Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Trumpism: Is Fentanyl and Heroin our Next 911? "Now Its Total war"

My theory seems to got legs.

Cartels Help Terrorists in Mexico Get to U.S. to Explore Targets; ISIS Militant Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir Among Them

APRIL 26, 2016

Mexican drug traffickers help Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the United States to explore targets for future attacks, according to information forwarded to Judicial Watch by a high-ranking Homeland Security official in a border state. Among the jihadists that travel back and forth through the porous southern border is a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso, Texas. Khabir trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and has lived in Mexico for more than a year, according to information provided by JW’s government source.
Now Khabir trains thousands of men—mostly Syrians and Yemenis—to fight in an ISIS base situated in the Mexico-U.S. border region near Ciudad Juárez, the intelligence gathered by JW’s source reveals. Staking out U.S. targets is not difficult and Khabir actually brags in an Italian newspaper article published last week that the border region is so open that he “could get in with a handful of men, and kill thousands of people in Texas or in Arizona in the space of a few hours.” Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz, Mexico’s top diplomat, says in the article that she doesn’t understand why the Obama administration and the U.S. media are “culpably neglecting this phenomenon,” adding that “this new wave of fundamentalism could have nasty surprises in store for the United States.”
This disturbing development appears on the Open Source Enterprise, the government database that collects and analyzes valuable material from worldwide print, broadcast and online media sources for the U.S. intelligence community. Only registered federal, state and local government employees can view information and analysis in the vast database and unauthorized access can lead to criminal charges. Updated data gathered on Khabir reveals he’s 52 years old and was ordered to leave Kuwait about a decade ago over his extremist positions. Khabir is currently on ISIS’s (also known as ISIL) payroll and operates a cell in an area of Mexico known as Anapra, according to the recently obtained information.

A year ago Judicial Watch reported on an ISIS camp in this exact area, just a few miles from El Paso. JW’s April 14, 2015 report identified Anapra as the location of the ISIS base, details that were provided to JW by sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector. Anapra is situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. At the time JW reported that another ISIS cell was established to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas to target the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming. Sources told JW that, during the course of a joint operation, Mexican Army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as “plans” of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the US Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.
A few months later JW reported that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling Middle Eastern terrorists into a small Texas rural town near El Paso and that they’re using remote farm roads—rather than interstates—to elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers. The foreigners are classified by the U.S. government as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and they are transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20. At the time JW’s government sources revealed that terrorists have long entered the U.S. through Mexico and in fact, an internal Texas Department of Public Safety report leaked by the media documents that several members of known Islamist terrorist organizations have been apprehended crossing the southern border in recent years. 
Earlier this year, as part of an ongoing investigation into national security risks in the porous southern border, JW obtained evidence that proves the U.S. government has known for more than a decade about the partnership between terrorists and Mexican drug cartels. State Department documents made public by JW in January say that for at least ten years “Arab extremists” have entered the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells.” Among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. The cable was released to Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Reposted from 4/8/16

Update 4/11
Synthetic opiate makers stay step ahead of US drug laws as overdose cases rise 

Because there are so many different kinds of synthetic opiates and variations, the DEA is constantly “trying to play catch up” to track them down, said Bare. 

Adolphe Joseph, 34, is serving a 10-year prison sentence for smuggling fentanyl – an opiate 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. 

But he has not been charged for the nearly three pounds of a synthetic opiate more than 10,000 times as powerful as morphine investigators found in his South Florida home last Fall. Nor will he be, say prosecutors. 

W-18 is one of thousands of synthetic opiates that is not scheduled as a controlled substance and thus not subject to criminal drug penalties, and one of a handful of drugs that law enforcement officials and scientists say they have seen in increasing numbers in the last six months, as use, abuse and overdose deaths continues to rise.
We got to start spending a lot of money collecting and dispersing information on these kinds terrorism drug problems.
Terrifying True-Chinese’s Flood USA With Deadly Fentanyl 
The dozen packages were shipped from China to mail centers and residences in Southern California. One box was labeled as a “Hole Puncher.” 
In fact, it was a quarter-ton pill press, which federal investigators allege was destined for a suburban Los Angeles drug lab. The other packages, shipped throughout January and February, contained materials for manufacturing fentanyl, an opioid so potent that in some forms it can be deadly if touched. 
When it comes to the illegal sale of fentanyl, most of the attention has focused on Mexican cartels that are adding the drug to heroin smuggled into the United States. But Chinese suppliers are providing both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for the assembly-line production of the drug powering a terrifying and rapid rise of fatal overdoses across the United States and Canada, according to drug investigators and court documents. 
The Chinese and South American gangs colluding? If there is one lab, there is a thousand. Where does people get the money for a high on $20 a tab.
“We had a spike in 2007” of fentanyl-related deaths, said Russell Baer, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. “We traced it to a single production lab in Mexico and the deaths went away. Now, it is not restricted to one site.”
***Even with all this US overdose deaths and the massive proliferation of gang activity and warfare, right, our politicians have spent a lot print on wondering what is causing all the death and destruction with heroin. We think of this thing as gang activity in under developed counties like Mexico and Columbia. What if its not? 
What if it morphed into sophisticated international terrorism? What if they create a new weapon who kills tens of thousands of people and make money hands over fist. Wouldn't that be mircle substance?  
Say tomorrow, what if ISSA or el Qaeda started bragging about instead of knifes, guns and bombs as weapons, they began using hypodermic needles as a weapons of mass destruction. Maybe build some illegal fentanyl production plants or spike heroin with exotic poisons, then flood the USA markets with it.  I mean, high concentrations of fentanyl will do the trick. What if one day we woke up knowing it is no longer loser addicts, but terrorism killing our people? 
This spike from historic record fatality levels is ongoing in many communities across the nation. It is not a spike from low levels, but record breaking levels ongoing for years, and then the unimaginable spike all across NE.
Boston Globe: More than 20 overdose deaths hit Middlesex in 3 weeksBottom of Form
By Andy Rosen Globe Staff  April 08, 2016
Officials in Middlesex County say they have seen more than 20 opioid overdose deaths in the past three weeks, and as another weekend approaches they are urging residents to get help for loved ones who may be struggling with addiction.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan is scheduled to speak Friday afternoon about what her office describes as a “dangerous spike” that has also brought increases in nonfatal overdoses. The issue has been particularly pronounced during weekends, officials said.
The news conference, set for 2 p.m., will also include the organization Wicked Sober, an organization that provides services including addiction treatment and overdose prevention programs.
“We are looking to call attention to this critical issue and provide important information from Wicked Sober for families and loved ones of those suffering from addiction so they can take action to stop this dangerous trend,” Ryan’s office said.
Andy Rosen can be reached at andrew.rosen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @andyrosen.
If I was a terrorist leader, I'd load ten loads of heroin with very cheap and good heroin, if you know what I mean. Then one load that would create a high fatality level. It would be a kind of large scale sporadic kinds of deaths and bring in new addicts also. How would you weaponized death, heroin, fentanyl and addiction?
***So what if ISSA hints all the US heroin problem is us doing it our dirty deed…tell me how you could stop it? Wouldn’t that be a hell of a terror weapon? 
***What if it was a CIA’s and NSA false flag operation? A dark angel covert operation. Wouldn’t it be an efficient and quick way to end heroin addiction in the USA?
Think of the lives and money we would save. I’d be in it right up to my ass. Lace Columbia and Mexican heroin with exotic poisons and dangerous levels of fentanyl with the intent of quickly driving up USA addiction rates and overdoses fatalities, Then angle it so ISSA and el Quesada gets blamed for a new style of weapons of mass destruction. The 911 in 2016…
Right, we'd put a million troops in South America(at least), Mexico and Columbia...we'd spin up our military to a extraordinary level. It would kick up our economy spending all this money. Make them put up the wall under gunpoint! Tell them all we are going disassemble your gangs and drug cartels. If you get in the way, we are going to take out your military for two decades. If you baulk again, it is your the total government and economy that craters next. Think of the message that will send to the rest of the world.      

I am doing this "somewhat" in tongue-in-cheek. I wouldn’t rule out the Mexican and Columbian drug cartels secretly going to war on us with spiking their drugs.
   
Would you kill 10,000 people to save millions and trillions of dollar if there was no other way? Reset the direction of a nation?? I could do it if it was just a push button.
***God damn “House of Cards” and the psychopathic witch of a wife “Clair Underwood”: "Now Its Total War"!!! When women go bad, they get really get evil. Now whose idea was total war?

Wake Up America: some false flag operations do extraordinary good.

Junk Hydro-Quebec Electricity Going to Boston?

The road to ruin is if we choose a power source with the only determinant being some obscure carbon goal. I am so disappointed in the UCS and Boston Globe. What will be the total cost of the electricity as it enters the Massachusetts? The main problem with Hydro-Quebec is its penchant to poison everyone they come in contact with...corruption and it is a foreign source of electricity. This looks like a paid advertisement purchased by Canada and HQ. The final produce will look like a 50 year deal where we never understand the true cost per megawatt hour. It will be the similar non transparent  model we see in most solar panel and wind farm deals. Democracy today in the grid's free market means the final users never get to see the real price of the product. 

Remember, the big electricity users today will make seperate contracts outside the typical utility system and state oversight. They won't get stuck with this foreign expensive electricity. We fundamentally lack national control of this of source of electricity.   

Remember today also, the Canadian Power is extremely non competitive to natural gas...the only driver getting this electricity into Boston is corrupt money and the non transparent system behind it.

At the end of the day, this electricity will subsidized the decline of the Canadian petrochemical industry, such as their bankrupt oil sands business. With the deal collapse driven by our USA nature gas fracting miracle.    

 


Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press/AP
For those inclined to see the glass half full, Massachusetts has made enormous strides in reducing its carbon emissions. Coal-fired plants, the worst offenders, are dying out across the Commonwealth. Investments in energy efficiency have lowered demand. The solar panels sprouting up along the Massachusetts Turnpike are only the most visible of the new generation of green technologies feeding power into homes and businesses.
Yet a state report last year found that without new legislation, the Commonwealth could still miss its statutory goal of reducing carbon emissions by 25 percent compared to 1990 levels. If that happens, the failure would be political, not technological. Since the later years of the Patrick administration, continuing into Charlie Baker’s governorship, lawmakers have been locked in a time-wasting battle over how precisely to meet attainable reduction goals.
How to handle Canadian power has vexed state policymakers for a decade. Part of the opposition stems from environmental qualms: building dams that generate electricity often requires the destruction of forests, and the transmission lines also sometimes provoke controversy. Then there’s an economic concern: Why should state policy tilt in favor of a foreign power generator? Patrick ultimately arrived at a good compromise, which would have allowed utility companies to solicit long-term power contracts from hydropower suppliers, but his plan never made it through the Legislature.
Baker revived many of those ideas, and Beacon Hill is again studying them. Many lawmakers, especially from Southeastern Massachusetts, would prefer state policy to support local offshore wind. But it is not realistic to expect enough offshore wind to come online by 2020. If climate change is the urgent problem that so many politicians say it is, then it requires a hard-nosed approach that recognizes that the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good.



Dams in Canada are already up and running, and the transmission lines that would be needed could be built quickly. The New England Clean Power Link in Vermont has its permits; the Vermont Green Line, Northern Pass, and Maritime Link projects are all in various stages of approval. Passage of the legislation doesn’t mean all of those infrastructure projects would be built, but would set off a competitive scramble among different transmission projects. Onshore wind power in Maine would also benefit if new lines reach them.
Bolstering Canadian hydro does not mean the Legislature should abandon efforts to support local offshore wind, which has tremendous potential in Massachusetts and will undoubtedly form a major part of the state’s long-term energy future in the years after 2020. One recent study found that with regulatory support, the price of offshore wind would plunge by 2030. It could also be a major source of jobs and economic development.
One idea under consideration is a two-part bill that approves long-term contracts for both hydro and offshore wind. The Union of Concerned Scientists looked at that possibility and found it would reduce New England’s overreliance on natural gas at modest cost. Embracing both might be a good compromise — as long as the provisions aimed at Canadian hydropower remain sufficient to meet the 2020 goal.

After all, potential alone doesn’t cut emissions, and the history of setbacks for offshore wind should be enough to dissuade Massachusetts from assuming the best about its progress in 2020. A pressing environmental threat like climate change demands a pragmatic response, and for the moment legislation that includes Baker’s Canadian hydropower plan offers the most realistic way for Massachusetts to meet its climate goals.

Monday, April 25, 2016

APR 1400 and Korea Hydro: Is Korea Hydro Building a Nuke Plant In USA


Today:

Hello Mr. Mulligan;
 
Regarding the ongoing APR-1400 certification review, the NRC’s regulations require us to review any application (foreign or domestic) for which Congress has provided the resources to work on.  The APR-1400 review has such appropriated resources.
 
The APR-1400 review also retains the critical technical staff skills necessary to review small modular reactors or advanced reactor designs until those future design applications are submitted to the NRC for review.  It is very difficult to wait for an application and then hire the necessary skill sets. The APR-1400 applicants, Korea Electric Power Corporation and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., are paying for all the review hours that are being performed.
 
Please let me know if you have any other questions.  Thank you.
 
Scott Burnell
Public Affairs Officer
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Design Certification Application Review - Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR 1400)
Again dilution of USA and NRC resources; Basically the USA is subsidizing building and certifying nuclear plants in Korea and United Arab Emirates. We don't get enough benefits from doing this?

Design Certification Application Review - Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR 1400)
It is a Korean Design?

Basically we are subsidizing building third world nuclear plants in third world countries.

***You get it, it is against the law for a foreigner to own a USA nuclear plant...even a partial owner.  
Wiki: The APR-1400 (for Advanced Power Reactor 1400 [MWe]) is an advanced pressurized water nuclear reactor designed by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). Originally known as the Korean Next Generation Reactor (KNGR),[1] this Generation III reactor was developed from the earlier OPR-1000 design and also incorporates features from the US Combustion Engineering (C-E) System 80+ design.[2] Currently there is one unit in operation (Shin Kori unit 3) and seven units under construction, four in the United Arab Emirates at Barakah[3] and three in South Korea: one at Shin Kori and two at Shin Hanul. Two more units are planned with construction yet to commence at Shin Kori. 
APR-1400 design began in 1992 and was awarded certification by the Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety in May 2002.[4] The design certification application was submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December 2014 and in March 2015, it was accepted for technical review to determine if the reactor design meets basic US safety requirements.[5]

This Insane Talk Is Called Survival Independent of Consequences

Anonymous: The First Casualty of War is the Truth
So how does the Nuclear Industry explain Indian Point's loose baffle bolts?  This is all profit and self interested sick circular logic and rationalizations. It is 'Catch 22' all over again? 
World Nuclear News: Recovering the safety margin of nuclear reactors
US difficulties 
In the USA, operators are being forced to close nuclear power units, not because they lack potential for continued operation, but because of the "bad economics" of running them under deregulated electricity market conditions, said Bob Duncan, vice president of plant operations and supplier support at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.
Duncan told the conference that, since the Three Mile Island accident - a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred in March 1979 in unit 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania - operators have "delivered the promise" of safety, reliability, high capacity factors and higher measures of safety. 
"What we haven't delivered on is economics. So our biggest challenge in the US at this point is matching production costs of our nuclear power facilities against the natural gas prices that for the foreseeable future will be $4 per million BTUs for 50 years and production tax credits associated with solar and wind," he said. Small single units have been "the first to go under the knife", but "we also see bad economics against the large dual-unit plants in the Midwest", he said. 
The latest example was Entergy's announcement earlier this month that its Pilgrim nuclear power plant, a single 680 MWe boiling water reactor, will be refuelled for the final time in 2017 and cease operations in 2019. The company cited poor market conditions, reduced revenues and increased operational costs behind its decision to close the only nuclear power station in the state of Massachusetts. The unit entered service in 1972 and is currently licensed to operate until 2032. 
Duncan, who is also senior vice president for nuclear operations at Duke Energy Corporation, said the US nuclear industry responded to this state of affairs late last year when the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations and the Electric Power Research Institute "put together a task force to work on economics". This task force established a strategy it named Delivering the Nuclear Promise to maintain operational focus, increase value and improve efficiency. 
"Those three strategies broke into four building blocks" that are very similar to the response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident that occurred in Japan in March 2011, he said. "Our objective is within three years to create $3 billion worth of operating margin in our costs to run our nuclear power plants. That became 30% of our operating cost, which at that point some didn't believe, but we had to create an ambitious goal so that we would be able to enliven the industry. This isn't just another cost cutting measure; this is the life and death of nuclear power in the US," he said. 
The first three of the four building blocks are "economic analysis, economic viability and development of the teams necessary to make the economics and the efficiencies work", he said. "The fourth centres around stakeholders because when you start to talk about a 30% reduction in O&M [operation and maintenance] costs, who cares about the job - the mechanic, the I&C [instrumentation and control] tech, the unions - many of the stakeholders that we may have taken for granted earlier, taken into the fold."

Junk National Regulator (Japanese): Just Like The NRC?



I won't let any of the Japanese plants to restart until the Japanese regulators were 200% capable with safety overseeing the nation's nuclear plants.
It just shows you how internationally corrosive big business and the corporations are to governments and businesses they oversee? It is a worldwide phenomenon and they are all ganging up on us all. And don’t forget about the dummy news media they all support.
I get it, the USA is putting the Japanese under our welfare system. So why isn't this diluting the NRC resources? Our NRC is under drastic budget cutting and the system is getting more busy by our obsolete and aging USA fleet. Now we got to train the Japanese regulator? Where is Trump when you need him. I'll bet you the way the USA runs the show, we'd pick up the bill of training the NRA.

If Trump was running the show he make a pretty penny out of training the Japanese NRA. 

It is disgusting since March 2011 this is only how far the Japanese nuclear regulator has gotten into being a competent national regulator. It is five years and they are still this bad?  I'd have nothing to do with people like this. I'd be afraid they would poison my mind. 

Right, the Japanese political system is just as dysfunctional as our political system. Really, how could they be worst than us???   
IAEA review spurs nuclear regulators to beef up Japan’s safety regimenAP

The Nuclear Regulation Authority says it will revise laws, nearly double inspection staff and send some inspectors to the United States for training to address insufficiencies cited by International Atomic Energy Agency experts. 

The NRA announced the plans Monday in response to an IAEA evaluation of Japan’s nuclear safety regulations since the 2011 Fukushima crisis. The report was submitted to the government last week. 
The IAEA review, its first since the NRA was established in 2012, was conducted in January. It said that even though Japan has adopted stricter safety requirement for nuclear plant operators, inspections are reactive, inflexible and lacking free access. 
While the 1,000 U.S. inspectors have two years of training, Japan’s 150 staff members receive a two-week course.
The NRA plans to enact laws in 2020 to achieve the IAEA’s recommendations.



The Top Ten Poor Man Junk Nuclear Plants?

Can you ever recover from throttling money for maintenence in the black mail period like today? It is doubtful? This market crisis on the grid is like no other and we don't know how far down it will go. Are you just stuffing money down a rat hole? No doubt the below is a nuclear industry strategy to claw back more money from businesses and the ratepayers. Is it the most efficient way to spend money for electricity?    

Say collectively we are talking about a hundred million dollars for the ten plants. Basically we are putting these plants on heavy duty welfare on steroids. Basically the state legislators are putting them under part time welfare. So why isn't the legislators advocating for extra requirements from the corporations. Like a large proportion of the 100 million dollars will must go into increased maintenence, upgrades and training. Will a large proportion, like 99%, instead go into executive bonuses and increase in stock price? Pennies for maintenence?
1) I would required a large proportion of the increased funding going into maintenence and upgrades. Remember as these plant's ages increase they increasingly are getting disconnected from their repair parts stream. They will have to reverse engineer and contract to manufacture at Chinese plants an increasing percentage of their repair parts. This is exponentially more expensive. I think the dark secret is the utilities really want to put on the most expensive power sources as they get a bigger chunk of money from them.

2) Require more transparency...require a skeptical and knowledgeable safety advocate to oversee the plant and NRC for the rest of their lives.             
   Apr 24, 2016

CLINTON — As the financial losses mount from Exelon's operation of the Clinton Power Station, the message from company officials that the plant may close next year without legislative intervention has taken on a renewed and pressing urgency. 

The single-unit power plant situated on about 14,000 acres six miles east of Clinton has transformed from a big money producer for Exelon's fleet of 11 reactors at six Illinois sites to posting $360 million in losses over the past six years.  That shift has put the 29-year-old plant in danger of early retirement — the plant's current reactor operating license will expire Sept. 29, 2026. 

In 2014, Exelon informed state lawmakers — and the public — that Clinton and the Braidwood and Byron plants in northern Illinois could be targeted for shutdowns if changes were not made to state law to help the utility more effectively compete with its counterparts in the energy industry. 
So far, the Legislature has failed to act.
Without help from Springfield, contends Exelon, it's questionable the plant that employs about 700 workers and pumps $63 million in payroll dollars into the area annually will remain open.
"It's definitely something that could happen. Exelon is going to make a decision this year, by fall at the latest," said Exelon spokesman Brett Nauman…
At least five plants involved with Exelon and five with Entergy. 

By The Associated Press The Associated Press
Follow on Twitter
on April 23, 2016 at 12:45 PM, updated April 23, 2016 at 1:10 PM
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FitzPatrick nuclear plant


ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York's four nuclear plants, which generate more than a quarter of the state's electricity, are going through turbulent times amid slumping power prices. And depending on how things play out, one or more could shut down entirely, affecting jobs, power reliability, electricity bills and carbon emissions.
Though opposed by many environmentalists, New York's nuclear plants are seen by state regulators as a steady source of electricity that doesn't contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration is crafting a plan that would direct millions of dollars a year extra to keep ailing upstate nuclear plants operating. Officials say the cost to individual customers would be small and would be outweighed by environmental and economic benefits.
As regulators work on a broad plan to help the nuclear industry, individual plants are being buffeted by financial and, in one case, political pressures. Here's a look at the issues at the plants and possible consequences:

FITZPATRICK
Operators of the FitzPatrick plant on Lake Ontario north of Syracuse announced plans to shut down on Jan. 27, 2017. Entergy Corp. blames low natural gas prices, high operational costs and a "flawed" market the company says doesn't adequately compensate nuclear generators. The plant, which began generating electricity in 1975, employs more than 600 people and produces 838 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 800,000 homes.
The Cuomo administration is crafting an expedited financial support plan that could potentially help FitzPatrick.
Entergy spokeswoman Tammy Holden wrote in an email this week that they "are moving forward with the safe and orderly shutdown of FitzPatrick."
INDIAN POINT
Entergy's Indian Point on the Hudson River north of New York City has been in the crosshairs of environmentalists and politicians such as Cuomo. A top concern is how to evacuate the more than 17 million people living within 50 miles of the two reactors if there's an emergency. Federal regulators are allowing the reactors, which began producing electricity in the mid-'70s, to operate as the company seeks license renewals.
Entergy's two New York plants illustrate an unusual cross-current in the state's nuclear policy: the company wants to keep Indian Point running and plans to close FitzPatrick; Cuomo wants FitzPatrick open and has called for the closure of Indian Point.
GINNA, NINE MILE POINT
The Ginna plant along Lake Ontario near Rochester is operating under a surcharge that costs the average residential customer a little more than $2 a month extra. Operator Exelon had considered retiring the plant, which began producing electricity in 1970, before the surcharge was imposed. Exelon also operates the two reactors at the Nine Mile Point plant. The surcharge could expire in March 2017…

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Junk plant Ginna: Failure of 46 Year Old Transformer and Plant Trip

Basically a run to failure philosophy. They are make believing they are the coal power industry. Those guys were into run to failure big time.
The failed transformer was model Westinghouse serial number RBR-6831 and had been in service for 46 years. There was no indication or warning of impending failure.
LER 2016-001 

On 02/11/2016 at 2305, Ginna Station experienced a loss of Station Auxiliary Transformer 12A, causing Emergency Diesel Generator A to automatically start due to undervoltage signals to safeguards buses 14 and 18. Station Auxiliary Transformer 12A failed due to a high side phase to phase internal fault with relays for overcurrent and differential current actuated. All plant systems responded as designed. Control room operators stabilized the plant per abnormal operating procedures. The plant was placed in 100/0 electrical lineup on the off-site circuit 767 with Emergency Diesel Generator A secured. Station Auxiliary Transformer 12A was replaced with a spare and the plant was restored to normal off-site power line-up on 02/20/2016 at
0018.

The failed transformer was model Westinghouse serial number RBR-6831 and had been in service for 46 years. There was no indication or warning of impending failure.
Look at how long they were in a less safe plant electrical line up. Check out their risk determination, they had a replacement sitting on site. They didn't want to wait for a new order at the time of the event. But they never found the time to install the new transformer in the plant before the 46 year old Aux transformer failed. 

I was waiting for them to say, replacing transformers proactively wasn't in their procedures. Blame it on the procedure writers???  
February 11, 2016:

• 2305 hours - Operations received indication of loss of off-site power circuit 7T. Emergency Diesel Generator A started and loaded safeguards buses 14 & 18. Station Auxiliary Transformer 12A was determined to be the failed component with indication from overcurrent and differential relays tripped. Technical Specification LCO 3.8.1 was entered.

• 2306 hours - Operators entered Emergency Operating Procedure AP-ELEC.1 for loss of 12A Bus.

• 2325 hours - Operators started Equipment Restoration Procedure ER-ELEC.1 for restoration of off-site power, in order to supply all loads from off-site circuit 767.

February 12, 2016:

• 0032 hours - Station Auxiliary Transformer 12A was removed from service and the electric plant was placed in 100/0 lineup. In this lineup, off-site power circuit 767 provides service to all four of the 480 volt safeguards buses via Station Auxiliary Transformer 128.

• 0052 hours - Technical Specification LCO 3.8.1 was exited with power to safeguards buses 14 and 18 restored from off-site power circuit 767.

• 0053 hours - Emergency Diesel Generator A was secured.

• 0127 hours - Abnormal Operating Procedure AP-ELEC.1 was exited after transferring all loads to off-site circuit 767 via ER-ELEC.1.

• 0351 hours - Notification of Emergency Diesel Generator A start, event# 51730 was made per 1OCFR50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A)

February 12-19, 2016:

• Activities performed by the station to replace Station Auxiliary Transformer 12A with a spare transformer.

February 19, 2016:

• 1813 hours- Replacement transformer energized.

February 20, 2016:

• 0018 hours: Operations established the Normal off-site power lineup (two off-site power feeds), as was the pre-event condition, by completing procedure 0-6.9.2.








Junk Plant Brunswick: Double Preventable Explosion, Trip and LOOP

05000324/325

These guys are very dangerous. A double preventable event is one where say a high voltage cabinet leaks water inside. They discover it and fix it in a half ass manner. It should have created the explosion trip and LOOP but only luck intervened on the first shot. Then it leaks again cause the big explosion.         
Duke? Brunswick Steam Electric Plant: 

On February 7, 2016, at 1312 Eastern Standard Time (EST), Unit 1 was in Mode 1 (i.e., Run) at 88 percent of rated power in end-of-cycle coastdown. At that time, an electrical fault occurred on a balance of plant 4160-volt bus, resulting in a lockout of the Startup Auxiliary Transformer (SAT) and a loss of both Reactor Recirculation pumps. Licensed personnel inserted a manual scram per procedure. Emergency Diesel Generators supplied emergency electrical busses until offsite power was restored at 1628 EST. The loss of power and reactor water level changes resulted in automatic closures of various Primary Containment Isolation Valves (PCIVs). The electrical fault resulted in an electrical explosion; therefore, an Alert was declared at 1326 EDT. The immediate cause of this event was a fault in a non-segregated electrical bus connected to the SAT. The root causes were insufficient detail in applicable maintenance instructions for inspecting the non-segregated bus housing and inadequate instructions for terminating electrical cables in a circuit breaker cubicle. Corrective actions include repairing equipment damaged by the electrical fault and revising the procedures and work instructions.

Event Causes

The initiating event was two arc flashes that occurred in a non-segregated bus (i.e., a bus in which all three phases lie within a single housing) and in a circuit breaker cubicle which powers the 18 VFD for a Reactor Recirculation system pump. The first arc flash occurred in an area of the bus housing outdoors where water had accumulated. The fault created a voltage imbalance which led to the second arc flash which occurred in the breaker cubicle where cable insulation was found to be degraded.

Water entered the non-segregated bus housing through a degraded seal and an area that had previously been repaired. The water created the conditions conducive to an arc flash. 
In the breaker cubicle for the 1 B VFD, it was found that during installation in 201 O of electrical stress relieving insulation (i.e., "stress cones"), the dielectric insulation on a cable jacket had been damaged when a piece of semiconducting material was being removed. The arc flash occurred at the point where the cable insulation had been damaged.

The root cause of the moisture intrusion into the non-segregated bus was inspection procedures did not contain sufficient specific detail based on highest risk locations (i.e., specifically, horizontal surfaces through which bars penetrate) to ensure that deficiencies that can lead to water intrusion are identified and corrected during its implementation. A contributing cause was that the design of the bus housing is not optimum for the application because it is susceptible to corrosion leading to water intrusion. The root cause of the damaged cable insulation was failure to specify and use a depth-limiting cutting tool for removing semiconducting material from cable insulation. 
When workers removed semiconducting material from the cable during initial installation of the cable termination stress cone, the underlying cable dielectric insulation was scored, reducing its insulating effectiveness. This contributed to conditions which led to an arc fault in the affected 4160-volt cable. A contributing cause was lack of a post-installation test method which would be adequate to detect insulation deficiencies...
They are depending on the electrical procedures being correct. When skill of the craft is missing, then good procedures are worthless. These guys didn't have the electrical high voltage basic engineering skills to do this job.

I doubt this would ever happen again on this piece of equipment. The problem is if this is systemic, they could be ignoring problem or just being to stupid to understand other problems are developing.   
Corrective Actions 
Any changes to the corrective actions and schedules noted below will be made in accordance with the site's corrective action program.

• Affected equipment related to the event has been repaired, including the affected non-segregated bus housing, conductors and stress cones, and circuit breaker. These actions are completed. 
• The procedure for splicing and terminating wires and cables will be revised to include lessons
learned from this event, including the use of depth-limiting cutting tools and inspections for damage
after cutting operations are performed. This action is expected to be completed by June 30, 2016. 
• The procedure and work instructions for inspecting and cleaning the non-segregated busses will be
revised to eliminate the root causes of the water intrusion. This action is expected to be completed
by August 25, 2016. 
• An improved cable testing methodology will be specified in appropriate maintenance procedures. 
This action is expected to be completed by June 30, 2016.
• The non-segregated bus housing design will be presented for action by the site's Modification 
Review and Prioritization Team (MRPT) for scheduling and design work. This action is expected to be completed by June 30, 2016.