{"id":891,"date":"2012-04-24T11:13:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T15:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/concrete-flaws-at-vogtle-delay-construction-require-modified-nuke-permit.html"},"modified":"2012-04-24T11:13:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T15:13:01","slug":"concrete-flaws-at-vogtle-delay-construction-require-modified-nuke-permit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/concrete-flaws-at-vogtle-delay-construction-require-modified-nuke-permit.html","title":{"rendered":"Concrete flaws at Vogtle delay construction, require modified nuke permit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nConcrete sinking into the dirt less than two months after licensing?\nOne license amendment already requested and dozens more to come?\nDoes this give you confidence in Southern Company's ability to\nbuild a safe nuclear plant without huge cost overruns charged to\nyou the Georgia Power customer or you the taxpayer?\n<\/p>\n

\nIn mid-March\n\nthe nuclear industry bragged about<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\n<\/a>\nProgress continues at the construction site of Plant Vogtle units 3\nand 4 \u2014 the country's newest reactors and the first to be\nlicensed since 1978.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWe discover that at the end of March Southern Company had to ask\nNRC for a licensing change due to construction problems.\n\nVogtle Nuclear Construction Faces \u201cAdditional Delay\u201d\nBased on Miscalculations in Foundation Concrete \u2014 News Release\nfrom NC WARN and Alliance for Nuclear Accountability\u2014April\n9th, 2012<\/a>,\n\n\n

\n

\nLess than two months after receiving a nuclear construction license\nfor new reactors at its Vogtle site in eastern Georgia, Southern\nCompany is already requesting a license amendment to allow changes\nto the foundation on which the reactor building would be built. A\nrequest which the company aimed to file by last Friday seeks to\nrelax standards for the concrete foundation due to Southern's\nmiscalculation of soil compaction, and the company is pressing\nregulators for swift approval to avoid what it calls \u201can\nadditional delay in the construction of the nuclear island basemat\nstructure and subsequent construction activities …\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn a letter to the NRC dated March 30, 2012, Southern Company admits\nthat construction of the reactor base has not yet begun and that\nconstruction will begin in mid-June \u2013 if NRC quickly approves the\nlicensing change. It had been thought that pouring of so-called\n\u201cnuclear concrete\u201d would begin immediately on issuance\nof the construction license in February, but the letter confirms the\nlong delay.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nIt seems Southern Company didn't properly take into account our\nsouth Georgia soil:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nFriday's expected License Amendment Request (LAR) is not yet\navailable to the public, but Southern Company's preliminary notice*\nabout the forthcoming amendment request describes how recent surveys\ndetermined that a level foundation for three \u201cnuclear\nisland\u201d buildings cannot be obtained unless the previously\nallowed one-inch variation in the \u201cmudmat\u201d substrate is\nincreased to four inches. The nuclear island foundation supports the\nweight of the buildings and equipment and is vital in protecting the\nplant against earthquakes and other loads.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAnd there's more to come:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nAdditionally, Southern Company has already identified 32 License Amendment\nRequests it will seek by 2014.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSomebody help me here.\nI've never heard of a solar installation ever running into that many\nconstruction problems.\nHave you?\n<\/p>\n

\nIt's time for Southern Company to abandon this nuke boondoggle and\n\ncome over to the sunlight side of energy production.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Concrete sinking into the dirt less than two months after licensing? One license amendment already requested and dozens more to come? Does this give you confidence in Southern Company's ability to build a safe nuclear plant without huge cost overruns charged to you the Georgia Power customer or you the taxpayer? In mid-March the nuclear […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,14,16,18,2,104,21,22,23,73,24,3],"tags":[8736,817,826,2600,8704,8706,8701,8708,8699,1163,117,8737,1327,8711,107,8712,722,8713,8731,2599,8714,8700],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-economy","category-environment","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-solar","category-transparency","tag-activism","tag-construction","tag-delay","tag-design-change","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-license","tag-nrc","tag-nuclear","tag-permit","tag-planning","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-politics","tag-public-hearing","tag-renewable-energy","tag-safety","tag-soil","tag-solar","tag-transparency"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-en","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}