Tag Archives: NRC

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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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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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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Two former national nuclear regulatory chiefs: stop nukes

Last month former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Jaczko said all 104 operating U.S. nuclear power reactors are unsafe. This month former Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board Chair Gopalakrishnan says the reactors currently building in India, already three years behind schedule and now found to incorporate numerous defects and deficiencies amid gross lack of transparency, must be stopped. When will the NRC stop the restart of the flawed and non-transparent San Onofre 2? When will the NRC or GA PSC or the GA legislature or even Southern Company coming to its senses stop the 19-month-late $1-billion-overbudget flawed-concrete Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 before they waste any more of our resources that could be going to solar and wind jobs and energy?

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Believe So. Cal. Edison about San Onofre?

Should we believe the operator of the broken San Onofre 2 nuclear plant that it’s safe to restart at 70% power? The same operator that knew the now-broken steam generators were flawed before it installed them? Recommended by the same NRC staff who couldn’t answer opponents’ questions? The same NRC that doesn’t publish licensee documents and says that’s never been a practice?

SanDiego6.com wrote yesterday, Sen. Boxer Blasts Report on San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,

On Monday, Southern California Edison announced it had formalized a request to amend its operating license to allow it to operate its Unit 2 reactor at 70 percent beginning June 1.

The reactor was undergoing scheduled maintenance in January 2012 when a small, non-injury leak was discovered in plant’s other reactor. The plant has been shut down since.

According to Edison, vibrations that led to premature wearing of steam pressure tubes in the reactors don’t occur at 70 percent power. The utility wants to operate on limited power for the five warm weather months and then shut down for an inspection of the tubes.

After the inspection, the reactor would resume operating at 70 percent power. The company said it would use the collected tube data to determine an appropriate power setting for the long term.

There’s the catch:

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Activists Grill NRC on San Onofre Restart

Ecological Options Network (EON) posted video of public comments at the latest Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) meeting about restarting San Onofre 2, where documents indicate Southern California Edison knew the new steam generators were defective years before they even installed them.

EON noted:
In these video excerpts from the 4-3-2013 NRC webcast, informed activists hammer the NRC staff and SoCal Edison reps with penetrating comments and questions about apparently collusive fast-track plans to restart one of San Onofre’s broken reactors—in a tsunami and earthquake zone, in the middle of a strategic U.S. military base, in a surrounding urban area with a population of 8.5 million people—a plant that is not cost-effective 99% of the time, operated by a utility with the worst safety record in the country.

What could possibly go wrong?

Participants include Ace Hoffman, David Freeman, Kendra Ulrich, Dan Hirsch, John Geesman, Ray Lutz, Gary Headrick and Myla Reson.

Activists just helped convince NRC to deny a license for Calvert Cliffs 3 in Maryland, and Continue reading →

Even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts, and most nukes leak tritium.

Received yesterday on Nuclear Plant Hatch radioactive leaks. Tritium (3H, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) is the stuff nuclear Plant Hatch is letting leak into our groundwater. NRC lists 44 leaking sites out of 65 active reactor locations. No solar or wind plants leak tritium. -jsq

In case you haven’t seen this yet: TRITIUM: HEALTH CONSEQUENCES. Excerpt:

Most studies indicate that tritium in living creatures can produce

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Nuclear Plant Hatch radioactive leaks

The NRC publishes annual Radioactive Effluent and Environmental Reports for every operating nuclear power reactor. The reports for Plant Hatch 1 & 2 say radioactive tritium has repeatedly leaked into the soil and groundwater, but the internal swamp is getting less radioactive. Reports like this are not needed for wind or solar plants.

Plant Hatch Unconfined Perched Aquifer Tritium Concentration November 2011
Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Reports for 2011

According to a 2007 Industry Groundwater Protection Initiative Voluntary Data Collection Questionnaire,

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SC Edison knew San Onofre nuke steam generators were flawed before installation

Southern California Edison knew the new steam generators were defective years before then even installed them in the San Onofre nuclear reactors, acccording to a report just released. These are the generators that failed and caused both San Onofre reactors to shut down. SD Edison wants to restart one of them, and this document came out in that process. Southern Company would never do this, right? We shouldn’t worry about failed concrete or 15, no now 19, months delay while the Georgia legislature won’t even limit charges to Georgia Power customers for cost overruns. Nope, no worries.

Friends of the Earth PR 8 March 2013, San Onofre: Secret Report Confirms Edison Knew of Major Problems; Friends of the Earth: ‘Bombshell’ for plans to restart crippled reactor

WASHINGTON—March 8—A secret Mitsubishi Heavy Industries report released today confirms that Southern California Edison knew about serious problems in the radically redesigned replacement steam generators for the San Onofre nuclear reactors years before the defective equipment was installed, yet failed to make changes to fix the problems. The report was released today by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) revealed its existence and demanded it be made public.

The report documents that Edison knew

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