(How can I/we not promote this? – promoted by Christian Avard)
For the 30th anniversary of the “worst accident in American commercial nuclear power history”, Arnie Gundersen and Steven Wing were asked to testify for the Pennsylvania Legislature on what really happened there in 1979.
Three Mile Island Alert has posted video of the testimony here.
Well worth the time.
(Saves me the trouble of writing this up. – promoted by JulieWaters)
The Oversight Panel Report for the Vermont Yankee Reliability Assessment shows Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee is not safe, clean or reliable. VY has a higher level of worker injury, is dirtier than other reactors, and is facing expensive, time consuming repairs.
Originally, the Comprehensive Vertical Audit as passed by the Legislature was expected to take 15,000 to 20,000 work hours. Instead, as managed by the Dept of Public Service, only about 6,000 hours were expended in the inspection. Significant problem areas, such as Main Steam Isolation Valve leakage and flow accelerated corrosion of piping and components, were not examined.
Even this abbreviated inspection found that Entergy Nuclear should not extend its license and cannot run reliably after 2012 without spending significant time, effort and money. There is no evidence to date that Entergy has the commitment necessary for this undertaking.
Contrary to Entergy’s repeated claim that the company employs a superior workforce, the Report questioned Entergy’s high employee turnover, high level of inexperienced staff, high level of vacancies in critical departments, and impending retirement of remaining experienced staff.
This is especially problematical because ENVY’s work process procedures “do not meet industry standards“.
P 29
Procedure Quality – The NSA team found that the composition, presentation, and formatting of the majority of VY’s procedures do not meet industry standards
.
The report also cited ENVY for a “high worker accident or injury level in comparison to other plants” and “lower than desirable plant cleanliness practices”.
The degraded condition of the transformer, cooling towers, condenser and demineralizers-all high cost equipment expenditures with significant replacement downtime-compromise the reliability of electric production from Entergy Nuclear. Indeed,
P31
Condenser – Documents reviewed by NSA indicate that the condenser is near the end of its useful life and might not be able to operate reliably through 2012 without some remedial actions.
If Vermont Yankee can limp along until its shutdown date in 2012, that should be the end of it. From the reports, we’ll be lucky if they can make it that long without further compromising public safety.
JACKSON, Miss. — Entergy officials have determined what caused three high-tension power lines to fall onto Interstate 20 on Friday, which closed the interstate for most of the day.
“A guy wire failed at the anchor rod in the ground,” Entergy spokeswoman Mara Hartmann said. “When it failed it broke and as it was under high tension, that caused a pole to snap. The part of the pole that snapped fell and broke another pole causing the high tension lines to sag over the highway. The line was hanging over the highway but was not low enough to touch cars or trucks but probably would have snagged on an 18-wheeler.”
http://www.wapt.com/news/18942…
(According to Ed, Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard sees COAL as the energy answer. And, the further loss in ENVY Decommissioning Funds announced today as well as the end of federal funding for Yucca Mountain, may mean Vermonters are sitting on toxic nuclear waste for at least 1,000 years. – promoted by Maggie Gundersen)
J. Wayne Leonard, the exorbitantly overpaid CEO of the Entergy companies, went to the MIT Energy Conference.
And Leonard said, “The market has already picked the winning technology: coal.”
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-s…
So stop playing games with Vermont, agree to shut down Vermont Yankee in 2012 and clean it up and go home.
Please.
——————-
Update by Maggie Gundersen
While Leonard was off at MIT lauding coal, ENVY’s decommissioning fund dropped even lower according to figures released today. This is down from the September 2007 figure of $440,003,672 that I criticized in my white paper on decommissioning in November 2007.
March 31, 2008 $427,406,446
June 20, 2008 $414,412,426
September 30, 2008 $397,035,937
October 30, 2008 $364,426,383
November 30, 2008 $360,673,692
December 31, 2008 $372,012,078
January 31, 2009 $361,489,579February 28, 2009 $347,291,410
ENVY tried to take me to task. Not only has my data proven correct, but my original estimate that it would take at least $1 Billion to dismantle and clean-up Vermont Yankee is holding true.
Imagine during these tough economic times being assessed $1,000 for every man, woman and child in order to clean up this mess… take a good look at which legislators did not want to protect Vermont’s taxpayers last year and instead voted to protect this bloated corporate behemoth which pays its CEO more than $29 Million per year in total compensation. Wow that’s almost half of Vermont’s entire rainy day fund. No wonder he doesn’t see our demands for decommissioning money as anything important.
Now today, Yucca Mountain is no more. [See the Discover Magazine Blog below the fold.] Vermont Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel may belong to Vermonters for at least 1,000 years!
Discover Magazine Blog – today 3-9-2009
http://blogs.discovermagazine….
Yucca Mountain Ruled Out for Storing Nuke Waste. Now What?
Yucca Mountain tunnelIn a blow to the nuclear power industry, the budget released by President Obama last week eliminates most funding for Yucca Mountain, the Nevada site that for decades has been proposed for the permanent burial of radioactive nuclear waste.
The decision will likely be an expensive one, considering how much money the federal government might end up owing the utility industry, and how much-up to $10.4 billion-has already been spent and will have been wasted on the search for a nuclear waste repository since 1983. The courts have already awarded the companies about $1 billion, because the government signed contracts obligating it to begin taking the waste in 1998, but seems unlikely to do so for years. The nuclear industry says it may demand the return of the $22 billion that it has paid to the Energy Department to establish a repository, but that the government has not yet spent [The New York Times].
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act called for the establishment of a permanent, high-level nuclear waste repository. Eight proposed sites were narrowed to three, then to one. Over the strong objections of Nevada’s congressional delegation – and controversy over flawed studies – Congress voted in 1987 to approve Yucca Mountain as the sole candidate for a permanent nuclear waste repository. In 2002, President Bush designated Yucca Mountain as the site, and in June 2008, the Department of Energy submitted its license application [Christian Science Monitor].
There has been fierce opposition to the Yucca Mountain site throughout the decades. In Congress, the battle has been led by Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who celebrates the new decision: “President Obama recognizes that the proposed dump threatens the health and safety of Nevadans and millions of Americans. His commitment to stop this terrible project could not be clearer” [Washington Post]. For now, Energy Secretary Steven Chu says that the nearly 60,000 tons of waste in the form of used reactor fuel can remain at nuclear power plants while a new, comprehensive plan is developed. It was the most definitive signal yet that the government’s attempt to address the commercial nuclear waste problem is veering in a new direction [Star Tribune].
The decision fulfills a campaign promise made by Obama, but offers no hint of what his administration plans to do instead with the country’s existing nuclear waste, or with the approximately 2,000 tons generated each year by nuclear power plants. The Yucca site was designed specifically to handle spent fuel rods from the nation’s 103 nuclear generators…. Keeping the waste at temporary sites is an option in the short term, but experts in the field say it will not serve as a long-term answer for the problem of radioactive waste, which will need to be kept safely stored for at least 1,000 years. Others have advocated reprocessing much of the spent fuel, as is being done in France, but this too is fraught with problems, according to some experts [Washington Post].
(Ed has the latest on Vermont Yankee. This merits special attention. – promoted by Christian Avard)
That’s the title in the paper version of the Brattleboro Reformer of this excellent story by Bob Audette on Entergy’s nuclear waste in Vernon.
http://www.reformer.com/ci_117…
For some reason, the online title is different:
Rule change could mean indefinite nuclear waste storage in Vernon
More info, but not as catchy. (Full disclosure: I’m briefly quoted.)
The whole issue revolves around the NRC’s Waste Confidence Rule. This is a legally binding theory adopted by the NRC to get by the fact that there is all this waste piling up with no where to put it safely long term.
If there were no Waste Confidence Rule, old reactors like Vermont Yankee would have to develop a plan on what they’re really going to do with their nuclear waste. The Waste Confidence Rule allows them to pretend it will be taken to Nevada and buried by a certain date. The NRC wants to change the rule, and have no date for when it will be gone, but still be “confident” that someday it will.
(My own image is that those big old casks of radioactive waste are going to be pushed down the Connecticut River in a 1,000 year flood like a rolled hay bale in a summer freshet.)
It’s good news that the Vt Attorney General has joined with Massachusetts and New York to oppose the rule change.
Now maybe the Vt AG can take a close look at our own state Dept of Health, trying for their own rule change to permit Entergy to legally put out 2/3’s more radiation than currently permitted.
ENVY’s been pumping more radiation off site ever since the power boost, and instead of shutting the reactor down as required by law, Douglas’ Dept of Health is using pseudo-science to say that radiation on your skin won’t kill you or make you sick. They only want to count the radiation that gets in deep enough to affect your organs.
Here’s where you can post a comment to the Dept Of Health about relaxing Vermont’s radiation standard.
http://healthvermont.gov/admin…
And whatever they say in Montpelier, it’s not about the price of electricity and paying $5 more on our electric bills if we buy from GMP or CVPS.
It’s really, fundamentally, about threatening life downstream and making and leaving this toxic, radioactive mess for future Vermonters forever.
Bobby Jindal, Gov of Louisiana, dependent on the Army Corps of Engineers for levies and pumps, and on NOAA for weather reports, giving the official Republican version of the State of the Union, just came out against monitoring volcanos!
“God bless Louisiana.”
So where does Big Jim stand on volcano monitoring?
NRC instructs Entergy to do more testing to find pipes leaking radioactive water into the Hudson River. Extensive testing for tritium leaks, found at many other reactors, needs to be done at Vermont Yankee.
NRC: NY nuke plant must be checked for bad pipes
February 24, 2009
BUCHANAN, N.Y. – Federal regulators say the owners of a nuclear plant in the New York City suburbs will have to check more underground pipes for corrosion.Last weekend, workers at Indian Point 2 in Buchanan were able to repair a pipe that was leaking slightly radioactive water from 8 feet underground.
http://www.newsday.com/news/lo…
more…
Neil Sheehan of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says Entergy Northeast will have to do a study to see if corrosion is a problem at other pipes beneath the surface.
Entergy owns the plant and its twin, Indian Point 3.
Sheehan said Tuesday that Entergy won’t have to dig down to every pipe _ but must at least investigate a fair sample.
The water that leaked between Monday and Saturday contained tiny amounts of tritium, well under federal drinking-water limits.
Will this
study
hold up Entergy’s application to relicense the Indian Point reactors?
For several days the Times Argus has had up a poll on ENVY relicensing. For this length of time, the “yes-relicense” vote was about 33%. The “no-don’t relicense” vote was 50%-60%.
Until this morning.
About 1500 votes have been cast this AM, and it looks like they’re all ENVY votes.
What’s up? All the pro nuclers back at work today?
Entergy wanted to raise a bit under $200 million in the market, then decided to try for $500 million, but got no takers.
They were so sure of themselves, they prematurely included money from the sale in their 4th quarter financial results.
Now it’s estimated Entergy’s share price will drop by 3.5% to make up for the failure to remarket this debt.
I think this company is in trouble, and so does the market.
http://247wallst.com/2009/02/1…
Entergy Pulls Remarketing Offer (ETR)
Posted: February 12, 2009 at 10:44 am
Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) was unable to find buyers for $500 million worth of Senior Notes that are a component the company’s 7.625% Equity Units (NYSE:ETRPrA) due February 11, 2011. It has canceled the remarketing period for the notes.
….
The bad news is that Entergy had reported its fourth quarter earnings including the remarketed shares. Because that didn’t happen, the company will need to include the shares in its per share calculations for 2008, “causing the number of shares to increase compared to the amount reflected in the release.”
Ouch. At the end of October 2008, Entergy had about 189 million shares outstanding, so the share dilution here is about 3.5%. Not awful, but shares are down nearly 2% in early trading.
Paul Ausick
February 12, 2009
(Ed has the latest with the new NRC report… and it ain’t good. – promoted by Christian Avard)
That’s the best way I can describe the NRC report released today on the cleanup fund for Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee.
The report ignores the fact that with the falling stock market, the amount in the fund has dropped by 20% since 2007. NRC staff take no notice of the drastic decline in the value of the cleanup fund.
While the report states
Should there be a material decline in the Decommissioning Trust Fund balance, the staff’s analysis and preliminary findings may no longer be valid
Entergy has not yet been required to officially report the dramatic loss in the fund to the NRC. So the NRC pretends that the fund has as much money as before the crash.
More on waste after the jump
By 2011, Entergy Nuclear VY will be storing an amount equal to two pounds of high level nuclear fuel waste per each man, woman and child in Vermont. This is the highest amount of waste per capita of any state in the US.
Entergy wants to use money from the cleanup fund to pay the costs of storing this waste.
Independent expert testimony before the VT State Legislature last week made it clear that the nuclear fuel waste is likely to remain in Vernon forever.
http://rutlandherald.com/artic…
Entergy’s waste storage cost calculations, based on the fiction that all the nuclear waste will be removed by 2042, undermine the NRC staff’s basis for approving Entergy’s funding plan.
When the legislature chooses a safe energy future based on renewable resources, and refuses to allow continued operation of VY after its license expires in 2012, steps must also be taken to ensure that Entergy pays the full cost of cleanup to Vermont standards.