Tag Archives: reactor

Vogtle nuclear reactor train wreck

Ever wondered what a nuclear reactor vessel looks like? Here’s one that’s literally a train wreck, on its way to Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River.

Rob Pavey wrote for the Augusta Chronicle 10 January 2013, Vogtle reactor vessel slips between Savannah, Burke County,

A 300-ton reactor vessel bound for Plant Vogtle was stranded briefly in south Georgia this week after a malfunction with the specially designed rail car moving the nuclear component from Savannah to Burke County. Workers examine a rail car that was transporting a 300-ton reactor vessel from the Port of Savannah to the Plant Vogtle nuclear site in Burke County. A misalignment between the cargo platform and the rail car caused the component to be returned to Savannah.

“The platform that contained the RV (reactor vessel) during transport became misaligned with the Schnabel railcar, so the railcar stopped immediately,” said Georgia Power Co. spokesman Mark Williams. “The platform and car were re-aligned the same day and safely returned to the port.”

The Schnabel railcar, which features extra axles that help distribute and support the weight of heavy objects, did not break, he said. Georgia Power would not divulge the location of the incident.

I wonder what the locals think. We’d ask them, if we knew where they were.

Well, that’s the only mishap so far, right?

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Nukes economically hard to justify —GE CEO Immelt

The CEO of General Electric, the company that designed the reactors at Fukushima and Hatch 1 and 2, said nukes are economically hard to justify. And that was back in July, before the first new nukes permitted in 30 years, at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River, slipped 15 months. What’s winning? Shale gas, temporarily, but that’s just a bump in the road on the way to wind and solar power.

Pilita Clark wrote for Financial Times 30 July 2012, Nuclear ‘hard to justify’, says GE chief,

Nuclear power is so expensive compared with other forms of energy that it has become “really hard” to justify, according to the chief executive of General Electric, one of the world’s largest suppliers of atomic equipment.

“It’s really a gas and wind world today,” said Jeff Immelt, referring to two sources of electricity he said most countries are shifting towards as natural gas becomes “permanently cheap”.

“When I talk to the guys who run the oil companies they say look, they’re finding more gas all the time. It’s just hard to justify nuclear, really hard. Gas is so cheap and at some point, really, economics rule,” Mr Immelt told the Financial Times in an interview in London at the weekend. “So I think some combination of gas, and either wind or solar … that’s where we see most countries around the world going.”

GE CEO Immelt may also want to talk to GE’s own research director Continue reading →

Florida Crystal River nuke down $5 billion?

Only 160 miles from here, the Crystal River nuclear reactor continues to run up a bad bill, maybe as much as $5 billion, and even other nuclear operators are reportedly starting to turn against it. Should we wait for the new nukes on the Savannah River to run up a bill that high before we cancel them?

Remember back in May?

Florida is already experiencing a likely future for the new Plant Vogtle nukes in Georgia: completion date pushed back, and customer charges raised.

Yep, that’s the one. And the bill keeps going up, as Ivan Penn wrote for the Tampa Bay Times 30 December 2012, Utilities nationwide could share the financial pain of the idled Crystal River nuclear plant,

The crippled Crystal River nuclear plant is now America’s headache.

The bill to fix it and pay for replacement power may top $5 billion. The problem?

The company that insures all 104 U.S. nuclear power plants has just $3.6 billion on hand to pay for claims.

Broken nuclear plants in California, Texas and Michigan will vie for some of that money. But Crystal River alone represents such a financial threat that the insurance company, Nuclear Electric Insurance Ltd., may demand that its member utilities pony up more money.

Is NEIL the guarantor on the bonds for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle? I think Southern Company was smarter (for SO, not for us) and got Congress to guarantee those. If so, Continue reading →

NRC says it’s “never been a practice” to show licensee documents to the public

After Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth asked about some licensee documents related to last week’s NRC hearing in faraway Maryland on restarting California’s San Onofre nuclear reactor, NRC’s David Beaulieu expanded on NRC’s refusal to divulge the documents.

Here’s the video:

Video by Myla Reson at NRC, Maryland, 18 December 2012.

You can hear him say it’s “never been a practice” to let the public see licensee documents. But if they’re being used in making a license decision, why doesn’t that make them public documents accessible by the public? Oh, right “it’s very complex” but “it’s a yes or no question” and “I will assess”, he says. It’s good to be king!

I wonder if the public had some assurance of transparency maybe the NRC wouldn’t get so many FOIA requests?

Remember, this is the same NRC that gave 100-mile-from-here same-design-as-Fukushima Plant Hatch a 20 year license extension, and the same NRC that gave Plant Vogtle a clean bill of health at a public meeting two days before Unit 1 shut down, and the same NRC that could stop the new nukes there even if the GA PSC won’t.

What if we deployed solar power instead, on budget and on time?

-jsq

Kewaunee nuke is shutting down; why are we building more at Vogtle?

Dominion Power is shutting down a nuke because it can’t compete economically. Why are we letting Georgia Power charge us up front and load us up with debt to build a nuke we already know can’t compete economically? After all, if it could, it wouldn’t need three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool that we the rate-payers and taxpayers are already paying on, instead of getting on with solar and wind power.

According to 22 October 2012 PR from Dominion Power:

Dominion (NYSE: D) today said it plans to close and decommission its Kewaunee Power Station in Carlton, Wis., after the company was unable to find a buyer for the 556-megawatt nuclear facility.

According to Dominion:

Kewaunee, Dominion’s fourth nuclear station, generates 556 megawatts of electricity from its single unit. That’s enough to meet the needs of 140,000 homes.

The station began commercial operation in 1974…

1974? That’s the same year as Plant Hatch Unit 1, on the Altamaha River 100 miles from here. (Hatch Unit 2 came online in 1978.) But the Hatch reactors were relicensed in 2002 extending their lifetimes 20 years out to 2034 and 2038, so they won’t be closing, right?

Well, maybe they could. Howard A. Learner wrote for JSOnline 30 October 2012, Market has spoken in Kewaunee shutdown,

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NRC doesn’t publish nuclear licensing documents

Kendra Ulrich of FOE at NRC Did you know the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t publish nuclear licensee documents? Hear them say it on this video of Tuesday’s NRC “public meeting” in Maryland about restarting the San Onofre reactor in California. This is the same NRC that gave Plant Vogtle a clean bill of health at a public meeting two days before Unit 1 shut down, and the same NRC that could stop the new nukes there even if the GA PSC won’t. Plant Hatch This same NRC recertified Plant Hatch on the Altamaha in Georgia, extending the original 40 year design lifespan of Unit 1 from 2014 to 2034 and of Unit 2 from 2018 to 2038. But don’t worry; if you’re farther than 10 miles from Hatch, you’re outside the evacuation zone, so you must be safe, right? Just study the licensing documents to see; oh, wait!

Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth asked the NRC some simple questions that stumped the Commissioners and staff. She wondered when the public could expect to see a a 50-59 analysis California Edison had done about restarting San Onofre. Dave Beaulieu, NRC Generic Communications Branch, said it was a “licensee document, licensee documents are not made public.” He did say NRC would release its own inspection results. She asked again, and Rick Daniel, NRC meeting facilitator suggested she submit written questions. Beauleiu summarized:

“At the end of the day, licensee documents are not made public; that’s the answer.”

So what would be the point of her submitting questions when she was just told they won’t make the answers public?

Ulrich continued by asking why NRC was considering going ahead on the basis of experimental data that has never been used before and that has not been made public. Remember this is about a nuclear reactor that was shut down because it was leaking. That question sure caused some passing of the buck and pretending not to understand the question by everybody in the room who should have been able to answer the question.

Here’s the video:

Video by Myla Reson, 18 December 2012, Maryland.

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Supplier diversity outreach –David ? @ SO 2012-05-23

What about supplier diversity outreach efforts at Southern Company (SO), asked David (didn’t get his last name; sorry). SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning responded that those efforts were critically important, and part of how they got paid. CEO Fanning added:

When you think about building a nuclear plant, you’re procuring great big huge scale equipment. The minority suppliers really don’t lend themselves to say a gigantic steam turbine or a reactor vessel. But where we can use diverse suppliers in our supply chain efforts, we absolutely do undertake to make sure that they have an opportunity to compete for the business, and we can coach them along to make sure that they are ultimately successful.

Perhaps this monoculture of suppliers for huge equipment is yet another flaw in building mainframes in a networked-tablet world. They could get a lot more diversity by deploying solar power plants throughout sunny south Georgia, especially if they included financing housetop and business roof solar.

Earlier CEO Fanning had gone on at some length about diversity on SO’s all-white board, saying that SO didn’t measure diversity by such metrics as race or ethnicity or gender. Some people wonder if they measure it by different majors at Auburn or Georgia Tech. Not to be ungenerous, I do applaud SO for their diversity outreach efforts.

Here’s the video:

Supplier diversity outreach –David ?
Shareholder Meeting, Southern Company (SO),
Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, 23 May 2012.
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Nuclear’s “bet-the-farm” risk —Moody’s

Wonder why Southern Company couldn’t get private financing for its new nukes at Plant Vogtle? Because back in June 2009 bond-rater Moody’s said this:

But from a credit perspective, the risks of building new nuclear generation are hard to ignore, entailing significantly higher business and operating risk profiles, with construction risk, huge capital costs, and continual shifts in national energy policy.

In case that wasn’t clear enough, they spelled it out further.

Nuclear’s “bet-the-farm” risk

The NRC says about 14 companies to date have submitted COL applications, proposing numerous new nuclear reactors for power generation. The first of these COL’s is expected to be approved beginning in mid-2011. Many of the COL license applications include partners, but the next table lists the primary holding company entity behind each project, and our view of the activity level associated with the endeavor.

From a credit perspective, companies that pursue new nuclear generation will take on a higher business and operating risk profile, pressuring credit ratings over the intermediate- to long-term.

Moody’s wraps up with some reassuring words for financiers, but maybe not so reassuring to we the taxpayers:

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New nukes increasingly bad business bet for Southern Company and Georgia Power

Harvey Wasserman wrote for HuffPost 9 April 2012, America’s 2 New Nukes Are on the Brink of Death,

The only two U.S. reactor projects now technically under construction are on the brink of death for financial reasons.

If they go under, there will almost certainly be no new reactors built here.

The much mythologized “nuclear renaissance” will be officially buried, and the U.S. can take a definitive leap toward a green-powered future that will actually work and that won’t threaten the continent with radioactive contamination.

Those are the stakes. And in that high-stakes poker game, it seems Southern Company is doing a little bluffing.

In Southern Company’s (SO) Q1 2012 Earnings Call 25 April 2012, its CEO Thomas Fanning revealed another little flaw in the project:

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