Update: Not WARNing at V.C. Summer

June 9, 2017 photo of Summer construction
SCEG photo

Update:

SCEG withdrew its original petition to abandon the Summer Project, but this was only to facilitate government review of the petition.  After withdrawing the petition,  SCANA held a press conference and re-iterated its plans to abandonn the nuclear project.

Meanwhile, knowledgeable people have emailed me that the construction workers at Summer are probably not covered by WARN, but employees of Westinghouse and Fluor probably are covered.  I am not a lawyer, and I am merely repeating what they said.  It is probably true, however.

None of this is good news for the project or the workers.


The Stop-Work at Summer

At the V.C. Summer construction site in South Carolina, a stop-work order was issued by the plant owners. Within hours, thousands of people had to turn in their badges and leave. There is simply no way to sugar-coat this story.

Actually, there are at least two stories here: the first story is about why V.C. Summer was cancelled. That story has been widely discussed.  The second story is about how the  layoffs happened, and their legality (or not).  This story has not been covered very much. It will be covered here.

At the end of this post, I have an annotated list of resources  about the first topic, why Summer was cancelled.

The Human Cost

On Facebook, one friend wrote about how difficult the Summer closure was for his family.  I will not quote his statements here, but his post made me feel very sad for all the hard-working people at Summer.  I mean I was feeling bad already, but his post made me feel worse. The cancellation of Summer had a huge human cost. You can't lay off 5600 people without immense pain, and immense ripples in the community.

It is too mild to say that the layoffs themselves were not handled well.  In my opinion, the way the layoffs were handled was certainly immoral, and may have been illegal.  In this article, Fired nuclear construction workers crash State House, workers said they had "no warning from superiors before being let go about lunchtime Monday." In a video at WLTX, workers said "We met at our lunch location and they read these letters to us...."

It's impossible to get numbers, but most sources say 5000 people were affected by the equivalent of letters-read-at-the-lunch break.  In the video above, a worker says that he has never heard of so many people being laid off at one time.

My first reaction was that I thought that such a layoff was simply illegal.  A federal law, the WARN act, requires employers to give advance notice of large layoffs. Nolo.com has good article on the WARN act and South Carolina. (Nolo sells consumer-oriented legal books and software.)

WARN and the big boys

WARN covers employers who have at least 100 full-time-equivalent employees.  If 50 or more employees are laid off at one job site, WARN requires sixty days notice. (You can read the fine print at Nolo.com)

On Facebook, I said that I thought the short warning of this layoff was probably illegal. One person commented that I was making unwarranted assumptions.  In his opinion, a big employer would read the laws and obey them. Okay.  Basically, he was right about the biggest of the big boys on the job site: SCEG. According to this video and article from WISTV, SCEG notified the state of 615 layoffs at Summer (layoffs of their own employees), giving the requisite 60 days notice according to the WARN requirements.

However, they gave Westinghouse no such 60 days notice, because Westinghouse is a contractor, not an employee. Westinghouse immediately "furloughed" 870 employees, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  However, these employees have no reason to believe that they will be called back from  this "furlough."  According to Post-Gazette article, a field engineering manager at Westinghouse has sued Westinghouse for violating WARN. He is attempting to achieve class-action status with his lawsuit.

SCEG covered its own employees, but employees of large and small subcontractors seem to be subject to the largest sudden layoff that I have ever heard about.

WARN and the not-so-big-boys

Westinghouse, with hundreds of employees on this project, is one of the big boys. Nevertheless, it seems to have issued as quick a lay-off notice as might have been issued by any local supplier of portapotties. Westinghouse is now being sued.  I suspect that many of the other contractors may also be sued.

Chess Pawn, Wikipedia

Opening Gambit or Closing the Door?

Why did the layoff happen in this sudden way?  It saved some money for SCEG, until they get sued, of course. It devastated towns and businesses and gave locals a pretty grim idea of what their utilities think about their welfare. Looking at a project that is over budget by billions of dollars, I don't think saving two months worth of salaries was the entire motivation. Decades of bad feelings are likely to arise from the sudden layoffs, and two months payroll was saved? To me, it doesn't make sense.

That is just my opinion, of course, but there it is.  Sometimes, dramatic events are the opening moves in fierce negotiations.  "Now that I have  your attention...."

Sometimes, of course, dramatic statements are the closing moves: "Look, I mean it, and nothing you can do will change my mind." However, that sort of statement often comes after a long fruitless negotiation.  Not always, but usually.

Games people play

If this were a chess game, I would say: This is more likely to be an opening gambit than a closing statement.

But wait, V.C. Summer is not a chess game!  In a chess game, the pawns are little pieces of plastic or wood or ivory.

At V.C. Summer, the pawns are more than 5000 real live people.

----------
Addendum:  Why V.C. Summer was cancelled.

I recommend three excellent blog posts on the reasons for the project cancellation.

In 2016, Will Davis wrote at ANS Nuclear Cafe: Nuclear Plant Costs-- A Look Back and Ahead 
This post describes the cascading effects of various types of cost overruns, including changes to the specifications, delays, and incomplete planning.

On July 31, 2017, Dan Yurman at Neutron Bytes wrote Utilities Pull the Plug on AP1000s at V.C. Summer.  He looks at the cost overruns, but also notes that Santee Cooper refused to go along with a plan to complete just one of the reactors.

On August 1, 2017, Rod Adams wrote: Tragic day in South Carolina as 5,000 people lost their jobs at VC Summer. Rod's post concentrates on design changes, specifically the Aircraft Impact Assessment Change.  There are 120 comments on that post.  Many of these comments are from very knowledgeable people.

The Future of Nuclear in RTO Areas

RTO areas in North America.  Based on FERC data

FirstEnergy plans to close or sell its nuclear plants

In a recent post at ANS Nuclear Cafe, Will Davis wrote about some changes that may happen  in the nuclear landscape in the near future.  He reported on statements made by FirstEnergy CEO Charles E. Jones at the Edison Electric Institute financial conference on November 7.

Here's a direct link to Jones' presentation: FirstEnergy: Transforming to a Regulated Company As Davis describes in his article, FirstEnergy is attempting to get out of the competitive electricity markets and become a fully-regulated utility. If it cannot support marginal plants in competitive markets, it will sell or shut down those plants.

Looking at the Earnings Per Share slide (slide 12 of the Jones presentation), you can see why FirstEnergy might get out of the competitive market.

• At a "basic Earnings per Share" level,  Competitive Services are losing around $2.50 per share.  
• Adjusted with "special items," Competitive Services are earning around $0.50 per share.  
• Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission are always in the black, with or without "special items."  
• Regulated Distribution, for example, earns around $1.80 per share, overall.

This is a big deal, because FirstEnergy operates in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Selling its nuclear plants (and coal plants) will be a major change and disruption.  I encourage you to refer to the Davis article for more specifics on this, and for other links.

Is FirstEnergy following the Entergy exit pattern?

In all the excitement about Entergy announcements of Vermont Yankee closing, Pilgrim closing, and the sale of Fitzpatrick to Exelon,  it is easy to overlook the fact that Entergy may be following a similar strategy of exiting the "deregulated" areas.  In December, 2015, Entergy announced the sale of its gas-fired plant in Rhode Island to Carlyle Power Partners.

At this point, except for Indian Point in New York, I think all Entergy power plants in deregulated areas are either slated for closing or slated for sale.  To me, this looks like the same "exit the deregulated areas" strategy that FirstEnergy is now pursuing.  Both companies have extensive regulated operations, as well as operations in deregulated areas.

Oops: I should have said Entergy has been exiting its holdings of plants in the Northeastern RTO areas.  Entergy Wholesale Commodities also owns Palisades in Michigan. http://entergy.com/ewc/

RTO areas

Clearly, there's a lot to say about these exits, and about the implications for our power plants of all kinds. And of course, if you know me, you know my deep and abiding cynicism about the deregulated areas: see The Oddness at the Heart of RTO.  These areas seem to be more about "tweaks R us" than about market forces.

For now, I will reprint my comment on the Davis article. This subject needs far more discussion than is possible in a single blog post.

It's not just about the price per kWh

Will

Thank you for this article. The RTO areas are basically stacked against nuclear and other baseload plants.

People will say: “Yeah, well, those plants just can’t compete with cheap natural gas.” That is not the case. Actually, in RTO areas, many or most natural gas plants get much of their income from selling “capacity” and “ancillary services,” not from selling kWh. Look at this slide from one of my articles: Payments for various types of power plants on the New England grid

As you can see, nuclear gets most of its income from selling kWh (gold bars) while NG/Oil GT (gas turbines) get around 80% of their income from “capacity” and “auxiliary” payments (blue and brown bars). That’s because the gas plants don’t sell as many kWh as nuclear sells, and you can also see that if the price of a kWh goes down but the capacity payments go up…the gas plants are all right. The common description of the “low price of natural gas on the grid” accounts for low-price sales of kWh, which are nuclear energy’s life and breath. It doesn’t account for all the ways the grid supports low kWh prices and makes up the difference…for plants that don’t run very much.

This has also been called the “search for the missing money.” Natural gas plants, without capacity payments, would have to charge more per kWh or go out of business. But…most RTO areas supply the gas plant’s “missing money” in a way that hurts any high-capacity-factor plant on the grid.

(Note: CC is combined cycle, ST is steam turbine, GT is gas turbine.)

- See more at: http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2016/11/16/november-news/#sthash.EyWLASTY.dpuf

Happy New Year! Industry Beginnings and Some Blog Accomplishments

Dawn

Industry Beginnings

Let's start by referencing Brian Wang's post at Next Big Future: Ten new nuclear reactors were connected to the grid in 2015. Wang lists the new reactors (mostly, but not all, in China). Then he lists fifteen more reactors that should be connected to the grid in 2016 and another fifteen in 2017. Yes. That's a new nuclear plant approximately every month, from 2015 through 2017.

Another post about new nuclear, this one by Will Davis at Atomic Power Review: SEVMORPUT Completes Trials after overhaul: Signs for the Future. The Russians decided to overhaul a nuclear icebreaker rather than scrapping it.  Russia and China are building more nuclear ships, some of which are designed to provide power to neighboring land.  These ships are the traditional Small Modular Reactors. This type of reactor is having its own renaissance.

And there seem to be more and more blog posts like this one, about forward progress on new types of reactors and improved fabrication of all kinds.  This particular post, at the Areva blog,  describes cooperation between Areva and Washington State University students toward building a cart that can transfer uranium pellets between Areva buildings in Richland Washington. WSU Tri-Cities Senior Project Team Achieves Next Design Stage.

Blog Accomplishments

Six years of the Yes Vermont Yankee blog.  This year marks the sixth year of the Yes Vermont Yankee blog.  I started it in 2010 as a New Year's resolution. (I decided to blog because I was tired of writing lengthy emails to my friends.)  The blog was immediately welcomed by the blogging community, for which I am grateful.

Northwest Clean Energy Blog  I am proud to be an occasional blogger at the Northwest Clean Energy blog of Energy Northwest. It's a relatively new blog, but its Year In Review report by Wordpress showed some great  2015 accomplishments. These included 26,000 views, with viewers all over the world.   Here's the Northwest Clean Energy post on 2015 in Review.

Looking Forward

If we look at the Northeast (which I plan to do in the next few days), the nuclear view can get depressing. However, when we take a longer, broader view of nuclear, we can see significant new plants coming on-line in non-European areas, and many new initiatives in the Southeast and Northwest of this country.  Furthermore, pro-nuclear bloggers continue to grow in number, strength and influence.

I look forward to this year with some hope.  Especially when I look past the Northeast and into the bigger world. 

Ohio Energy Matters: Welcome to a new blog

Ohio 

A New Local Blog, and Why Local Blogs Matter

This post welcomes a new local blog, started by Will Davis.

Ohio Energy Matters
This blog's motto is:
Reporting on Ohio energy matters because Ohio's energy MATTERS

This blog is in the grand tradition of local nuclear blogs...well, I think that there are only five local nuclear blogs in North America.  Still, five can be a grand tradition, right?

The five local blogs that I know about are:
Ohio Energy Matters
Canadian Energy Issues
Atoms For California
Northwest Clean Energy
Yes Vermont Yankee

All politics is local. 

Local blogs can influence local actions by providing local information and linking to ways to use that

information (hearings to attend, newspaper articles that may have comment sections on-line, etc.)  The local blogs are adapted to their areas, and feature different types of information.

• Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues has a running sidebar on his blog of how much clean energy is being produced in Ontario, that hour, by nuclear, gas, wind and other energy sources. 
• Andrew Benson of Atoms for California analyzes the California Energy Commission response to nuclear, among other things, including renewable sprawl.
• Northwest Clean Energy writes about new records set by Columbia Generating Station, challenges nuclear opponents inaccurate scare stories, and describes a utility demand response initiative. (This blog has several bloggers: I am one of them.) 
• Will Davis at Ohio Energy Matters describes local hearings and local news reports.  He also has local news sources in his blog rolls.
• At Yes Vermont Yankee, I have quoted from testimony and court cases concerning the plant. I also have local news on my blog rolls.

The blog posts at these blogs are  not always of national interest.  Yet they are tremendously important.  Local people want to link to legislative reports, hearing records and so forth. They want to refer back to something that happened six months ago, without trying to comb through the archives of a newspaper.  As a matter of fact, newspaper and radio reporters often (not always) read the local blogs when they want "the other side" of the nuclear story, and are pressed for time to find it.

All politics is local.

The Opponents Go National and We Must Go Local

Many nuclear opponents have nationwide reach.  For example, one of the men who was most active in closing Vermont Yankee is now "crisscrossing  (Ohio) labeling the power purchase agreement a “bailout” for the utility and specifically for Davis-Besse." From a   Dan Yurman blog post on activism against nuclear plants.  This man is determined to close down Davis-Besse next.

To defend the nuclear option, I believe we need both national and local blogs. A recent post at Ohio Energy Matters shows exactly the type of impact that a local blogs can have.

Nuclear Energy Institute did a report on the financial contributions of Davis Besse to the Ohio economy.  In his blog post,  Economic Impacts of Davis-Besse, Will Davis summarized the report and linked to the report.  But he went farther.  He compared this report to the report of economic devastation that is happening in Vermont due to shutting down Vermont Yankee.  In other words, he put the Davis-Besse report in context.

In the comment section, someone asked how to comment to agencies in favor of Davis Besse.  By having a local blog, Davis was able to both receive this comment (who you gonna ask?) and to answer it.  

Welcome the new local blog: Ohio Energy Matters!

Will Davis, Blog Author

Will Davis has an outstanding track record as a pro-nuclear energy communicator.  Davis has his own blog, Atomic Power Review, with over 800,000 page views. He writes for the industry newsletter, Fuel Cycle Week. He is one of the organizers and editors of the American Nuclear Society blog ANS Nuclear Café. Davis is also Communications Director for the Nuclear Ship Savannah Association.

So Davis is not just a nuclear communicator, he is a very busy and very sought-after nuclear communicator.  And yet, Davis has started this new, local blog.  Because local blogs are important.

The Vermont Yankee Series Expands. The "Attitude Post" and more

The American Nuclear Society  blog has run a three-part series on the reasons for Vermont Yankee closing. Seven bloggers contributed.  Here are links to part one, part two, and part 3.

Now, the series has expanded at another blog.  Dan Yurman described the reasons for the series, and the credentials of the bloggers, at his blog: Neutron Bytes.  His post is called Seven At One Blow (seven bloggers on one topic, in one series).  Pro-nuclear bloggers are knowledgeable and accomplished people, but the bloggers are seldom explicitly acknowledged.  A big THANK YOU to Yurman for his post.

Well Begun is Half Done

The third post in the American Nuclear Society blog could be called the "attitude" post.  How shall we approach the political battle for nuclear energy?  Our attitudes matter.

Well Begun is Half Done. Confused beginnings  and confused goals rarely lead to success.

Vermont State House chamber

Howard Shaffer's post is titled "Failure to Politically Engage. As Shaffer writes: Unfortunately, Entergy Vermont Yankee carried through with the industry’s error of misunderstanding the campaign against the plant as a technical and legal policy debate, as opposed to recognizing it for what it truly was—a bare knuckle political campaign.

Shaffer doesn't leave it at that, though.  He develops a list for winning a campaign. The material on the list might be old-hat to a politician, but these things seems new to the nuclear industry. For example:

Be the first to get negative information about you into the media. You get to define the issue, not your opponents. 

Shaffer is a co-owner of  this blog, as well as a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe. I recommend his ANS Nuclear Cafe post about testifying to a legislative committee about spent fuel storage: Getting Inside the Legislative Process.

Dan Yurman continues the theme with his post "Vermont Yankee Shuts Down for Good."  He concludes that low gas prices and the regulatory environment contributed to Vermont Yankee closing, Entergy, which is a Louisiana business, never got a sense of how to deal with New England greens.  Yurman's conclusion, however, is more about the market: Entergy...(could not) to recover value, nor earn revenue, ... based on the carbon emission reductions it provided to the region.

Prices in New England
2014

In this case, it was the market that was ill-begun.

Dan Yurman is a pre-eminent nuclear blogger.  His current blog is Neutron Bytes: his former blog, Idaho Samizdat, was one of the pioneering pro-nuclear blogs.

So Many Thanks!

First, I want to thank Dan Yurman, who had the idea for this series of blog posts at ANS.  He was also a contributor to the blog, the collector of the posts (we sent them to Yurman), and a major force in publicizing this effort.

Second, I want to thank Will Davis of the blog Atomic Power Review and Linda Zec of the Outreach Department at American Nuclear Society, who took the seven essays across the finish line for publication at ANS Nuclear Café.

Third, I want to thank the people who wrote excellent, informed and thought-provoking comments on Reflections 1 and Reflections 2.  Join the conversation!

Earthquake Anniversary: Updated and Unplugged

The non-fatal-tragedy

School buses
 They were used for evacuation
Older people fell off the seats and died
Chaos

Today is is the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated large portions of eastern Japan on March 11, 2011.  Approximately 20,000 people died in the tsunami and earthquake, but the focus of the media has always been on the Fukushima "disaster" or "tragedy."

Three nuclear power plants suffered meltdowns.  Nobody died of direct radiation, and it is unlikely that there will be any detectable rise in cancer deaths. In terms of deaths, the immediate deaths came from mishandled evacuations.   See my post from last year: Fukushima: the Second Anniversary.

Updated:

In Japan, some people are being allowed to move back to areas that had been evacuated for fear of radiation. Fuel rods are being successfully removed from Fuel Pool #4.  The story in Japan is slow, but progress is being made.

Instead of trying to update the situation myself, I will share some links:

• ANS Will Davis at American Nuclear Society ANS Nuclear Cafe: Fukushima Three Years Later.This is an excellent description of current status and lessons-learned, with many diagrams and links.
• NEI NEI has a linked series of pages on Fukushima Daiichi Recovery: The Facts. Authoritative, short, and clear
• Les Corrice at Hiroshima Syndrome. Corrice has updated his Fukushima Accident page twice a week since the accident.  His blog is very complete. He has also written two e-books: Kimin, Japan's Forgotten People (about the tsunami refugees), Fukushima, the First Five Days (accident chronology)
• Atomic Insights: Atomic Show #212 at Atomic Insights What Can We Learn from Fukushima?  This is a podcast with me, Les Corrice, Rod Adams, Cal Abel, and Will Davis.

Unplugged

Camera operator
From Wikipedia

Anti-nuclear activists are using today to "Unplug Nuclear Power."  They can't actually unplug nuclear power, so they are unplugging themselves by turning off their electricity for a day. Supposedly, this will "show that nuclear power is unnecessary." Activists have defined four levels of "unplugging" yourself from electricity.  In the first level, you "turn off extra lights and cut back on video games."   

My friends, these are real quotes.  I could not begin to make this stuff up!  Shall we have a "play a video game for nuclear" day, maybe?

I have great hopes that that the nuclear opponents will unplug themselves from those horrible electricity hogs: broadcast media.  If they see a reporter with a video camera at one of their rallies today, they should make her leave the premises. Otherwise, she will begin sending video to some broadcast media establishment, and that group will use a lot of electricity to broadcast the video clips.  This is totally against the spirit of "unplug nuclear power."  I hope the nuclear opponents won't let this happen.

San Onofre Closing Wasn't Necessary

I was a project manager in the Steam Generator Owner's Group at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).  In other words, I am a steam generator expert.

Which led me to a bit of an email battle yesterday about the Southern California Edison decision to close the San Onofre nuclear plants (SONGS). The question under debate was whether the NRC was being reasonable in saying they needed a year to determine whether SONGS would be able to re-open.   My friend said that the delay would improve safety.  I felt the NRC was being unreasonable.

Here is my email to my friend.  I include background and links at the end of the post.

---------

Well, let's say that I am not sure about the existence of "technical questions of safety."  The tube wear issue was caused by an unexpected vibration mode in the steam generators, and changing the power to 70% changes the vibration pattern.  Changing the power output should put the SONGS steam generators into an operational mode in which that type of vibration will not happen.

Also, unless quite a few steam generator tubes break at once, a tube break is not a safety issue that should affect anyone outside the plant. Operating at a lower power is less likely to cause a tube rupture in the first place, and SONGS was going to check the condition of the tubes after six months of lower-power operation.  I would bet a bunch of money (if I could) that the tubes would be fine after the six month test. Then they could run the plant longer.   I don't know why the NRC needs over a year to look at the safety implications of operating a plant at lower power.  It seems excessive to me, and I don't mind saying so.

Look, I am not saying it's a just a public-relations problem or that the utility or the steam generator supplier did everything right and they are being picked on by the NRC, etc.  I am just saying that we have forgotten some basic facts about how steam generators work.

And we may have forgotten some basic facts about the NRC, which may yet lead to closing more plants and never licensing new ones.  The NRC takes insane amounts of time to do anything, and is very vulnerable to intervenor pressures.  For example, they reviewed the Duane Arnold relicense in about two years, and they took over five years for Vermont Yankee. These two are sister plants, but

Los Angeles Smog, 2005

the Arnold plant is not in Vermont.  We have more intervenors, so the NRC takes more time. If you don't believe this is part of the issue in CA, you are naive.

Oh by the way.  Some of the first engineering  projects I worked on were funded by CARB and EPA, about trying to cut NOx pollution in the LA basin.  Gonna be fun, replacing SONGS with gas-burners in that neck of the woods.  I absolutely hate it.  It didn't have to happen.

--------

SONGS Background

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station  (SONGS) consists of three separate plants, two of which were operating and one was retired. The two operating plants added up to more than 2000 MW of capacity. In January 2012, after excessive tube wear was discovered in newly-purchased steam generators, Southern California Edison took SONGS off-line for more inspections and possible changes. The wear was due to an unexpected form of vibration, which caused some tubes to rub against each other.  Edison submitted a plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for restarting one of the reactors: the unit would run at lower power (70% power) which should eliminate the vibration.  It would run at this power for five months, and then be carefully inspected.

After a request by anti-nuclear groups, the NRC determined that the proposal to limit SONGS Unit 2 to 70% power would require the plant to obtain a license amendment. The license amendment process requires public hearings and would take more than a year. The NRC made this decision in May.

Faced with this delay and uncertainty about the NRC process, on June 7 (yesterday), Southern California Edison said it would permanently close the two SONGS units.

References:  

Matt Wald of the New York Times on closing San Onofre

Will Davis at ANS Nuclear Cafe on closing San Onofre: Excellent overview and links

Will Davis blog post on Steam Generator Design, at his blog, Atomic Power Review

My post on Steam Generator Design and Testing, also at Atomic Power Review

Bloomberg news on regulatory battles on shut-down costs
Nuclear Energy Institute blog post on the need for a predictable regulatory process

Let me finish with a quote from Will Davis at ANS Nuclear Cafe.  He sums up the situation beautifully:

Some might quickly respond that it was technical problems that killed the plant. Perhaps in the bigger picture, this is correct; but in the earlier days of nuclear energy, quite a large number of technical problems were encountered in nuclear plants and overcome after testing periods. 

As I said above: This shutdown didn't have to happen.

The PSB, the Diesels and Sherlock Holmes

Bulldog asleep

Waiting for the Public Service Board

About a week ago, on May 21, I blogged about the fact that Vermont Yankee needs another back-up diesel, and the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) has been dragging its feet about giving permission to install that diesel.  Entergy has an NRC deadline to install the diesel, and therefore, Entergy sued the PSB in federal court.  The court hearing is scheduled for June 4, which is Tuesday, and coming up fast.

By denying the diesel permit, the PSB is interfering with nuclear safety, an area of federal jurisdiction. My post was A Court Case With A Deadline: The Black Start Diesels. 

That post included the "Breaking News" that the PSB hearing officer for the diesel docket had recommended that PSB grant the permit for the diesel.  The Department of Public Service also supports granting the permit for the diesel.  Here's a link to the Vermont Digger article by Andrew Stein on these recommendations that the PSB approve the diesel.

However, these were only recommendations. The PSB itself did not rule on this matter. The Vermont Digger article quoted Jim Sinclair of Entergy: “While we appreciate and agree with the hearing officer’s recommendation, we remain uncertain as to when the Board will rule,” he said. “Therefore, we will have to determine how this may affect the federal court hearing.”

Will the PSB Rule? Time Passes

The Vermont Digger article appeared on May 20, and the hearing is June 4.  I'll be blunt.  I was waiting for the PSB to make a statement.  I thought PSB might say:

•  "We agree with our hearing officer and here's your diesel permit. " 

or

• "To heck with our hearing officer's recommendations. We don't hand out diesel permits to outfits like you, and we'll see you in court."

But, so far, nothing has happened.  At this point, it looks like the PSB is happy to ignore the hearing officer and the Department of Public Service.  The court date is approaching fast.

I waited. I wanted to write a blog post about this, as soon as there was some news.

Sherlock Holmes and Me

Then I realized that the lack of news--is also news! Non-action is also information.

To quote Sherlock Holmes:

"You consider that to be important?" he [Inspector Gregory] asked.
 "Exceedingly so."
 "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
 "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
 "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
 "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893) : Silver Blaze

In the Holmes case, the fact the "dog did nothing in the night-time" means that a stranger did not commit the crime.  If a stranger had been there, the dog would have barked. Holmes concluded that the crime was an inside job.

To me, the fact that the PSB has done nothing means that they are happy to go to court June 4, even though (IMHO) they are pretty sure to lose on this one. In my opinion, this shows they are heavily influenced by politics.  I think that the more often the PSB is in court, the more political credibility they think they have with the Shumlin administration and the Vermont legislature: We TRIED to shut that plant down! We really did.  They sued us all the time, but we kept trying. 

In my opinion, this non-action on the hearing officer's statement shows that political credibility is what matters to the PSB.  The PSB is supposed to be a non-partisan board, but this incident of the Dog in the Nighttime indicates something else. The Public Service Board is ignoring its own hearing officer and the State's Department of Public Service. It seems happy to be dragged into court.

A political agenda is the best explanation I can come up with.  I welcome readers' comments with other explanations.

Will Davis and Me

And here's a comment to start you off!  Will Davis hosted the most recent nuclear blog Carnival at his Atomic Power Review site.  The Carnival included a link to my post about the diesels, and Will Davis had this to say about it:

Will Davis

Atomic Power Review Note:  Regarding the Yes Vermont Yankee post linked and described above...  Just how many times in this post-Fukushima world would one EVER expect to find any group, anywhere, that could possibly justify campaigning AGAINST adding a back up diesel generator at a nuclear plant site?

I think that says it all.  I hope to receive more comments, but it will be hard to beat Davis's pithy comment.

And Yet Another Lawsuit

In related news, a group of intervenors just sued the PSB in Vermont Supreme Court, claiming the PSB should "enforce their own orders" and close the plant.  Here's the May 25 article by Bob Audette in the Brattleboro Reformer on that suit:  Groups Ask Vermont Court to Affirm PSB Rulings on VY.

This suit bears an uncanny resemblance to a lawsuit the Vermont Supreme Court turned down in March of this year.  Here's the Andrew Stein article in Vermont Digger  on March 28: Vermont Supreme Court Denies New England Coalition's Petition to Close Vermont Yankee.  Or, as I blogged on March 28 in Court Won't Close Plant During PSB Hearings. Since the Vermont Yankee matter is active in both federal court and the PSB, the Vermont Supreme Court is unlikely to get involved.  Courts don't like to step on each other's toes.

Frankly, I don't get this intervenor latest suit.  It looks frivolous to me: it looks like the same contentions as the lawsuit in March.  Why are they doing this? However, I freely admit I am not a lawyer, so there may be a reason. Once again, comments are welcome.

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."

-----

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

Thorium Update: The SuperFuel Reviews

SuperFuel, the book, and THORIUM, the book

In June, I reviewed Richard Martin's book SuperFuel in this blog.  It wasn't exactly a positive review, as you can tell by the title of my post; SuperFuel, a Book I Wanted to Love.

On Monday, I received my copy of Dr. Robert Hargraves book THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal.  I plan to review it within a few days.

However, before I did that, I thought I would pull together other reviews of the SuperFuel book in one place, if only for reference when I review Hargraves book.

Here's my annotated list of reviews of the book, SuperFuel.

Meredith Angwin at Yes Vermont Yankee
Superfuel, a Book I Wanted to Love
Review summary: This book is full of factual errors. It also spends much time bashing the existing nuclear energy industry. People in favor of light water reactors are "the nuclearati." Rickover is compared to Stalin.  I didn't like the book.

Rick Maltese at ThoriumMSR
Superfuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source, by Richard Martin reviewed
Review summary: A positive review of the book. The review concentrates on  the promise of thorium and how that promise was de-railed.

Rod Adams at Atomic Insights
Rod Adams has four separate posts concerned with this book.  Two are podcast interviews.

There are Three Superfuels: Uranium, Thorium and Plutonium

Review summary: Fighting amongst nuclear fuels? Why do this, when the world is still dominated by fossil fuels?

Identifying Antinuclear Slants in Richard Martin's Superfuel
Review summary: This book considers thorium the only safe reactor, and talks about the "nuclearati" as "tone-deaf" for pointing out that their technology is safe. Richard Martin may be a fossil fuel wolf in sheep's clothing.
Podcast: Kirk Sorensen Co-Founder FLIBE energy
Podcast summary: Mostly positive discussion of alternative ways of using fission energy and being a nuclear entrepreneur.
Podcast: Richard Martin and Kirk Sorensen: Is Thorium Superior to Uranium?
Podcast summary:   Somewhere about fifteen minutes into the podcast, I stopped listening. Martin was saying that facts don't convince people, so the good safety record of current reactors doesn't matter very much (I am paraphrasing).

I am not good at listening to podcasts: I am very visual-oriented.  When I begin to get irritated, I'm outta there.

As usual, the comments on all Adams' posts are a treat to read, especially the comments on his blog posts (as opposed to his podcasts). His thorium posts have forty and more comments apiece!

Will Davis at Atomic Power Review
Review: "Super-Fuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Resource for the Future."
Review summary: This is a thoughtful book about alternate technologies and deserves a place on the bookshelf. Davis expected more of a rah-rah, airhead book and was pleasantly surprised with this book.

Bob Apthorpe at Overscope
Review: SuperFuel by Richard Martin
Review Summary: A balanced review, pointing out errors and also pointing out where the description of reactor types is excellent.  Overall, however, Apthorpe can only recommend a few chapters of this book as error-and-bias-free enough to be worth the reader's time. He recommends other books instead.
Note: For those of you on Twitter, you know Apthorpe as Arclight.

Guest Post by David Archibald at Watts Up With That
Book Review of SuperFuel
The reviewer points out that the book is full of "howler" errors, but is also useful and interesting.  He is particularly pleased with  the discussion of reactor development history, particularly about Rickover and Weinberg.  The reviewer also says that Martin is a "warmer" ( a person who believes that climate change is taking place) and that hurts the book.

Conclusion

I have been meaning to put this post up for weeks.  Really.  Having received the Hargraves book, I wanted to get this post out of the way.  I have now cleared the decks for the Hargraves review.

I have given my opinion of the gist of each of these reviews.  I hope this was helpful.  I welcome comments (and corrections) from the reviewers themselves or others.

ANS Conference, Carnival and Thorium Update

Wrigley Building, Chicago
Short walk from the ANS convention hotel 

American Nuclear Society Conference

Right now, I am at the American Nuclear Society convention in Chicago.  It feels so good to be here.  I am currently just doing a bit of coffee-drinking and email-catching-up, but I met up with Margaret Harding and Gail Marcus and Howard Shaffer and...well, LOTS of other people last night!  It's great to be here, and it's great to be in Chicago, the town where I grew up.

For fuller description of the Meeting So Far (the main meeting hasn't officially begun yet) I recommend the following posts:

Will Davis on the first few house in in Chicago for the meeting, at Atomic Power Review.

Short Video of the American Nuclear Society president Eric Loewen welcoming people to the meeting, at American Nuclear Society Nuclear Cafe.

At idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman tells how to follow the conference on twitter and Facebook.

At this conference, Margaret Harding will receive a major and well-deserved award.  She was a voice of clarity for many during the Fukushima crisis: not pulling her punches about what was happening OR what was being exaggerated.  Read an interview with Harding at American Nuclear Society Nuclear Cafe.

110th Carnival of Nuclear Energy at Atomic Power Review

Okay.  I don't know how Will Davis does it.  He's at this conference, and he also put together a terrific blog carnival.  Maybe he doesn't need to sleep? It's a possibility...

Meanwhile, take advantage of his hard work by visiting the 110th Carnival of Nuclear Energy at Atomic Power Review.  Topics include new builds, Yucca Mountain, India, the new Commissioner.  A huge and important Carnival!

Superfuel Book Review

Comments on my Superfuel book review post have been coming thick and fast.  Some comments are about the kind of people who support thorium ("thorium heads") and those who support light water reactors ("nuclearati").  Insults on both sides.  Cavan Stone put the matter best in his comment.

No question, given everything we have available today, LWRs should be every utility's top choice for their base load power, until we develop and commercialize something EVEN BETTER. Yet I should note, nobody in the main body of the LFTR community is talking at all about shutting down LWRs. Rather everyone is talking about opening up new markets that the LWRs have not even touched. Yet, there are members of the established nuclear community trashing LFTR without scientific justification.

Meanwhile, Rod Adams is doing a series of posts based on the book: There are three suprefuels: uranium, plutonium and thorium.  Adams attempted commercialize a new type of reactor, the Adams Atomic Engine. He holds patents on that concept.  His opinions of new reactors are well worth reading. As usual, he gets terrific comments on his posts.  Comments include the fact that if a LFTR is built, the same anti-nuclear people will fight it.  Also, the LFTR might be a way to begin learning about nuclear by people who are currently anti-nuclear.