{"id":209,"date":"2013-01-11T08:37:05","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T13:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/fire-in-texas-nuclear-reactor.html"},"modified":"2013-01-11T08:37:05","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T13:37:05","slug":"fire-in-texas-nuclear-reactor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/fire-in-texas-nuclear-reactor.html","title":{"rendered":"Fire in Texas nuclear reactor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nDo\n\nfires at nuclear plants like Plant Hatch<\/a> actually still occur?\nYep, at the South Texas Nuclear Project, just this week.\nAnd that STP Unit 2 is\n\na different design and newer (1989)<\/a> than Hatch 1 or 2.\nAustin has been trying to sell its share in that lemon since 1981.\nEven TEPCO cancelled plans for new reactors there in 2011,\ndue to cost overruns and the Fukushima disaster.\nWhat say we cancel our new nuclear lemons at Plant Vogtle?\n<\/p>\n

\nAccording to the\n\nNRC event report for 9 January 2013:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nUNUSUAL EVENT DECLARED DUE TO MAIN TRANSFORMER FIRE\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n“Fire in Unit 2 main transformer 2A. Reactor trip. Two train of\noffsite power lost to Unit 2.”\n<\/p>\n

\n“An Unusual Event was declared based on EAL HU-2\u2014Fire or\nexplosion in protected area or switchyard which affects normal plant\noperations.”\n<\/p>\n

\nAt 1655 CST, South Texas Unit 2 declared an Unusual Event due to a\nmain transformer fire. Unit 2 tripped from 100% power and is\ncurrently at 0% power in Mode 3. The transformer fire is out.\n\n<\/a>\nIn\naddition to the loss of the main transformer, several safety related\nelectrical busses and non-safety electrical busses lost offsite\npower. The appropriate emergency diesel generators started and\npowered the safety related busses. Unit 2 is currently stable and on\nnatural circulation due to the loss of power to the reactor coolant\npumps. Auxiliary feedwater is functioning as required and decay heat\nis being removed through the steam generator atmospheric relief\nvalves. Unit 1 was unaffected by the event.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.\n<\/p>\n

\nNotified DHS SWO, FEMA, DHS NICC and NuclearSSA via email.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAccording to the NRC,\n\nthey still don’t know<\/a>\n\n\nwhat caused the problem.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThis is the same South Texas nuclear project that\n\nAustin, Texas<\/a> has been trying to bail out of for decades.\nAustin voters said by a 58% majority\n\nof 34,726 to 24,976 in November 1981<\/a> that they wanted to sell Austin’s\n16% share<\/a>\nin the South Texas Nuclear Project.\nBy then the project was\n\nfour years behind schedule,\nand the original cost estimate of $974 million had become about $4.4 billion.<\/a>\nMore than thirty years later, there are still no buyers.\nTEPCO (owner of Fukushima) and NRG (main partner in the existing\nSouth Texas nuclear reactors) in 2006 proposed building two more\nreactors there,\n\nbut cancelled the project in 19 April 2011,<\/a>\nwith NRG\n\n“writing off its investment of $331 million after uncertainties created by the accident in Japan.”<\/a>\nThat accident in Japan would be the massive disaster at Fukushima Daiichi\nthe previous month.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\nAustin went solar in 2003<\/a>, and\nhas been ramping up its solar generation ever since.\n<\/p>\n

\nBloomberg News spun this fire as\n\n“an unusual event, the lowest-level emergency category”<\/a>.\nBe that as it may, as of yesterday,\n\nthe NRC reported South Texas 2 still at 0%.<\/a>\nDitto San Onofre 2 and San Onofre 3,\nWaterford 3, Fort Calhoun, Turkey Point 4, Crystal River 3, all zero percent,\nplus several others at less than 100%.\n<\/p>\n

\nNaureen S. Malik wrote for Bloomberg 9 January 2013,\n\nU.S. Nuclear Generation Falls on Texas Reactor Transformer Fire<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nU.S. nuclear-power generation fell for the first time in three days\nafter a Texas reactor was shut because of a transformer fire.\n<\/p>\n

\nOutput slid 0.1 percent from yesterday to 93,176 megawatts, or 91\npercent of capacity, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission\ndata compiled by Bloomberg. Output was 3.2 percent less than a year\nago with seven of 104 nuclear reactors offline.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nIt “fell for the first time in three days”?\nSo we managed to go three days without some accident in a nuclear reactor?\nVery impressive!\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nIf 93,176 MW is 91% of capacity, total capacity of all 104 reactors\nmust be about\n102,391 MW.\nThat’s one target to replace with solar and wind.\nIt may seem high, but with\n\nMoore’s Law pushing down solar prices<\/a>\nand\n\npushing up solar deployments,<\/a> that actually won’t take many years.\n<\/p>\n

\nLet’s start by not building more reactors.\n<\/p>\n

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