide about 2.9 million kilowatts of power even if Tomato Atsuma remained offline.

Like many tough residents used to Hokkaido's long, harsh winters, Norio Oikawa was looking on the bright side. His home in Sapporo had no power by early Friday, and he was rationing the water he managed to store in his bathtub before his taps went dry.

Thankfully, basic public facilities were at hand--no fancy electronics involved.

"There is a park nearby, with a toilet and running water. So, that's a great help," he said.

Mass State Police Ticket on I 91

I just want to know if this ticket was submitted to the system. I suspect it was never was with the crooked staties.

Threatened Nukes From Hurricane Harvey

Update: all clear. 

I got my hurricanes mixed up. I meant hurricane Gordon. 

Hmmm, Grand Gulf, River Bend Water and Waterford are most at threat. 

Grand Gulf I am worried mostly about flooding. Upstream a bit on the Mississippi River. Not worried about winds. The surroundings around the plant.