Tag Archives: Entergy

Radioactive tritium leak at Indian Point nuke stopped, but still in groundwater

Papers forged, fire and oil leak into the Hudson River, fracked methane pipeline planned next door, oh, yet built on a fault line,
and people are surprised

there’s radioactive tritium leaking from Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear plant?
Just like at

Plant Farley on the Chattahoochee River,

Plant Hatch on the Altamaha River and Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River?
How about surprised if there are any nukes that don’t leak tritium?

AP, 6 February 2016,

Radioactive Material Found in Groundwater Below Nuke Plant, Continue reading →

Safety Problems at Southern Nuclear Plants Farley and Hatch

Not as obvious as

Entergy’s Indian Point fire,
Southern Nuclear’s Farley 1 on the Chattahoochee River is down and Hatch 1 and 2
on the Altamaha River have ongoing fire safety problems.

NRC

Current Event Notification Report for May 8, 2015
says about Farley 1, near Dothan Alabama, on the Chattahoochee River, about 125 miles from here: Continue reading →

Fire at Indian Point nuke fire and shut down next to Spectra-planned fracked methane pipeline

Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News

A fire and shut down of Indian Point 3 didn’t even make the front page
of the New York Times,
and no mention that
Spectra Energy wants to build its 42-inch fracked methane

Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) only 1,500 feet from Indian Point.
Plus an oil leak, all next to the Hudson River.
Meanwhile, Oyster Creek (NJ), Three Mile Island 1 (PA), and Farley (AL)
are all down, and numerous fire prevention deficiencies were reported for Hatch 1 and 2 (GA).
When did you last hear of a solar leak or explosion?

Matt Spillane, lohud, 10 May 2015,

VIDEO: Transformer fire, oil leak at Indian Point Energy Center, Continue reading →

NRC back up: many nukes down

Now that the NRC is back up, we can see all the nukes that
went down during the government shutdown: nine of them.
If they’re not safe to run without NRC looking over their shoulder,
are they safe to run at all?
And two came back up.
Was that a prudent thing to do?
Meanwhile, solar panels don’t need an NRC.

Entergy’s

chronically faulty Pilgrim 1
was the last to fall during the shutdown,
while Southern’s

defect-shipped Farley 1
was one of the first:

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 →

Pilgrim and Salem nukes scrammed down

Two nukes down Friday:
“lowering reactor water level was due to the trip of all three Feedwater Pumps”
(Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts) and “unidentified leakage” (Salem 1 in New Jersey).
That’s the fifth downtime for Entergy’s Pilgrim 1 this year:

cold, heat, leak, and now feedwater pumps.
Remind me about the reliability and safety of big baseload nuclear?

Event Number: 49296 Facility: PILGRIM,

REACTOR PROTECTION ACTUATION (SCRAM)

“On Thursday, August 22, 2013 at 0755 hours [EDT], with the reactor
critical at approximately 98% core thermal power, and the mode
switch in RUN, a manual reactor scram was inserted due to lowering
reactor water level. The cause of the lowering reactor water level
was due to the trip of all three Feedwater Pumps. The cause of the
Feedwater Pump trip event is currently under investigation.

“Following the reactor scram, 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.

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 →

Nuke supervisor arrested for falsifying safety records at Indian Point

A single person risked 50 million lives at Indian Point,
24 miles north of New York City.
And it’s Entergy again, the company that couldn’t keep the power on
during the Super Bowl, that

can’t keep Pilgrim 1 running in
a Massachusetts snowstorm, or summer heat, or the spring, either,
that

still has Arkansas Nuclear 1 down since a fatal accident in March.
Meanwhile, how many fatal solar accidents have you heard of?

Lucas W Hixson wrote for Enformable Nuclear News,

Indian Point supervisor arrested for deliberately falsifying critical safety records,

Entergy announced on Tuesday that a former supervisor, who worked at
the Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City for
twenty-nine years, had been arrested for deliberately falsifying
critical safety records and lying to federal regulators last year.
The utility said that Daniel Wilson, age 57, who was in charge of
ensuring compliance in critical safety areas, falsified tests and
records related to the quality of fuel in back-up tanks for the
emergency diesel generators installed at the nuclear power plant
which are necessary to prevent core damage in the event of a loss of
power. Federal charges have been brought against the former employee
by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, who was released on bail and could be
sentenced up to 7 years in prison.

The

story says
co-workers caught him (good for them): Continue reading →

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 →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange