The Oil-filled Grid: Communications

Early January Nor'Easter
Wikimedia, NOAA

Oil on the Grid

About two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post The Northeast Grid and the Oil. This described our early-January polar weather, and how Northeastern power plants could not get enough natural gas in the below-zero weather. Homes had priority for natural gas delivery, and plants that could use oil switched from natural gas to oil.

As a matter of fact, the oil stocks were also getting depleted.

I want to update the cold-snap story with some other posts. The general public doesn't read my blog, so I did some outreach. I wrote an op-ed about the grid for my local paper, the Valley News.  The op-ed was printed on the front page of the Sunday Perspective section on January 28, and has been shared around 200 times on Facebook. Oil Kept the Power Grid Running in Recent Cold Snap.

Why were people so interested in the article?  Because a secure electric supply is an important part of personal safety during extremely cold weather.  Most home furnaces require electricity to spread the warmth into the household. People who have chosen heat pumps are also dependent on reliable electricity.

Nuclear plants and pipelines and controversy, oh my!

There were more articles on the situation, of course, not just mine.  Actually, I think there were too few articles.  Nearly running out of oil when you can't get gas---this can be a major deal during severe winter weather! I will point out some interesting articles, and I hope that people who read this will send links to a few more.

Rod Adams post described the "sobering statements" made by the grid operator about oil supply, and the weird statements made by nuclear opponents.  (Pilgrim should have shut down before the storm? Really?) He shares some graphics from ISO-NE on the weak performance of solar panels during the days of the crisis.  He also discusses Pilgrim going off-line, and whether that could have been prevented. As usual, his post has an active and informed stream of comments. Performance of the New England power grid during extreme cold Dec 25-Jan 8, at Atomic Insights blog.

Meanwhile, over at Forbes, several columnists were commenting on the situation.
Jude Clemente wrote What Happens When You Don't Build Natural Gas Pipeline
David Blackman wrote Amid Deep Freeze, New Englanders Can 'Thank' N.Y. Gov Cuomo For Their High Energy Bills
Christopher Helman wrote Natural Gas Demand Hits Record As Cold Bomb Targets Northeast

Over WBUR radio, Bruce Gellerman has a fascinating seven minute segment on how the power plants actually operated during the cold snap, including an interview with a manager of a peaker plant that runs about 800 hours a year. Do We Need More Natural Gas Pipelines?

There's a lot of controversy built into all these articles. The role of nuclear.  The need (or not-need) for more natural gas pipelines. Will new emissions regulations make handling the next cold snap much harder? Did renewables make a great contribution during the cold snap?  Or not?

The Electric Supply

A steady electric supply is hugely important to winter safety. In my opinion, it should not be such a subject of controversy.  My hope is that  reason will prevail, and we will have the nuclear plants, pipelines and energy security that we need.

Closing Pilgrim Will Zap Environment and Grid: Guest Post by Professor Gilbert Brown

Professor Gilbert Brown

Premature Closings

The premature closing of nuclear power plants such as Pilgrim harms our nation’s economy, energy security and the environment.

Why is this happening? It is not because of safety, but rather a blatant skewing of energy markets, that until just a few years ago leaned on the reliability of nuclear power plants. Today there is the short-sighted view that mandated solar and wind and the current windfall from fracked natural gas will work. Facts and history speak otherwise.

Although natural gas is cheap now, it is not likely to stay that way for long. Natural gas has a history of price volatility. Increasing New England’s reliance on gas for electricity generation — now at the 75 percent mark and rising — is nonsensical, especially in winter in a region where gas is used for heating.

And the fact remains that, although wind and solar have seen their costs fall, without serious subsidies their overall costs are more expensive per kilowatt hour than nuclear (and certainly gas). Furthermore there isn’t enough solar and wind to replace large nuclear plants and, because they only operate intermittently, there will surely be more fossil burning.

Correcting market abnormalities in 20 states where nuclear plants are at financial risk may be necessary to ensure that they are not closed early. Right now, the problem with the electricity market is that no value is placed on nuclear power’s role in reducing carbon emissions or its contribution to ensuring electricity reliability and energy security. Most troubling, the loss of nuclear power means that it will become more difficult — in some cases, impossible — for states to comply with EPA carbon-reduction rules, jeopardizing the administration’s climate goals at the very time when the world is looking to U.S. leadership in the battle against global warming.

Shortsighted Choices

This is really shortsighted. There is no avoiding the fact that more fossil fuels will be used for power production to compensate for the loss of nuclear power. Renewables and improvements in energy efficiency alone won’t meet energy requirements. And what about the rising popularity of electric cars? Where will the “clean” electricity come from to recharge their batteries?

Renewables like solar and wind power are intermittent sources that rely on carbon-emitting natural gas as a backup fuel when the weather isn’t cooperating. Moreover, wind requires 360 times as much land area to produce the same amount of electricity as a nuclear plant, and solar requires 75 times the land area.

Last year 3,600 megawatts of nuclear-generating capacity was closed down, compared with 4,500 megawatts of coal power. Among the shuttered nuclear plants were San Onofre’s two units in southern California and the Crystal River plant in Florida. Those three plants had been inoperable due to required multibillion-dollar repairs and were deemed no longer commercially viable. But since then, decisions have been made to close four operating nuclear plants — Kewaunee in Wisconsin, Vermont Yankee, Pilgrim and most recently, FitzPatrick in New York.

With climate change concerns rising every day, the last thing we need is a trend that makes them rise even faster. Yet that is what will happen when zero-carbon-emitting nuclear plants are prematurely retired. In Massachusetts the Pilgrim plant accounts for 79 percent of the emission-free electricity and is the only clean-air source that can produce large amounts of base-load power around the clock. The loss of Pilgrim’s 677 megawatts of generating capacity is not good for consumers, energy security or the environment.

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Gilbert J. Brown is a professor and director of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, and recently served in the State Department in the Visiting Scholars program. This program enables specialists in the physical sciences to support State Department activities in  arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament.

This article first appeared on November 4, 2015, in the Boston Herald.
http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/op_ed/2015/11/brown_closing_pilgrim_will_zap_environment_energy_grid 

Pilgrim, Fitzpatrick, Rod Adams, and The Boxer

The Double Shock

Yesterday, Rod Adams wrote about the double shock of Pilgrim and Fitzpatrick closing.  It was a terrible set of events. We need every nuclear plant to keep operating.  We need them for their clean reliable power, for their ability to supply power without greenhouse gases and nitrogen oxides, for their ability to supply power during polar vortexes and other fossil-fuel supply crunches.

Adams said this better than I can, in the post
Deeply troubled by FitzPatrick and Pilgrim announcements. We need their clean electricity production to continue

A long time ago, I did a post: I am not Spock, at the American Nuclear Society blog. In this post, I wrote that I am not Spock.  I am a person with emotions.  I am committed to nuclear energy for the sake of my children and grandchildren.  This is an emotional commitment, as well as a logical energy choice.  I am having a deep emotional reaction, a reaction of grief, to the closing of these two plants.

The Serenity Prayer

Adams post includes his thoughts about the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I value the serenity prayer, but I don't completely follow it.  If I try to change something, and I don't succeed, was I therefore unwise? If I tried to make something good happen, but it didn't happen, was I lacking in wisdom, because the thing I tried to accomplish ended up being a "thing I cannot change"?

On the other hand, when a friend called two days ago to tell me that her cancer was no longer in remission, I clung to the serenity prayer. "I cannot change this. I cannot change this.  I can only accept it.  I can only do one thing: keep being her friend, whatever that will mean in the future."

Showing up and paying attention

This is the mantra that I use about my activism. For some issues, I find it more powerful than the serenity prayer.

Part of my comment on Adams blog post:

I personally find this mantra more helpful:
– Show up
– Pay attention
– Tell the truth
– Don’t be attached to the consequences.

In this mantra, when the consequences are not what I would like, I tell myself “Well, I did the first three steps” as opposed to “I can’t tell the difference, can I?” And I can say: “Oh well, the fourth one is always the hardest, but I did the first three.”

The Boxer

I decided to head this post with Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer. I have been listening to it, somewhat compulsively, in the past few days.

The Boxer "carries a reminder," he carries a scar, from every blow that hurt him. He has been hurt so badly that he wanted to quit, hurt so badly that he said he would quit.

But The Boxer doesn't quit.

The last line is:
"But the fighter still remains."

Thank you

Thank you to Rod Adams for his posts and his courage.  Thank you to everyone who works in the nuclear industry, giving us clean power and clean air.  And thank you to everyone who defends the industry.

The fighter still remains.

Pilgrim will close by 2019 UPDATE

Pilgrim

Pilgrim to close

Entergy announced today that Pilgrim will close by 2019.  Here are two links:

The Entergy announcement includes many subsidiary links

The Boston Globe has a good article on this breaking news.

Entergy is going to have a press conference today at noon Eastern Time.  There will be more information at that time.

Some Thoughts on Pilgrim and on the Grid

There is some question about exactly when Pilgrim will close.  Entergy has "contracted with ISO-NE" to supply power from Pilgrim until 2019 (Boston Globe article).  This means that Pilgrim will refuel again…unless they can cut a deal with another power plant to supply power after 2017.  Pilgrim's latest refueling outage started in April of this year, and it is roughly on a biennial cycle.  So Pilgrim is fairly sure to keep running until 2017, but may or may not refuel at that time, depending on factors such as whether it can find another power plant to take over its obligations to ISO-NE.

Well, all the stories say "supply power" but it is really about the capacity markets, not the power markets.  Plants bid in years ahead to supply "capacity"…that is, to be available to supply power when needed.  Plants are paid two ways: power payments and capacity payments.

• A plant that supplies power most of the time (base load plants) gets most of its revenue from selling power (MWh sold). This would be the case with Pilgrim.
• A plant that supplies power only part of the time (a peaker plant) gets a much higher proportion of its revenue from capacity payments (MW available when called upon).   This would be the case with most gas plants.

With so many plants retiring (Vermont Yankee, coal plants), available capacity has fallen and (supply and demand) capacity payments have soared. I encourage you to look at a recent chart on Capacity Payments in the Forward Capacity Market, from James Bride's keynote presentation at an ISO-NE meeting in New Hampshire last week.   The chart, on page 12 of the presentation, shows capacity payments going from $3.21 per kWmonth in 2014/2015 to $9.55 per kWmonth in 2019.

Thoughts on the ISO-NE meeting

I was at the Consumer Liaison Group meeting of ISO-NE last Friday, October 9.  I am  (currently) the only Vermont representative to the Coordinating Committee for that group. (Yeah. I need to do a geeky blog post on this.)

For right now, however, please look through the rest of the Bride presentation, especially the section on "missing money."

Intermittent renewables get much of their money from subsidies of various types, not from the grid. Therefore, they can bid into the grid at artificially low costs for their power, even bid in at negative numbers (we will PAY you to take our power!).   This lowers the power price on the grid, and particularly hurts plants that make a lot of power, like base load plants.  As base load plants retire because they can't make enough money to keep operating, the amount of capacity available diminishes, capacity payments go up, and peaker plants get proportionately more money.  Peaker plants always get a higher percentage of their money from capacity payments, but when base load plants retire, they get even more money from capacity payments.

There were several presentations on the role of intermittents on the grid.  Robert Ethier of ISO-NE was on the panel, and the Ethier presentation struck me as surprisingly cheery about predicting more base load plants will retire.  He claimed that: power prices will go down, capacity prices will go up, but the market will take care of everything.  That is my interpretation of his talk. I didn't ask him a question, but I did ask a question of Anne George of ISO-NE after her presentation. ISO-NE supposedly has some concerns with a one-fuel-source grid (natural gas) but they don't seem to be worried overmuch.

The Closing of Pilgrim Nuclear Plant is a Clear Victory for Fossil Fuels. 


Update: Graphic from Bill Mohl (Entergy) press conference this morning, showing where different types of plants get their revenue. Thank you to Entergy for sharing this graphic.

Nuclear gets a small percentage from capacity payments,  and most of their revenue from selling power (energy payments.) 

Gas turbines get a large percentage from capacity payments.

 Renewables get a big percentage from PTC (production tax credits) and RECs (selling Renewable Energy Certificates) which allows renewables to bid into the grid at a very low price, because those two sources of income remain intact, even with little revenue from power production.

I believe A.S. payments are payments as part of the ISO-NE winter reliability program, but I am not sure.  These payments are highest for dual fuel systems in this graph, which is correct for winter reliability payments.  The winter reliability program basically makes payments for keeping fuel on site.  In general, a gas turbine that can  also be fired with oil will keep oil on site, or keep CNG on site, and get the reliability payment.  

A Tale of Two Meetings: Keeping NRC meetings safe for everyone

The Vermont Yankee NRC meeting: Bullying

Vermont flag

About four weeks ago, I attended the NRC decommissioning review meeting about  Vermont Yankee.  It was an unpleasant experience, to say the least. At the bottom of this post, I link to four blog posts about this out-of-control meeting.  The four posts include some shocking quotes from the NRC about how the NRC doesn't eject people from meetings, pretty much under any circumstances. Even people committing assault don't get ejected.

A few days ago, Dan Yurman of Neutron Bytes wrote a new post, based on NRC information: Closing the Civility Gap at NRC Public Meetings.  Yurman discovered that the NRC actually had a task force to improve its public meetings. The task force submitted its report in late January 2015, just a few weeks before the Vermont Yankee meeting.  (Clearly the report did very little good for Vermont.) Yurman looked up the improving-meetings report on the almost-indecipherable ADAMS data base of the NRC.  Reading the report, he learned that the NRC task force has a very good idea of what makes good public outreach, and more good ideas on why the NRC is failing at it.

The report talks about a "center of excellence" for training for public meetings, and outlines various types of training.  It does not, however, go so far as to suggest staffing or funding for this purpose. As Yurman points out, the report contains good ideas, but no real plans for carrying out those ideas.

I encourage you to read Yurman's clear and thoughtful post on the civility gap.  Brave souls can also go the NRC ADAMS citations ML15029A460, ML15029A463, and ML15029A465.

The Pilgrim NRC Meeting: Civility

Massachusetts flag

My experience is that the bullying is worse when opponents are a majority in the room.  Therefore, I was truly happy to read about the March 18 Pilgrim NRC meeting.  Many supporters attended: the headline in a local paper was  NRC: Supporters outnumber critics at annual Pilgrim performance review. It is a great pleasure to read that article.  If you don't have time to read about the good things being said about Pilgrim in the article in the Wicked Local paper, at least follow the link to see the faces of the people speaking on behalf of their local nuclear power plant.  The proponents include men, women, young people, old people, people of different races.

Also, if you pardon me saying so, the proponent's faces are open, kind and sincere. I could look at the pictures of the Pilgrim supporters all day. It comforts me to see their faces.

Alas, when I think of an NRC meeting, I see the shouting, hate-filled face of our most noisy local opponent.  I know that many nuclear opponents are good people, but in our local NRC meeting, the opponent group comes across as a mob scene. They cheer while their designated bully threatens and attacks people.  They may be sweet enough in private life: I don't know.  In the meetings, frankly, only the pitchforks are missing.

A Tale of Two Meetings

The Vermont Yankee meeting had two problems: bullies who knew they outnumbered the plant proponents, and an ineffective NRC who caved in to the bullies completely, refusing to keep order.

The Pilgrim meeting was different for one reason and one reason only: plant supporters outnumbered the plant opponents. Therefore, the opponents could not get control by bullying and shouting.  It the opponents hadn't been outnumbered, I think they would have tried to turn the Pilgrim meeting into the same kind of dangerous shambles as the Vermont Yankee meeting.  But they were outnumbered, and they didn't try.

Pizza

By the way, it is amusing to read the comments on the article about the  Pilgrim meeting.  The opponents claim the reporter is "unfair" and that Entergy "bribed" people to come to the meeting by offering pizza. (Entergy did offer pizza.  Those meetings are right after work, and people are hungry.)  Opponents think that people will give up an evening and sit in an uncomfortable room in a long meeting….just in return for free pizza!

I am always amazed at the perception gap between many plant opponents and…well…..reality.  This gap extends far beyond the issues about technical understanding of radiation.

Keith Drown of Pilgrim commented on the Wicked Local article.  I will use his words as the last statement on this blog post.  Hail to Pilgrim!

Employees volunteered to attend the meeting and show their support for Pilgrim without coercion from the company. We live in the community and understand the facts concerning the safe operation of the plant. We not only work at Pilgrim, we also live in close proximity to the plant. It appears that some within the anti-Pilgrim groups are upset that we had a pizza before the meeting. They should be upset, the pizza was wonderful and they missed out. In addition to the pizza we also had cookies and brownies, not to mention a good time just being together. 

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Earlier posts about the Vermont Yankee NRC meeting

I have a blog post about the NRC meeting, Bullying at the NRC Meeting.

Rod Adams posted about it and made a short, watchable video (25 minutes) from the four-hour video of the meeting.  His post Agencies should not allow creation of a hostile environment at public meetings includes his video and almost 50 comments, some of which are very informative.

Dan Yurman has an earlier post on this meeting, including his own important exchange with the NRC: NRC must do more to insure civility at its public hearings

Steve Aplin at Canadian Energy Issues compares the actions of the nuclear opponents with the actions of those in the Old South, right after the Civil War, in denying free speech and rights to newly-freed slaves.  It's a good analogy, and no harsher than the behavior deserves: Free speech, Monty Python, and Civil War reconstruction: anti-nukes are not funny

Entergy Conference Call: Vermont Yankee is a well-run plant!

A few days ago, Entergy announced its third-quarter earnings and The Street published a transcript of its earnings-report conference call.  The transcript is quite long.  I decided to use some quotes from it as my blog post.

My conclusion: Vermont Yankee employees can be VERY proud of the operation of this plant!

In the quotes below, the speaker is Leo Denault, Chairman and CEO of Entergy. I have made some additions for clarity: additions are in parentheses. Material in bold was also added by the blogger.

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Vermont Yankee running very well, breaker to breaker

At Entergy Wholesale Commodities operational performance was once again strong. As I noted earlier, our plants ran well. For example, the extended outage at FitzPatrick came in below the shorter end of our expectations and at VY our employees have kept the plant running for nearly 600 consecutive days now. Remarkably they are on their fourth breaker to breaker run.

But in fact all of our EWC plants play important roles in their respective regions and communities.....

About the plant closure

Let me now turn to Vermont Yankee since I know a lot of you will have questions about its closure. As you may know, in September the plant began its coast down to permanent shutdown which will occur at the end of the year. Last month, as we said we would, Entergy delivered a first of its kind site assessment study to the state of Vermont.....

Using conservative estimates about the growth of the (decommissioning) trust we think it will have enough money to begin such (major) activities in the next 25 to 35 years. At this point we don't expect to add funds into the trust to meet NRC financial assurance requirements.

A tough decision, but the economics were bad

The decision to close the plant was tough. It came with certain risks and challenges. But we planned to meet and manage these challenges thoughtfully which I think we have.

For example, we obtained an order from the Vermont Public Service Board authorizing VY to operate through the end of the fourth quarter. We targeted elimination of overhead associated with the plant and replaced the majority of Vermont Yankee employees wanting to stay with the company in new roles. It is worth reiterating that this was the right decision.

First, we now see an incremental benefit of shutdown versus continued operation of an additional $50 million through 2017. And second, despite the upturn in forward power prices in New England over the past year, economics for VY would still not be sustainable in the long run.

One reason why Pilgrim is different: Capacity Markets

Forward capacity market improvement, through the newly defined constrained zone that spans southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, is improving the revenue outlook at Pilgrim and RISEC, but VY would not have benefited from this new capacity zone.

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?

Shaffer and Gundersen Debate about Pilgrim Relicensing

The Ballot Initiative

Last night, Howard Shaffer and Arnie Gundersen debated whether the Pilgrim plant relicensing process should continue or the process should be frozen. The idea was to freeze relicensing until all Fukushima fixes were known and made. The non-binding ballot initiative in Plymouth township reads:

“FREEZE PILGRIM”Ballot Question MAY 12 TOWN ELECTION-PLYMOUTH We The People of Plymouth, Massachusetts, direct the Plymouth Board of Selectmen to call upon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to immediately suspend all further action on the application of the Entergy Corporation for renewal of its license to operate the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station pending the full implementation of all safety improvements recommended by the NRC as a result of lessons learned from the failures of similarly designed reactors in Fukushima, Japan.

I watched the debate last night, and it was a frustrating experience because I could not see the debaters or hear them or see their slides. What I saw was an interactive stream with comments from the moderator, tweets from many people (including myself) and a fair number of advertisements for fast-food muffins.

The Debate

Japan: Many of the tweets were from Japan as shown in the screen shot above.

Cocktail Party: The NRC gave an informational "cocktail party" before the debate (no booze), but the NRC did not participate in the debate itself. Picture of the party here from the Wicked Local Facebook page.

However, the moderator said Entergy and the NRC were invited, Berger notes, but chose not to attend. I think that was an unfair statement. Of course, the NRC could not formally enter into a debate about an on-going license extension, but they were there on an informal basis, and I give them credit!

Gundersen view of the NRC. Gundersen did his usual comments about the NRC: NRC commissioners are vetted by trade organization of nuclear industry NRC and industry, Gundersen says, are too cozy

Note: All quotes are from the moderator's notes. I do not know if the quotes are verbatim.

Fishing boats: Gundersen: If Tim McVeigh had been in the Finnish boat that wandered close to the plant last year, we would have had a real problem.

Nuclear Matters Committee: The Town of Plymouth has a Nuclear Matters Committee (NMC), including educated people. Here's a quote from one of them:

Paul Smith (NMC): there are no lethal amounts of radiation leaking from Fukushima...

-The geology is in our favor

-We are not susceptible to dangerous tsunami

Gundersen's Samples: Gundersen said he took "samples" in Tokyo that were "troubling." Howard asked him to show the numbers. He didn't, of course. Here's are two Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) blog posts on the Gundersen claims. NEI asks questions of AP for reporting these claims. NEI find Gundersen's statement baffling.

Gundersen knows exact number of cancers that will be caused: Okay. I found this shocking, even though I have certainly seen Gundersen in action before.

Gundersen answers a question: When will start to see the cancers?

Gundersen: peer reviewed report of TMI lung cancers, within five year of three mile island, ten or 20% increase.

-In short term thyroiud and lung issues. Over next 25 years, other tissue damage

-new report says 30 years out, they are seeing other cancers from Three Mile Island

-In Fukushima, 1 in 20 young girls exposed to radiation in Fukushima will suffer from cancers related to the event.

Is there a bottom line?

As many have noted, it is hard to debate people who can just say anything that supports their position, whether it is true or not. On the other hand, I think the world-wide interest in this debate was completely legitimate, and I give credit to both men for taking part. There are very few forums in which both sides appear and are willing to answer questions. I congratulate the township of Plymouth for hosting this debate.

And of course, I congratulate Howard for his effective presentation, and his deep and abiding personal honesty.

Links

To see the same thing I saw, but faster (you can scroll through it, instead of waiting in real time), go to this Wicked Local (newspaper) webpage.

Before the forum, Howard Shaffer asked me to put his slides on the web in pdf format. You can see his slides here.

Howard also asked me to put the ANS Fukushima report on the web in a way that is easily accessible. Here's the ANS Fukushima report, and here's the ANS talking point summary.

As I understand it, the debate was also on local community access TV. When I get the link to it as an on-demand show, I will update this post.

This Thursday: Shaffer and Gundersen Panel about Pilgrim Plant

The Freeze Forum

On Thursday March 29 at 7 p.m., the newspaper Wicked Local of Plymouth Massachusetts will sponsor a forum on the relicensing of Pilgrim Nuclear plant. Howard Shaffer and Arnie Gundersen will be the panelists. The event is called the Freeze Pilgrim Forum because Shaffer and Gundersen will be debating: "Should Pilgrim's relicensing be frozen until all the Fukushima event corrections are completed?" This question is a local non-binding ballot initiative. As you might expect, Gundersen will debate in favor of freezing the relicensing and Shaffer for proceeding with relicensing.

Many of us can't get down to Plymouth MA to see the debate, but we can see it (and ask questions) on-line. It's going to be a multi-media event. The invitation:

FFMand has invited you to watch their event:

Live Blog: Freeze Pilgrim: the Debate

Date: Thursday March 29, 2012

Time: 7:00PM EDT

Please consider participating in our "live" reporting from the March 29th Freeze Pilgrim forum in Plymouth, and informing your members/colleagues and friends about this enhanced coverage. Our reporting will begin 15 minutes prior to the start of the question and answer period, and will continue until the forum's conclusion. This forum is an important prelude to Plymouth's non-binding ballot referendum on re-licensing Pilgrim. The "Cover-It-Live" event will include live updates on the Q&A, polls, mini-resumes, graphics, and the ability for participants to comment as events unfold.

Frank Mand, Old Colony Memorial/GateHouse Media NE (Fmand@wickedlocal.com)

Copy-paste this link in your browser:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/plymouth

The Pilgrim Plant

Pilgrim Station is a Mark 1 BWR. Like Vermont Yankee, it is owned by Entergy. Its forty-year license will expire on June 8, 2012. Pilgrim submitted its renewal application to NRC in January 2006. No other renewal has taken this long to complete. However, the plant can keep operating after June 8, because it applied for NRC renewal in an appropriate time frame, and so can continue to operate on its existing license.

According to this article about Pilgrim relicensing in the Patriot Ledger, the major slow-down for relicensing has been a long series of contentions filed by Mary Lampert of Duxbury. She has founded the group Pilgrim Watch to oppose the plant's operation.

The Debate

Once again, going back to Wicked Local, there have been two articles about the debate. On March 18, the article Nuclear Forum Off to a Shaky Start described how Entergy and the NRC said they would not participate in the debate. Then the fun began. The organizers accepted an offer from Howard Shaffer to debate. As the article describes the situation at that point:

But when Shaffer’s participation was announced, Gundersen was not happy, and Freeze Plymouth was told he would renege on his commitment to the event because of what were characterized as “personal” attacks by Shaffer on his qualifications.

The Old Colony reached Shaffer at his New Hampshire home Friday, and while he admitted to instances where he and/or colleagues had been critical of Gundersen’s qualifications, he said he’s appeared on panels with the Fairewinds engineer before without incident.

On March 21, another Wicked Local article appeared: Freeze forum 'experts' set. The article starts: Fairewinds Associates Founder Margaret Gundersen has confirmed that her husband, Arnold Gundersen, has accepted an invitation to be one of two “experts” at next week’s Freeze Pilgrim forum – a public prelude to May’s nonbinding referendum on the re-licensing of Plymouth’s 40-year-old nuclear power plant.

So I guess the debate is a "go."

We can all attend, on-line. If I get more information on attendance, I will update this post.