Monday, November 30, 2015

"Breakthrough Energy Coalition"

I generally don’t like Bill Gates. Sorry. But I agree with these principles.

You know what I’d like to see, either Gates as the Secretary of Energy or as the new vice president…

They seem to get it, they have to invent a energy gadget that undercuts coal or natural gas. With great power come great responsibility? 

But bigger picture is we have to invent a new economy and boost average incomes such that we can afford real altruistic energy. What is garbage electricity and what is altruistic or holistic electricity? What is just computer, computational or just raw human intelligence or what is altruistic, holistic computer or intelligence...ends in the greatest human development possible or societal development. To what ends is it all?  Don't have the destabilizing peaks and troughs of human development today...have a more balanced advancement. Education is the foundation of it all.   

We have to invent a new humanity that is not so much into gratuitous entertainment and feeling good(phony), but alway into personal growth in one way or another towards the ends of us all.    
Breakthrough Energy Coalition 
the principles 
Technology will help solve our energy issues. The urgency of climate change and the energy needs in the poorest parts of the world require an aggressive global program for zero-emission energy innovation. The new model will be a public-private partnership between governments, research institutions, and investors. Scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs can invent and scale the innovative technologies that will limit the impact of climate change while providing affordable and reliable energy to everyone. The existing system of basic research, clean energy investment, regulatory frameworks, and subsidies fails to sufficiently mobilize investment in truly transformative energy solutions for the future. We can’t wait for the system to change through normal cycles.The foundation of this program must be large funding commitments for basic and applied research, and here governments play the key role. Only our governments have the mandate to protect the public interest as well as the resources and mechanisms to do this. We know government investment in research can lead to the creation of industries that advance the common good and are driven by private capital. We have seen big successes before with government-funded research programs in space, defense, technology, and medical research, seeding private creativity which has produced many of the innovations that define our current way of life. The political will is emerging to do this again, through aggressive increases in government funding for basic and applied energy research, which can lead to breakthrough technologies for our energy future. However, current governmental funding levels for clean energy are simply insufficient to meet the challenges before us...

Belgium’s Doel 3 and Tihange 2 Reactor Now Restarting


Originally Published on Nov 25, republished 

Concerning the Indian Point Contention...
February 13, 2015

Page 23

33. I would also like to add a note about safety margins. As reactors and their constituent components age, it becomes more important to preserve, rather than erode, operational safety margins. As discussed above, uncertainties exist, and accidents or unanticipated events can occur, and calculational/modeling mistakes are possible. For example, USNRC only recently became aware that certain methodologies prescribed in its NUREG-0800 Branch Technical Position (BTP) 5-3 for estimating the initial fracture toughness of reactor vessel materials may be non-conservative. [See, e.g., Troyer and Devan (2014); Salas (2014); Kirk and Sheng, USNRC (2014); see also Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group, BTP 5-3 Industry Issue (proprietary)]. Various nuclear plants that received their construction permits before August 1973 relied on BTP 5-3 by to estimate reference temperature (RTNDT) and upper shelf energy (USE) values in order to demonstrate compliance with ASME Code and USNRC margins for reactor pressure vessel integrity. Because RTNDT and USE values serve as starting points for determining pressure-temperature (PT) heatup / cooldown curves, the consequences of this recent revelation could be significant, and may impact IP2 or IP3’s reactor pressure vessel and its fittings integrity and plant operational limitations. Since unexpected errors of this type do occur, maintaining safety margins via not operating the plant too close to CUFen and repair or replacement of aging parts prior to the end of the plant’s design life ( particularly for RVIs ) would help to guard against potentially adverse impacts due to precisely this type of unexpected non-conservatism in flawed safety evaluations. 
Big Picture: 
On the big picture, these guys got a unsafe design. These designs would never be allowed to operate in the USA. 
Computer models are extremely sensitive to corruption and self interested interpretation issues. Nobody yet has got their hands on a actually flaw and put them through their paces in a lab.
FANC Report on Doel 3 and Tihange 2
This is all that systemic normalization of deviation. 

It is sad we still have to depend on 1970s forging technology. It seems these plants are too expensive to replace. The black or white choice is either shutdown or operate with flaws. It is the signs of our times we are all so poor in spirit and resources. 

Bet you the NRC will now have a lot of information to give me on answering my vessel 10 CFR 2.206. 

What happens now if Doel 3 and Tihange 2 develops a leaking crack during the rest of their lives? We have broad issues with vessel pressure control devices such as PORV and SRVs. Is a overpressure condition put into your models?  

The weak link in this whole deal is the flaw size have only been monitored since 2012 and with little power operation. We have no evidence of the flaw growth rate throughout the life of the plants. 
By Peter Fairley
Posted 24 Nov 2015 | 18:00 GMT

Belgian nuclear authorities have authorized the restart of two reactors whose steel reactor pressure vessels (RPVs)—which contain the reactors' fissioning cores and primary coolant—are riddled with flaws. The flaws were discovered during routine maintenance in 2012. After followup ultrasonic imaging of the RPVs, experimental testing of steel samples, and extensive computational analyses, the regulators accepted the operator’s argument that the RPV flaws are decades old and do not compromise the vessels’ structural integrity. 
The flaws in Belgium’s Doel 3 and Tihange 2 reactors idled the two 1,000-megawatt reactors in 2012 and again in 2014, prompting preparations for potential blackouts in Belgium and stymying European grid operators’ efforts to upgrade their system for coordinating cross-border power flows. They also prompted European regulators to call for expanded ultrasonic testing of all RPVs—a move resisted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 
The Belgian reactors will take about four weeks to restart, according to World Nuclear News. There’s no word yet on whether Brussels-based reactor operator Electrabel will seek to extend the operation of Tihange 2 and Doel 3, which reach their 40-year original design lifespan in 2022 and 2023, respectively. However, regulators approved 10-year extensions for the Doel plant's two older reactors last month. 
An independent structural analysis by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States affirmed the structural integrity of the Tihange 2 and Doel 3 reactors, says Richard Bass, a corporate fellow at ORNL and coauthor of the review commissioned by Belgium's Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC). “As far as we’re concerned, the
Basically ASME is a corporate sponsored engineering code maker. They serve the corporation and businesses more than the greater good.  
flaw population meets the ASME pressure vessel requirements,” says Bass, referring to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ RPV codes. 
ORNL, the principal contractor for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on RPV integrity issues, applied that expertise to evaluate the safety case for the Belgian reactors put forward by Electrabel. “We had about two months total, so we did everything that we could reasonably do during that period,” says Bass.
Bass and his colleagues examined the flaws—a total of 16,196 disc-shaped gaps detected in the RPVs' steel plates—and ran simulations meant to indicate whether the faults would initiate cracks under various stress scenarios. Simulations focused on the rapid temperature fluctuations that could happen, for example, in the case of a loss-of-coolant accident such as occurred at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011. They also projected the embrittlement of the RPV as it ages. 
They think we are all dummies. The Belgium NRC and all the rest says Belgium’s Doel 3 and Tihange passes the ASME vessel codes whatever that means. What revision they talking about, the current new vessel codes or the 1970s codes the actual vessels were manufactured too? 
Of the thousands of flaws in the two reactors, four faults flunked ORNL’s initial simulations. Bass said that ORNL then accounted for the fact that the loading on the RPV would occur while it was warm, which makes the steel more robust during subsequent cooling—a metallurgical phenomenon that ORNL demonstrated experimentally in the 1970s and 1980s. 
Three of the Belgian reactors' four questionable flaws were deemed compliant with safety regulations under pre-stress warming conditions. The remaining flaw, labeled flaw #1660, was cleared after closer scrutiny of its geometry. 
The initial screenings were performed with a simplification of the shape, in which each was assumed to be a circular disc—an approach that Bass calls “very conservative." When ORNL modeled flaw #1660 and found that it is an elliptical disc (roughly 8.5 millimeters across in one direction and 10 mm across in the other), it passed muster. 
"You change the problem and go back to the original representation that’s much closer to reality,” says Bass. "When we did that we found that the real flaw met the ASME code acceptance criteria.”  
ORNL did not estimate how big the RPVs' margin of safety is, but it is “significant” in Bass’ expert opinion: ”There is significant margin between the driving forces on the flaws and the toughness of the material." 
ORNL also concurred with Electrabel’s calculations regarding the risk posed by hydrogen diffusing into the steel and forcing open cracks during temperature swings. "We looked at what they did and it looked reasonable to us,” says Bass. 
FANC, meanwhile, concurred with Electrabel’s assertion, based on ultrasonic inspections in 2012 and 2014, that the flaws were created when the RPVs were forged and are not growing over time. Still, it approved the reactors to restart on the condition that Electrabel must reinspect the RPVs when they are next shut down for refuelling. 
Several independent experts argued in 2014 that FANC had overlooked the risks posed by ongoing hydrogen diffusion. Among them was Digby Macdonald, a corrosion expert at the University of California at Berkeley. (Spectrum highlighted Macdonald’s concerns in April of this year.)  
FANC addressed their concerns in a special report released this week. The report cites input from several independent experts, including two proposed by Macdonald’s colleague Walter Bogaerts, a Belgian materials science expert. 
The independent experts affirmed that “significant experiment and theoretical results” constrain the pressure caused by hydrogen within the RPV to low levels: about 200 kilopascals at 25 degrees Celsius and 35 kPa at 300 °C. To put that in context, computations by Electrabel suggest that even hydrogen exerting 10 megapascals of pressure within the flaws would have a “small impact” on RPV integrity.  
Macdonald told IEEE Spectrum that he remains concerned about the FANC experts’ failure to “correctly address” the potential production of hydrogen within the reactor via radiolysis—the splitting of water molecules by nuclear radiation. However, he says he has yet to publish his own analysis of radiolysis.

River Bend Junk Plant Partial LOOP?

Seems they bobbled level control a bit, but with all their new ops training and a proper simulator, they controlled reactor level rather well with what they got?

Hell, they didn't have any tripping feed pumps? The trick is to keep the b/p system operational...

Horrendous scram and reduced power history.... capacity factor that is not profitable?

Was weather involved with this?  

Power ReactorEvent Number: 51568
Facility: RIVER BEND
Region: 4 State: LA
Unit: [1] [ ] [ ]
RX Type: [1] GE-6
NRC Notified By: ROB MELTON
HQ OPS Officer: DONG HWA PARK
Notification Date: 11/27/2015
Notification Time: 09:23 [ET]
Event Date: 11/27/2015
Event Time: 04:31 [CST]
Last Update Date: 11/27/2015
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY
10 CFR Section:
50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL
50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION
Person (Organization):
MARK HAIRE (R4DO)
SCOTT MORRIS (NRR)
JEFFERY GRANT (IRD)

UnitSCRAM CodeRX CRITInitial PWRInitial RX ModeCurrent PWRCurrent RX Mode
1A/RY100Power Operation0Hot Shutdown
Event Text
AUTOMATIC REACTOR SCRAM FOLLOWING PARTIAL LOSS OF OFFSITE POWER

"At 0431 CST on November 27, 2015, an automatic reactor scram occurred following the trip of the main generator. The generator trip was apparently caused by a partial loss of offsite power, which resulted from a differential ground on the north bus of the local 230 kV switchyard. The ground signal caused the reserve station service line no. 1 to de-energize, which tripped the Division 1 offsite power source to station, as well as the main generator. The plant responded as designed as follows: The Division 1 emergency diesel generator started and tied to the bus restoring Division 1 emergency power. The Division 3 emergency diesel generator started and tied to the bus, restoring power on the Division 3 switchgear. The reactor protection system tripped as designed. Reactor water level was controlled normally with condensate and feed water. A level 3 reactor water level scram signal occurred as expected, and RPV [Reactor Pressure Vessel] water level was restored to normal level band. Reactor pressure was controlled by the bypass valve system, and a normal cool down was initiated. The reactor is being taken to cold shutdown pending an investigation of the event. The loss of power also resulted in a partial loss of normal service water cooling to the plant, and emergency service water cooling automatically initiated per design. At the time of event, the reactor protection system was aligned to the backup power supply, which was momentarily lost. This resulted in multiple system isolations including reactor water clean up, and outboard balance of plant isolations. These isolations were initiated due to loss of offsite power, and all responded as designed. The isolation resulted in a loss of the running decay heat removal pump for the spent fuel pool. The standby pump is available for service and being aligned for service. The plant is currently stable in hot shutdown. Transmission and distribution personnel are currently investigating the ground in the 230 kV switchyard."

All control rods inserted. The licensee has notified the NRC Resident Inspector.

Friday, November 27, 2015

WSJ: Utica Shale Field, Way Way Bigger than Marcellus Shale...

That is what the experts have been saying, this natural gas miracle thing is way bigger than we can imagine. This thing is not only going to revolutionize our energy markets, it going to bring massive restructuring to our nation. It is a runaway monster bigger than what we could even imagine.  

So the Utica shale field is underneath the Marcellus Shale field...what is under the Utica shale? 

It is going to make the Marcellus shale field uncompetitive? 

A big find typically would send an energy company’s stock surging, but in an industry awash in the commodity, it is having the opposite effect

By
Timothy Puko and
Ryan Dezember
·     
Ryan Dezember
The Wall Street Journal

Nov. 26, 2015 5:33 a.m. ET
EQT Corp. EQT -0.89 % this summer drilled what by some measures is the biggest natural-gas gusher ever. The Pittsburgh energy company’s reward: a tumbling stock price.

The well, in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Greene County, spewed enough gas in its first 24 hours to power every home in Pittsburgh for nearly three days. Named Scotts Run 591340 after a historic coal field that sparked a regional energy boom after World War I, the well has continued to produce at unusually high rates with no signs of fading soon.

That would sound like good news. But in a glutted industry in which natural-gas prices are plunging as record amounts of unused gas build up in storage, it is a problem. Since EQT finished drilling the gusher in July, its shares have lost 29%, while U.S. natural-gas prices have fallen 24%.

Scotts Run 591340 taps part of a rock formation called the Utica Shale that has only been lightly explored so far because it sits almost 3 miles below the Earth’s surface.

Situated beneath Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, the Utica is close to gas-consuming regions of the Northeast. If it proves as productive as EQT’s well and a few nearby wells suggest, it could mean trouble for billions of dollars of wells and pipelines built in and from more established regions like north Louisiana and the Rocky Mountains.

“Because the Utica is a big unknown, fear has overtaken the market,” said Matt Portillo, managing director at energy-focused investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

EQT said last month that it would suspend drilling projects in other parts of Pennsylvania to concentrate on the Utica, where it thinks wells have the potential to be so prolific that they could lower natural-gas prices and make competing projects uneconomical.

“Some of our other inventory that requires higher prices to make economic returns would be deferred, possibly for many years,” David Porges, EQT’s chief executive, told investors on a conference call last month.

The Utica is already starting to alter the U.S. natural-gas balance. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said this week that the country’s proved reserves of natural gas rose 10% in 2014 to a record of 388.8 trillion cubic feet. Ohio’s reserves nearly tripled thanks to finds in portions of the Utica Shale, a big factor in the higher total, the government agency said.

Meanwhile, gas stockpiled in the contiguous 48 states exceeded four trillion cubic feet for the first time ever last week, as producers continue to drill new wells despite depressed prices and forecasts for a mild winter that would limit demand for the heating fuel.
Shares of EQT rivals Range Resources Corp. RRC -2.41 % and Consol Energy Inc. CNX -5.63 % have slid 44% and 54%, respectively, since those companies disclosed their own prolific Utica wells in December and July.

“Regardless of where gas prices are, the Utica is exciting,” said Tim Dugan, who runs Consol’s gas-production arm. Range Resources didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Not long ago, big natural-gas discoveries translated to stock-market success. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. COG -0.36 % ’s shares doubled in 2011, making the stock the S&P 500’s top performer that year, as it tapped vast stores of natural gas in northern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.

The finds helped make Pennsylvania a top producer and wreaked havoc in states like Louisiana and Arkansas, where the fuel costs more to extract from shale formations. BHP Billiton, BBL -4.18 % one of the biggest mining and energy companies in the world, had spent big buying fields in those states only to idle drilling rigs and write off billions of dollars in losses soon after.

Much of the Utica lies beneath the Marcellus, and some producers and investors believe it could take over as the country’s biggest source of low-cost natural gas.

“The Utica certainly has the potential to be more economic than the Marcellus, but it’s too early to make a definitive call,” said David Schlosser, EQT’s executive vice president of engineering, geology and planning.

The prospect has companies calculating whether they need to rewrite their playbooks again.

Shares of Southwestern Energy Co. SWN -4.14 % and Chesapeake Energy Corp. CHK -2.59 % , which have drilling land above the Utica but derive most of their production from other regions, have dropped 53% and 40%, respectively, since EQT disclosed the first details of its well in late July. Southwestern has begun exploring its Utica acreage ahead of schedule, and executives have said they expect it to become a key part of the company’s future.


Samson Resources Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection in September after falling commodity prices prevented it from keeping up with debt payments, told a judge last month that the recent swoon in natural-gas prices has imperiled its restructuring plan.

Dangerous Internal Flooding Cover-up at Indian Point?

I wish this document was in a form you could copy?
Region I Reply to D Lochbaum questions/email re: Indian Point SIT
My questions.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Next Nuclear Plant (s) to Meltdown on Planet?

Right, these are dangerous Russian Nuclear plants. God only knows how long they could go without electricity. What would be the first indication of a meltdown? It would have to a outside nation air measurement of radioactivity.

Pylon toppled in Kherson region, 23 Nov 15

"Ukraine nuclear power plants ‘dangerously’ without power as towers feeding energy to Crimea blown up"

In an eerie reminder of a possible nuclear catastrophe, a senior Ukrainian energy official revealed that the attack on transmission towers that cut off the delivery of electricity from Ukraine to Crimea also created an emergency situation at nuclear power plants.
The apparent act of sabotage in Ukraine’s Kherson region forced an emergency power unloading at several Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which can be extremely dangerous, according to the first deputy director of Ukraine’s energy company Ukrenergo, Yuriy Katich.
Russia’s Crimea was forced to switch to autonomous reserve power after transmission towers in the adjacent Ukrainian region were blown up, causing a blackout. Meanwhile, the repairs were delayed by Right Sector and Crimean Tatar “activists” attempting to block crews from getting to the scene. None of the groups have accepted responsibility.
So we will see it in Sweden again wiki: "The initial evidence that a major release of radioactive material was affecting other countries came not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden." Nah, we will see it in Poland?
“All of these events have led to an additional emergency shutdown of the electrical network of two units at thermal power plants – the Dnieper and Uglegorskaya – and the emergency unloading by 500 MW of nuclear power plants in Ukraine. This includes Zaporozhskaya NPP and the South Ukrainian NPP. I want to stress that such emergency unloading of a nuclear plant – it is very dangerous,” 112. Ukraine online portal quoted Katich as saying.

Earlier Katich said that due to the damage to the electricity towers, there is a risk that 50 percent of Kherson and Nikolaev regions could also be left without power.
He added that repairs are likely take up to three or four days, under the condition that the crew gets access to the site.
So far, local media has reported that the so-called “activists,” including Right Sector militants, said they would let the repairs to be done only if they won’t be reconnecting “occupied” Crimea to the Ukrainian grid.
Crimea’s chief prosecutor, Natalia Poklonskaya, has called the blowing up of the transmission towers sabotage, which “has created a threat to lives and wellbeing of some 2 million people of various nationalities,” while a regional authority suggested qualifying it as “an act of terror.”
Late Saturday, Crimean authorities rushed to connect hospitals and other vital infrastructure to reserve power stations and generators after the four main transmission lines from Ukraine were cut off due to the collapse of four electricity towers.
The Crimean Emergencies Ministry has declared a state of emergency due to the complete power outage. Nearly 1.9 million people were left partly or fully without electricity.
Important public facilities and infrastructure have been wired up to reserve sources of energy.
Right now, all major Crimean cities are working on reserve energy supplies. However, due to a lack of power supplies, scheduled electricity and water outages have been introduced.

Why So Many Meteorological Problems At Cooper?

I talked to the "new" Cooper resident today about met tower problems at pilgrim.

This would get you to the most recent Meteorological violation:
Reply to a Notice of Violation

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station

Docket No. 50-293

License No. DPR-35

REFERENCE: NRC Letter to Entergy, "Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station - Problem



This is particularly galling...both the backup and the primary. Not upgrading their evacuating gear? They had a lot of met tower problems lately? 

Here is the Pilgrim Met Tower Problem: 
Nuke Plant Meteorological Tower problems...Poor Evacuation Plans
 
Power ReactorEvent Number: 51558
Facility: COOPER
Region: 4 State: NE
Unit: [1] [ ] [ ]
RX Type: [1] GE-4
NRC Notified By: FRED SCHIZAS
HQ OPS Officer: VINCE KLCO
Notification Date: 11/20/2015
Notification Time: 21:49 [ET]
Event Date: 11/20/2015
Event Time: 18:08 [CST]
Last Update Date: 11/20/2015
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY
10 CFR Section:
50.72(b)(3)(xiii) - LOSS COMM/ASMT/RESPONSE
Person (Organization):
GREG WARNICK (R4DO)

UnitSCRAM CodeRX CRITInitial PWRInitial RX ModeCurrent PWRCurrent RX Mode
1NY100Power Operation100Power Operation
Event Text
METEOROLOGICAL TOWER OUT OF SERVICE

"On [11/20/2015 at 1808] CST it was noted that the MET tower (both primary and backup) was offline and not communicating with the Plant Management Information System(PMIS). This results in a major loss of emergency assessment capabilities with respect to meteorological conditions and is reportable under 10CFR50.72(b)(3)(xiii). Communications technicians responded to the plant and the MET Tower communications were restored to PMIS on [11/20/2015 at 1937]."

The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Strange: New Senior Resident Inspector At Indian Point


Strange: New Senior Resident Inspector At Indian Point
November 20, 2015
CONTACT: Diane Screnci 610-337-5330
Neil Sheehan 610-337-5331
New NRC Senior Resident Inspector Assigned to Indian Point Nuclear Plant
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in King of Prussia, Pa., have selected Brian C. Haagensen as the new Senior Resident Inspector at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y. He joins NRC Resident Inspectors Sarah Rich and Garrett Newman at the two-unit site.
“Brian Haagensen has the experience and commitment to safety that will help the NRC in carrying out its mission of protecting people and the environment and ensuring the safe operation of the Indian Point units,” said NRC Region I Administrator Dan Dorman.
Haagensen most recently was a Resident Inspector at Millstone Station in Waterford, Conn. He joined the NRC in January 2005 as a reactor inspector and license examiner in the Region I office.
Prior to joining the NRC, Haagensen spent 22 years in private industry, working as the senior vice president at Sonalysts, in Waterford, Conn., and as the managing director and executive vice president of Performance Safety and Health Associates, Inc., in State College, Pa. He served in the United States Navy and Naval Reserves for 30 years, advancing from ensign to captain. Haagensen graduated first in his class and earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the United States Naval Academy. He also earned a master’s in physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. In 2001, he received the U.S. Navy Legion of Merit, which is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.
Each U.S. commercial nuclear plant has at least two NRC resident inspectors. They serve as the agency’s eyes and ears at the facility, conducting inspections, monitoring major work projects and interacting with plant workers and the public.
The Indian Point Resident Inspectors can be reached at 914-739-9360.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Lets "Red Team" Indian Point's Flooding Plan

Counsel On Foreign Relation

This isn't terrorism related...but how to severely disrupt the nuclear industry and NRC's self interested groupthink. To go at dangerous groupthink like a terrorist would. This below article explains how to do it?
 "“When you hear ‘best practices,’ run for your lives,” says retired Army Col. Gregory Fontenot, director of the “Red Team University” at Fort Leavenworth, Kan."
There is a big NRC and nuclear industry disruption story here over Indian's Point's flooding analysis. It is much like Arkansas Nuclear One's flooding barriers violations and it is a worst story than them. It is the NRC and Indian Point maliciously conspiring to violate the flooding regulations. It is a Walmart size cover-up. You can use a host of discombobulated engineering rationalizations to disable flooding protections because its just too expensive to back fit into a defectively designed mid 1970's era plant. You got a lot of crazy talk right in the documents?
You Tube: 'Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy'
If I was Entergy and the NRC, I would immediately shutdown Indian Point in order to protect the rest of the industry from the future blow back with the severe enforcement of safety flooding protection regulation. Maybe it is already too late. There is a nasty story to be told through what is in your documents. Just think about how this is going to look with all the vetting by Entergy and the NRC through relicensing. Nobody had the guts to pick up and clear the flooding violations? To make your flooding analysis and plans as pure are a virgin?
"Zenko interviews more than 200 experienced red-teamers, including white-hat hackers, senior corporate executives, former CIA directors and retired four-star generals, to assess the prospects for this small industry. Turns out, they’re an odd bunch. “Red teamers are weird,” Zenko writes. “They tend to be loners, mavericks, and arrogant, which is exactly why they think and act differently — the most vital skill of a red teamer.”" 
No question about it, I am a highly qualified "red team" person...
How to anticipate unthinkable terrorist attacks? Hire oddballs to think of them. 
D TEAM: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy
By Micah Zenko
Basic Books. 298 pp. $26.99 
The terrorists come to shore at the South Street Seaport and scatter throughout Manhattan on foot and in cabs. They detonate bombs and shoot civilians in Grand Central Terminal; they take hostages at Macy’s in Herald Square. Too late, authorities realize that the hostage-taking is a diversion allowing co-conspirators to massacre people in luxury hotels dozens of blocks away. The New York Police Department, outwitted and overmatched, quickly runs out of personnel to deploy. 
The events are fictional, but the failure was real enough, as Micah Zenko recounts in his grimly well-timed book, “Red Team.” It was a result of a simulation the NYPD carried out in 2008, a week after 10 members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group struck Mumbai in a horrific assault that hit luxury hotels, a train station, a Jewish community center, a cafe and other spots, using bombs and AK-47s to kill about 170 people. “It was considered such a potentially catastrophic scenario that additional exercises modeled on Mumbai were conducted in the following two years,” Zenko writes. 
It’s not entirely fair to read a book four years in the making in light of events that happen to occur at the time of its publication. But it’s certainly tempting. The coordinated Islamic State attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, which killed 129 people, have not just unleashed a transnational manhunt and the start of a “pitiless” war, in the words of French President François Hollande. They’ve also produced second-guessing about strategy and intelligence, as well as worries that soft targets around the world — including in Washington — could suffer similar tragedies. 
So, how to anticipate the unthinkable? Well, you could hire people to think of it. Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, lays out the uneven history and potential of “red teams” — small, expert groups of outsiders enlisted to find vulnerabilities, shake up preconceived notions and imagine the unimaginable, all in an effort to improve security and thinking throughout the military, intelligence and corporate worlds. 
The tale begins centuries ago, when the Vatican established the “devil’s advocate” to argue against proposed canonizations; ranges to the Cold War, when the Rand Corp. and the Pentagon assigned red teams to anticipate Soviet strategies and negotiating tactics; and expands in the post 9/11-era, when the CIA created its Red Cell team to “tell me things others don’t,” in the words of then-CIA Director George Tenet. 
Zenko interviews more than 200 experienced red-teamers, including white-hat hackers, senior corporate executives, former CIA directors and retired four-star generals, to assess the prospects for this small industry. Turns out, they’re an odd bunch. “Red teamers are weird,” Zenko writes. “They tend to be loners, mavericks, and arrogant, which is exactly why they think and act differently — the most vital skill of a red teamer.” They need a deep cultural understanding of the institutions they’re assisting, yet should remain independent of them. They must be talented writers and briefers, be skeptical of authority, have held multiple jobs in their fields, and be intimately familiar with “large systemic failures, which helps them envision future failures.” 
Indeed, Zenko’s most compelling stories are of failures, cases when red teams were not used or when their efforts were ignored, misused or precooked. He cites the after-action report on Operation Eagle Claw — President Jimmy Carter’s aborted rescue attempt for the American hostages in Iran — which found that Pentagon planners had “reviewed and critiqued their own product for feasibility and soundness as they went along.” (This underscores a key rationale for red-teaming: “You cannot grade your own homework,” Zenko reiterates.) After the 9/11 attacks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “was found to be conducting fraudulent testing of simulated terrorist attacks” against commercial nuclear plants, Zenko writes, including by giving a year’s advance notice so sites could beef up security. And in 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services hired McKinsey & Co. to “pressure-test” the Affordable Care Act’s federal marketplace, only to disregard warnings of likely glitches in the HealthCare.gov site. (Ask Kathleen Sebelius what happened next.) 
Zenko also highlights a 2002 war game that formed part of the Millennium Challenge, a congressionally mandated exercise aimed at exploring the military’s operational readiness for near-term conflicts. Widely considered to resemble the operational plan to disarm and depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Zenko writes, the effort was also meant to showcase the high-tech military transformation that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld championed. However, the red-team leader, retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, a skeptic of those efforts, quickly overwhelmed the simulated U.S. fleet with a barrage of missiles and speedboat suicide attacks. “The whole thing was over in five, maybe ten minutes,” he said. 
Except it wasn’t. Restrictions were placed on the red team’s subsequent actions — such as forcing it to position its air defenses in the open so the blue team could easily destroy them — that compromised the exercise. Van Riper sent a blistering e-mail to several military colleagues that was promptly leaked. (“Fixed war games? General says Millennium Challenge ’02 was ‘scripted,’ ” read the Army Times headline.) The problem, Zenko writes, is that both the red team and the military leadership had preconceived objectives going in, undercutting the exercise. 
The author highlights successes as well, notably the red-teaming of the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011 — both of the underlying intelligence and the logistics of the SEAL mission itself. Various analysts placed the probability of the al-Qaeda leader hiding out in the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, at 75 percent, 60 percent and even 40 percent, leaving the president to conclude that he basically had a coin-toss decision. “We were at 0 percent for a decade,” counterterrorism official Andrew Liepman explains, “so going from 0 to 50 percent meant a lot to everyone.” And the red-teaming of the raid prepared the SEALs for multiple eventualities, including, as transpired, the malfunction of one of their helicopters. 
Zenko outlines best practices for red teams, even though, he admits, that very notion is anathema to red teamers, who mistrust rules or guidelines. “When you hear ‘best practices,’ run for your lives,” says retired Army Col. Gregory Fontenot, director of the “Red Team University” at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where officers receive training in how to think critically, avoid groupthink and improve cultural empathy. Perhaps most essential to red-team effectiveness is that the boss of the organization undergoing the red-team effort must buy in to the idea, otherwise the team will be marginalized and underfunded, its findings ignored. 
Though sympathetic to his subject, Zenko is careful not to oversell. There can be a faux sex appeal to red teams. He notes that the CIA’s Red Cell team has cultivated “an air of mystery,” in part because of the eye-catching titles of its internal memos — “The View from Usama’s Cave,” for example — which it deliberately contrasts with the more staid reports of the intelligence community. Zenko says that in 2012, the team’s members even met with Foreign Policy magazine staffers for headline tips. “They wanted to know how our stuff went viral,” recalls Blake Hounshell, then the magazine’s managing editor. “The techniques that we considered to be ‘click bait’ were what they were most interested in.” Not the most encouraging use of tax dollars. 
So, could red-teaming somehow have prevented the Paris attacks? Zenko explains that the NYPD’s Mumbai-style simulation yielded specific improvements in preparedness, so there is hope. But anticipating all potential acts of terrorism is an impossible task, no matter how imaginative a team might be, especially when multiple institutions — spanning local and national authorities, military and intelligence agencies, and even cultural and sports organizations — must get involved. Still, Zenko offers a compelling argument for forcing ourselves to think differently, which is ultimately the main purpose of a red team. Even if we won’t know exactly what to expect, we might be better equipped to respond when the unexpected strikes.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Trusting Westinghouse at the New Plant Vogtle?

Toshiba stock price is down about 60% since the first of the year and Japan just entered a recession.
A big nuclear power plant project like this needs humongous financial forces behind them to complete the problem. These guys are all hobbled by credibility problems and are all financially weakened. The Southern Company is backing this big project and are in Cat 5 natural gas hurricane weakening their financial security though dropping grid electricity price problem.
Wiki: The AP1000 is a nuclear power plant designed and sold by Westinghouse Electric Company, now majority owned by Toshiba. The plant is a pressurized water reactor with improved use of passive nuclear safety.
Westinghouse being the reactor designer and now the construction contractor implies a conflict of interest and ethical problems over all safety issues. This project is heading towards a giant crash.
Reuters 11/18: Japan's securities watchdog is likely to recommend Toshiba Corp be fined about 7 billion yen ($57 million), a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in what would be a record in the country for accounting-related violations. 
Knowing the South, they will blame it on government and pawn off all the bad debts to the tax payers.

Japan’s securities watchdog eyes record ¥7 billion fine for Toshiba

Kyodo  
                
The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission plans to recommend imposing a fine of some ¥7 billion on Toshiba Corp. for falsifying its financial reports, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
The recommendation by the nation’s securities watchdog is expected to be made to the Financial Services Agency by the end of November, based on the financial instruments and exchange law, the sources added. 
Since improper accounting practices at its major divisions came to light earlier this year, Toshiba has made a spate of downward revisions to its past financial statements, totaling ¥224.8 billion on a pretax basis from April 2008 to December 2014.
The commission has judged that Toshiba falsified its financial statements and earnings summaries from fiscal 2010 to 2014, the sources said. 
Toshiba issued bonds valued at over ¥300 billion for that five-year period, which apparently led to the massive fine, according to the sources. 
The fine will top the previous record of ¥1.6 billion slapped on IHI Corp. in July 2008 for issuing falsified financial statements. 
Toshiba has set aside ¥8.4 billion for fiscal 2014 that ended this March to pay for potential penalties based on its own calculations. 
The systematic inflation of profits spanning nearly seven years has hurt public confidence in Toshiba — the manufacturer of products ranging from chips and personal computers to nuclear power plants — and raised the need for restructuring of its unprofitable businesses. 
Following the scandal, Toshiba revamped its management and increased the number of outside directors to improve governance. The company is seeking ¥300 million in damages from five former executives for their negligence. 
On Tuesday, Toshiba disclosed details about past write-downs totaling around ¥115.6 billion by its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. for fiscal 2012 and 2013.
It came after the Tokyo Stock Exchange took issue with Toshiba’s failure to disclose the write-downs worth ¥76.2 billion for fiscal 2012 due to the huge size of the loss.
Westinghouse to complete construction at Plant Vogtle, Georgia Power says

Westinghouse bought out nuclear construction business from orginal contractor CB&I

By Walter C. Jones Wed, Oct 28, 2015 @ 7:33 am
Westinghouse Electrical Co. will complete the contract, taking over for CB&I, the original contractor. 
Georgia Power is the largest owner and operator of the plant, along with Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and Dalton Utilities. 
Westinghouse and CB&I announced separately that Westinghouse bought CB&I’s nuclear-construction business for $229 million, which includes a contract to build two reactors at Plant V.C. Summer in South Carolina and nuclear plants in China, as well as the Vogtle contract. 
Westinghouse, in turn, hired Fluor Corporation to manage most of the construction. All the reactors are using the AP1000 design and represent the first reactors build in the United States in more than 30 years.  
CB&I will continue to supply some modules for the reactors as a subcontractor, the company said. Not included in the transaction is CB&I’s contract for work at the MOX nuclear-fuel conversion at the Savannah River Site. 
Construction at Vogtle has been dogged by delays and budget overruns. 
The Vogtle owners and CB&I were suing each other in federal court over who was responsible for costly delays. Tuesday’s announcement said those suits had been settled, with Georgia Power making at $350 million payout. The other owners are also paying additional amounts. Oglethorpe, which owns 30 percent of the plant, is paying $230 million.
“This settlement is extremely positive for the Vogtle project, and now the contractors can focus 100 percent on project execution,” said Buzz Miller, executive vice president of nuclear development for Georgia Power. 
According to Georgia Power’s announcement, construction at Vogtle will continue with Unit 3 coming online in 2019 and Unit 4 in 2020. 
The Georgia Public Service Commission hasn’t determined if customers will have to pay for any of the budget overruns. It will also have to decide who pays for Georgia Power’s share of the legal settlement.
Toshiba Shares Dive as Westinghouse Disclosure Spooks Investors

Impairment charges of $1.3 billion is latest news to shake investor trust

The Toshiba logo seen through a roof panel at its headquarters in Tokyo. Shares fell sharply Friday after the latest in a series of unusual disclosures. Photo: Reuters

By Takashi Mochizuki

Takashi Mochizuki

The Wall Street Journal


Nov. 13, 2015 4:50 a.m. ET

TOKYO—
Toshiba Corp. TOSYY -0.28 % shares fell sharply Friday after the Japanese electronics and industrial giant said its U.S. nuclear business, Westinghouse Electric Co., booked $1.3 billion in impairment charges, raising investor concerns about a new phase in a drawn-out accounting scandal.

It was the latest in a series of unusual financial disclosures that have shaken investor trust, even after Toshiba overhauled its board and senior management this summer to try to move on from
the scandal.

Toshiba said at an earnings briefing last weekend that Westinghouse’s plant construction business stalled after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan four years ago, but didn’t reveal the amount written down until late Thursday. The company confirmed the $1.3 billion impairment charges, which took place during the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years, after a report in Japanese magazine Nikkei Business.

“It’s a big amount,” said Naoki Fujiwara, fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management. “It would have been fairer had they disclosed that from the beginning.”

Toshiba shares closed at ¥295 on Friday, down 6% for the day and well below the ¥500 level in March, before the accounting problems came to light.

Toshiba said Friday that Westinghouse booked net losses in fiscal 2012 and 2013 as a result of the write-down, but it declined to provide figures, saying it is not the company’s policy to reveal detailed financial information on affiliates.

Tohiba said its evaluation of the nuclear business is consistent with U.S. accounting rules. It said Westinghouse took the charges because some of its product lines struggled, but added that Toshiba didn't need to write down the value of Westinghouse on the parent company’s books because the nuclear business is profitable and will remain so.

Helped by solid demand for nuclear fuel and maintenance work, Westinghouse turned a profit of $200 million to $300 million annually, on average, from 2007 through 2014, Toshiba says. Toshiba acquired a majority stake in Westinghouse for $5.4 billion in 2006, setting its nuclear unit as a core growth area. The company calculates the value of Westinghouse at ¥515.6 billion ($4.2 billion).

Toshiba shares closed at ¥295 on Friday, down 6% for the day and well below the ¥500 level in March, before the accounting problems came to light.

Toshiba is trading well below its book value, which is equal to assets minus liabilities. The company’s market capitalization stands at about Y1.25 trillion, compared with a book value of Y1.46 trillion, as of Sept. 30.

Analysts say the company’s drip feed of disclosures undermines the credibility of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to bolster the transparency of company finances and governance in a bid to attract more foreign investment.

“This is a typical example of Japanese companies, which often lack accountable management and get behind the curve when bad things happen,” said Akie Iriyama, an associate professor at Waseda Business School.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange has put Toshiba on its watch list.