Dominion Nuclear Is In Trouble: North Anna's Uranium Memory Blackouts

Oct 5,

So I am updating my theory about what caused this. It is not a steam explosion. I small hole developed in the top of the pin. Water got in, basically water got in to corroded the pin and some pellets. It is much like what Dominion and NRC said.

I still think this is much more serious that what has been admitted by them both…  

Oct 4

The whole core is drooping. Hey, it is just a product of natural old age? Guess who I was actually talking about?

10/5 No idiot, the fuel sits on the lower support. How thick our the baffles?

The baffles carries the weight of 15 million fuel pellets, the core support and the rest?

The core baffle of a PWR is loaded by the pressure difference between bypass and core and by temperature profiles developing from gamma and neutron heating and heat transfer into the coolant. Strain, deformation and gaps between the sheets resulting from this load are determined considering the effect of neutron irradiation induced creep of the core baffle bolts. The finite element code ANSYS® is applied for the thermal and mechanical analyses. The FE-model comprises a complete 45° sector of the core baffle structure including the core barrel, the formers, the core baffle sheets and about 230 bolt connections with non-linear contact between the single components and the effect of friction. The complete analysis requires three major steps:

Why the cancer?

PWR Fuel Failure Management Handbook

Page 3-1 or 31?

Corner injection point...there has got to be a design reason for this gap. Bet it has something to do with core reflooding.

 So cool!

The cause of such extensive fuel cladding failure is secondary degradation by zirconium hydride.

Now I know what the core barrel is

10/5 The core barrel slides down inside of the reactor vessel and houses the fuel.

What the hell is the "former". Do you even need it? 

No, I got to be missing something. The former is attached to the core barrel through a string of bolts and holes. There are holes through the vessel? Just tear along the dotted line?

Thanks to my EDF Friends below. These are the state operators of the France's nuclear system. How pathetic, they look more democratic and transparent than the USA? This would be my case for a national (USA) based nuclear plant operator. The expectation is, it is a government agency, thus more transparency than we have today.

Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance

Review of Degradation Phenomena affecting Fuel Rod Cladding

So North Anna had a cancerous wasting disease on their fuel rods for years?  I am sure they picked it up in primary system coolant chemistry testing? Dissolving thrice

Note: I am hazy the role of zirconium hydriding is in A PWR and North. I think the North Anna 10 inch split is really more half the pin material missing. More looking like a half a circle for most of the 10 inches.This would imply zirc hybriding.   

Real pictures of fuel road damage? 

Hmm, "and other emergent issues. Going to have to make time for this". But it is not a teleconference. 

October 01, 2014

Title: Notice of Forthcoming Public Conference Call To Discuss North Anna Combined License

Application Requests For Additional Information And Other Emergent Topics

Date(s) and Time(s): October 16, 2014, 02:00 PM to 03:30 PM

Location: NRC Two White Flint North

11545 Rockville Pike

Rockville, MD

Category: This is a Category 1 meeting. The public is invited to observe this meeting and will have one or more opportunities to communicate with the NRC after the business portion of the meeting but before the meeting is adjourned.

Purpose: To discuss the resoluation of North Anna COLA Requests for Additional Information.

Ok, do you have bolting or attachment problems with the baffle or the core support structure leading to the jet of water between the plates destroying the two fuel pins? Causing the baffle to vibrate? 

Information Notice No. 98-11: Cracking of Reactor Vessel Internal Baffle Former Bolts in Foreign Plants

ENCLOSURE 2 TO AEP-NRC-2014-59 I&MCAP Document AR 2010-1804-10, Root Cause Evaluation Attachment, "Rx VesselCore Support Lug Bolting Anomalies"

                            How come they didn't report this in the newspaper?

"Due to the fact that the failure exceeded expected conditions, this event is being reported per 10 CFR 50.72(b)(3)(ii)(A), as any event or condition that results in the condition of the nuclear plant, including its principle safety barriers, being seriously degraded." 

I'll be heavily updating this in the next few days!

    

I bet you the North Anna fuel pins looked like the top picture below. The gash I’d seen would be longer (about 10 inches), but the gash lips would be more protruding away from the pipe. A somewhat narrower crack, but the crack edges were peels back away from the pipe more. It was a lot more energetic pipe burst and different material than these copper pipes. The pins are about .5 inch to an inch wide. It wasn't a discreet weakness or force in the copper that began the pipe burst...it was more a 9 inch rod inside the pipe giving off a lot of power and energy violently turning the water into steam that created the crack.

• 

Updated this on Oct 1 and republished this from yesterday! 

Ok, this is what they are are saying. Again this is a example where this problem had showed up in the industry in the 1980s and 1990s. They just never spent enough money to eradicate the problem. They keep putting off permanently fixes the problem from one cycle to another, they spend enormous monies on fixing the same problem over and over again.

They probably need to totally off load the core, then go in and replace the core baffles. This is why Dominion is trying to put off globally fixing the problem, only fix the immediate symptoms of the damage pins, deal with the baffles in 18 months to 36 months. 

It is a huge job and extremely timely. There seems to a hole in the baffle caused by some kind if process; either corrosion or some kind of poor maintenance where the flow vibrations caused the baffle plates to separate. The symptom in which they are fixing is the fuel damage and the pellets disintegrating in the coolant and plating out throughout plant...the root of the problem is the poorly designed and maintained baffle plate.

• If a gap between intersecting baffle plates becomes enlarged,the differential pressure across the baffle plate creates a water jet that impinges on adjacent fuel rods.

• be attributed to the water-jetting-induced motion of fuel rods in fuel assemblies that are adjacent to baffle plate joint locations with enlarged gaps.

Ok, these words are from the professional corporate public relations spin masters. I’ll bet you they contracted to outsiders, to the professional public relations people. Every word is carefully chosen to portray a non-threatening and benign tone. The more they try to make you feel good about this, the more distance they get from telling you the truth. The Prozac happy face of indecipherable words. They are publically lying to you!

The below is from the newspapers. It is totally inaccurate and a blatant lie to the public. Notice the benign stance of the newpapers without any pushback.   

• In the last 18 months, a jet of water through a millimeter-size hole in the fuel rods’ support structure was squirting

The support structure is the baffle.  

• over the rods. That flow started them spinning and vibrating, Heacock said, a problem called “baffle jetting,” which has occurred at other nuclear reactors. The rods rubbed against

 The top harmlessly cracked off, but how did the pellets get pushed out. This all sounds like the top of the core. 

• the support structure, cutting grooves in them and eventually causing their tops to crack off.

The below is from the NRC documents, the event report seen at the bottom of the page. A 10 inch gash in both pins??? What was they mentioned in the newspapers? A lot of energy has to do that. I actually had seen photographs over a similar accident. Dominion has similar photographs...why don't you ask them to disclose those pictures. They had a steam explosion, they over powered the pin,  the water inside the pin heated up and expanded very quickly. The edges of the 10 inch gash are protruded out or away from the pin like a  very powerful force burst the pin open. "Visibly split" is code words for burst open by a power force. If the pins were just spinning around by the hydraulic force, how do you explain the visibly split fuel pins. It doesn't make sense. So this is what I am talking about, the NRC has an unacknowledged process where they allow the licensee to tell the partial truth in order to to put  prozac happy face on troubling events at these nuclear plants. They are in the game to create a fraudulent public image about the nuclear industry. 

I alway said, risk perspective is solely about damage and destruction of peoples health in the outcome of a severe accident. Why don't we put a dollar value on the possible loss of faith government and the nuclear industry...the ability to trust our institutions in a national crisis? The NRC allows these utilities to outright lie to us. Trust in our institutions is unbelievably precious and a lost of trust in a institution is very costly. Through risk perspective, we should put strict incentives where the NRC and the utilities the whole truth. I might make a case trust in institutions and government is at a historic lows. Most of the damage to the nuclear industry in TMI came out of the  benzene communication of the event. The perception of mistrust in their political implications is enormously expensive. Why isn't this a consideration in risk perspectives? Why does our government allow the nuclear industry to communicate to us so dishonestly...why do you allow the licencees to practice the art of dishonesty so extensively?

Right, the solution to the seismic and plant safety issues in Fukushima tragedy has mostly come into the public realm through engineers about engineering solution. How come out nation hasn't had  a great debate about licensee and NRC full disclosures and honestly?  The foundation and infrastructure that built the nuclear disaster in Japan is basically about the nuclear village and trustworthiness of the institutions running and overseeing the plants.The public mistrust of these institutions are the greatest impediment to restarting the Japanese nuclear fleet. Really, how expensive is the lost of trust in the our institutions, in a federal agency and the nuclear industry.      

• Event report (9/15): Initial inspection of the fuel assembly identified two (2) visibly split fuel pins of eight (8) to ten (10) inches long with visible damage to the top of the pins.

For clarity, Dominion owns two plant facilities of Millstone, Surry, and North Anna. That is six plants. They recently shut down Kewaunee.  I consider corporate wide management safety culture is seriously degraded…with 33% of their fleet showing serious signs safety of culture deterioration.  

Two nuclear fuel rods found damaged during North Anna power plant refueling

BY PETER BACQUÉ Richmond Times-DispatchThe Daily Progress

RICHMOND — Dominion Virginia Power has found two damaged nuclear fuel rods in its North Anna 2 power plant during the Louisa County reactor’s scheduled refueling in earlier this month.

The Richmond-based utility said it believes that about 15 uranium fuel pellets came out of two rods and entered the reactor cooling system.

However, because the radioactive uranium is contained in the reactor system, the damage has “no radiological consequence to it,” said David A. Heacock, president and chief nuclear officer of Dominion Nuclear, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources Inc., the parent company of Dominion Virginia Power.

It is not the whole story, the pellets are extremely radioactive. Lots of this stuff plates off in the core and throughout the primary system. It increases piping and component radiation levels, the compensation for that are extremely costly and time consuming.

“It’s a fairly low safety significance issue,” said Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Atlanta. “Even though the fuel is damaged, it’s in a closed system, so you don’t have the concern for an environmental release” of radioactivity.

Cooling water flows though the reactor’s internal cooling baffles at the rate of 300,000 gallons a minute.

In the last 18 months, a jet of water through a millimeter-size hole in the fuel rods’ support structure was squirting over the rods. That flow started them spinning and vibrating, Heacock said, a problem called “baffle jetting,” which has occurred at other nuclear reactors. The rods rubbed against the support structure, cutting grooves in them and eventually causing their tops to crack off.

Ok, if the tops slowly cracked open, how did the pellets come out"? The way this goes is it had been a known leaking over many cycles...they have radiochemistry about this. It is in their documents. Up on a start up water seeps into the cracks. The uranium in the pin becomes super moderated, as a rod passes near by upon startup, high local power cause a very fast heat up of the water in the pin. Lots of slow power  making neutrons are made. The pin has a steam explosion, either the pin itself cracks open  and you know it is explosion related, or the top is blown off. That is the mechanism that expels pellets out in the coolant.

What has changed to cause this? These plants has been operating since 1980, so why hasn't this showed up in the past. Why has changed causing this.

Remember, when the first pin pops it creates an unmistakable and immediate large signature in the radiochemistry. They immediately know what happens...and they are monitoring the other pin pops, monitoring the conditions of the degradation pins.

It would be troubling if the pins were in the vicinity of each other. I would  wonder if the large neutron population created a over power condition in the surrounding area causing a cascade of overpower pin causing the other pim pop.

By the way, these guys won't be able to use a regular storage cask...

Why didn't all the pellets come out, because there are welded caps creating individual cells of seven or eight pellets. After each eight fuel pellets, they put in a welded plug just so some day they don't "expel" all the  270 pellets.

I was the first one to report publicly about these problems in 1991 at Vermont Yankee in 1991?

Having this occur at a plant is unbelievably unprofessional.  

Seven or eight fuel pellets came out of each of the two zirconium-alloy fuel rods, Heacock said. “We have accounted for about eight of the pellets,” he said. “We believe the rest have been pulverized in the normal filtration mechanism,” which will recover the nuclear material.

Ask them what the radiation level is at the surface of the pellet. I bet we are talking 100,000 rem to  millions of rems. Five rems I believe is the yearly limit for employees.

It actually looks like they lost control of power making density in the core.

“We’ve cleaned the entire reactor vessel,” Heacock said. “Now we’re inspecting the entire reactor refueling cavity.”

In the critical area of the replaced assembly, Dominion Virginia Power has installed seven stainless steel rods so coolant flow cannot damage uranium-filled rods, Heacock said.

It actually sounds like five other pins where damaged. I like to see pin sipping record of this plant.

“The long-term fix is to modify the way the water flows in the baffle so there’s no possibility of baffle jetting,” he said. That modification will be done either in 18 months at the unit’s next refueling or during the refueling after that.

This is the moniker of the nuclear industry, "why fix the problem immediately, when you can put it off fixing problem for 18 months or 36 months. 

J. Wellington Wimpy (Popeye the Sailor Man): "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburge today." 

“I will gladly pay you in 18 month or 36 month for less  short term safety of tomorrow.”   

Considering the unprecedented three special inspection at Millstone over unfixable maintenance and operation problems with a critical turbine driving safety pump and not the

Made from uranium dioxide, the ceramic pellets are about half an inch long and three-eighths of an inch in diameter. A 12-foot-long fuel rod —called a “pin” — at North Anna 2 contains either 360 or 372 pellets, depending upon the vendor. The reactor has 157 fuel assemblies, each of which holds 264 rods.

The damaged fuel assembly has been placed into the plant’s spent fuel pool. “No abnormal increase was noted on any radiation monitor either after or during fuel assembly movement,” the company told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The failed fuel assembly had been used during three 18-month operating cycles at North Anna and was not scheduled for reuse.

I'll bet you the pins were knowingly leaking...pin hole leaks...the cycles before the popped tops? It is dangerous to restart a plant with a knowingly pin holes leak. Why did sipping miss this?

Radiation dose rates around the reactor are 4 percent lower than they were 18 months ago, the company said, because of efforts to reduce the rates.

Refueling outages for Dominion Virginia Power’s nuclear power plants usually take about a month. The latest refueling began Sept. 7.

Basically what you are seeing here is a policy of the NRC, where the NRC expects and approves of a utility  giving the happy spin of a event at these plants.

“At this point,” said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Hannah,“we see no reason why, with new fuel in there, they couldn’t restart the reactor.”

Dominion Virginia Power’s four nuclear units produce more than 40 percent of the electricity used by the company’s nearly 2.4 million customers.

Power Reactor	Event Number: 50457
Facility: NORTH ANNA Region: 2 State: VA Unit: [ ] [2] [ ] RX Type: [1] W-3-LP,[2] W-3-LP,[3] M-4-LP NRC Notified By: PAGE KEMP HQ OPS Officer: JOHN SHOEMAKER	Notification Date: 09/15/2014 Notification Time: 14:54 [ET] Event Date: 09/15/2014 Event Time: 09:00 [EDT] Last Update Date: 09/15/2014
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(3)(ii)(A) - DEGRADED CONDITION	Person (Organization): SCOTT SHAEFFER (R2DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
2	N	N	0	Refueling	0	Refueling

Event Text

FAILED FUEL ASSEMBLY IDENTIFIED DURING CORE OFF-LOAD "With North Anna Unit 2 in Mode 6 during a scheduled refueling outage, discharged assembly 4Z9 was identified as a failed fuel assembly by In-Mast Sipping. The fuel assembly was located in core location B11. Initial inspection of the fuel assembly identified two (2) visibly split fuel pins of eight (8) to ten (10) inches long with visible damage to the top of the pins. The internals of the affected pins are visible and the springs from the top of each pellet stack are touching the top nozzle. The fuel assembly has been placed into its designated location in the Spent Fuel Pool. No abnormal increase was noted on any radiation monitor either after or during fuel assembly movement. This fuel assembly had been used during three (3) previous operating cycles and is not scheduled for reuse. "On September 15, 2014, at 0900 [EDT], subsequent video inspection of the fuel assembly identified that the top springs of the two (2) fuel pins were dislodged. Video inspection of the reactor vessel identified debris that has the potential to be fragments of fuel pellets resting on the core plate. Additional investigations are in progress. "Due to the fact that the failure exceeded expected conditions, this event is being reported per 10 CFR 50.72(b)(3)(ii)(A), as any event or condition that results in the condition of the nuclear plant, including its principle safety barriers, being seriously degraded." The licensee has notified the NRC Resident Inspector and will notify local county authorities.

Apostolakis: Meeting Minimum Intend of The Regulations.

He knows most US utilities have this desease, implicating them in their troubles. They have a philosophy of this.

Utilities' attitude should change to boost safety: center head

The head of Japan's newly established private Nuclear Risk Research Center said Wednesday that a "major change" is required in the attitude of Japanese plant operators in enhancing the safety of nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima crisis.
George Apostolakis, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, took the post of chief of the center which was set up the same day. The entity will engage in research and risk assessment to reduce nuclear risks, and promote continued self-initiated safety enhancement by nuclear plant operators.
During a meeting with industry minister Yuko Obuchi, Apostolakis said he hopes "the attitude (among Japanese utilities) of 'meeting regulations is enough' has ceased to exist" after the worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl.
"The regulations specify the minimum amount of safety that is acceptable. It's a responsibility of the owners (of nuclear plants) to go beyond that," he said.
Obuchi said the nuclear industry was caught up in a "safety myth" where utilities tended to be complacent about safety once regulatory requirements were met.
"But after experiencing the Fukushima accident, we know that's not going to work any longer," she added.
After the Fukushima meltdowns, utilities, especially Tokyo Electric Power Co. -- the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant -- came under fire for not taking enough safety measures based on the "safety myth," and failing to include such a severe accident in their assumptions

Timeline: How the recent Ebola epidemic turned into the worst yet

First published on Aug 6

Remember those infected and recently disclosed as dead had gotten infected two, three and four weeks ago...

Vex:
Dakar, Senegal: Below are the main developments since the worst-ever epidemic of the haemorrhagic fever Ebola emerged in west Africa at the start of the year, fuelling fears it could spread to other continents.

March 2014

- 22: Guinea identifies the Ebola virus as the source of a highly contagious epidemic raging through its southern forests, as the death toll rises to 59.

Experts had been unable to identify the disease, whose symptoms were first observed six weeks ago, but scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirmed it was Ebola.

- 27: Ebola spreads to Guinea's capital Conakry.

- 31: Liberia confirms two cases of the virus.

April

- 5: West African countries mobilise against an epidemic of haemorrhagic fevers, including Ebola. The measures include the deployment of medical teams at Conakry airport.

- 8: The UN's health agency, the World Health Organization, says the Ebola outbreak is among the "most challenging" for health workers since the deadly disease emerged elsewhere in Africa four decades ago.

- 10: International aid organisations launch a series of emergency measures across west Africa in a bid to contain the outbreak.

May

- 26: Sierra Leone confirms its first death from Ebola and said it is restricting travel in some areas to stop the fever from claiming more lives.

June

- 18: Fresh data from the WHO confirms the outbreak to be the deadliest ever, with 337 deaths since January, a 60 percent increase in two weeks.

- 21: The WHO says the recent rapid spread of Ebola in the three countries has come in part because efforts to contain the deadly virus have been relaxed.

- 23: The outbreak is now "out of control" with more than 60 outbreak hotspots in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders says.

July

- 3: The WHO says at the close of a regional summit of health ministers on the crisis it expects the Ebola outbreak to continue for at least "several months".

- 25: The virus spreads to Africa's most populous country Nigeria, as a Liberian national dies in quarantine in Lagos. A day later the country places its ports and airports on alert.

- 27: A woman suffering from the first confirmed case of Ebola in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, dies.

- 29: After Nigeria's main airline Arik, pan-African airline ASKY suspends all flights to and from the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

- 30: Doctors Without Borders warns there is a risk of Ebola spreading to other countries.

Liberia announces it is shutting all schools and placing "non-essential" government workers on 30 days' leave.

- 31: Countries across the world announce stringent new security measures to contain the epidemic.

Sierra Leone declares a state of emergency.

The WHO raises the death toll to 729.

The United States, Germany and France issue warnings against travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while Paris also includes Nigeria.

August

- 1: The head of the WHO and presidents of the countries involved meet in Guinea to launch a $100 million emergency response, involving the deployment of hundreds of medical personnel to help overstretched workers and facilities.

WHO chief Margaret Chan tells the leaders the outbreak is "moving faster than our efforts to control it".

Dubai's Emirates airline says it is suspending flights to Guinea.
(Me)

First known Ebola death outside West Africa

 - 6: A Saudi national, who fell ill after returning from Sierra Leone, died early Wednesday in his hospital isolation ward where he was being tested for the Ebola virus, said the Saudi Health Ministry.

- 6: GENEVA The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday began a two-day emergency meeting on West Africa's Ebola epidemic, with the UN agency deciding whether to declare it an international crisis. The closed-door session is tasked with ruling whether the outbreak constitutes what is known in WHO-speak as a "public health emergency of international concern".

-6: CDC raises Ebola alert to hightest level (red) and presidential news conference at the State Department on it.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the United States Center for Disease Control, announced this afternoon that the agency has elevated its response to the Ebola virus to Level 1-- the highest possible response level. The CDC heightened the level today in response to multiple new diagnoses and scares around the globe.

Here comes the quickening?

-7: Congressional Hearing
 
Tom Friedman CDC Director: "The infection and death numbers are a fog of war situation."
 
Ken Isaacs Samarian Purse: "The data is at least undercounted by 25% to 50%."

"Is we don’t make a stand in West Africa, then we will be making a stand in all the capitals of the world. But I am afraid the cat is already out of the bag."

"Ken Isaacs Samarian Purse: We are going to see death tolls that are unimaginable."
 
"Dr Frank Glover: People are getting infected because they don’t have gloves." 

U.S. orders diplomats' families to leave Liberia as Ebola spreads.

-8: Ebola in Binin.

CNN -- Global health experts on Friday declared the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are battling the Ebola virus, which has also spread to Nigeria. More than 930 people have died.

NYT--W.H.O. Declares Ebola in West Africa a Health Emergency
LONDON — Facing the worst known outbreak of the Ebola virus, with almost 1,000 fatalities in West Africa, the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency on Friday, demanding an “extraordinary” response — only the third such declaration of its kind since regulations permitting such alarms were adopted in 2007.

-27 CNN) -- "It's even worse than I'd feared," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday of the Ebola outbreak rampaging through West Africa. "Every day this outbreak goes on, it increases the risk for another export to another country.

-28 NYT-Ebola Could Eventually Afflict Over 20,000, W.H.O. Says

-29 New college students being screened for Ebola as Senegal reports its first case Universities are taking precautions with students coming to school from Africa. Senegal is now the fifth country affected in the West African region.

Sept
 

-2 WHO: Ebola death toll tops 1,900.

-9 The Ebola virus is spreading exponentially across Liberia as patients fill taxis in a fruitless search for medical care, the World Health Organization said Monday.

-30 History in the making...you knew it was on the way. So the panic started in Dallas...he caught it two to three weeks ago. I better not hear New Orleans anything!  

UPDATE: The Dallas-Fort Worth CBS affiliate is reporting that a patient who was being evaluated for Ebola has tested positive for the virus. According to Reuters, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the case -- the first time Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States.

Any Excuse To Gouge Us Over Electricity Prices!

"All of the above" really means any excuse To gouge us over electricity prices'!  

It is just a huge institutional failure for our government with managing energy, the grid and electricity. 

Whether its inadequate natural gas pipelines, inadequate state and federal oversight/regulation of natural gas used to make electricity, the shutdown of obsolete coal or nuclear plants, green or global warming electricity and the polar vortex that happens every few years…they have any excuse in the world to raise the price electricity or blackmail us over an unstable grid.

Your freaken dummies, you go right ahead and hate government!!! 

Yep, and the newspapers just don’t have the resources to adequately report on the stories...our electric utilities and our grid aren’t popular discussions in our society today.

Remember, “all of the above” means the highest priced electricity sets the price for all the less expensive electricity symbolizing massive collusion of the energy sources against the public.

Electric rates in Mass. set to spike this winter

Massachusetts consumers will pay significantly higher electric bills this winter as a persistent shortage of natural gas for generating plants drives power prices to record levels.

The cost for a typical household could top $150 a month, based on an announcement this week from one of the state’s two dominant utilities, National Grid. It said its rates will increase by a whopping 37 percent over last winter’s, solely because the cost of buying electricity from power plants has soared to the highest level in decades, according to a company spokesman.

Other utilities, including NStar, are also warning customers to brace for higher electric bills this winter, but they have not determined final rates for the winter.

“This is pretty bad, and it’s going to really have a bearing on a lot of Massachusetts households’ abilities to just make ends meet this winter,” said John Howat, senior energy analyst at the National Consumer Law Center in Boston….

Mike Mulligan Asking to Be Put On VY Decommission Panal

Updated: Sept 28

Brattleboro Reformer: "Entergy details staff cuts, spent fuel plans at Vermont Yankee"

This is me on the front page of the Reformer's weekend paper.

They are dam lucky I forgot to wear my halo! Everyone rememebers me demonstrating my giant Brattleboro bridge rust chips.(Cause For Concern). Should have pulled up that giant rust chip and said this is the reactor building in 50 years. I know, I am mixing metaphors.

The important people in this know this is me (Entergy) and they clearly understood my message.

Vermont Yankee site VP Chris Wamser is my prodigal son(identical haircuts):)

Ok, what would be my position on the board? I request make the VY decommissioning process the most transparent and participatory process of its kind in in the world. Get that new state decommission nuclear engineer on board. Be the example for all the rest of the decommissioning plants to follow.

The simple system, record everything by camera and blogging. Everything. All the management meetings and discussions…then put it up on the internet. Have a VY special room where all these discussions are recorded. We got to figure out a server where the events of decommissioning would stay into perpetuity. How about a public room on the VY site where outsiders could record their thoughts and issues. All the documents would be available. 

Basically all the documents, internal communications and videos would be in the community room and put up on the internet. Be the symbol of truth and honesty…transparency… for every other decommissioning activities in the USA. 

Set up interactive blog. All the issues could have their own heading in the blog where the public could ask questions. Like, have a panal heading for them to discuss. Make the commissioning panel itself accountable to the public at large. Be an example to the nation and the world; the safety advocates, the anti-nukes and Entergy publically cooperating, interacting with each other respectfully. Be the positive example to the world at large to see.

So the blogging example heading would be: 

“Make the Vermont Yankee decommissioning the most recorded decommissioning in USA. Be the positive decommissioning symbol for the rest of the world.

So then begin a discussion with all the players and stakeholders where the whole world could watch us with the mission statement: Entergy, the NRC, the states and the public. Make it a participatory brain storming discussion for everyone.

I told Entergy they could be the positive example for the USA…a path for them to reclaim their trust, honor and image.

You know for a fact I would holding the board's feet to the fire.

I believe this is one of the most important community policing advances in 50 years. It is the world of transparency in front of us and nobody should be afraid of it except the crooks. I submit to you transparency is the least expensive and best controller of human behavior the world has ever seen. We all change our behavior we when we think we are being watched…the roots of this is unconscious.  

Today’s Police Put On a Gun and a Camera

Officer Heidi Lambley, above, wearing a camera during a traffic stop last week in Pullman, Wash.Credit Rajah Bose for The New York Times

The Vermont state server would be the best place for this…but I wonder their if there IT will maintain the decommissioning site and actively work with decommission. You can just see it in a state budget crisis, cutting money on maintaining this site.

I have big philosophical problems with volunteerism. Most of the times it is a way for the state and corporate to shift cost away from these organization. It is a special kind of communism, everyone working for nothing in the name of altruism and the greater good. You can guaranty a low quality on the panel. If Entergy had their way, they would make the whole decommissioning a volunteer activity.  Honest work should always support the greater economy and the standard of living of the local peoples. I will always be on the side of the little guys making a decent standard of living and making a high quality government or organization who supports us all.

Oh, mike doesn't have a job...he can spend his days volunteering at the local soup kitchen or working for nothing in the greater cause of serving the community. Dignity is income and decent standard of living!

That raises another question, are local people going to play a large role at decommissioning VY or will it be distant out of staters?

And by the way, for you anti-modernity granolas, the Vermont Yankee property is a extraordinarily valuable asset and it is getting more valuable as we speak. It would be a crying shame to make that property just a park. Right, in future, we got that snaking new natural gas line going through northern Massachusetts just a few miles from the VY plant. The extraordinary value of the VY Vernon property is it could support huge new additional electric capacity or Entergy might use this property to block new grid capacity additions. All the large high voltage trnsmission lines in the region gets inter connected near the VY plant.  

Entergy could play a role to prevent new capacity additions, just make the VY property a park to make us feel like nature…jacking up the price of electricity to us all and making their buddy utilities very rich.

You know I will be blogging my ass off about Decommissioning. Nobody on the panel would have the plant experience and prior NRC licensed individual experiance as me,  as I worked in the plant for 13 years ending in 1993.

Basically I explained my interest to be on the panel at the meeting tonight. It was recorded by the Brattleboro TV station. 

What are my chances of getting it...about way less than 10%.  

(My NH state Rep)Today at 10:21 PM  

William, 

It was nice meeting your smiling face at the Brattleboro High school tonight. The last time we'd met your weren't smiling at me (the Hinsdale bridge). I got them to replace those dangerous boards through those antics. 

I know it is late in the game. I was wondering if you could get me on the Vermont Yankee decommissioning panel. It is noted there is no democrat and especially Hinsdale people on that panel. Could you ask the governor if she could add me to the panel.

I understand there is wiggle room on people in the panel. One more won't matter. 

I know a lot about VY, Entergy and the nuclear industry.

I will always be a gentleman and be beyond reproach if added. I well serve Hinsdale and governor well! 

Sincerely, 

Mike Mulligan

Hinsdale, NH

1-603-336-8320

He always immediately responds.

Mike, 

Thanks for your email & it was good to see you at the meeting in Brattleboro earlier this evening. I would like to see someone from Hinsdale added to the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP). However, as far as I know, Governor Hassan does not have the ability to appoint any additional people to the Panel, beyond the one appointment she already made, our Democratic Senator, Molly Kelly. I may be incorrect, but as I understand the process from what I heard tonight, it is now up to the existing Panel members to recommend whether any new individuals should be appointed to the Panel, & even then, I am not sure if the Panel can directly reconstitute itself, or if a new membership structure for the Panel would have to be proposed & voted on by all of the members of the existing Panel, & then formerly introduced & approved through a change in the Vermont statute that apparently created the existing Panel.

Finally, as you probably know, back in June I decided not to run for another term in the NH House. I will finish out my current term of office which ends on December 2nd of this year when the new Reps will be sworn into their offices. However, given my circumstances, I likely have little influence, if any, with the Governor. Also, if I were to make a recommendation to her, I would probably suggest that a member of the Hinsdale Select Board be appointed (I believe that Vermont Yankee currently provides some monies for the Town of Hinsdale Emergency Planning folks, but those monies will likely not continue in the future) and/or someone from the Hinsdale School System, particularly given the proximity of the Hinsdale Schools being located just across the Connecticut River from Vermont Yankee.

I expect that I will see you again at the meeting of the Vermont NDCAP next month.

I admit I am not the best choice.

William,

Sorry about you leaving NH House...it will be a worst state without you. I am thinking about running for the selectmen next year. I thought it was a matter of nobody wanting to volunteer for the decommissioning panel. I honestly don't like Molly. She remembered my bridge prop, "you are the guy in Hinsdale showing the huge bridge rust chips". If funny what sticks in people’s minds. It is perplexing why the governor didn't call up a democrat.

Thank you for answering me and giving me an explanation. Your choices other than me make better sense.

Mike

I would run "again" for his seat, but I just don't have enough resources? Would I be "hell on wheels" advocating for a new Hinsdale bridge...I'd certainly want to be on the Transportation committee.
  

Bill just doesn't understand my knowledge and expertise with Entergy, the NRC and the nuclear industry towers over anyone in the region. I am independent from the anti nukers and the pro nukers...I just make up my own mind about a problem.

And also, the selectman thinks all the hard work leading to 2013, especially in 2013, now assures us a new bridge. I think they are overly optimistic.