Much about politics, but little about fish.

Herring larva in drop of water
Matchstick for comparison

River Water, Sea Water and Nuclear Plants

My article Keeping cool under pressure describes the many ways that "water quality issues" are used by states to attack the continued operation of nuclear power plants.

 Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek, Indian Point, Turkey Point, Diablo Canyon, and Columbia Generating Station have been accused of overheating rivers and/or causing the death of billions of fish.  Well, the death of billions of fish eggs or larva (larva are newly-hatched fish).  These accusations have closed down plants or made them far more expensive to operate.

My article appears in the May 10 edition of Nuclear Engineering International Magazine. The section about  Turkey Point is a separate call-out in that article, due to the unusual canal-based  cooling at Turkey Point. 

In reality, the reason most fish eggs don't grow up to be adult fish is--other fish.  Fish eggs are an important food source for fish, so fish lay thousands of eggs. An American Shad lays about 30,000 eggs per year.  A salmon lays a more modest number, around 3,000.  A fish egg usually does not become an adult fish, and this has nothing to do with power plants.  It's about other fish: the fish that like to eat fish eggs.   

Some links

I am always very pleased to write an article for an important magazine such as Nuclear Engineering International.  However, "read my article" seems a rather thin blog post.  So I finish this post with a couple of links that can supplement my magazine article.

Diablo Canyon: The owners of this power plant recently announced that the plant would close by 2025. This article describes the upgrade-your-cooling-system issues the owners would have faced if they had chosen to stay open.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article39459930.html

Indian Point: The plant has ristorph screens and proposes adding wedgewire screens.  Opponents continue to push for expensive cooling towers, but offer no reason to believe that cooling towers will be better for the fish. http://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/04/26/indian-point-entergy-wedgewire-screens-cooling-towers/8238627/

Vermont Yankee: Vermont lost a lawsuit that asked the NRC to deny Vermont Yankee's license extension because Vermont Yankee didn't have the proper state-level water permit.  Even some of the plant opponents said that such concerns have to be raised before appropriate commissions, rather than in lawsuits. http://yesvy.blogspot.com/2012/07/vermont-loses-lawsuit-against-nrc-about.html#.V37lAjYXH3F

Oyster Creek: State of New Jersey closes plant, ostensibly to protect Barnegat Bay.
http://www.nj.gov/dep/barnegatbay/plan-oystercreek.htm

Columbia Generating Station: This blog post has an excellent graphic that compares the water use of the power plant with the volume of water flowing through its water source, the Columbia River, near the plant. https://northwestcleanenergy.com/2014/11/01/environmentalists-need-to-decide-if-science-matters-or-not/

Turkey Point: There is no evidence that any effluents from the plant  or the plant canals will  harm drinking water, or will affect Biscayne Bay.  Still,  some groups are suing the plant for causing vaguely-stated environmental harm. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/us/nuclear-plant-leak-threatens-drinking-water-wells-in-florida.html?_r=1

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I enjoyed putting these supplemental links together, but I do hope you will read the article itself: Keeping Cool Under Pressure. 

UPDATED: Nuclear Energy Blog Carnival 236: Here at Yes Vermont Yankee

Once again, we are proud to host the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers, right here at Yes Vermont Yankee.  The Carnival is a compendium of nuclear blogs that rotates from blog site to blog site, and it is always a pleasure and an honor to host it.  Here we go!

At Fukushima, Radiation Decreases in Turbine Building Basements
From the Hiroshima Syndrome's Fukushima Commentary - Leslie Corrice

Fukushima Wastewater: Some Good News

The Japanese Press routinely reports on sudden increases in wastewater radioactivity at F. Daiichi. However, they fail to report on what is going right. For at least a year, the activity levels in the turbine basements of units #1-4 have been steadily dropping. This is definitely a success story, but it does not seem newsworthy enough for the Japanese Press.

Yucca Post-Closure Safety Report Finally Released

From ANS Nuclear Cafe - Jim Hopf 

NRC Releases Yucca Post-Closure Safety Evaluation Report (finally)

 Jim Hopf details the recent release of the Safety Evaluation Report on Yucca, what it means, and more importantly what's likely to be done and not likely to be done as a result of it.  Nuclear waste is an entity we're prepared to deal with, Hopf argues, and for that reason Yucca should be opened and utilized to satisfy the Federal Government's legal obligation to take spent fuel from nuclear plant sites. 

Time for a Battle and an Update on Radiation Risk
Atomic Insights - Rod Adams

Shaping public perceptions of radiation risk

An epic struggle with important health, safety, cost and energy abundance implications is shaping up with regard to the way that the officially sanctioned science and regulatory bodies treat the risks and benefits associated with using ionizing radiation at low doses and dose rates for medical uses, industrial uses and power production.

We must make sure that this battle for science, hearts and minds is not as asymmetrical as the one fought in the period between 1954-1964. During that battle, a very interested Rockefeller Foundation provided the funding and numerous key influencers during a successful campaign to firmly establish the myth that radiation is dangerous even at the lowest possible doses.

More Battles: The Supposed "Clean Power Plan"

Carbon Dioxide

From ANS Nuclear Cafe - Nicholas Thompson

 The Details of the Clean Power Plan: So You Want to See the Numbers

Nick Thompson gives the details you need to know about the EPA Clean Power proposal, and why it's not the boon for nuclear energy some have lauded it as.  Includes background links for more information.  Includes links for submitting YOUR comments on the plan this weekend. Comments due by December 1!

Vermont Yankee: Consequences of a Battle We Lost

From NEI Nuclear Notes - Meredith Angwin

Pain from Vermont Yankee Closing Spreads Far and Wide

Meredith Angwin documents the spreading pain of Vermont Yankee's closing--starting with the plant employees who will be laid off, and pain propagating through the local towns, on to the grid, and up to the state level. Her post, at NEI Nuclear Notes, is part of an NEI report on closing the plant, a report that includes the effect of the plant closing on New England's energy crisis and on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.  The full report: Closing Vermont Yankee: Carbon, Market Impacts of Closing the Vermont Yankee Plant.

Existing power plants
at Hinkley Point
Wikipedia

Finances and Risk in Europe
Neutron Bytes - Dan Yurman

Areva’s financial crisis gets worse. Is Hinkley Point at risk?

The financial future of the French state-owned nuclear giant has become less certain and some worry it may threaten the viability of the UK’s Hinkley Point 3200 MW new nuclear build.

A Nuclear Opponent and His Lack of Credibility
Northwest Clean Energy - Meredith Angwin
Why Do They Listen to Alvarez?
At the Northwest Clean Energy blog, Meredith Angwin notes that Robert Alvarez has now written a report about Columbia Generating Station. This report rehashes the testimony he gave in Vermont about Vermont Yankee in 2013.  She reviews his qualifications and his report and asks: Why Do They Listen to Alvarez?

Safety Culture Everywhere

Graphic from Wikipedia

Nuke Power Talk - Gail Marcus
Trains and Boats and Planes...and Nuclear Power Plants
Gail Marcus writes at Nuke Power Talk about her presentation on safety culture at a meeting in Chicago, and her subsequent experience with a failure of safety culture. Yes, on her way home from the meeting, she had a first-hand experience with a safety culture failure.  (Gail...did you ever find out how the plane's wing hit a barbed wire fence?)  All's well that ends well, but her trip home pointed out how important safety culture is, whether on trains, boats, planes or in nuclear power plants.

Monazite (thorium mineral)

Nuclear Power and Noah's Ark
Energy Reality Project - Rick Maltese
Noah Nuke Advocate
Rick Maltese's parable begs the question: Will we wake up to the reality in time? Obviously the warnings were there for Noah but when will we know? We know what we've been doing wrong but do not know how to change. Time to act. Alone or collectively.

Fundraiser: Crowd Funding for a Pro-Nuclear Presence at AGU
ThoriumMSR - Rick Maltese
Renewed efforts to spread the word about MSRs bigger than ever
Rick Maltese plans to go to the annual AGU (American Geophysical Union) Conference.  Approximately 24,000 scientists and policymakers come to this conference in San Francisco, which runs from Monday December 15 to Friday December 19. Rick will be representing the Thorium Energy Alliance of Silicon Valley (TESV), and his own Energy Reality Project.   Join him at TESV booth 2617: this booth sits directly across of the booth of the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Contribute to crowdfunding Maltese's important effort.

Nuclear Good News on New Builds
Next Big Future - Brian Wang

South Korea approved 4 new nuclear reactors other global nuclear approvals and completions

Brian Wang reports on new builds, commissioning tests and more in South Korea, Vietnam, China and Russia.

China's 2020 Energy Plans

Next Big Future - Brian Wang

China's 2020 energy plans include quite a bit of nuclear energy.

Brian Wang reviews China's plan for its energy mix by 2020.  This includes deepwater oil drilling, reducing coal use to 62% of electricity generation, and considerable new nuclear coming on-line.  According to Chinese planning documents, fast reactors will be an important part of the energy mix in the future.

Moving Used Fuel to Dry Casks at Columbia Generating Station

A few words about today's video.

First, today is Friday, which is a good day for a video.

Second, Vermont Yankee will soon request permission to build more dry cask storage facilities.  (Vermont Yankee to Apply for Second Pad to Hold Dry Casks). This makes today a good day for a dry cask storage video.

Third, I recently visited Columbia Generating Station, in Richland Washington.  As I wrote earlier this month:  "I am on travel right now. I am currently in a town that has a lovely park: Leslie Groves Park. Guess the town."

The town is Richland Washington, and the people at Columbia Generating Station were wonderful hosts.  I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the station and taking a tour of the plant.   Therefore, today is a good day for a Columbia Generating Station dry cask storage video.

Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Plants: NRC Grants License Extensions to Pilgrim and Columbia

In the past week, two of Vermont Yankee's sort-of-sister plants were granted 20-year license extensions by the NRC.  These plants are Pilgrim Station in Massachusetts and Columbia Generating Station in Washington State.

Vermont Yankee, Pilgrim and Columbia Generating Station are all GE boiling water reactors.  Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim are close to the same size and age while Columbia is newer and bigger.

• Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station was commissioned in 1972 and is 685 MW, 
• Vermont Yankee was commissioned in 1972 and is 620 MW. 
• Columbia Nuclear Generating Station was commissioned in 1984 and is 1150 MW.

Pilgrim Station


Opposition: Local opposition to the Pilgrim license renewal was spearheaded by a group called Pilgrim Watch. The opponents put together a "Freeze Pilgrim" referendum, about  "freezing" the relicensing process until all possible upgrades were done.

Before the referendum, Howard Shaffer debated Arnie Gundersen on this issue, as reported in this blog, and described in a local paper. Howard Shaffer's well-organized review of the debate was posted at ANS Nuclear Cafe. Shaffer puts the debate in context.

The "Freeze" Referendum won 3,200 to 2,300.   While Shaffer did a great job with the debate, pro-nuclear people were not organized to go door to door, leaflet the town, etc.  The opponent group was very organized.  Organization pays off.

Licensing: Pilgrim's NRC license was due to expire on June 8.  The NRC spent over six years reviewing the license before it was granted last week, the longest time for a renewal review in agency history.

Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, noted that Pilgrim’s application had been submitted on Jan. 27, 2006, and that the 6 1/2 year review period was the longest of any other renewal application in the agency’s history. He said NRC staff devoted approximately 14,600 hours to reviewing the application.

Chairman Jaczko voted against the renewal, saying that there were still issues about the plant in front of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB). Jaczko further suggested that new rules be enacted  for granting renewal licenses, preventing them from being granted under these circumstances.. For a good review of the issues and votes, I recommend Brian Wheeler's article in Power Engineering Magazine.

Note: As most readers know, Chairman Jaczko recently resigned from the NRC.  But that would be a whole new blog post or three whole new blog posts. Many nuclear bloggers are covering the issue well.  See the latest Blog Carnival at Atomic Power Review for good links!

Local Officials React:  According to the Associated Press, Governor Deval Patrick called the NRC decision "extremely troubling."  Representative Markey didn't like it either (not a surprise there!) The Massachusetts Attorney General's office plans to pursue appeals through the courts "and other appropriate channels."

Columbia Station

According to the NRC website, Columbia Station applied for a renewal license on January 1, 2010 and was granted it on May 22, 2012.  

According to the Bellingham Herald, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire came to the station to congratulate the workers, and "Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., could not attend the event, but they sent videotaped messages."

Also according to the Herald: 

Steve Wright, administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the power produced at the plant, said it is "an extremely important and valuable asset for the long term."....The license renewal was not an easy test, but with the plant's future now defined, the plant will need to continue its substantial effort to improve performance, he said. "We all want Columbia's performance to be elevated to a level admired by plants across the world," Wright said, drawing applause from workers.

Note: I have a video of Columbia Station up on this blog, and it gathered many comments about the relative ranking of the station compared to other BWRs.

Vermont Dreaming

Two plants, two governors, two license renewals.  One license renewal took over six years, mostly because of contentions, and the state A G is planning to sue (or something).  That was Massachusetts.  The other renewal took a little more than two years, and the plant received bi-partisan support from local officials.  That was Washington state.

I'm dreaming of Vermont being more like Washington state in the future.  After all, both states have hydro power and nuclear power and mountains.  

I can dream, can't I?

Inside Columbia Generating Station

Excellent, well-organized video of Columbia Generating Station, a GE Type 5 Boiling Water Reactor near Richland Washington. This is a big unit, 1150 MW, but much of the video will look very familiar to those who have visited Vermont Yankee.