Tag Archives: Vermont Yankee decommissioning

Vermont Yankee enjoying “hot” retirement

January 20, 2019Business, NationalHoltec International NRC violation, Kris Singh quotes the Bard, much ado about nuclear waste, North Star Services, Vermont Yankee decommissioningBP

Dismantling a nuclear plant isn’t exactly retirement but what once seemed like a constant barrage of safety issues at Entergy’s Vermont Yankee has quieted since the plant stopped operating. That said, North Star Services (the new plant owners approved to do the decommissioning) don’t deserve to be completely out of the news.

Editorially the Keene Sentinel in nearby New Hamphire pondered the recent transfer: The sale is good news in that NorthStar plans to fast-track the decommissioning, while Entergy had indicated it might put the site into safe storage (“SAFSTOR”) for decades before starting to dismantle it. The reason, no doubt, is financial: NorthStar is betting it can do the job for less than the $500 million or so that’s in the decommissioning fund.

That raises an obvious issue: If doing the job cheaply is the company’s incentive, will it be done right?

Susan Smallheer of The Brattleboro Reformer reports a little bit of a problem was discovered in 2018 with the Holtec® storage casks used to bottle up and store 42 years worth of radioactive waste sitting along the banks of the Connecticut River at Vermont Yankee. The design of the casks manufactured by Holtec International had been modified in violation of NRC rules. “[…] last year [2018] Entergy Nuclear halted the transfer of fuel using the canisters to inspect the Holtec canisters it had. No problems were discovered in the canisters at Vermont Yankee, but the already loaded canisters could not be easily inspected.

Michael Layton, division director of spent fuel management for the NRC, who led the NRC inspection team, said it was possible the NRC would require additional canister inspections. Although Layton said he did not believe the Holtec design problems represented an “imminent safety threat” he added “[…] it may warrant additional inspections.” That, to be sure, is a bit of classic, worn-thin NRC boiler-plate-speak.

It turns out that in 2016 the Holtec company changed the design and failed to alert the NRC — a violation of safety procedures. In the bureaucratic parlance of the NRC, the “pre-decisional enforcement conference” centered on whether Holtec should have alerted the federal agency before making changes to the design of aluminum shims that help center the highly radioactive nuclear fuel in a “fuel basket” inside the canisters.

The New Jersey-based company in 2016 redesigned the canisters by threading stainless steel pins about 4 inches long and a half-inch thick into the shims to improve circulation of helium inside the canister to keep the spent fuel cool.

Two years later The San Diego Union-Tribune reports Holtec became aware of a problem with lose holding pins found on spent fuel canisters being moved at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in southern California. The transfer of loaded casks was halted, and inspections followed. The investigations, in turn, led the NRC to discover that Holtec had changed the designs of the casks. At San Onofre Holtec has stopped using canisters with the newer design. All subsequent canisters at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) will revert to the original design that does not use pins.

I should mention here that Holtec International is not only a manufacturer but also is in the business of buying and decommissioning old nukes-fast tracking to avoid placing the plants in 60 year SAFSTOR. Much larger and more diverse than VY’s new owner North Star Services, Holtec is not only decommissioning San Onofre but may soon do the same — they say at an accelerated pace — to Oyster Creek in New Jersey, the Pilgrim Nuclear plant in Massachusetts and the infamous Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

Soon Holtec will have the franchise on decommissioning several old nukes in southern New England, despite the casual attitude of Holtec’s founder, president and CEO over the NRC violation. On the 9th of January this year, during an official NRC public “pre-decisional enforcement conference” podcast, Holtec CEO Kris Singh took the stage and dramatically complained “This inspection, if you were to quote Shakespeare, is much ado about nothing,” Singh said while delivering a 37-page PowerPoint presentation as part of a public NRC webcast. “At least that is our perspective.”

Well sure, Mr. Singh, you say, “much ado about nothing.” But, “what is past is prologue” is it not? And you know this is about nuclear waste storage in casks for 12+ years. So your unauthorized, uninspected design changes should warrant inspections.

And then again, still quoting the Bard of Avon, “The Devil may quote Scripture for his own purpose.”

Nuke security report: “opportunities exist for program improvement”

March 8, 2017local/regional, NationalEntergy, NorthStar Services Group Inc., Vermont AG T.J. Donovan, Vermont Yankee decommissioningBP

Vermont Yankee is in the decommissioning process; its owner Entergy has plans to sell the out-of-operation plant to an industrial demolition company, NorthStar Group Services Inc. However, VY may not be ready to cool down as an issue yet: Vermont’s attorney general is asking to intervene in the state Public Service Board’s review of the sale of the closed Vermont Yankee power plant, saying significant environmental and financial issues are at stake.

It seems Vermont AG Donovan wants to keep a sharp eye on good old Vermont Yankee. Considering Entergy’s past, spotty record on safety (or lack of it) – underground leaks, fire and a spectacular cooling tower collapse – and security (or lack of it, as in sub-contracted Wackenhut Security guards sleeping on the job) this is probably a good idea.

Almost a year ago Entergy significantly scaled back its emergency notification and management protocols. And security concerns may also be an issue to watch as spent nuclear fuel will remain onsite for some time to come. This February the NRC signed off on Entergy’s security changes for the now out-of-operation plant. Specifics regarding the changes are not public,as a precaution, but it is likely they involve lowering certain requirements.

One thing the NRC and certainly Entergy didn’t mention in public was that it was auditing security rules for nuclear plants going through decommissioning. The NRC Office of Inspector General’s report, now available, recommends: [the NRC] clarify which fitness-for-duty elements licensees must implement to meet the requirements of the insider mitigation program; and to establish requirements for a fatigue management program. [PDF here]

Threats from “insiders” are defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as individuals with authorized access to nuclear facilities or nuclear material who could attempt unauthorized removal or sabotage, or who could aid an external adversary to do so.

In language laughably similar to the NRC’s well worn classic: “there was no apparent danger to the public” line, the OIG report notes that although security is now adequate, “opportunities exist for program improvement.”

It appears Vermont AG T.J. Donovan is correct in operating on the assumption that Entergy is still Entergy and the NRC is still the NRC: ineffectual and always willing to protect the bottom line over the health and safety of host communities. Kind of ironic that while the US Border Patrol has been unleashed on innocent Canadian shoppers hoping to visit Vermont, someone should be doing a better, sharper, more aggressive job guarding spent nuclear fuel just a few hundred miles south.

Entergy Vermont Yankee takes a leak into the future

August 25, 2016Business, local/regionalcooling tower collapse, Entergy Vermont Yankee, Vermont Yankee decommissioning, VY tritiated waterBP

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is shutdown, no longer generating power and starting the decommissioning process. And Entergy VY is still struggling with a persistent ground water intrusion problem (think very leaky basement) in and through the nuclear reactor turbine building.

Back when the plant was operating, there was, it seemed, always a steady drip, drip, drip of news coming out of the troubled plant — a high temperature electrical fire here, a decayed cooling tower collapse there, and forty mysterious underground pipes “discovered” as the source of radioactive tritiated water leaks — just to name a few of the ‘highlights.’ So the current radioactive water intrusion is only the latest in a long history of mishaps.

Happily Vtdigger.com reports VY officials think they have gotten a handle on the rising tides: “Vermont Yankee administrators say they’re getting a stubborn groundwater intrusion problem under control and are no longer pursuing a proposal to discharge radioactive water into the Connecticut River.”

Early this spring Entergy bought homeowner-grade kiddie pools (the NRC actually approved their use for this purpose) to hold the overflow. The pools were then abandoned in favor of more durable rubber storage bladders; gallons of contaminated water were shipped out by tanker truck, an expensive task. And now reports suggest the company will no longer pursue state permission to dump its tainted water into the Connecticut River.

The aggressive flow of water, at its height in February, was as much as 3,000 gallons a day. Yet officials maintain: “Simply sealing “a number of cracks” in the turbine building has helped.”

And the Entergy VY spokesflack brags: “We had a plan, we implemented the plan, and the plan worked.”

Aw come on, “We had a plan!” Bah! I think they are winging it –right from the time they rushed out to buy their first kiddie pool to capture overflows of radio-active water.

And now, what VY fails to mention and the reporter at Vtdigger.com definitely should have noted is that Vermont and most of the Northeast are in the midst of record-breaking drought! Vermont has seen record low rainfall, with the drought even more severe in Southern New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts.

Ground water levels are low throughout the region — therefore groundwater intrusion at VY’s turbine building would be record low. No water = no leaks!

But Entergy is decommissioning and headed out VY’s back door, pausing just long enough to patch a few cracks in the ‘basement,’ bless Mother Nature for the lack of rain, and cross their corporate fingers. I wonder if part of their plan includes setting up the kiddie pools again next spring?