Entergy’s “reliability” continues to come into question in rather spectacular ways this year.
This time, poor old Arkansas once again was the site of an energy related disaster, when things went horribly wrong during a “planned upgrade” operation at Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One, killing one man and injuring seven more.
Thanks to GMD contributor ed for providing a link to the story as reported, with pictures, on local media.
From Enformable we get a closer view of the technical situation:
Around 07:50 on Easter Sunday morning, an accident at the Arkansas Nuclear Power Plant not only killed one worker and injured others it also left the Unit 1 reactor without offsite power. Workers were using the Unit 1 turbine temporary lift device to move the Main Turbine Generator Stator, which weighs over 500 tons, out of the turbine building when it fell. The lift crane failed, dropping the load, which resulted in a crash which was heard by local residents miles from the site, and tripped the Unit 2 reactor.
Entergy is naturally eager to put the incident behind them, but we who are audience to their frequent protestations of “reliability” in the legal sense, must note that such spectacular failures as occurred at the Superdome before millions of viewers, and now at AR Nuclear One certainly strain the credibility of that argument.
Both were costly accidents (this latest with loss of life), which lead one to suspect that Entergy’s recent financial troubles have impacted the ability of the company to maintain adequate staffing and equipment oversight; perhaps even eroding their commitment to best practices in the long term.
And I keep worrying whether anyone is minding the decommissioning “piggy bank” for VY.
And what’s interesting about such tragic events is that for a lot of pro-nuke people, these don’t “count” as deaths from nuclear power, so they can make narrow claims like “nobody has ever immediately died from radiation exposure” so nukes are 100% safe!
http://www.dohiyimir.org/2011/…
More on relative risks of various energy sources:
http://www.dohiyimir.org/2011/…
and ed, for always being on it and also for the tip. Defective maintenance procedures if they occur at all, plus ongoing plant-wide failures certaiinly do appear to be a systemic problem, as with the findings following the revelation of their ‘system wide’ problem of lying & deception after YankiLeaks Underground Buried Pipegate-I, when one corporate official after the other were discovered oddly all on the same wrong page re the extent of the buried pipes @ VY which were found to be leaking nuclear waste, into the groundwater & also found in an onsite drinking water well meaning it had travelled to an aquifer.
And, it had been leaking since at least 2007 as sinkholes dotting the property began appearing in 2008. I see the hardworking professional & so-called nuclear power plant experts ignored this damning evidence of the plants true condition-but as with a vehicle once it shows this type of wear it’s curtains. So from the top down, all at VY knew the plant had no value & was a liability, and employees are also complicit in this grand-scale fraud. When queried by state officials all Entergy Louisiana officials were adament that there were no underground buried pipes carrying nuclear effluent, even under oath. They are all a bunch of criminals, they should all be in jail since there are those doing hard time for less.
And it continues to leak, results simply are not being reported.
Happening right around the time Enexusgate was concocted as the jackals who run the plant apparently realized it was a goner along eith a half dozen or so other of their other rustbucket relics in a plot to isolate them from the newer plants, divest the liquid assets, split the money with shareholders & strand their fleet of rustbuckets leaving the liability to host states. Nice guys! And they wonder why VT wanted a divorce & they can’t get no respect.
Arkansas is having a really bad week.
The description in most sources understates the severity of the issues at the plant. The crane collapse was in Unit 1. The stator fell through the floor, broke some water pipes, and caused a flood that led to a short, resulting in a power outage to the plant (think: no cooling). They had partially recovered before [emphasis mine]:
What Entergy has in abundance: re-lie-ability, the skill of telling falsehoods over and over and over again.
NanuqFC
If nuclear power plants are safe, let the commercial insurance industry insure them. Until these most expert judges of risk are willing to gamble with their money, I’m not willing to gamble with the health and safety of my family. ~ Donna Reed