The Real Story in the Shutdown of Maine Yankee

Right, same old themes here. A small utility basically operated the plant. They got over their head during contrition and throughout the rest of the life of the plant. Basically they starved funding to the plant leading to outsiders taking advantage of the situation. The collapse of the natural resource industry, massive losses in the pulp industry based on foreigners taking advantage of us just like the rust belt. Local politics fractured leading to the rise of teabaggerism and scrabbles of town control and taxed. Basically Maine has been in a depression since way before the shutdown of the plant. Touristism has changed and is fickle, with our national slow economy, the great recession of 2008 and such, our great manufacturing decline, property values were all over the place and the bifurcation of our society and incomes of recent...that is what is more impacting this town than the closure of the plant.

Right, a electric too high price rebellion was building. Deregulation---to reduce electric prices began in the early 1990s. All the utilities were drastic cutting cost in their fear of deregulation. The Time magazine Millstone nuclear plant scandal occurring in the later 1990s. The old Exelon starved funding to their fleet. The NRc finally cracked down ending in temportary shutdowns. Exelon panicked throwing a lot of money on the nuke fleet. They stole money from the transmission and distribution system later leading into massive component breakdowns and blackouts. Electric prices were exploding, shortages were everywhere. The California power crisis, Enron and Davis Besse was right around the corner. Millstone and the Maine Yankee scandal before shutdown caused a lot of New Englanders not to trust the NRC. All this put the politicians and ultimate owners in a corner. It was a grand failure of the electricity establishment for decades.

I could make the case the pro nuclear industry paid for this article.  They want to make Wiscasset the poster child for not shutting down old dog plants

The moral of this story is how important it is to built and run a nuclear plant competently. Don't give disgruntles the ammo to take you down.      

Maine Yankee fallout: A town’s turmoil, 20 years in the making

By Beth Brogan, BDN Staff

Posted Dec. 17, 2016, at 1 a.m.
Last modified Dec. 17, 2016, at 1:15 p.m.

WISCASSET, Maine — In 1998, still flush with tax money from the Maine Yankee atomic power plant — which had closed two years earlier — Wiscasset opened a multimillion-dollar community center just outside the heart of town.

Now, almost 20 years later, the center remains open, but the community it is serving in this coastal town, billed as “the prettiest village in Maine,” looks like it’s lost its way.

Municipal government is wracked by turmoil, with elected officials resigning, a citizens group aggressively challenging selectmen’s decisions, and basic policy matters decided by petitions and referendum.

A school system that routinely turned away tuition students because it ranked among the best in Maine now struggles with massive enrollment declines, annual budget travails, and questions about its leadership and direction.

Meanwhile, an agreement between state and local officials to try to resolve a traffic bottleneck on Route 1 — after half a century of negotiations — has drawn organized opposition, legal warnings and a petition.

How did Wiscasset reach this point?

Many residents see it as the inevitable fallout from the nuclear plant’s closure. Others see it as a cautionary tale for other Maine communities, such as mill towns, that struggle to adapt when a seismic change occurs to its economic base.

From boom to the edge of bust

For awhile during the quarter century Maine Yankee generated power on Bailey Point, Wiscasset residents — many of them power plant employees who drew an average salary of $54,000 — didn’t even pay for their own utilities.

In 1996, when the plant shut down for good, Maine Yankee paid the town nearly $13 million in property taxes — about 91 percent of the town’s entire tax base, according to tax records.

Former Selectwoman Judy Flanagan, a longtime resident of Wiscasset and a vice chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen until resigning in November, remembers the envious reactions when she told people she lived in Wiscasset.

“Every town would like to have had that pocketbook we had,” she said in an interview.

Two decades later, Maine Yankee’s employees and much of its tax base are long gone. The burden of struggling to live with a slimmer pocketbook has frayed many in a town that longtime resident Bill Sutter said “has developed a big city attitude, with big city amenities and budgets, when we are in fact a small town.”

Town facilities have not been upgraded, or in some cases maintained, since the Maine Yankee years. Most notably, a failing sewer plant has violated environmental standards for a second time, this year triggering fines of nearly $20,000. The plant also will need repairs that could easily reach $100,000, according to information provided by town officials…

Obama’s Cyber Retaliation to Russia

Lets say it is in the long term interest of China or other national player to weaken the USA and Russia. They drop Russia’s electric system and 10,000 people freeze to death. Seeing how Obama says a USA retaliation is on the way, Russia assumes the USA did it. But China did it and puts the USA cyber DNA on the attack virus. Then Russia says they got proof the USA did it. What kind of war would it be.

Unimaginable Drop in Wholesale Electric Grid Prices

They predicted this. All the fracting would drastically collapse the  price of natural gas. The drillers would adapt...they would invent unimaginable efficiencies drastically reducing production cost. Its a series of game changers. The newest invention is a supersize well and its piping. It suppose to drop wellhead prices 70% from todays price.  

I could make the case all the big electric boys are colluding together. They are dropping off line their dog plants in an attempt to prop up the electricity prices.  

 Monthly wholesale electricity prices and demand in New England, October 2016

Friday, November 18, 2016 at 12:28PM

October’s average price of electricity fell on continuing low natural gas prices and low demand

Lower demand, driven by milder weather, and lower natural gas prices pulled October’s average monthly power price down 30%, to $22.72 per megawatt-hour (MWh)*, compared to the October 2015 average price of $32.62/MWh. The wholesale power price during October was the sixth-lowest since the wholesale electricity markets in their current form were launched in 2003 in New England, and the natural gas price was the eighth-lowest during that time period. Total energy consumption in New England in October was the lowest of any October since 2000, and the fourth-lowest monthly consumption...

OPPD Shut Down Junk Plant Fort Calhoun and Save $400 Million Dollars?

This is how deep in the hole the rest of the nuclear industry is.

Closing Fort Calhoun nuclear plant helps OPPD avoid rate hike in ’17

By Cole Epley / World-Herald staff writer
Cole Epley

Closing its lone nuclear plant helped the Omaha Public Power District head off a rate hike that would have resulted in an average bill increase of 2.5 percent for residential ratepayers in 2017.

The Omaha electric utility’s board on Thursday approved a recalculation of a portion of rates that accounts for cost changes related to the closure of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant and the addition of 400 megawatts of wind power from a massive wind farm in Holt County.

OPPD directors also approved a $1.13 billion 2017 budget that, among other things, would replenish the utility’s so-called rate stabilization account to $50 million, the account’s intended full amount.

The fund is used for stemming rate hikes. It was depleted to $16 million from a high of $41 million in 2015 as utility officials sought to plug a budget shortfall brought on by lower income from excess energy sales, lower demand and increasing costs at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant.

The facility 15 miles north of Omaha is now shut down and in early stages of decommissioning. That project could cost as much as $1.9 billion, but OPPD will have a better grasp on the estimated cost when it completes a more detailed study of the years-long project by the end of January.

OPPD has saved about $388 million for those costs already, and now that the plant is closed, the district will put an additional $147.5 million into designated trust funds for decommissioning…

Junk Plant Palo Verde Diesel Generator Explosion

They are lucky they didn't kill a guy. Will they have to shutdown? This is a three plant facility...I believe the largest nuclear facility is the USA.

Facility: PALO VERDE Region: 4 State: AZ Unit: [ ] [ ] [3] RX Type: [1] CE,[2] CE,[3] CE NRC Notified By: ANDREW LISTON HQ OPS Officer: MARK ABRAMOVITZ	Notification Date: 12/15/2016 Notification Time: 06:55 [ET] Event Date: 12/15/2016 Event Time: 04:10 [MST] Last Update Date: 12/15/2016
Emergency Class: ALERT 10 CFR Section: 50.72(a) (1) (i) - EMERGENCY DECLARED	Person (Organization): RAY KELLAR (R4DO) BILL DEAN (NRR) KRISS KENNEDY (R4RA) BERNARD STAPLETON (IRD)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
3	N	Y	100	Power Operation	100	Power Operation

Event Text

ALERT DECLARED - CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF AN EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATOR "The following event description is based on information currently available. If through subsequent reviews of this event additional information is identified that is pertinent to this event or alters the information being provided at this time a follow-up notification will be made via the ENS or under the reporting requirements of 10CFR50.73. "During a scheduled surveillance test run of the PVNGS [Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station] Unit 3 'B' Train Emergency Diesel Generator, there was a catastrophic failure of a piston to include crankcase damage and diesel trip. The Emergency Plan has been entered and an ALERT was declared at 0410 [MST] on 12/15/16 based on an explosion resulting in visible damage to a safety system required for safe shutdown. The cause of the failure is unknown at this time. PVNGS Fire Department responded and no fire was observed. Unit 3 remains on line at 100% power. No other safety functions are impacted." No personnel injuries occurred. The unit is in a ten day technical specification on an emergency diesel generator being inoperable. The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector. Notified DHS, DOE, EPA, FEMA, NICC, USDA, HHS, FDA, NSSA, Mexico, and OIP (Skeen). * * * UPDATE AT 0947 EST ON 12/15/2016 FROM MICHAEL GOODRICH TO MARK ABRAMOVITZ * * * "This serves as the notification of the termination of Alert HA2.1 declared at 0410 MST at Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station. The event terminated at 0636 MST." The licensee will notify the NRC Resident Inspector. Notified R4DO (Keller), NRR EO (Miller), IRD (Stapleton), DHS, DOE, EPA, FEMA, NICC, USDA, HHS, FDA, NSSA, Mexico, and OIP (Skeen).

Junk Plant Seabrook: How Is This Plant Still Operating With This stupidity

IR 05000443/2016007; 8/1/2016 - 9/1/2016; Seabrook Station, Unit 1; Component Design Bases Inspection

• Green.  The team identified a finding of very low safety significance, involving a non-cited violation of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVI, “Corrective Action,” for not performing corrective actions to preclude repetition of a significant condition adverse to quality.  Specifically, in 2008, two of four primary component cooling water (PCCW) pump motors failed within a four month period due to a manufacturing defect.  NextEra established but did not perform a corrective action to replace all four motors with re-wound motors, free of the identified manufacturing defect.  Subsequently, in 2015, a third motor failure occurred due to the same manufacturing defect.  NextEra’s immediate corrective actions included entering this issue into their corrective action program (AR 2153536), implementing an electrical testing program that would provide an early indication of further degradation of the manufacturing defect until motor replacement, and completing a prompt operability determination to assess current PCCW system operability.

Junk and Dead Ender Palisades Announces Permanent Shutdown Themes

The theme goes, some financial pinhead with no knowledge of the plant decides how much funding goes into it. The money is grossly Insufficient. It destroys the safety culture; everyone defers to deceptions, cover-ups, falsifications and not following the rules to the feds. The feds let the chaos intensify until loads of components fail embarrassing the agency and nuclear industry. The agency is forced to drop the hammer down on the plant. Entergy is forced to spend big bucks on the dying plant…replace components and upgrade the plant. Within a few years the plant becomes grossly uncompetitive. Then they decide to shutdown the plant.
  

Every penny spent on Palisades post 2101 yellow finding was a waste. Why aren't these executives  who wasted this money held accountable.

The 2012 yellow finding symbolized the apex of hubris with the NRC and Entergy.

Junk And Declining Plant ANO Troubles Upon Startup

Update Dec 16

34%

Another indicator...

Dec 13-1%

Dec 14-12%

Dec 15-25%

Sounds like turbine control problems.

This isn't a professionally operated plant.

Junk Plant Dead Ender Oyster Creek Never Exceeded 85% Power Since Outage

Turbine control and something Else. They tripped once after the outage, then up on startup they never again exceeded 85%.

Oyster Creek nuclear plant taken offline

Amanda Oglesby , @OglesbyAPP 8:14 p.m. EST December 13, 2016

LACEY – Oyster Creek Generating Station, the nation's oldest functioning nuclear power plant, was taken offline Tuesday in order for operators to make repairs to its turbine control system.

The system monitors turbine conditions, speed, temperature and pressure, according to officials at Exelon Generation, which operates the plant.

"The Oyster Creek shutdown will not have an impact on electrical service to Exelon customers," plant officials said in a news release.

This is the second shutdown in less than a month due to a fault in the turbine control system. The plant also underwent a nearly month long shutdown from September to October for scheduled refueling and maintenance.

In July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) increased oversight of the plant after determining that officials there violated safety rules regarding a faulty emergency back-up generator. NRC staff said the plant operators failed to have instructions for the replacement of a 22-year-old hose on the diesel generator that had degraded because of aging and heat.

Oyster Creek is scheduled to close permanently in December 2019, but environmentalists have called for an earlier decommissioning.

Facility: OYSTER CREEK Region: 1 State: NJ Unit: [1] [ ] [ ] RX Type: [1] GE-2 NRC Notified By: JOSH MCGUIRE HQ OPS Officer: JEFF ROTTON	Notification Date: 11/20/2016 Notification Time: 06:01 [ET] Event Date: 11/20/2016 Event Time: 03:42 [EST] Last Update Date: 11/20/2016
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL	Person (Organization): BRICE BICKETT (R1DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
1	A/R	Y	90	Power Operation	0	Hot Shutdown

Event Text

AUTOMATIC REACTOR SCRAM DURING MAIN TURBINE TESTING "At 0342 EST, an automatic reactor scram was processed during turbine valve testing. All rods inserted into the core as expected and all systems functioned as expected during the scram. "The event is reportable within 4 hours per 10 CFR 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - any event or condition that results in actuation of the Reactor Protection System (RPS) when the reactor is critical except when the actuation results from and is part of a preplanned sequence during testing or reactor operation." The plant response to the reactor scram was uncomplicated. The main feedwater system is maintaining reactor water level and decay heat is being removed by the main turbine bypass valves to the main condenser. The unit is in a normal shutdown electrical lineup. No SRVs lifted during the scram. The licensee was testing the main turbine trip function just prior to the scram. The cause is under investigation. The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.

Worldwide the Nuclear Industry is Corrupt As Hell...They Stole Opportunity From Everyone

Coverup at French Nuclear Supplier Sparks Global Review

Inspectors say Areva unit’s files suggest manufacturing flaws in critical parts were covered up for decades

By Matthew Dalton and

Matthew Dalton

The Wall Street Journal

Matthew DaltonInspectors from the U.S. and other countries are investigating a decadeslong coverup of manufacturing problems at a key supplier to the nuclear power industry, probing whether flaws introduced in a French factory represent a safety threat to reactors world-wide.

Please read the NRC's response about this to me in a 2.206 petition.

Inspectors from the U.S., China and four other nations visited Areva SA’s Le Creusot Forge in central France earlier this month to examine the plant’s quality controls and comb through its internal records.

A string of discoveries triggered the newly expanded review: First, French investigators said they found steel components made at Le Creusot and used in nuclear-power plants across France had excess carbon levels, making them more vulnerable to rupture. Then, the investigators discovered files suggesting Le Creusot employees for decades had concealed manufacturing problems involving hundreds of components sold to customers around the world.

The disclosure of flaws covered up by Le Creusot led to two reactor shutdowns this summer in France, and in September authorities ordered Areva to check 6,000 manufacturing files by hand, covering every nuclear part made at Le Creusot since the 1960s.

 “I’m concerned that there keep being more and more problems unveiled,” said Kerri Kavanagh, who leads the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s unit inspecting Le Creusot. Regulators are considering returning to Le Creusot or inspecting Areva’s Lynchburg, Va., offices to deepen their probe of the plant, a U.S. official said.

On Wednesday, Paris prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into whether Le Creusot’s activities were fraudulent and dangerous, according to a spokeswoman for prosecutors.

“What we see now at Le Creusot is clearly unacceptable,” said Julien Collet, assistant general manager at France’s Nuclear Safety Authority.

Areva executives have acknowledged the records falsifications and blamed them on a breakdown of manufacturing controls spanning many decades at Le Creusot. Areva has since tightened its controls and is cooperating with the regulators’ reviews, company officials said.

“We’re facing a problem of ‘quality culture,’ ” said David Emond, a senior Areva executive in charge of Le Creusot, in an interview. “ ‘Quality culture’ means declare a problem so it can be addressed, whether it’s serious or not.”

Areva executives said Le Creusot stopped falsifying documents in 2012, when oversight of quality control was removed from an internal office at the factory to a different Areva factory in Saint-Marcel, France. French regulators said they are investigating that claim.

Beyond France, regulators are trying to determine whether other nuclear facilities that relied on components from Le Creusot are safe. Finnish inspectors visiting the forge last week said they learned of potential flaws in a component slated for a reactor in the southwestern island of Olkiluoto. In the U.S., the NRC has identified at least nine nuclear plants that use large components from Le Creusot.

Still, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said the agency’s “examination of the evidence, to this point, fails to raise a safety concern” with U.S. facilities, adding that “no final conclusions have been reached.”

Le Creusot’s production and documentation practices uncovered by the regulators risk undermining public trust in an industry still struggling to recover after the disaster caused by an earthquake and tsunami at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011. That manufacturing irregularities have been found in France—a leading exporter of nuclear technology to the rest of the world—is even more troubling for the industry.

‘Likely we have seen only the tip of the iceberg.’

—Mycle Schneider, nuclear energy consultant

France occupies a key place in the supply chain for the global nuclear power industry. With a history dating back to the dawn of the industrial revolution, Le Creusot is one of just a handful of manufacturing sites around the world capable of forging the enormous steel components that lie at the heart of nuclear power plants.

Officials and experts said the instances of manufacturing problems at Le Creusot are rare in the nuclear industry, where strict adherence to production and operating rules forms a crucial buffer against nuclear accidents.

“Having worked for over 30 years in France, I did not think this was possible for this country,” said Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear energy consultant. “Likely we have seen only the tip of the iceberg.”

French investigators say the most serious safety threat they uncovered at Le Creusot concerns a nuclear power plant in the eastern French town of Fessenheim, on the border with Germany. Areva inspectors earlier this year unearthed a 2008 document at Le Creusot that showed a piece of flawed steel had been left on the protective casing of a steam generator at Fessenheim. That component weighs hundreds of tons and transforms the reactor’s heat into steam under immense pressure.

“Warn the [supervisor] during tracking to determine next steps,” wrote one employee in an excerpt of the document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

French regulators and Areva inspectors said they found the document inside a dossier barré—a folder Le Creusot marked with two dashes that investigators said signaled it shouldn’t be shown to customers or regulators. Fessenheim later installed the part relying on documents Le Creusot provided to regulators that made no mention of the problems.

Electricité de France SA, which this year agreed to buy most of Areva’s nuclear-reactor business including Le Creusot, shut the reactor at Fessenheim this summer after learning of the dossier barré. More than 200 of these previously undisclosed files have been found this year, the earliest dating from the 1960s.

EDF said initial tests of its Fessenheim reactor showed it is safe to operate even with the flawed steel on the steam generator. The French nuclear regulator is examining the issue, a process that officials said would take months.

Last week’s inspection has turned up a concern with one of Areva’s next-generation reactors, the European Pressurized Reactor under construction in Finland, versions of which are also planned for plants in China, France and the U.K.

Of the nine plants in the U.S. with parts from Le Creusot, at least one has a component with documentation problems, according to the NRC. Areva informed its owner, Dominion Resources Inc., that a manufacturing problem wasn’t detailed in final documents given to Dominion for its Millstone plant in Connecticut. Areva and Dominion say the discrepancy isn’t a threat to the safety of the Millstone reactor.

What $200 Billion Can Buy You In Nuclear Industry Land

Donald, A program for losers sure to fail. Most plants have been starved of funding for many years. It is the same old shit they been feeding us for decades. How about you get imaginative and creative...invent a new way out of the mess. Actually that is the only solution to global warming.  That is what I voted for.

The document shows Trump advisers contemplating ways to keep aging U.S. nuclear power plants on line, including by addressing concerns about the long-term storage of spent radioactive material. “How can the DOE support existing reactors to continue operating,” and “what can DOE do to help prevent premature closure of plants?” the transition team asks.

Today in Japan maybe two or three nuclear plants are in operation today in Japan.

The USA is uniquely susceptible to a similar outcome here because of our openness and the connectivity of our nation...basically because of our Constitution. We have fallen out of love with the nuclear industry and the bad news is building up. The public approval rate is dropping quickly. The USA hates losers. We  could have a much more lower accident, a fuel meltdown and massive corruption discovered...but politicians and media would go nuts. We'd jack up regulations and plants by the dozens would shutdown. It would consume the political life in the news of our nation for a decade. Maybe less then ten would survive. We'd be back in power shortages and massively increasing prices of electricity. It would have huge economic ramifications. Just the right kind of event, not necessarily mass causalities, could turn the industry off like a switch.

We see the hubris of the nuclear establishment in Fukushima. Just think if Japan went on a massive new plant build a decade before Fukushima. I am sure even before Fukushima, they would never put  nuke plant on a Tsunami zone. What does $200 billion buy you, $5 billion a plant gives you about 40 new plants. Can you imagine a Japan without the meltdowns? All the dangerous plants where shutdown and replaced with new plants. The Tsunami still occurred, but no nuclear plants were damaged. Just think how positive this would be. You'd get a giant economic stimulus program for free.

I just don't believe the economic formulas of the establishment...            

Japan Raises Estimate for 2011 Nuclear Accident to $200 Billion

Nearly doubled costs spur plans for further restructuring of Fukushima plant’s operator

By Mayumi Negishi

The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 9, 2016 2:58 a.m. ET 
TOKYO—Japan said Friday that it expects the total cost of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident to reach about $200 billion, nearly double earlier projections, spurring plans for further restructuring of the Fukushima plant’s operator.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it estimated the cost of compensating communities affected by the accident in 2011 would reach ¥8 trillion ($70 billion), up from a previous estimate of ¥5 trillion, while decontamination costs were projected to rise to ¥6 trillion from ¥4 trillion. Meanwhile, a ministry-appointed expert panel said that removing radioactive debris would cost ¥8 trillion, quadruple the earlier projection.

Altogether, the bill adds up to some ¥22 trillion ($192 billion), underscoring why the accident has shaken plans for nuclear power world-wide. In the accident, which followed a March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant suffered meltdowns. Some towns near the plant remain no-go zones because of above-normal radioactivity.

Saddled with rising compensation and decommissioning costs, Fukushima Daiichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. has struggled to hold its ground against growing competition in the recently liberalized retail power market. Local opposition is hindering its bid to restart reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which the company, known as Tepco, says is crucial for it to compete.

Tepco plans to submit a new turnaround plan in the spring, while officials said the government would lift its credit line to Tepco. Members of the expert panel also proposed asking rival utilities and new entrants in the power market to pay more into the Fukushima compensation fund. That could mean a rise in monthly electric bills for consumers.

“There are limits to what a single company can do,” the panel said in a draft policy proposal.

To reduce operating costs and generate more cash to pay Fukushima-related expenses, Tepco says it is looking to merge some operations with other utilities. It already has a joint venture with Chubu Electric Co. to procure fossil fuels such as liquefied natural gas, and it is looking at teaming up on electricity transmission and distribution to build an integrated nationwide grid.

The company logged a 66% fall in net profit in the six months ended in September, hit by falling prices and the overhead of maintaining suspended nuclear plants.

“It would be difficult for the company to generate enough funds to cover both the compensation and decommissioning costs,” said Nomura Securities analyst Shigeki Matsumoto.

After the Fukushima accident, the government indirectly took a majority stake in Tepco, but the company continues to operate independently, and its shares are still listed.

Shares in Tepco closed down 3% on Friday, pulling back from a seven-month high recorded the previous day after news reports that the government would increase its interest-free loan to Tepco to cover the Fukushima cleanup costs.

Junk Dead Ender Oyster Creek: Why Have They Been AT 85% Power For Many Days?

Just completed a outage.

Junk NRC at Pilgrim

These problems have been developing at Pilgrim for years. The NRC should have seen how deep this was through the ROP and put a stop to it for the nation many years ago. It just goes to show you how ineffective the agency is. 

How is this and Arkansas Nuclear One similar? The NRC allows this horrific behavior to continue for years and decades till a event

We are dealing with a political absolution system with the NRC. Violations and malicious intent are always forgiven until the NRC system is embarrassed.

I firmly believe the email was purposely leaked. This is clearly a smart whistleblower tactic. This is a revolution brewing. 1) It's attention getting. 2)The lower level inspectors and managers are sick and tired with their bosses censoring and minimizing their findings. You gota wonder if this is the response to the Trump era. This is how the lower level inspectors get their concerns on the public record without the political intervention of their bosses. The bottom level inspectors are our heroes.   

Is this a peek into our Trump era. Really the era of the whistleblower. Will all government employees begin leaking their asses off to counteract and mute Trump. You only become a sacrificial whistleblower when your group is made voiceless.

makes them inforce the rules. They come in like heroes identifying all the violations they should have enforced years ago. So everything they do becomes about protecting themselves and the political system, protecting themselves from the public's ire...not about ultimately doing what is in best interest.

Absolution is an integral part of the Sacrament of Penance, in Roman Catholicism. The penitent makes a sacramental confession of all mortal sins to a priest and prays an act of contrition. The priest then assigns a penance and imparts absolution in the name of the Trinity, on behalf of Christ Himself, using a fixed sacramental formula. The traditional formula is:

“God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit.”

God may forgive you, but he never mutes his system of worldly pain and suffering. Pain and suffering is the straight path to enlightenment.

If you have some number of ANOs or Pilgrim, say a hundred as a example...some outcomes will be better or worst than pilgrim. We don't understand complexity enough yet. One or two accidents will sit way worst than the average. This is how you call a horrendous accident or meltdown to your neighborhood.   

Folks (NRC inspection leader),

The following is a brief (or maybe not so brief) update of inspection activities associated with the ongoing Pilgrim 95003 Phase C

 Activities:

• The Safety Culture Group conducted additional focus groups today, bringing the total number of people interviewed so far to over 130. This group plans to conduct 1 on 1 chance interviews in plant next week to validate observations from the group discussions 

• The Operations NRC inspector observed pre-job briefings and maintenance and operations evolutions in plant 

• Many Engineering discussions over the status of the EDGs 

• Many team field activity observations  Issues/PDs:

Probably the most important equipment in the plant.

• (Update) The station performed an apparent cause evaluation for an ‘A’ EDG issue that occurred in September of this year, which involved oil leakage from the ‘A’ EDG blower gear box relief valve fitting. We are still inspecting this issue, but items that we are currently following include: 

O Pilgrim only performed a visual inspection of the gear box following the event, even though there are indications that the gear box was potentially run with little or no oil. There are two bearings and a pump in this gear box. We provided this issue as an operability concern to the control room this afternoon. The initial operability determination was “operable” based on the fact that they ran the ’A’ EDG successfully this morning. The NRC Engineering, Maintenance, and Programs group lead does not now have an immediate operability concern, but numerous questions are still being addressed by Pilgrim 

Another missed 50.59. Its epidemic in the industry and shows contempt for the power of the agency.

O The 50.59 that was performed to install this type of gear box appears to be inadequate, in that it did not account for a new failure mode (i.e., introduction of a relief valve to the gear box) 

O Inadequate causal evaluation of the issue (Pilgrim classified the cause as “indeterminate” and missed similar operating experience from North Anna) 

O Questions on the pre-startup checks for the EDG were resolved by Carey and Erin, as they walked down pre-start up checks with Non Licensed Operators 

O Missed reportability call is likely 

O The team further questioned the extent of condition of this issue related to the same gear box on the ‘B’ EDG. We believe that there is a current operability question on the ‘B’ EDG related to the same relief valve failure mechanism and leakage. The Pilgrim Systems Engineering Manager stated to the team that the site did not want to remove the EDG from service to investigate this concern as it would result in unavailability time that could place the EDG in Maintenance Rule A.1. Later in the day the Engineering Director and Site VP tried to backtrack on this statement, but the team believes that it was a genuine thought by this senior station manager  and is an insight on Safety Culture. Pilgrim is conducting an inspection of this ‘B’ EDG Gear Box this evening. 

O The licensee analyzed oil from both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ EDG Blower gear boxes and determined that no component degradation occurred. 

O The licensee removed the ‘B’ EDG Gear Box RV, and determined that adequate thread engagement existed, and a common mode failure was unlikely. The reset and reinstalled the RV 

O The licensee also ‘staked’ the threads on the ‘B’ EDG Gear Box RV to prevent recurrence of the failure…..However, it appears that the licensee did not perform a 50.59 screening for this modification to SR equipment which is an additional example of 50.59 process performance deficiencies. 

• (Update) We are observing evidence of some weaknesses in the use of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as a CAPR in the corrective action program area. Specifically, the roles and responsibilities of the SMEs do not appear to be clearly defined (i.e., we are hearing different things from station personnel, the lead CAP SME, and the support CAP SMEs about what their role is). At this point, we do not know if this extends to the other areas or not. The PIR Group is developing examples to support the teams belief that the CAPRs for the Root Cause for the Corrective Action Program may not be fully effective. The plant has completed 123 of 134 corrective actions in this area, yet we have identified CAP problems through this week. Preliminarily, CAPRs 1 and 2 involving the use of SMEs and Use of Performance Indicators appear to be ineffective. 

• (No Change) The Engineering, Maintenance, and Programs group is looking at several examples where well established programs have not been followed. There was a circuit breaker replacement (swap) involving 52 circuit breakers covering a wide variety of plant equipment that was not screened under 50.59 as the licensee believed that they were exact, "like for like" replacements. The NRC has determined that lugs used inside of the breakers were a different size, and should have been evaluated accordingly. Other items that may also support this issue (though the mods are very dated): 

O The EDG gearbox issue described above 

O During a walkdown, an inspector noted that the EDG exhaust didn’t appear to be missile-protected. The exhaust was moved as part of a modification 

O Plant Computer modification that impacted the heat balance calculation 

• (No Change) The Engineering, Maintenance, and Programs group is looking into several examples of corrective actions that may not have been properly addressed. One involves a 2011 Internal Flooding issue that was raised, and has not yet been fully addressed. 

• (No Change) The Engineering, Maintenance, and Programs group is inspecting an issue associated with lack of clearance between grating/ pipe supports and the primary containment liner. The design requires 1/16 “ clearance and in some cases there is no clearance. The licensee wrote and closed 4 CRS without properly evaluating the issue or reviewing extent of condition. We did brief a 10CFR50 AppB Criterion XVI performance deficiency that we are developing

Can you believe this with my safety relief valves. I think Entergy and target rock don't want to point fingers at each other. One wonders if this will effect a lot of capacity outside Pilgrim.

• (Update) We receive a revised Root Cause Evaluation for the 95001 SRV sample on Monday. The teams preliminary review of the document appears to provide an inadequate Root Cause Evaluation and corrective actions that will not prevent recurrence. Essentially, this revised root cause blames Operations Management and an inadequate post trip review. The inspector believes that these may be contributing causes, but the root cause is more aligned to a failure to properly implement the corrective action process. Frank Arner reviewed Doug Dodson’s work and has aligned with Doug’s view that the Root Cause is not adequate. However, there is a possibility, when you evaluate all of the corrective actions taken to date on the issue, that they have taken adequate corrective actions. Doug believes that the Root Cause is an inadequate Operability Determination for the 2013 SRV Failure, and poor corrective actions for what they did put in the CAP. Since ODs and CAP are issues that have had recent actions, we think that they may have taken adequate corrective action. That being said, it is likely that the licensee did not adequately complete the 95001 in that they got the Root Cause wrong. 

• (New) Pilgrim has a longstanding (30+Years) issue where the ‘B’ RHR Heat Exchanger bottom flange has been leaking. The have conducted three non-code furminite repairs over the years. The last injection was 2007, and the leakage has reinitiated at 30 drops per minute. Entergy cannot find the

Why not just shut them down till this very important heat exchanger is fixed. Again, this sounds like the NRC doesn't inforce all violations. This is very corrosive to the safety culture of the licensee and NRC staff. This whole email is littered with unenforced regulation violations.

paperwork for the first injection, and does not know the type or the amount of material injected. This appears to be a non-code repair of a code system that either needed to be resolved at the next outage, or code relief provided by the NRC. Neither has been done. Additionally, there is current leakage (120 drops/min at 50 psig) outside of the drywell that has not been appropriately evaluated. More to follow on this issue. 

• (New) The ECP Manager has not completed the Entergy

The only NRC needs to look up the record on past violations at other Entergy plants with falsifying employees  resumes and job qualification requirements. They never learn.

qualification program. This seems strange for a Column 4 plant where Safety Culture is a fundamental problem area. 

• Common Causal Insights:

• (No Change) The Safety Culture Group is hearing that people are happy and working to improve the site (Exception- Security). The observation of actual performance however is somewhat disjointed. It appears that many staff across the site may not have the standards to know what “good” actually is. There is a lot of positive energy, but no one seems to know what to do with it, to improve performance, leading to procedural non compliances, poor maintenance, poor engineering practices, and equipment reliability problems. Example- Jeff Josey questioned operability of ‘A’ EDG Wednesday around 10 AM with a well-developed set of questions, and a direct statement questioning operability. By 4pm, we were aware that the Shift Manager was not made aware of this challenge, and no CR was written. The NRC then approached the Shift Manager with the Operability challenge. We are still waiting for the answers to our operability questions (but as mentioned previously, we don’t think there is now an immediate concern). Additionally, while observing an IC surveillance, the worker stated that this test would take him much longer since the NRC was watching. In fact, the channel that we watched took 2.5 hours to complete, and the other 3 Channels took 2 hours total to complete when we were not observing. 

• (Update) We became aware today that corrective actions associated with the Recovery Plan are being “kicked back” to the organization by the external contracted review folks after completion by Pilgrim because the closure actions do

The is malicious falsification of documents. I recently warned (ANO) the NRC some employees are playing the NRC.  They lie to the NRC because they know they can't get caught. One inspector could not believe a employee would lie to them.

not match the required actions. In several cases that we have reviewed, station management then changes the recovery action on the CA to match what was actually done, such that the external contracted review group agrees with issue closure. We are capturing examples of this to prove our point. The licensee was in disbelief when we mentioned this issue. One example that we found today is that the Recovery Plan calls for all Supervisors and above to have a “Targeted Performance Improvement Plan” which is tailored to the individual, have milestones, and due dates for specific actions. Apparently the plans are not tailored to the individual and are nearly all the same, and we found that some folks just recently found out that they were on a TPIP, and were surprised. It does not appear that they met the spirit of the recovery action. 

• (No Change) Overall, we are beginning to see a picture where the people seem to be willing and happy/excited about change, but actions seem to be marginalized during

Upper management is saying, why waste money on a plant we are going to shutdown in few years. I am convince Don thinks upper management will sensor his rough inspection draft.

implementation. Some of this marginalization seems to be due to not understanding what the end state should look like, and frankly some of it seems to be due to a lack of resources across many groups. We will be probing this further, as it is a key to making a recommendation whether or not the plan will be effective/ sustainable.

• (New) A licensee oversight contractor informed me that

So they can revise the recovery plan once the recovery plan scheduled inspection is ongoing. What kind of show is going on here.

the licensee is actively working a further revision to the Recovery Plan to address the issues that we have found in the last week. They plan to present this to the NRC later this week. I will likely need to discuss this with NRR to figure out the rules on reviewing this. 

Level of Cooperation:

• In general, the licensee is being responsive, but very disjointed in their ability to populate meetings and answer questions, staffing problems seem to impact how fast the licensee can respond. For example- We attempted to conduct a safety culture focus group with Security and no one showed up, because the security supervisor “forgot” he needed to support it. The plant seems overwhelmed by just trying to run the station. An RP person wrote a CR last evening that the NRC inspection was significantly impacting getting her work done, and that we should spread out requests over the whole 3 weeks….seemed very frustrated. We have been very clear that we are flexible, and that we are sensitive to impact on plant activities.

• The licensee engineering group appears unprepared to address all of the questions being posed by the team. I am couching this by questioning their overall Engineering Acumen. 

My thoughts:

The team is really struggling to figure out what all of this means. The licensee staff seems to say the right things, and they are genuinely energized about improving. We believe that there are some incremental improvements that look bigger than they actually are to the licensee staff. The corrective actions in the recovery plan seem to have been hastily developed and implemented, and some have been circumvented as they were deemed too hard to complete. We are observing current indications of a safety culture problem that a bunch of talking probably won’t fix. We did see a paired supervisory observation that uncovered procedure usage problems that were not directly identified by the workers supervisor. If the 95001 SRV review is truly

Unbelievable

UNSAT after almost 2 years, my confidence will not be very high, and I reiterate we received a revision dated 4 days ago. The dance associated with EDG operability this week is also disturbing on many levels- Poor Engineering Expertise, no communication with the shift manager, Poor original corrective action, and a Senior Manager stating a reluctance to assure operability due to a negative impact on maintenance rule status. Carey, Frank, and met early on Sunday, and discussed several “themes” that we plan to further develop, namely: Safety Culture, Ineffective CAP, Conduct of Operations/OPS Standards, Engineering Acumen, and Work Management. The challenge will be to determine if Corrective Actions already taken in all of these areas has been effective or not. On the plus side, we have not identified performance deficiencies at the same rate as ANO, and the team believes that procedures are in good shape.

Very Respectfully

Don Jackson- Team Lead

Junk Plant Palisades Perminently Shuting Down in Oct 2018

Every nuke Plant is facing these kinds of unprecedented pressures. As a nuke is ending life, maintenance and upkeep becomes much more expensive. They compensate by reducing safety.

One must keep in mind recent Entergy news. ANO is backsliding. Grand Gulf operations department became chaotic...the NRC pushed them into shutting down for months. The NRC leaked a damming email about enormous troubles in Pilgrim during a ongoing inspection.

Palisades Power Purchase Agreement to End Early; Nuclear Plant to Close in 2018

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News provided by

Entergy Corporation

Dec 08, 2016, 08:07 ET

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COVERT, Mich., Dec. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) and Consumers Energy, Michigan's largest utility and the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS), have agreed to an early termination of their power purchase agreement (PPA) for the Palisades Power Plant in Covert Township in 2018, lowering the costs to Consumers' customers by as much as $172 million over four years. The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals. Separately, and assuming regulatory approvals are obtained for the PPA termination, Entergy intends to shut down the Palisades nuclear power plant permanently on Oct. 1, 2018.

"Entergy recognizes the consequences of a Palisades shutdown for our approximately 600 employees who have run the plant safely and reliably, and for the surrounding community, and we will work closely with both to provide support during the transition," said Leo Denault, Entergy's chairman and chief executive officer. "We determined that a shutdown in 2018 is prudent when comparing the transaction to the business risks of continued operation."

The original agreement committed Consumers Energy to purchase nearly all of the power that Palisades generates through April 2022. Under the current plan, and assuming regulatory approval of the request to terminate the PPA in 2018, Palisades will be refueled as scheduled in the spring of 2017 and operate through the end of the fuel cycle, then permanently shut down on Oct. 1, 2018. 

Since first entering into a PPA in 2007, when Entergy purchased Palisades from Consumers Energy, market conditions have changed substantially, and more economic alternatives are now available to provide reliable power to the region. The transaction is expected to result in $344 million in savings, $172 million of which is expected to lower Consumers Energy customers' costs over the early termination period from 2018 to 2022, and $172 million of which Consumers Energy will pay to Entergy for early PPA termination. The early termination payment to Entergy will help assure the plant's transition from operations to decommissioning, maintaining our commitment to meet US Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements.

Grand Gulf: See How Large The Organizational Breakdown Is At Site

November 30, 2016

Mr. Vin Fallacara, Acting Site Vice President Entergy Operations, Inc. Grand Gulf Nuclear Station P.O. Box 756 Port Gibson, MS  39150 

SUBJECT: GRAND GULF NUCLEAR STATION – NRC SECURITY INSPECTION   REPORT 05000416/2016403

Dear Mr. Fallacara:

On October 25, 2016, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) completed a security inspection at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.  An NRC inspector discussed the results of this inspection with Mr. T. Coutu, Director, Regulatory Assurance and Performance Improvement, and other members of your staff.  The results of the inspection are documented in the enclosed report.

The NRC inspector documented two findings of very low security significance (Green) in this report.  All of these findings involved violations of NRC requirements.  The NRC is treating these violations as non-cited violations (NCVs) consistent with Section 2.3.2.a of the Enforcement Policy.