Category Archives: Nuclear

Nuclear reactor percent power from NRC data

Do nuclear reactors really deliver dependable baseload capacity? I hear industry execs say 99.99% uptime. The real average from seven years of NRC data for 104 reactors is 88.13%.

Vogtle 1 According to Power Reactor Status Reports posted online by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, here are the actual percent power percentages over time for the 104 listed nuclear power reactors. The timeframe is 31 March 2006 through today, 21 May 2013. (The NRC data appears to go back to 1999, but seven years is a good sample to start with.) The computation for each reactor is the sum of the uptime percentages for each day divided by the number of days. The total uptime is the sum of the reactor uptimes divided by the number of reactors. Here’s the list, sorted two ways:

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Canadian nuke nearly melted down in February

A senior plant official happened to spot a human-caused cooling shutdown at a Canadian nuclear reactor, narrowly averting a meltdown.

Ian McCleod wrote for ENENews 15 May 2013, ‘Significance Level 1′ incident at nuclear reactor — “The highest order” — Public not alerted by officials — Characterized as ‘near miss’

[…] a Chalk River nuclear operator mistakenly closed a vital pumping system that cools the immense heat generated within the NRU reactor’s core […]

[…] the Crown corporation said the Feb. 27 event — which the official report characterized as a “near-miss” — needs to be taken very seriously. […]

[Randy Lesco, vice-president of operations and chief nuclear officer for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd] said that further categorizing the incident as at “Significance Level 1,” the highest order, means AECL is treating it with appropriate importance […]

CNSC President Michael Binder questioned why AECL and CNSC staff did not alert the public to the incident, which the Citizen first reported on May 8. […]

And why didn’t the reactor have automatic alerts? Ian MacCleod wrote for the Ottawa Citizen 7 May 2013, Human error blamed for “near-miss” at Chalk River reactor

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San Onofre Off Forever Soon

People standing up for safety and sanity may yet stop big business nukes. After San Onofre is finally off for good, how about let’s cancel Plant Vogtle? -jsq

Harvey Wasserman wrote for nukefree.org 16 May 2013, San Onofre at the No Nukes Brink,

In January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would be a corporate cake walk.

Edison billed southern California ratepayers roughly $1 billion for San Onofre in 2012 even though it generated no juice.
With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison was ready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched $770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart: a No Nukes groundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic battle the grassroots just might win.

Indeed, if ever there was a time when individual activism could have
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No San Onofre nuke startup decision until June at least –NRC Chair

Two more victories for anti-nuke activists: San Onofre restart decision pushed back at least until June, and webcasts of California Public Utilities Commission hearings going on right now.

Abby Sewell reported for the L.A. Times yesterday, Decision on San Onofre pushed back to June at the earliest,

The plant’s operator Southern California Edison had hoped at one point to have one of the plant’s two units operating by summer, but NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane made it clear that will not happen.

Macfarlane told reporters Tuesday after a speech, “You know, the process is very complicated now. Almost every day it gets a little more complicated…. Right now I can tell you a decision on restart won’t happen until the end of June, certainly after the middle of June.

“It may get pushed back later,” she said. “I don’t know.”

She didn’t say much about the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) decision to require NRC public hearings before any decision on restarting San Onofre, but she did say this:

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NRC tries to ignore hearing requirement for San Onofre nuke restart

Maybe the ASLB was referring to some other NRC that should hold public hearings? The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) agreed with Friends of the Earth (FOE) when it ruled that restarting either San Onofre unit requires a full public hearing like a trial, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) interprets that as having nothing to do with its own staff decision process. This is after the city of Los Angeles (and numerous other southern California cities and the San Diego Unified School District) said it didn’t want any decision about restarting any San Onofre reactor/ without a full, transparent, public decision process. The L.A. Times says all this is creating “confusion”. Just last week I heard Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers say confusion was bad for business. Maybe it will be bad not just for Southern California Edison and its San Onofre nukes, but also for Georgia Power and Southern Company’s 19-month-late and billion-over-budget nuclear boondoggle at Plant Vogtle.

Abby Sewell wrote for the L.A. Times yesterday 7:24 PM, San Onofre ruling creates confusion,

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The Super Bowl of disruptive distributed energy: Georgia Power and Southern Company are losing

It’s literally game-changing time with solar power at the electric utilities, while Georgia Power and Southern Company are sticking with big baseload nuclear, “clean coal”, and natural gas. They cannot win if they don’t even try.

Steven Schultz wrote for Physorg 6 May 2013, Growth of ‘distributed’ electricity generation could transform utility systems,

(Phys.org) —The U.S. electric utility industry faces a critical juncture as new technology and declining prices allow a more “distributed” system of small-scale generators, renewable energy installations and energy-efficiency strategies, according to a group of high-level energy industry executives and regulators who met at Princeton University recently.

“We have a monumental challenge,” said Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who participated in the all-day meeting Friday, April 26. Citing commentary by an analyst who warned of a potential “train wreck” in the industry, Wellinghoff outlined converging tends in which technological advances are allowing consumers and companies to take matters of reliability, security and efficiency into their own hands, while utility companies are under pressure to maintain and upgrade a national electricity system that is broadly accessible.

“Everybody saw the Super Bowl,” Wellinghoff said, referring to the half-hour blackout that disrupted the 2013 football championship.

He didn’t mention that after blacking out the Super Bowl Continue reading →

Look at Southern Company’s safety performance –SO CEO Fanning

SO CEO Fanning on Fukushima At last year’s Southern Company Stockholder Meeting, Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning said about the U.S. nuclear industry and Southern Company’s safety performance:

And if you look at our performance, we absolutely meet the standards that our customers expect and frankly deserve. So let’s start there.

Since then SO has not managed to pour the concrete base correctly at Plant Vogtle and not managed to get a reactor vessel from Savannah port to the site. Also existing Vogtle Unit 1 had a fire while Unit 2 was shut down for almost all of March 2013. The two Plant Hatch reactors, same design as Fukushima, so far as we know still have substandard fire protection and has a chronic problem of radioactive tritium leaking into groundwater. Tritium, even the smallest amounts of which can have negative health effects. And what gets into the watershed spreads in the watershed. The U.S. nuclear industry in general has problems with alcohol, drugs, and broken equipment. But back to SO CEO Fanning about Fukushima: Continue reading →

San Onofre inside source: keep it shut down

An employee still inside and a longtimer since retired both say the San Onofre nuclear reactor should stay shut down. Operator Southern California Edison says it’s safe to restart at 70% power, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t show the public Socal Edison’s study about that. Which seems safest to you? Trust the operator that let it break in the first place, or keep it shut down?

JW August wrote for 10bnews.com 25 April 2013, San Onofre insider says NRC should not allow nuclear restart: Team 10 speaks with former NRC employee, insider,

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Your jaw will drop with astonishment at how fast solar power will beat every other energy source –a stock trader

A stock trader looked for causes of solar stock price rises and considered the effects of solar PV price drops, and realized solar power is going to beat every other energy source so fast that it “will make your jaw drop with astonishment.”

Michael Sankowski wrote for Business Insider 3 May 2013, Solar Is Going To Change The World Much Faster Than Anyone Expects,

6% year is a fantastic rate of decreases, but 20% is simply astonishing. 20% is an impressive number, but putting it into context will make your jaw drop with astonishment.

My calculations show that if solar maintains 5 more years at current 23% rates per year price drops, solar power will be cheaper than using existing coal plants. That’s right — it will be cheaper to build new solar plants than to use existing coal plants. It sounds absolutely crazy.

First he discovers the effects of no fuel for solar in Continue reading →

Bloomberg links MS Kemper Coal cost overruns to GA Plant Vogtle nukes

Betty Liu of Bloomberg quizzes Thomas A. Fanning of Southern Company Bloomberg has video of Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning trying to explain away how cost overruns at SO’s nuclear Plant Vogtle in Georgia are linked to cost overruns SO’s coal Plant Kemper in Mississippi.

Betty Liu: This project along with the Vogtle project… has some investors wondering maybe Southern Company has stretched itself too thin, with these two major projects you’ve got under way….

Fanning: In fact, the Vogtle project is going beautifully. We have delayed the in-service date by a year, but….

That’s funny, GA PSC and the AJC say Continue reading →