Tag Archives: Plant Vogtle

NRC to change nuke foreign ownership so EDF can fire up Calvert Cliffs?

The NRC “upheld” license denial for the Calvert Cliffs nuke with its fingers crossed, the very same day directing staff to look into changing the requirement by which it just ruled. A requirement against majority ownership by a foreign firm, in this case Électricité de France (EDF), whose flagship Cattenom reactor caught on fire a week ago with smoke seen from miles away; two people died at Cattenom in February. You can comment on NRC’s proposed changes to let EDF fire up Calvert Cliffs online or in person June 19th in Maryland.

The same day the NRC upheld denial of a license, 11 March 2013, the same Commission

“directed the staff to provide a fresh assessment on issues relating to FOCD including recommendations on any proposed modifications to guidance or practice on FOCD that may be warranted.”

And the issue with Calvert Cliffs was that very same “foreign ownership, control, or domination (FOCD) of commercial nuclear power plants.”

This explains why Continue reading →

More new nukes to stop: Vogtle, Summer, and 15 more

Although TVA’s Bellefonte nuke will never come up, others are still being built, including TVA’s own Watts Bar, plus 19 more.

Document-forging Doosan-supplied Vogtle 2 and 3 in Georgia and Summer 2 and 3 in South Carolina are the only four actually already issued combined licences (COL) to build and operate.

But 15 other proposed new reactors are “Under Review”, and all the ones in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are within 500 miles of here: Continue reading →

Birds stop cleanup work at closed Hanford plutonium plant

Birds nested using radioactive mud from WW II-era nuclear bomb production plant, stopping attempts to clean up some of the worst leaking atomic waste, much of which is liquid in leaking tanks near the Columbia River. We have nuclear plants leaking radioactive tritium next to the Chattahoochee and Altamaha Rivers, and radiation is detectible in the Savannah River near Plant Vogtle. How many radioactive solar panels or windmills have you heard of?

Annette Cary wrote for the Tri-City Herald yesterday, Birds at Hanford vit plant spread contaminated waste,

Work stopped Wednesday morning at parts of the Hanford vitrification plant after radioactive contamination was detected under a bird’s nest, according to Bechtel National.

The contamination is suspected of coming from mud used for the nest, which may have belonged to a swallow, said Bechtel spokesman Todd Nelson. Only a small amount of contaminated soil was found, and the contamination was at a low level.

Should workers believe that?

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Groundwater wall at Fukushima

Same design as Plant Hatch, which is leaking radioactive tritium into our groundwater. And when contamination gets into the watershed it doesn’t go away; there’s not even an ocean at Hatch or Vogtle for it to disperse into.

Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada wrote for Bloomberg News today, Japan Orders Tepco to Build Underground Wall at Fukushima Plant

The Japanese government ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. to build an underground wall at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to prevent groundwater from flowing into basements of reactor buildings.

The government plans to set up a task force with Tokyo Electric, construction companies and plant makers by the end of June to discuss the details, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi said today in Tokyo. He made the remarks at a meeting with Naomi Hirose, the utility’s president, which was open to reporters.

Tepco has struggled Continue reading →

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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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 →

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 →

Poor Southern Company: losing money on Kemper Coal in Mississippi

Apparently $1.88 billion wasn’t enough for Southern Company to charge the ratepayers of Mississippi Power enough for their “clean coal” plant. “Escalating costs”: kind of like SO’s new nukes at Plant Vogtle? Southern Company CEO Fanning says “I know people will try and link those, but they are not at all even similar.” What do you think?

Kristi Swartz wrote for the AJC 24 April 2103, Miss. power plant costs hurt Southern Co. profit,

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How can we get Georgia to move ahead in solar power?

If we can’t expect Georgia Power or Southern Company to change their tune about solar power, what can we do? Legislate and raise public pressure, while getting on with installing what solar power we can.

Maybe it’s time to pass something like HB 267 that would limit Georgia Power’s profits on that 19-month-late and $1 billion over budget nuclear boondoggle at Plant Vogtle. Instead of pouring more money down that broken concrete pit on the Savannah River, we need something like GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act, to fix Georgia’s special solar financing problem, the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act. That’s the 40-year-old antiquated law that SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning says “we need to protect”. Maybe SO does, for Fanning’s huge raises in compensation. Georgia Power and SO are not only defending that antique law, they’re preventing a Georgia Renewable Portfolio Standard (REPS) by stopping passage of bills like HB 503. Georgia Power, SO, and super-lobby ALEC systematically oppose renewable energy standards. They do this so successfully there are no REPS in Southern Company (SO)’s service territory, nor in most of SO’s surrounding “Competitive Generation Opportunities” states. One of the few exceptions is North Carolina, and a bill was introduced there to eliminate NC’s REPS.

Maybe it’s even time to do something about Georgia Power’s 11% guaranteed profit. Isn’t Georgia Power supposed to be a utility operating for the good of Georgians? Why does it get a guaranteed profit to pass on to Southern Company shareholder dividends and SO executive bonuses?

Georgia Power and even Southern Company could suddenly flip for solar power like Austin Energy did in 2003 and Cobb EMC did in 2012. But that probably won’t happen without a lot of public pressure, legal requirements by the Georgia legislature or PSC, or a shareholder revolt. So let’s start with the public pressure….

-jsq