San Onofre layoffs raise questions about nuclear plant's future

More than six months after a leaking steam generator tube prompted a complete shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, Southern California Edison officials announced plans to lay off nearly one-third of its workforce, leading many to wonder if the troubled plant would ever fully reopen.

The company announced Monday a planned reduction of about 730 employees that will bring down staffing at the plant in northern San Diego County to 1,500. Details of the cuts will be worked out later this year, officials said.

Rochelle Becker, executive director of the watchdog group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said she believes the layoffs show Edison is being disingenuous about its plans for the plant.

"You can't lay off 700 people when you're trying to restart a plant — you hire more people when you have problems," Becker said. "I think the utility is being unfair to the ratepayers. I think they're being unfair to the workforce. I think if they're not going to operate this plant, they should come out and say they're not going to operate the plant."

On Jan. 31, one of the plant's steam generator tubes leaked, releasing a small amount of radioactive steam. The leak led to a complete shutdown of the plant and the eventual discovery of excessive wear on hundreds more tubes in the newly replaced steam generators.

Company officials have said that they hope to submit a restart plan for Unit 2 to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year, but have backed off from making any projections about if or when Unit 3 might return to service.

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Southern California Edison prepares for possible power outages

San Diego Gas and Electric officials warned residents in San Juan that meeting power demand during the upcoming months will be much tougher without the San Onofre Nuclear Plant that has been offline since January.

During Tuesday's City Council Meeting, Duane Cave, the external relations manager for SDG&E, said the loss of SONGS will negatively impact Southern California.

While the plant is operated by Southern California Edison, SDG&E owns a 20 percent stake in the plant that generated 16 percent of their company's power output when it was online.

"Without SONGS it is going to be very difficult," Cave said.

SDG&E provides power to San Diego County and South Orange County.

Cave said the months of August and September are the hottest in Southern California leading to late summer peak days in which the power grid is tested.

Peak demand is estimated at 46,352 megawatts statewide while the total instate generation of power is just 48,091 megawatts (without SONGS), according to SDG&E officials.

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Pilgrim nuclear plant shut down after condenser problem

By Colin A. Young, Globe Correspondent

Power production at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth was halted this afternoon when a condenser at the station lost vacuum pressure during a cleaning, forcing operators to shut down the entire plant, officials said.
Operators shut down the plant, which was operating at about 30 percent power at the time, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Plant operators initiated a manual “scram,” which “involves the control room operators inserting all of the control rods into the reactor core to halt the fissioning process,” according to Sheehan.
The condenser uses water from the bay to cool and convert into water the steam that was produced in the reactor and then used to spin the turbine to generate electricity, Sheehan said. The condenser operates in a vacuum to maximize efficiency, he said.
NRC inspectors at the plant “did not identify any safety concerns or performance issues,” Sheehan said. “They will follow the company’s efforts to troubleshoot the cause of the loss of condenser vacuum and any corrective actions.”
Rob Williams, a spokesman for Entergy Corp., the Louisiana-based company that has run the plant since 1999, said that the incident, which happened at 1:11 p.m., took the station off the power grid. The plant will remain shut down until investigators determine what caused the problem, Williams said.
“The technicians are now investigating the cause of that reduced condenser performance,” he said. “As we do with every shutdown, there will be a comprehensive investigation to look into what caused the condenser performance issue.”
Multiple failures by the control room staff at the station last spring sparked the power plant’s first emergency shutdown in years, according to a report released in September by the NRC, which issued a finding that the problems were likely serious enough to warrant a rigorous year-long review of the plant’s safety procedures.


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NRC chair: No timetable for Cal nuke plant restart

LOS ANGELES — The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday there is no timetable for restarting the sidelined San Onofre nuclear plant on the Southern California coast and a federal review of its troubled tubing will take whatever time is necessary to complete.
The statement from Chairman Gregory Jaczko came just days after a senior executive for operator Southern California Edison disclosed that the company was hoping for a possible June restart.
The twin reactors have been offline for more than three months while investigators look into excessive wear on tubing in the plant's steam generators.
The agency is waiting for documentation on repairs and other work at the plant.
"Any discussion of a date for the restart of Unit 2 or Unit 3 is clearly premature," Jaczko said. "We will take whatever time is necessary to conduct a thorough safety review."
A restart would require federal approval.
Last week, Edison executive vice president Stephen Pickett said the company was looking at the possible June restart. The company is drafting a plan under which the twin reactors would run at reduced power, at least for several months, because engineers believe that will solve a problem with vibration that has been causing unusual wear in alloy tubing.

Costs related to the long-running shutdown could climb over $100 million, company officials say, and state officials have warned about possible rotating blackouts in Southern California with the reactors offline.
About 7.4 million Californians live within 50 miles of San Onofre, which can power 1.4 million homes. The seaside plant is located between Los Angeles and San Diego.
The trouble at San Onofre began to unfold in late January, when the Unit 3 reactor was shut down as a precaution after a break in a steam generator tube carrying radioactive water. Traces of radiation escaped, but officials said there was no danger to workers or neighbors.
Unit 2 had been taken offline earlier that month for routine maintenance. But investigators later confirmed accelerated wear on tubing in both units. Hundreds of tubes that were heavily damaged will be taken out of service at the two reactors.
That number is well within the margin to allow them to keep operating, Edison officials say.
SCE projects that the bill for repairs and tests could run as high as $65 million, and $30 million was spent on replacement power through March 31 – a bill that keeps mounting.
Gradual wear is common in such tubing, but the rate of decay at San Onofre was startling because the equipment is relatively new. The generators were installed in a multimillion-dollar makeover in 2009 and 2010.
The plant is owned by SCE, San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside. The Unit 1 reactor operated from 1968 to 1992, when it was shut down and dismantled.

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Feds launch special inspection at Shearon Harris nuclear plant

By John Murawski - jmurawski@newsobserver.com\

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has launched a special inspection to figure out why a pair of safety valves failed to close last month at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant when the Wake County facility was shut down for refueling.
Four NRC inspectors will spend the week reviewing the mechanical malfunction at the nuclear plant, which is operated by Progress Energy and located less than 25 miles from downtown Raleigh.
The problem at Shearon Harris did not cause a safety hazard but could have jeopardized lives and equipment if the plant’s pipes had burst and blasted scalding steam onto equipment and plant workers, as has happened at other U.S. nuclear plants.

Because of the potential seriousness of the problem, the NRC launched the special inspection, which is more involved than a routine review.

Raleigh-based Progress has its own team investigating the mishap to determine if the enormous industrial valves can be repaired or if they will have to be replaced.
“There was no release of radiation, and the issue posed no threat to public health and safety,” said Progress spokesman Mike Hughes.
The Harris plant has three steam isolation valves that are designed to shut off the flow of high-pressure steam within 5 seconds.
Plant operators attempted to close the valves when they shut down the plant April 21 for a planned refueling. One of the valves took a half hour, and the other required three hours to close fully.
The steam isolation valves are designed to cut off the flow of steam in 32-inch pipes pressurized at 1,000 pounds per square inch, more than 100 times higher than household plumbing.
The Harris plant has several hundred feet of high-pressure steam pipes. The valves are essential safety equipment but too large to close manually and dependent on mechanized shut-downs, said Randy Musser, the NRC’s branch chief in the division of reactor projects.
“These are big valves, bigger than a person,” Musser said. “It wouldn’t be a pretty picture if one of those lines breaks.”
Pipe blowouts are rare but not unheard of. In 1996, seven plant workers at Duke Energy’s Oconee’s nuclear plant in South Carolina were burned when a pipe ruptured as they were working on equipment.
A decade earlier, the NRC investigated “a catastrophic failure” of a feedwater pipe when a valve failure did not stop a rupture that injured and killed workers at the Surry nuclear plant in Virginia.
The NRC’s special inspections team for Shearon Harris includes the NRC’s resident inspector at the plant as well as personnel from the NRC’s Region II office in Atlanta and NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md.
They will review Progress Energy’s actions leading up to the event to determine if the company committed any violations, and they will also examine the performance history of the valves to determine if they have a potential design flaw.
The final results of the review will be issued within 45 days of the completion of the inspection.

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Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/07/2049715/feds-launch-special-inspection.html#storylink=cpy

 

Regulators plan another Neb. nuclear plant meeting

BLAIR, Neb. — Federal regulators want another update on the Omaha Public Power District's efforts to improve the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant and preparations to restart it.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with OPPD officials in Blair on April 4. The meeting at Blair High School will begin at 6 p.m. Fort Calhoun is about 20 miles north of Omaha.Fort Calhoun has been shut down since last spring's refueling. Flooding along the Missouri River forced it to remain closed last summer.Now OPPD is working to repair flood damage and address concerns about Fort Calhoun's operations.Regulators are watching Fort Calhoun closely because several problems were found at the plant over the past couple years unrelated to last summer's flooding.
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Regulator to update environmental study on reactor near NYC

By Scott DiSavino

Fri Mar 16, 2012 4:32pm EDT

(Reuters) - Nuclear regulators plan to issue a new environmental report for Entergy Corp's Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York to update potential impacts on aquatic life in the Hudson River.

In a statement, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said its staff plans to have a draft supplement to the Final Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the plant's license renewal application ready for public comment later this year.

The update will be based on new information that has become available since the report was issued in December 2010.

In that 2010 environmental report, the NRC staff recommended the approval of a license extension for the plant.

Entergy filed in 2007 with the NRC to run the 2,063-megawatt (MW) nuclear plant for another 20 years after the plant's two reactor's original 40-year operating licenses expire in 2013 and 2015.

However, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants the plant shut in part because he thinks it is not safe to have a nuclear plant located in the heavily populated New York metropolitan area just 45 miles north of Manhattan.

In a statement, Entergy said it "appreciates the opportunity to provide to the NRC additional data on the record that we believe helps demonstrate Indian Point will comply with environmental regulations under a renewed license."

The NRC said it will evaluate new information on endangered species and details from Entergy on the danger to fish from the plant's water intake and cooling systems.

The water in the reactor does not mix with the river water.

Entergy will still have a long wait before the commission decides whether to renew the Indian Point licenses.

The NRC's judicial arm, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), is not expected to hold evidentiary hearings until later this year on the 15 or so contentions already filed with the agency against the renewal.

Riverkeeper, an environmental group, and others have said they plan to file additional contentions based on the Atlantic sturgeon, which is present in the Hudson River, being listed as an Endangered Species.

Gov. Christie Says New Nuclear Plant Would Help Solve New Jersey Energy Needs

Location: New Jersey
By Elise Young and Julie Johnsson - Mar 6, 2012 3:22 PM PT

New Jersey (STONJ1) Governor Chris Christiesaid a new nuclear plant would help solve the state’s energy needs.

“We have to look at building another nuclear plant,”Christie, a first-term Republican, said at a town hall in Ocean Township. “Fifty-three percent of our electricity comes from nuclear power.”

New Jersey has four reactors at three nuclear power stations.

Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PEG) began the federal paperwork in May 2010 for new nuclear development near its plant outside Salem, New Jersey. PSEG delivers power to about three-quarters of New Jersey’s residents.

Construction wouldn’t begin any time soon, Joe Delmar, spokesman for PSEG Nuclear, a unit of the Newark-based power company, said in a phone interview.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission isn’t slated to decide whether the proposed location is suitable for nuclear construction before late 2014, Delmar said.

Once the federal atomic agency grants the permit that Public Service seeks, the company would have 20 years to seek construction and operating licenses from the NRC. Public Service hasn’t decided how many reactors it would construct or what design it would employ, Delmar said.

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NC Brunswick 1 reactor manually shut

Feb 23 (Reuters) - Progress Energy Inc manually shut the 938-megawatt Unit 1 at the Brunswick nuclearpower plant in North Carolina early Thursday after a problemwith the plant's emergency core cooling system, the company toldregulators in a report. The unit shut from 73 percent power, after being reducedfrom 88 percent output, according to reports from the U.S.Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A Progress spokesman said the plant experienced anelectrical fault Wednesday evening that led to a loss of powerto the emergency core cooling system for both units. Temporarypower was restored to the emergency cooling system, but the lossof power for Unit 1's circulating water intake pumps requiredthat the unit be manually shut. The shutdown went safely and workers are currently replacingthe electrical bus to restore the normal power supply, thespokesman said. Unit 1 is scheduled to refuel early next month, according toReuters data. The spokesman said Unit 1 will be brought online as soon asthe repairs are made and operate until its planned refueling. Output at Unit 2, rated at 920 MW, was trimmed to 95 percentfrom 100 percent a day earlier.