Tag Archives: Plant Vogtle

Test program meeting at Plant Vogtle –NRC and Southern Company 9 October 2013

Safety at Plant Vogtle, this Wednesday, with call-in number, by NRC and Georgia Power’s parent the Southern Company. One hour from 1 to 2PM is the public part, then 3 more hours closed “because the staff has determined that the information is proprietary in nature.” Why is nuclear testing affecting public safety proprietary?

It’s at Vogtle Training Center, 9034 River Road, Waynesboro, GA 30830, which is on the corner of the Plant Vogtle site. Do you get a tour of the construction if you appear in person? Here’s what it looks like in Georgia Power’s Vogtle 3 and 4 Construction Photos September 2013, and on google maps:


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Here’s the NRC meeting announcement: Continue reading

Former Japanese PM Koizumi calls for zero nukes

Current PM Shinzo Abe was his chosen successor, and now Junichiro Koizumi (prime minister 2001-2006) calls on Abe to end nukes in Japan. Why? “A large majority of the population now understands that nuclear energy is the most expensive form of power generation.” For sure here in Georgia, with Georgia Power charging through the nose for power customers aren’t even receiving while trying to hike the price of solar power, too. Let’s end Plant Vogtle and get on with renewable solar inland and wind off the coast.

Wolf Richter wrote for Zerohedge 4 October 2013, The End Of Nuclear Energy In Japan?

And on August 26, his words made it into the Mainichi Shimbun. If he were an active politician, he’d want “to convince lawmakers to move in the direction of zero nuclear plants,” he said. Now would be the ideal time to move that direction. All 50 nuclear reactors were off line. All opposition parties favored zero nuclear power. It could be done “as long as the prime minister made the decision” — putting the onus squarely on his former protégé. And nuclear politics in Japan haven’t been the same since.

The next blast came on September 24 at a forum in Tokyo. He talked about his trip to Finland in August. The purpose was to inspect the Onkalo spent-fuel repository. He was accompanied by Continue reading

GA PSC abdicates cost oversight for new nukes at Plant Vogtle

Finish it and then send we the taxpayers and ratepayers a bill? What kind of deal is that? So Southern Company already dodged a Fitch downgrade by delaying a decision, and now GA PSC wants to put it off for years more. That also delays solar deployment in Georgia, putting us still farther behind.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday, Ga. approves deal on nuclear plant costs,

A debate over the rising cost of building a nuclear power plant in Georgia will be delayed for years under an agreement approved Tuesday by Georgia’s utility regulators.

The elected members of Georgia’s Public Service Commission unanimously approved a deal that will put off a decision on whether Georgia Power can raise its budget for building two more nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl) until the first of those reactors is finished. An independent state monitor has estimated the first reactor will be finished in January 2018 at the earliest.

Regulators will continue monitoring company spending but will not make a decision on raising the bottom line budget figure.

So GA PSC will keep watching costs run over budget but will do nothing about it.

Oh, wait, it’s actually worse: Continue reading

Entergy shutting down Vermont Yankee nuke: tenth down or never to be built in past year

As Entergy has been preparing to do for some time, it’s down forever for Vermont Yankee. That’s at least ten (10) down forever (Vermont Yankee, Kewaunee, Crystal River 3, San Onofre 2 and 3) or never to be built (Calvert Cliffs 3, South Texas Nuclear Project 3 and 4, Bellefonte, and Levy County) in the past year. How many will it take before Southern Company (or more likely GA PSC or even the Georgia legislature) realizes new nukes make no financial sense and terminates the Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 boondoggle on the Savannah River?

Entergy blamed Vermont Yankee on shale gas, but you ain’t seen nothing yet, as Moore’s Law for solar really kicks in. Next one to go: I say Entergy’s often-down Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts; everything Entergy said about Vermont Yankee applies in spades to Pilgrim 1. Or maybe ten-times-down-this-year Palisades. Or bouncy man-killer Arkansas Nuclear One. So many to choose from!

Entergy PR on Market Watch today, Entergy to Close, Decommission Vermont Yankee –Decision driven by sustained low power prices, high cost structure and wholesale electricity market design flaws for Vermont Yankee plant –Focus to remain on safety during remaining operation and after shutdown,

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 27, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Entergy Corporation ETR -0.21% today said it plans to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, Vt. The station is expected to cease power production after its current fuel cycle and move to safe shutdown in the fourth quarter of 2014. The station will remain under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission throughout the decommissioning process.

“This was an agonizing decision and Continue reading

Last NRC call about foreign ownership of U.S. nuclear reactors: now until noon today

Call in this morning or send written comments. Here are the previous materials (this URL works; the one in the NRC PR is broken). See also NRC’s PR and Commission Direction. The nuclear industry has been pushing for changes for a year now; see more posts. Rather than relaxing rules on foreign ownership of operating reactors, how about stop accepting foreign nuke parts from the likes of document-forging Doosan, which supplies Plant Vogtle among a dozen or so other U.S. nukes?

Try joining the webinar from a Linux system and you get:

This system isn’t supported

Not supported Joining a session from this computer’s OS or web browser isn’t supported.
Please view the GoToWebinar system requirements.
Questions?
Contact Global Customer Support or tweet to us @gotowebinar.

They support Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android, but not Linux. Seriously? And NRC is asking technical questions?

NRC PR 7 August 2013, NRC Webinar Aug. 21 to Discuss Regulations On Foreign Ownership of U.S. Reactors, Continue reading

Down, up, down again: Arkansas Nuclear One

Entergy announced August 8th that its Arkansas nuke was back up after a man died there in March, but it only made it to 87% power on August 12th and then back to zero yesterday. There’s no NRC event for yesterday’s downtime: what’s going on? Meanwhile, the dead man’s family is suing Entergy, and Entergy is suing its contractors. Sounds like the Plant Vogtle circular firing squad.

ANO Feb-Aug 2013

THV11 wrote 8 August 2013, Nuclear One unit back on after deadly accident and EBR staff wrote more detail for Energy Business Review 9 August 2013, Entergy restarts Unit 1 at Arkansas Nuclear One power plant,

Prior to restart, the unit needed an extensive restoration, including damage evaluation, repairs to non-nuclear plant components and rescheduling its refueling activities.

The restoration was made compulsory following the collapse of a contractor’s crane on 31 March 2013, while shifting a generator stator out of the turbine building.

Hm, “made compulsory” by whom? NRC? OSHA, which also investigated? Arkansas? Other? Continue reading

Climate change adversely affecting U.S. power grid

Yes, and moving away from baseload coal, nukes, and natural gas and towards distributed solar and wind power will help with that, both directly by making the grid more resilient, and indirectly by slowing climate change.

Clare Foran wrote for NationalJournal 12 August 2013, Climate Change Is Threatening the Power Grid: So says the White House, in a new report that recommends strengthening the grid.

Just days away from the 10-year anniversary of the worst power outage in U.S. history, the White House and the Energy Department released a report on Monday evaluating the resiliency of the nation’s electric grid and recommending steps to prevent future blackouts.

The report called storms and severe weather “the leading cause of power outages in the United States,” and warned against the steep cost of weather-related damage to the electric grid. It put the price tag for electrical failures caused by inclement weather at between $18 billion and $33 billion annually, and noted that costs have increased in recent years, jumping from a range of $14 billion to $26 billion in 2003 to $27 billion to $52 billion in 2012. Storms exceeding a billion dollars in damages (electrical and otherwise) have also become more frequent in the past decade, as the chart below shows.

Well, Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear 1 (ANO1) is still down more than four months after a fatal accident (hey, look at that; Continue reading

New nukes make no financial sense –financial expert to GA PSC

If new nukes make no sense because of natural gas prices, they make even less sense with continually-dropping solar power prices.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday, Regulator: New nuke plant now wouldn’t make sense,

If Georgia was starting from scratch, it would not build a nuclear power plant….

An analyst working for state regulators, Philip Hayet, said in written testimony that the total costs of building two more nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl) is more expensive than the next-best option, constructing natural gas plants.

Still, Hayet said it is cheaper in most scenarios to finish the nuclear plant rather than halt the project and instead build natural gas plants.

But it’s not cheaper to finish a nuke than to halt it and get on with wind offshore and distributed solar power throughout Georgia.

GA PSC didn’t publish Hayet’s calculations, using the old excuse of “they involve proprietary financial information from Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power”. But Edison Electric Institute didn’t need any proprietary financial information to compute that Continue reading

VDT links Plant Vogtle nuke cost overruns to Kemper Coal

Even the VDT has caught on to cost overruns for Kemper Coal and the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.

VDT posted an AP article 29 July 2013, Miss. deal may figure into Georgia nuclear plant, and Charlotte Observer posted it the day before, including Ray Henry as the author,

In Mississippi, the Southern Co. utility took financial losses when the cost of building a new power plant went over budget. In Georgia, another of the company’s projects is going over budget, but it has not yet taken a financial hit.

Southern Company subsidiary Mississippi Power promised utility regulators that it would charge its customers only for $2.4 billion in costs for building a coal-fired power plant in Kemper Country. Those customers will also have to pay off another $1 billion in bonds for the project, though the utility cannot make a profit off that borrowed money.

The utility’s deal in Mississippi has become a point of debate as Georgia regulators consider who should pay for the increased cost of building two more nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl), southeast of Augusta. Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols said he wants Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power to consider a Mississippi-style deal here, and Georgia regulators are carefully tracking financial developments in Mississippi.

Echols said he was interested in the idea of a project spending cap.

“I’m sure when they made that deal they didn’t think they were going to over the cap, but they did,” Echols said.

Oh, come now, they went 26 times over budget last time. Why would anyone believe Continue reading

Fukushima has contaminated its aquifer; what about our aquifer?

Fukushima is dumping radioactive water into its aquifer. Plant Hatch is the same design and sits above the Floridan Aquifer we drink out of. Can’t happen here? On 19 December 2001 TEPCO said there was no possibility of a tsunami large enough to knock out Fukushima Daiichi. Plant Hatch is the same design as Fukushima, and while a tsunami really is unlikely at Hatch, for all we know Hatch still has substandard fire protection and the risk if Hatch does go bad is like the risk if a French reactor goes bad: soil contamination the size of France and Germany (or larger than Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and north Florida) plus radioactive contamination of the aquifer we drink out of.

Harvey Wasserman wrote for the Progress today, The Fukushima Nightmare Gets Worse, Continue reading