Category Archives: Nuclear

Pilgrim nuke down because of cold, heat, leak: when does it ever run?

Down in

January, February, April,

May, running low March and June,
and now likely to go down because of summer heat,
under what conditions does Entergy’s Pilgrim nuke near Boston, MA like to run?
Entergy also couldn’t keep the power on during the Super Bowl
and

still has Arkansas Nuclear 1 down since a fatal accident in March.
To be fair,

many nukes can’t handle heat.
Remind me,

why are we building more of them?

Christine Legere wrote for Cape Cod Times 18 July 2013,

Seawater temps too high for Pilgrim cooling,

PLYMOUTH — The ongoing heat wave could force Pilgrim Nuclear
Power Station to shut down, as soaring temperatures continue to warm
the Cape Cod Bay waters that the plant relies on to cool key safety
systems.

Pilgrim’s license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires Continue reading →

GA PSC member ties Plant Vogtle nuke cost overruns to Kemper Coal in Mississippi

If Georgia Power stonewalls on cost overruns, will it lose
at least one Commissioner this time?

Long-time nuclear supporter Tim Echols suggested at

the hearings this morning
that cost overruns at nuclear Plant Vogtle should be capped like Southern Company
was forced to do for Kemper Coal by the Mississippi PSC.
Standard & Poor’s already

downgraded SO because of Kemper Coal
and two analysts have

downgraded SO for sticking to coal and nukes instead of doing more solar and wind.
If SO’s majority part Georgia Power loses the GA PSC, it could be curtains
for Plant Vogtle’s new nukes.

Ray Henry wrote for AP this morning,

Southern Co. challenged on nuclear plant costs,

Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power has asked to raise the budget
for its share of massive project by $737 million to roughly $6.85
billion.

Public Service Commission Tim Echols asked whether the firm has
considered offering a deal like one it reached in Mississippi over a
separate plant that also proved expensive to build. The company has
absorbed $540 million in losses in Mississippi and could face more.

Remember, Tim Echols has for two years now been Continue reading →

GA PSC hearings on Plant Vogtle CWIP monitoring

Will GA PSC yet again approve passing cost overruns for the new nukes
at Plant Vogtle on to Georgia Power customers?
Hearings started today about that.
You can listen, and you can testify, today or in August or September,
or in writing.

GA PSC PR 15 July 2013,

Contact: Bil Edge
Phone 404-656-2316
www.psc.state.ga.us Georgia Public Service Commission

244 Washington St S.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Phone: 404-656-4501
Toll free:1- 800-282-5813
Fax: 404-656-2341

For Immediate Release MEDIA ADVISORY 7-13

PSC to Begin Hearings on Georgia Power Company Eighth Semi-Annual Nuclear
Construction Project Monitoring

Atlanta, July 15, 2013 – The Georgia Public Service Commission (Commission) will begin its first set of hearings on July 18, 2013 at 10 a.m. on the Georgia Power Company Eighth Semi-Annual Nuclear Construction Projection Monitoring,

Docket 29849. The hearing will take place in Room 110 at the Commission offices at 244 Washington Street, S.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30334.The hearing will continue, if necessary, at 10 a.m. on Friday July 19, 2013. Additional hearings are scheduled for August 13-14, 2013 and September 12, 2013.

The Commission will begin by receiving the testimony of any public witnesses pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 46-2-59(g).
Immediately following public witnesses, the Commission will hear
applications to intervene and any objections thereto, and any motions concerning the utilities pre-filed testimony and other appropriate motions.
Following these preliminary matters, the
Commission will conduct hearings on the direct case of Georgia Power.

The schedule in this docket is as follows: Continue reading →

Monticello nuke down 5 1/2 months and $267 million over budget

83% cost overrun on a 12% power upgrade, but no worries!

The nuke operator will pass that through to the customers.
Duke had the good sense to shut down

Crystal River.
Maybe we should stop the new nukes at Plant Vogtle,
which have already run up more than twice the cost overruns of Monticello,
before they

cost us even more for power we could get much faster
and on-budget

through solar or wind energy.

Katherine Tweed wrote for IEEE Spectrum 16 July 2013,

Minnesota Nuclear Plant Upgrade Is $267 Million Over Budget,

After being shut down for four months, Minnesota’s Monticello
nuclear power plant will restart this week with an additional 71
megawatts of capacity, a 12 percent power uprate. The increased
costs, however, will far outstrip the additional percentage of power
production.

The project, which included maintenance, upgrades and the uprate,
was budgeted at $320 million. But Monticello has cost overruns of
about 83 percent, or $267 million, according to the

Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The plant’s owner, Xcel Energy, has not released Continue reading →

Diablo Canyon nuclear units 2 and 1 down one after another

The local newspaper didn’t look past PG&E’s news about unit 2 coming back up (lightning strike)
to notice that unit 1 had been down (pipe leak) a few weeks before.

David Sneed wrote for the San Luis Obispo Tribune 16 July 2013,

Diablo Canyon’s Unit 2 reactor back at full power, Continue reading →

Arkansas Nuclear 1 still down since fatal accident in March

Apparently we still don’t know why this happened:

At approximately 7:50am on Sunday, March 31, 2013, a 600-ton
generator stator fell onto the turbine deck and then about 30 feet
to the train bay floor as was being lifted out of the Unit 1 turbine
building at the Arkansas Nuclear One plant. One worker was killed
and four others injured when the load fell.

Dave Lochbaum wrote for Union of Concerned Scientists 18 June 2013,

Fission Stories #139: Arkansas Nuclear One Fatal Event,

The

NRC reviewed U.S. nuclear plant experience with lifting loads
with cranes between 1968 and 2002. The NRC reported that about two
load drops per year happened during this period with ten incidents
causing deaths. The NRC’s review concluded that there had been only
three very heavy load drops (defined as a load weighing more than 30
tons). ANO-1 makes four.

While accidents can also happen with wind turbines or even
installing solar panels on rooftops,
a single solar or wind accident doesn’t Continue reading →

China ends a nuclear treatment plant after demonstrations

“In order to respect the popular will, the government of” the city of Heshan
refused to proceed with a $9 billion uranium processing plant.
That happened after this, yesterday:

The cancellation, unusually fast, demonstrates the increasingly important attention
given by the authorities to environmental concerns that are often expressed at the local level.
Several projects of petrochemical plants and metal processing have recently been postponed or relocated.

Yes, I know the plant may just be relocated somewhere else.
But with enough such demonstrations it won’t be built.
How about some of this respect for the popular will about,
for example, the natural gas pipeline through Georgia from Alabama to Florida,
or the new nukes at Plant Vogtle?

Le Monde, today, Continue reading →

Koch astroturf vs. solar jobs for Georgians

More solar for Georgia must be a good thing if AFP is organizing
astroturf against it.
GA PSC decides Thursday.
Like another speaker
at

GA PSC last month,
I don’t think even

Bubba McDonald’s proposal to double solar requirements on Georgia Power
goes

nearly far enough,
but at least it’s a start, which is more than Georgia Power will do
unless nudged by GA PSC.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday,

Critics’ numbers misleading in Georgia solar fight:
Georgia panel will vote soon on power plan,

A political group founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David
Koch wants Georgia’s utility regulators to reject a plan requiring
Southern Co. to buy more solar energy, but an Associated Press
review finds it has used misleading figures to build its case.

The Georgia chapter of Americans For Prosperity, founded by
billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants Georgia’s utility
regulators to reject a solar energy plan in Georgia. But an
Associated Press review ahead of a vote on the issue finds that it
has used misleading figures to build its case.

The Georgia chapter of Americans For Prosperity has said in mass
e-mails that Continue reading →

SO’s plan to make the Southeast a net exporter of the energy from solar and wind? –John S. Quarterman @ SO 2013-05-22

SO CEO Tom Fanning didn’t budge from nuclear and coal,
but he did announce a tiger team to get on top of
distributed solar and wind through a smart grid,
headed by SO’s COO,
at the

22 May 2013 Southern Company Stockholder Meeting.

Mr. John S. Quarterman from Lowndes County, Georgia, and he holds
220 shares of Southern Company.

TF: Hello, John. Good to see you again this year.

jsq: Hi. I’ve come to compliment Tom Fanning and Paul Bowers. Last
year, Tom Fanning was so persuasive I ran out and bought $10,000
worth of stock.

TF: Bless you.
[Applause]

However,
apparently because of

SO’s admission a few minutes before in that same meeting
that it was going to have to eat Kemper Coal cost overruns,

SO stock tanked that same day,
causing my stock to stop out,
and Standard & Poor’s downgraded SO the following day
because of Kemper Coal, noting that if the same thing happened
with SO’s nuclear project at Plant Vogtle, S&P’s would probably Continue reading →

Re-evaluate Plant Vogtle and move to wind and solar power –Courtney Hanson @ GA PSC 2013-06-18

Re-evaluate Plant Vogtle, especially its water use,
and move to efficiency, wind, and solar power instead,
said

Courtney Hanson of
Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions (GA WAND)
at

the Georgia Public Service Commission meeting Tuesday 18 June 2013.

She reminded GA PSC Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 are late and over budget, and then:

I want to add my voice to the chorus of folks here who are concerned
about water issues.

We know that Vogtle 3 and 4 will require an additional withdrawal
of as much as 74 million gallons a day from the Savannah River and
most of that water will not be returned.
We know that the central Savannah River
area where Vogtle is located is already
very prone to droughts
and the plant has been close to shutting down several times
due to drought conditions.

Georgia is also already struggling to supply enough water
for our homes, businesses, industries, and farms.

In addition, the Savannah River is Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange