Xcel Energy still making big investments in nuclear power

As some U.S. utilities are abandoning old nuclear power plants, Xcel Energy says it’s investing $1.8 billion to extend the life of its 40-year-old Minnesota reactors.

At the company’s Prairie Island nuclear plant in Red Wing, Minn., 1,550 contract workers this fall will replace two massive steam generators — at $280 million, its single most costly improvement project. The plant was completed in 1974 at a cost of $350 million.

The Minneapolis-based utility’s other reactor, in Monticello, Minn., also is getting a $600 million upgrade that aims to keep it running safely and boost its output by nearly 13 percent.

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Nuclear plant at Monticello back up to full power

MONTICELLO, Minn. -- Seven days after two of Minnesota's three nuclear reactors were shut down, Xcel Energy's nuclear power plant at Monticello is operating at full power - but Unit 1 of the twin-reactor at Prairie Island's plant is still ramping up.

Both shutdowns happened Aug. 14 but were unrelated.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports Tuesday ( http://bit.ly/SkeuZn) that the Monticello plant began operating at full power Monday after workers repaired a leaking gasket on a structure that houses the reactor.

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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/21/4745279/nuclear-plant-at-monticello-back.html#storylink=cpy

Generator failures at nuclear power plant ‘very troubling’

According to Xcel Energy, operators at the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, in Minnesota, were forced to shut down one of two nuclear reactors early Tuesday morning when two diesel generators were determined to be inoperable during a monthly test. The unit is being shut down until the generators can be repaired. These generators are part of the safety systems in place to help maintain plant function in the event of a loss of offsite electricity.

"To have not just one, but both of the back-up diesel generators fail is very troubling,” said Johnny Johnson, tribal council president of the Prairie Island Indian Community, in a press statement. The twin nuclear reactors and 29 large steel nuclear waste storage casks sit just 600 yards from Prairie Island tribal homes. “We have been in touch with both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Xcel Energy and have been assured that today's forced shutdown of the Unit One reactor is not expected to result in any radiation releases.

“Despite these assurances, today's unplanned shutdown - and the unusual white steam clouds released throughout the day during the reactor shutdown - are ominous reminders of the fact that the 40-year old Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant operating a half-mile from our homes relies on aging technology.

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Minnesota nuclear plant alert short-lived on Tuesday

By: Danielle Nordine, The Republican Eagle

An emergency alert declared Tuesday at the Prairie Island nuclear plant came just more than two months after a more serious one following a bleach spill.

The plant declared a “notification of unusual event” at 6:24 Tuesday, and it was terminated by 11:36 a.m.

The alert was triggered by an indication that there was a decrease in water levels in the reactor coolant system in Unit 2, which is shut down for routine refueling. Further investigation revealed there was no leak, Xcel Energy officials said.

The alert was lifted following “thorough assessment of plant conditions” and Unit 2’s coolant system, Xcel officials said.

No radiation was released, there was no impact on the public or plant employees and plant operations were not affected by this event.

Unit 2 remains offline for its regular refueling outage, and Unit 1 is operating at full power.

The declaration is the lowest emergency level in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s classification system.

The NRC will fully investigate the cause of the incident, agency officials said.

In January a more serious alert — one step above Tuesday’s — went on for more than 10 hours as crews cleaned up more than 522 gallons of spilled bleach.

Unlike during that bleach spill, the local Emergency Response Center was not assembled Tuesday, Goodhue County Emergency Management Director Diane Richter-Biwer said. Only a handful of people are officially notified for an alert at the local level, though she said she told others “in case it did escalate.”

“But this appeared to be a very minor event and luckily it terminated and nothing happened,” she said.

Prairie Island Indian Community members also were alerted of the event and kept up to date on events, Tribal Council officials said in a statement.

But the issue is still a concern to them.

“Today’s event at Xcel’s plant, no matter how small, is another reminder to our community of the dangers that exist for us every single day living 600 yards from a nuclear power plant and 725 tons of nuclear waste,” the statement said.

Xcel officials said as a precautionary measure all outage work in the immediate area has been suspended, though work in other areas of the plant will continue.

“The schedule and timeline for the outage will be re-evaluated following the completion of the event investigation,” Xcel spokeswoman Patti Nystuen said in an email.

The plant has faced other issues recently.

On Feb. 11, Xcel officials announced that nearly 4,000 gallons of water containing “small amounts” of tritium and “trace amounts” of other chemicals had been released by the plant since November. Most recently, 27 gallons of water from the heating system had overflowed on Feb. 3. The water poses no risk to the public, officials said.

In mid-February Xcel was cited for a security issue at the plant, in August it was cited for a safety violation involving battery chargers and a handful of other minor problems also have occurred.

“Due to the critical nature of the nuclear power industry, every event — whether large or small — is thoroughly evaluated for opportunities to improve safety and reliability,” Nystuen said of the incidents.

Still, the Prairie Island Indian Community is worried about the number of problems recently.

“We find it difficult to dismiss what appears to be an increasing number of plant incidents as ‘minor’ or ‘isolated’ events,” the tribal council said. “We hope that measures will be taken to prevent any further occurrences.”

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Xcel Energy terminates 'notification of unusual event' at nuclear plant

A decrease in water levels inside the reactor coolant system at Xcel Energy's Prairie Island nuclear power plant near Red Wing, Minn., prompted officials to declare a "notification of unusual event" earlier today.

The declaration has since been terminated.

The reactor coolant system is located in Unit 2 and is currently undergoing a refueling outage, Xcel Energy officials said in a statement. Unit 1 continues to operate at full power.

An investigation, which continues, showed there was no leak in the system, and plant operations weren't impacted, officials said.

This notification is the lowest of four emergency classifications set by the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission.

It indicates a possible reduction in the level of safety at the plant "but no threat to public safety," officials said.

Xcel Energy to give 2 Minnesota nuclear plants post-Fukushima upgrades

MINNEAPOLIS

The owner of Minnesota's two nuclear power plants says it is preparing to spend $20 million to $50 million on safety upgrades and studies based on the lessons of the nuclear catastrophe in Japan a year ago this month.

Like other U.S. nuclear plant owners, Xcel Energy is buying more diesel pumps and portable generators that could be quickly deployed at its Monticello and Prairie Island plants if all backup electricity went out, as it did at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant.

"We are talking about large diesel pumps, with the capability of sucking water from the river and pumping it into the reactor vessel, similar to what the Japanese ultimately ended up doing," said Dennis Koehl, chief nuclear officer for the Minneapolis-based utility and a member of the industry's post-Fukushima steering committee.

The U.S. nuclear industry says these and other actions over several years will enhance the safety of the nation's 104 reactors at relatively modest cost. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week approved the first post-Fukushima measures, and plant owners likely will receive specific orders this week, just days before the March 11 anniversary of the disaster.

Yet some U.S. nuclear critics question whether the actions are sufficient, pointing with skepticism to the purchase of off-the-shelf pumps and backup generators, rather than more expensive equipment designed for nuclear power plants.

"This is a public relations measure to create the illusion that the industry is jointly taking the issue seriously," said Christopher Paine, who directs the nuclear watchdog program for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental group.

Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who was among the four commissioners to approve the Fukushima-related orders last week, expressed concern about delays, especially for plants needing study of earthquake risks. "I simply cannot accept a timeline that puts this issue well into the later part of the decade," he wrote.

Xcel's two nuclear plants are the two-unit Prairie Island station near Red Wing, 50 miles southeast of the Twin Cities, and the one-unit plant at Monticello, 40 miles to the northwest. Monticello has a General Electric Mark 1 boiling water reactor like those damaged in Japan.

Koehl said in an interview that Xcel's safety costs could climb as high as $250 million if the utility is required to purchase nuclear-qualified equipment and take other costly steps such as building earthquake-proof off-site buildings to store and protect it.

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which represents the industry, has directed its members to order portable response equipment this month. Xcel has already acquired five additional pumps, adding to the two it purchased after 9/11.

Last week at Monticello, Xcel officials showed two of the pumps that are parked in a warehouse not far from the reactor building. Trailers hold fire hoses and other equipment to bring river water to the plant in an emergency.

Under the industry's "flexible coping strategy" for a disaster, big-ticket items like filtration systems for radioactive water will be purchased by all plant owners and stored at one or more U.S. locations -- ready to be flown to a stricken plant.

Lessons from a disaster

Three of six Fukushima units were running when a record earthquake struck last March. The subsequent tsunami wiped out power lines and in-plant diesel backup generators, leaving about eight hours of battery life to control the plant.

Operators couldn't cool the reactors, resulting in damage to nuclear fuel and reactor cores, according to the NRC's account. At three units, hydrogen produced during the crisis exploded, damaging upper walls and roofs, exposing pools of spent fuel rods and releasing high levels of radioactivity.

It took the rest of the year for plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. to bring the damaged units into a state called cold shutdown.

One of the lessons the U.S. industry and its critics don't dispute is that nuclear power plants need more battery time to cope with a complete loss of power. That's something the NEI says has happened only once in the United States, at a Georgia reactor in 1990 and without disaster.

At many U.S. plants, including Monticello and Prairie Island, key batteries are rated for just four hours. Plant owners now are expected to extend that coping time, though the NRC hasn't said how or for how long, leaving plants to propose solutions to regulators.

At Prairie Island, for example, that may mean switching emergency lighting to other batteries that aren't critical to plant control, Xcel officals said.

Industry officials argue that many nuclear power plants, including Monticello, have multiple transmission lines connecting them to the grid, which lowers the risk of losing power. On the other hand, multiple-unit plants like Prairie Island have long counted on getting help during a disaster from an adjacent unit -- an assumption that proved wrong in Japan.

U.S. regulators, in the first of three phases of their post-Fukushima response, are expected this week to order plant owners to restudy earthquake and flood risks, improve emergency response and begin other safety-related improvements. Even in Minnesota, seismic studies are required, along with a fresh look at worst-case flood risks such as multiple dam failures.

Two other lessons from Japan are getting special attention. U.S. regulators want existing hydrogen vents on boiling-water reactors to be reliable during a crisis, which may require design changes. They also want more gauges to monitor pools holding spent fuel, which was exposed in the Japan disaster. Those fixes may not be in place for four years or more.

That's partly because engineers can't safely modify some equipment until plants are powered down for refueling, which typically occurs at intervals of 18 months or more, said Adrian Heymer, the NEI's executive director for Fukushima regulatory response.

"You don't want someone prying around in the back of a control cabinet or control room while you are at power," he said.

Safety measures not taken

Two nuclear industry watchdog groups have unsuccessfully urged regulators to consider doing more.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says the NRC should make operators of boiling-water reactors move spent fuel into dry steel casks in five years, instead of the more typical 10. The nonprofit group, which does not oppose nuclear power, also has urged better emergency cooling for the pools.

David Lochbaum, director of the group's nuclear safety project, said the explosions at Fukushima -- and subsequent open-air water pumping into the fuel pools -- prove that such changes are necessary.

"Had hydrogen not exploded those buildings, it would have been difficult to prevent damage to those pools," he said. "They would have no means to deliver water."

The NRDC's Paine unsuccessfully urged the NRC to order in-plant emergency systems driven by reactor steam. He said he now worries that the lessons learned in Japan will be lost in the NRC's slow, bureaucratic regulatory process.

"These serious accidents ... can happen and do happen, and they may happen more frequently as these plants get older," Paine said.

But Heymer of the NEI said the industry has learned from earlier accidents, and is doing the same after Fukushima.

"If you look at the improvements the industry has made, the possibility of getting to a reactor-damage situation have been reduced over the years quite dramatically," he said.

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Xcel’s Prairie Island Nuke Plant in Minnesota Vents Tritium

Xcel Energy Inc.’s Prairie Island nuclear plant in Minnesota released radioactive water in a leak from its condenser system.

The 27 gallons (102 liters) of condensate was released from a steam system overflow vent Feb. 3 and return pumps failed, causing a spill onto the ground at the plant 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Minneapolis, Mary Sandok, a spokeswoman for Xcel, said in an e-mail. The 551-megawatt Unit 1 and the 545-megawatt Unit 2 are operating at full power.

The release contained 15,000 picocuries per liter of tritium, a low-level radioactive form of hydrogen, according to a filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water standard for tritium allows 20,000 picocuries per liter, the NRC says on its website.

“Plant management has shut down the steam heating system while it investigates the matter, identifies the cause of the pump failure and corrects the equipment deficiencies,” Sandok said. “The overflow did not impact operations at the plant and there was no risk to the public or employees.”

The condenser system turns steam, which is heated by the reactor to drive turbines that produce electricity, back into water. The incident, which occurred in a warehouse being heating by the steam, follows a leak of sodium hypochlorite and other chemicals at the plant Jan. 1. Bleach is a solution of sodium hypochlorite.

The release also included methoxypropylamine, ammonia and hydrazine, the filing showed. The plant near Red Wing generates enough to power nearly 1 million homes, according to Xcel.

Tritium is produced in the upper atmosphere and falls to the ground in rain water, according to the NRC. It is also a byproduct of nuclear plants, a weak type of radiation that doesn’t penetrate the skin, the federal agency said.

Critics of nuclear energy say tritium causes cancer and gets into drinking water from leaky pipes at nuclear plants.

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