Guest Post on San Onofre by Nuclear Engineer Ken Schultz. Steam generators not a safety issue

Combustion Engineering steam generators
are similar to this Westinghouse version

I recently blogged about how I "told you so" about the San Onofre Steam Generators: Steam Generator Thoughts and Future. I told you so. I noted that the new steam generators have problems, and I referenced my previous predictions that the SONGS plants will be restarted with lower water speeds and lower power output.

On October 9, the NRC held a public meeting near the plant.  (Here's the L A Times report.) At the NRC meeting, a set of panelists expressed their views on the steam generator issues, followed by questions from the audience.  One of the panelists was Ken Schultz, who is a nuclear engineer and a registered professional engineer in the state of California. Dr. Schultz has graciously allowed me to use his opening statement as a guest post.  A summary of his statement might be: "Steam generator tube ruptures at San Onofre will not be a safety issue."

Remarks to NRC Pubic Meeting, Tuesday 9 October 2012 on San Onofre Steam Generator Tube Leakage

Dr. Kenneth R Schultz, Ph.D., P.E.

Hi, I’m Ken Schultz and I live in Leucadia about 25 miles downwind of San Onofre.  I am a Registered Professional Nuclear Engineer and retired a year ago after a 40 year career at General Atomics, working on a variety of nuclear projects.  I have never worked for Southern California Edison nor for San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.  I have no financial ties to either of them and am not being paid to attend this meeting, something I’m get used to being retired.  My knowledge about SONGS comes from my general training as a nuclear engineer and from the press.  I am the chair of the local Section of the American Nuclear Society, which is the professional technical association for people working in all aspects of nuclear energy.  Our members include people throughout Southern California, including people working at SONGS.  My remarks today are my personal opinions and do not necessarily represent positions of the ANS

We are here to discuss the NRC’s current regulatory oversight status of SONGS.  I have interacted with members of the NRC during my career and have always found them to be technically skilled, extremely conscientious and critical of all data and conclusions given to them.  In my interactions with them on advanced nuclear reactor designs, they were always interested in new designs with improved safety characteristics, and encouraged their investigation.  I have no doubt that the NRC staff are applying the same skills and dedication to their oversight of San Onofre.

I am concerned that the press is saying the NRC thinks this may be a long investigation.  I think it’s important to keep perspective that the size of the investigation is consistent with the size of the risk.  A case in point is the SONGS steam generators situation.  These are clearly important pieces of equipment and cost a great deal.  They appear to have been incorrectly designed and to be wearing out prematurely.

Now, everything in a nuclear power plant must be investigated from a safety perspective, but the steam generators appear to not be a serious safety issue.  Based on the tiny radiation dose that resulted from the failure of the Unit 3 steam generator tube, I estimate that even if all the 515 steam generator tubes that are affected by the premature wear problem were to fail simultaneously, the radiation released to a person standing at the worst place on the site boundary for the full duration of the accident would result in a dose of less than 1 µSv.  Let’s put that in perspective. Low doses of radiation are a natural part of our environment.  Life on earth evolved in the constant presence of low level radiation.  Every year each of us living in Southern California receives about 3,000 µSv of radiation from cosmic rays, radioactive minerals in the earth and our food, and from medical and dental x-rays.  If we live at higher elevation, like Denver, we’d receive about 6,000 µSv/year.  If we fly a lot we’ll get an extra 2,000 µSv/year.

So that extra µSv from a steam generator accident would be like spending less than a day in the mountains, or taking less than one airline flight.  I don’t see this as a safety issue.  Further, there is growing scientific evidence that low level doses of radiation are not only not harmful, but may be beneficial in stimulating the body’s cellular repair systems. Again, I don’t see the steam generator problem as a safety issue and urge the NRC to proceed with their investigation.

126th Carnival of Nuclear Energy up at Entreprenuclear

The 126th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Entreprenuclear.  This is the first time Entreprenuclear has hosted the Carniva. He has written are quite a few excellent posts on his blog, however.  One of my favorites is his post: Debunking Antis (Peter Bradford)--the Weight of Lies.  It reviews Bradford's Wall Street Journal article, and basically takes it apart. The post has a good song video, too.

On to the Carnival itself!

Rick Maltese has two posts, both ultimately about government and nuclear energy. One post is more about politics and nuclear energy, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. A post by Leslie Corrise also debunks Peter Bradford's Wall Street Journal article.  Rod Adams posts about a rational discussion of nuclear: Rod has been following George Monbiot and Theo Simon's blog discussion.  At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Howard Shaffer reports on the founding of the anti-nuclear movement, as reported by two founders visiting UMass Amherst last week.  Also at the Nuclear Cafe, Margaret Harding blogs from an American Nuclear Society meeting in India.  At this blog, I write about San Onofre.

Nuclear Diner describes Russian plans to raise two sunken submarines.  Atomic Power Review's Will Davis describes the Toshiba purchase of the Shaw group holdings in Westinghouse.

On to Japan, and to emergencies of various types. Jim Conca writes in Forbes about the Japanese attempts to set up new regulatory authorities.  Well, the title of Conca's post is "Fukushima slugfest" about how the new regulatory authority will work.   Meanwhile, the Fukushima Fifty are ashamed to show their faces in Japan.  Radiation phobia has led to severe discrimination against anyone affected by Fukushima. William Tucker writes about this at Nuclear Townhall.

While we are on the subject of Japan, we should note Leslie Corrice at Hiroshima Syndrome examines recent Japanese data and comments that it is possible that none of the reactors at Fukushima had a reactor pressure vessel "melt-through."  In other words, the melted material probably stayed in the pressure vessel, where it belonged.  Finally, on the subject of emergencies, Gail Marcus at Nuke Power talk describes how emergency planning for nuclear plants increases the planning capabilities of the communitie. This leads to more effective emergency planning for floods and chemical spills. She gives powerful examples of this effect of nuclear plants on their communities.

Come to the Carnival!  Enjoy!  It is always a treat to go to the Carnival!

San Onofre Thoughts and Future. I told you so.

New Steam Generator Support Plates
picture courtesy of Areva

Steam Generators in my life

When I was project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), my speciality was corrosion prevention in steam generators.  Due to this background, I am very interested in the problems at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) new steam generators.  I care, even though SONGS is far away from Vermont.

SONGS problems are due to vibration, and my expertise was materials and water chemistry.  But still. The Steam Generator Project Office was a pretty small group at EPRI: there were about ten of us.  We all learned about everything concerned with steam generators. We held formal seminars for our utility sponsors, and we had informal talks and seminars within the group.  EPRI wouldn't have asked me to perform a vibrational analysis (I'm a chemist), but we all discussed the steam generator research results.

Steam Generators at SONGS

SONGS recently replaced its steam generators, but the new ones didn't work well.  They showed a great deal tube-to-tube wear. Due to vibration, the tubes bump into each other and fret each other.

The steam generators at Unit 3 suffered a lot of  tube-to-tube wear, and one tube even had a small leak. Due to the leak, the operators shut the plant down.

Unit 2, on the other hand, had only two tubes with indications of significant tube-to-tube wear. These tubes have been plugged.  Five hundred more tubes were plugged as a preventative measure.  Steam generators have huge numbers of tubes (more then 9700 tubes per generator at SONGS).  When a generator is built, it is assumed that a certain percentage of tubes will be plugged over the lifetime of the plant.  The tube plugging at Unit 2 is a lot for a young plant, but hardly near any kind of limit.  Five hundred tubes is about 2% of the tubes.

Aerial view of SONGS from Wikipedia

Will more tubes need plugging in the near future? Probably not. Edison plans to stop the vibration by changing the water velocities.  The plant will be run at 70% power, and be checked after half an operating cycle.  This should fix the problem.

I think the most complete description of the tube situation is in the letter from Southern California Edison to the NRC, explaining how the NRC criteria for restarting Unit 2 will be addressed.   More information can be found at the SONGS site: the Information Package is especially readable.

Vibration at SONGS Or "I Told You So"

Luckily, vibration problems are usually comparatively easy to fix.  Change the speed of the liquid, and the vibrational mode will change.  It can be as simple as that.

In April, I wrote a guest post at Atomic Power Review: San Onofre and Steam Generator Design. In this post, I wrote:

The root cause analysis will come up with something vibration connected. 

To cure it, some kind of derating of water flow (primary side and/or secondary side) with ameliorate the problem well enough to keep the generators in operation while the owners and the manufacturers sue each other. The generators will be replaced early.

Well, the last part hasn't happened, but the first part is on its way.

In July, a post at my own blog called San Onofre, Gundersen and Vermont Yankee received quite a few comments. In the comment section, I predicted that San Onofre would be back on-line in a few months---except that it might take a long time to convince the NRC that the new vibrational models were correct.  This also seems to be exactly what is happening.

Also, starting Unit 3 will be harder much harder than starting Unit 2, because the damage at Unit 3 was greater when discovered.  My crystal ball was good, but not perfect.

Am I Being Boastful?

Well, yes I am.  The vibrational problems at Unit 2 are solvable, just as I predicted.

I am tired of those who predict doom claiming to always be right, while people who know something about nuclear power, and people who predict good things on occasion--we don't bother to take any credit.

In other words, I'm not boastful.  I am just standing up for  the nuclear industry!

Oh.  Okay. I'm boastful. In other words: "I told you so."

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More Resources

• Atomic Power Review on how steam generators are designed
• Atomic Power Review on SONGS, with good links
• Atomic Power Review, my guest post on Steam Generator development at EPRI
• Rod Adams on whether nuclear power has been captured by overly-conservative group-think.  
• SONGS website on issues, with many links to documents.
• Find out about NRC meeting yesterday by searching on twitter for #SanOnofre

Next Big Future: Carnival of Nuclear Energy 125

Next Big Future: Carnival of Nuclear Energy 125.  Once again, Brian Wang has put together an excellent Carnival.

Uranium 233 as a resource for the future; Japan's new nuclear safety authority (is it good enough?); x-rays and science; the use of nuclear "waste" to promote safety and health; detailed post on potential San Onofre restart; public pro-nuclear activities in Tennessee, Quebec and Japan; new plants under construction...in Japan; and the closing of a library (the Nuclear Information Library)..also in Japan.

Come to the Carnival. You never know what you will find there!   But it is fun to take the trip!

High Level Waste and Legal Wrangles at Vermont Yankee

High Level Waste is a (legal) Question At Vermont Yankee

Low level waste is a success story, but high level waste is a legal question at Vermont Yankee.  High level waste storage has become a central issue as the federal court case begins the appeals process.

Spent Fuel as Pretext

In the past, the Vermont legislature attempted to shut down Vermont Yankee on several pretexts.  One pretext was that the original Memorandum of Understanding allowed Vermont Yankee to store spent fuel produced while that memorandum was in effect, through March 2012. The legislature claimed that spent fuel produced AFTER March 2012 was a different story.Vermont Yankee had no right to store that fuel.

In January, Judge Murtha ruled that Vermont could not shut down Vermont Yankee over spent fuel storage, because spent fuel is regulated at the federal level. That seemed clear enough, but the Public Service Board (PSB) seemed to take the attitude that Murtha meant the Vermont Legislature couldn't refuse to allow spent fuel storage but surely the PSB could refuse to allow it.

In March, Murtha clarified the situation by ruling again. (Ruling is here).  I quoted the ruling in an earlier blog post, as follows (emphasis added by me):

Therefore, Defendants are enjoined, pending the appeal of the Court’s final judgment and Merits Decision to the Second Circuit, from addressing the storage of spent fuel ... from bringing an enforcement action, or taking other action... to compel Vermont Yankee to shut down because the “cumulative total amount of spent fuel stored at Vermont Yankee” exceeds “the amount derived from the operation of the facility up to, but not beyond, March 21, 2012.”

That seems like that statement was pretty clear.

Expeditious Hearings

Of course, the state doesn't give up so easily. Recently, the state asked for "expedited oral hearings" in the federal appeals process, mainly due to the spent fuel storage issues.  Several days ago, the circuit court judge ruled in their favor about the hearing schedule. There will be expedited oral hearings, because maybe, just maybe, the state actually does rule spent fuel storage, and all that Federal prerogative stuff isn't very important (sarcasm alert).

As noted in the Brattleboro Reformer article, the state... argued that an expedited resolution is necessary to determine what will be done about the storage of spent nuclear fuel produced by the plant.  The judge granted their request for an expedited hearing.  Here's a link to the State argument for expedited hearings, the Entergy response, and the Judge's ruling allowing expedited hearings.  

To me, it seems clear that it is a federal prerogative to regulate spent fuel.  Nevertheless, the issue will  be heard in court once again.  The state will get its hearing in the federal court, with "expedited oral" arguments.

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Note: you can link to many filings in the Federal and Public Service Board dockets at this page at the Energy Education Project website: Dockets for Public Service Board and Courts

Low-level Waste Success at Vermont Yankee

Anti-C gloves from
Western Safety

Low-Level Waste is a Success Story at Vermont Yankee

Vermont Yankee shipped its first container of low-level waste to a disposal site in Andrew, Texas.    The original agreement for this disposal site was signed in 1993--at that point, only Vermont, Maine and Texas could use the site.  Later Maine pulled out and Texas announced plans to expand the site to take wastes from more states.

Naturally, this announcement from Texas was a view-with-alarm situation in Vermont. Many anti-nuclear people in Vermont claimed that the Texas site would fill up and  the site wouldn't have room for Vermont Yankee rubble when Vermont Yankee would be decommissioned.  This non-rational "controversy" about the Texas site generated many comments by Governor Shumlin and many column inches of coverage in local papers.  I didn't cover the low-level-Texas-disposal-site-size issue in this blog, because I try to cover reality, not political posturing.

Vermont shipped some low-level material to Texas last month.  You can read about at and see the echoes of the posturing in this article by Andrew Stein in Vermont Digger: Vermont sends first shipment of radioactive waste to Texas.

Comments

You might find the comment stream on the waste article interesting.  A guide to the people who posted comments:

• Howard Shaffer and me (you know us if you read this blog!)
• John Greenberg, an active plant opponent.  I believe that Greenberg owns a bookstore in Brattleboro
• Bob Stannard, former Vermont legislator, active plant opponent, and full-time anti-Vermont Yankee lobbyist, employed by Citizens Action Network
• Sally Shaw, active plant opponent.  Shaw is semi-famous for putting manure compost into the water glasses of NRC and Entergy people at an NRC meeting, and throwing compost at the Vermont Yankee site vice president.  

(Also, in a recent comment stream about earthquakes and nuclear plants, Howard Shaffer and John Greenberg have a lively debate.)

Three Pro-Nuclear Events: Hearing, Marches and Rallies in Tennessee, Canada and Japan

The World Tour

Okay, I'm your friendly neighborhood pro-nuclear blogger, and this time I'm not writing about Vermont. Here we go on a world pro-nuclear tour! There were three pro-nuclear events, none in Vermont, and they don't get much attention in most of the media.

 But, before we get started:

Something You Can Do Right Now

It takes almost no time to vote Yes on the question: Should the World Increase Its Reliance on Nuclear Energy at this Wall Street Journal poll. Do it now!

And the tour begins in Tennessee. 

Tennessee MOX Hearing

Hearing room at the MOX meeting

ANS members and ANS student members testified at a hearing about MOX fuel in Tennessee.  The Tennessee valley hearings are noted for anti-nuclear "zombies."  These are people wearing torn clothes and fake blood, and they come to hearings and make about as much sense as real zombies would make...if there were real zombies.

At this hearing, ANS members were informed, articulate and visible.  Many wore blue ANS t-shirts, visible in the picture at the left.  At the hearing, nuclear and anti-nuclear people spoke politely, and some even chatted and exchanged information after the meeting.

The meeting was livetweeted using the hashtag #MOXChat.

Laura Scheele of ANS Nuclear Cafe wrote an excellent retrospective about the meeting.  The future of nuclear at #MOXChat at ANS Nuclear Cafe.

Oh yes, I suspect the zombies might have heard that the ANS members would be at the meeting, because....no zombies appeared.

Gentilly 2 Pro-Nuclear March in Quebec

Hydro-Quebec owns the Gentilly-2 nuclear plant, and Hydro-Quebec recently decided to shut the plant down.  The people in the area did not take this quietly.  This Sunday they marched in favor of keeping the power plant open.  You can see pictures of the march on this pro-Gentilly FB page, which has over 1000 "likes":

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nous-appuyons-la-réfection-de-la-centrale-nucléaire-Gentilly-2/108833445800977

I am particularly fond of these pictures which I "borrowed" from the FB page.

One picture talks of the fate of  800 families, and two pictures are about the children  (Les Enfants) of Gentilly.

Les Enfants?  What is that about?  Well, there's a film about Gentilly which focused on birth defects, childhood cancer, and so forth, all supposedly caused by the plant.  The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission wrote a one-pager about the falsehoods in the film. The one-pager is an excellent answer to many falsehoods about nuclear energy.

The young people in the parade and with their pictures on the poster are another answer to these falsehoods.

In the interview below, local officials speak of their support for the plant and the announcer says 1000 people are there for the march.

http://staging.fr.video.canoe.tv/video/1869420841001/#1869485339001

Pro-Nuclear in Japan

Well, this is NEVER going to get into the main media, I suspect.  But here's a 1000-person pro-nuclear rally in Japan, in front of the Prime Ministers house! It's only reported in somethng called The Liberty Web, but it happened all the same.

1000 people gather for a pro-nuclear power demonstration on Sept 25.  One of the spokesmen presented a statement to the cabinet, including these words:  “We have heard from the factory mangers that they have had to fire part-time workers, because the company took measures to save electricity. However, the victims of this policy could not speak up on account of the flooded denuclearization media coverage."

Not a demonstration, but a Japanese professor is battling the flood of mis-information in a letter and blog post. You can read Jun Takeda's post here.  Here's a quote:  Based on radioactivity dosage, the risk of Fukushima residents developing thyroid cancer is less than one person per 10 million per year. Since the population of Fukushima Prefecture is two million, thyroid cancer will not result from these low doses. Truly, people with only amateur knowledge of radioactivity need to stop paralyzing the citizens of Fukushima and the entire country with fear.

All Over the World

All over the world, people are standing up in public and supporting nuclear power.

The times they are changing, and it's about time.