The nuclear relapse has derailed -- literally!

Photo by Tom Clements, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA)Tom Clements of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability in South Carolina has documented, in photo and blog, a most remarkable development: the AP1000 nuclear reactor vessel targeted at Vogtle, Georgia has been discovered unprotected, stranded in Savannah Port since a December 15 shipment failure. Tom's remarkable blog is posted at the Aiken Leader. Connect Savannah has also reported on the "Nuclear Train Wreck."

As Tom has described it: the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for the chronically delayed Vogtle AP1000 reactor construction project near Waynesboro, Georgia sits stranded and seemingly unprotected in the port of Savannah. The special railroad car carrying the 300-ton vessel had unknown mechanical problems on December 15 on exiting the port.  The NRC has said that the vessel only got one-quarter mile before a sound was heard and the car stopped.  Plans by Westinghouse and Southern Company to move the vessel are unknown. It is also unknown if the railroad car can be repaired and used or if the railroad company which owns the line is concerned that the rail car might break down again on its line in an in accessible place.  Meanwhile, the apparently unguarded reactor might be subject to sabotage and sits in apparent violation of NRC quality assurance and "administrative control" regulations.

Update on January 22, 2013 by admin

Photo by Tom Clements, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA).In a Jan. 22nd update entitled 'Vogtle Nuclear Reactor Still Stranded in Savannah; Pouring of “Nuclear Concrete” for Reactor’s Basemat Delayed Yet Again as Embarrassment and Costs Mount,' Tom Clements of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability gives the latest on the failed shipment of an AP-1000 reactor pressure vessel (RPV) from the Port of Savannah, GA bound for the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. This includes photos taken by Tom on Jan. 19th (see photo, left). Remarkably, not only Southern Co., but also Westinghouse and even the Korean manufacturer of the RPV have remained silent about the failed shipment, the condition of the RPV, and plans for next steps.

Meanwhile, not only Vogtle 3 & 4, but also the proposed new AP1000 at Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina, have made LARs (License Amendment Requests) due to difficulties encountered in the pouring of nuclear-grade concrete for the base mat under the reactors and containments themselves. The consequent delays, and hence cost overruns, associated with all these ongoing problems could well be substantial.

As Tom Clements of ANA wrote regarding the photo (above, left): 'Photo taken on January 19 of close-up of Schnabel rail car with Vogtle "reactor pressure vessel"  hidden by a tarp.  The 300-ton reactor vessel was manufactured by Doosan in Korea and shipped through the Panama Canal to Savannah.  More photos are linked at [http://aikenleader.villagesoup.com/p/vogtle-nuclear-reactor-still-stranded-in-savannah-pouring-of-nuclear-concrete-for-reactor-s-basema/951066], which also includes a link to the January 14 article which has more photos.  How long will this embarrassing and potentially costly situation continue?  It's time for Westinghouse and Southern Company to come clean about the reactor shipment but will the companies, which are profiting due to an unjust Georgia law which forces rate payers to pay in advance for the Vogtle AP1000 project, continue their perplexing silence?  It is believed that South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) has a similar Schnabel rail car, owned by Westinghouse, at its disposal in the port of Charleston, where components for the V.C. Summer AP1000 are received.  Given what has happened with the Vogtle reactor shipment, will problems develop if a similar shipment is ever undertaken from Charleston to SCE&G's V.C. Summer site near Jenkinsville, South Carolina?'

Rating agencies: cracked Crystal River 3 may be down for the count

The magnitude of Crystal River's concrete containment cracksThese would not be construction costs, but rather re-construction costs!

As reported by SNL, Fitch and UBS have indepenently cast doubt on the likelihood, given the cost (into the billions of dollars), that Duke/Progress Energy's Crystal River Unit 3 in Citrus County, Florida will ever be repaired and returned to operations. Crystal River has been shutdown ever since severe cracking (see photo, left) was discovered in its concrete containment shell, nearly three and a half years ago. The utility accidentally cracked the containment itself, while attempting an in-house steam generator replacement.

The article reports that ratepayers will not be charged $388 million for replacement power, but "a settlement agreement with the Florida Office of Public Counsel and several interest groups...stipulates the parties will not oppose Duke's full recovery of all plant investment should it decide to retire the plant," meaning that the public could still get stuck with the bill for a disastrous engineering mistake the nuclear utility itself made.

Duke/Progress Energy has variously attempted to foist repair or cost recovery bills on its insurance provider, its ratepayers via the Florida Public Service Commission, and even the rest of the nuclear power industry.

Beyond Nuclear has helped lead environmental coalition efforts to block Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension, due to severe cracking in its concrete Shield Building.

Forbes: "the nuclear renaissance may be largely over before it started"

"Burning Money" image by Gene Case, Avenging AngelsPeter Kelly-Detwiler, Contributor to Forbes, has published an op-ed entitled "New Centralized Nuclear Plants: Still an Investment Worth Making?" In it, he concludes that "the nuclear renaissance may be largely over before it started," with not only the vast majority of proposed new reactors in the U.S. being cancelled, but even paid-off old reactors like Kewaunee in Wisconsin being permanently shutdown due to crushing economics -- such as the expense of major, vitally needed safety repairs at the 40-year old reactor.

Kelly-Detwiler cites the "takes too long," "costs too much," and "bet-the-farm" nature of nuclear power for the "failure to launch" of the nuclear relapse.

Regarding that last point, Kelly-Detwiler writes:

'So it appears that the nuclear renaissance may be largely over before it started.  And yet, many projects have not yet been canceled, with utilities and ratepayers accepting ever more risk in order to rescue sunk costs. In many cases, these costs have soared or will soar into the billions. As risk management expert Russell Walker of the Kellogg School of Management is quoted as saying in the Tampa Bay Times “When the stakes get higher, it gets harder for organizations to walk away…this happens a lot.  It’s the same problem a gambler has: If I play a little longer, it’ll come around.” '

If the op-ed's title is meant to imply that so-called small modular reactors might still save the day for the retreating nuclear power industry, it must be pointed out that the supposed justification for giant-sized proposed new reactors (such as the AP1000, at 1,100 MWe; the ESBWR at 1,500 MWe; the EPR at 1,600 MWe; etc.) was "economies of scale." Since small modular reactors represent the opposite end of the spectrum, it stands to reason these would be even more expensive than their super-sized, failed siblings.

In a classic February 14, 1985 piece entitled “Nuclear Follies,” Forbes wrote: 

"The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.”

Arnie Gundersen: "something does not make sense here"

Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds AssociatesCommenting on the loud rumors that Entergy Nuclear's Vermont Yankee -- and other relatively small, single unit, four decade old atomic reactors -- may be forced to "retire" due to "economic reasons" (such as the inability to afford needed major safety repairs), Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates had this question:

"The US is building new nuclear plants in Georgia and SC that cost $20 billion while at the same time contemplating the shutdown of dozens of older reactors that cost $200M …. something does not make sense here."

25 years ago today, the "Screw Nevada Bill" was passed

Yucca Mountain, as viewed through the frame of a Western Shoshone ceremonial sweat lodge. Photo by Gabriela Bulisova.As reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal, in the wee hours of Dec. 22, 1987, 49 states ganged up on one, singling out Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the sole site in the country for further study as a potential national dump for high-level radioactive waste. Numerous targeted dumpsites in the East had been indefinitely postponed a year or two before, due to widespread public resistance. Deaf Smith County, TX and Hanford, WA were also being considered for the western dumpsite. But TX had 32 U.S. Representatives, WA had a dozen, and NV, just one. TX and WA Representatives also held the powerful House Speaker and Majority Leader slots. On the Senate side, NV had two rookie Senators, regarded at the time as easy to roll. The "raw, naked" political decision was made behind closed doors.

But the science -- Yucca's geological and hydrological unsuitability -- caught up to the proposal. So did Harry Reid's revenge, as he grew in power to become Senate Majority Leader. Led by Western Shoshone spiritual leader Corbin Harney, the Western Shoshone National Council maintained tireless opposition to the dump, joined, over time, by more than 1,000 environmental groups. Then, in 2009, President Obama and his Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, wisely cancelled the dangerous, controversial proposal.

Although $11 billion of ratepayer and taxpayer money had already been wasted, another $90 billion would have been wasted if the project had gone forward. If the dumpsite had opened, many thousands of high-level radioactive waste trucks, trains, and barges would have travelled through most states, past the homes of tens of millions of Americans, at risk of severe accidents or intentional attacks unleashing disastrous amounts of radioactivity into metro areas. And if wastes had been buried at Yucca, it would have eventually leaked into the environment (beginning within centuries or at most thousands of years), dooming the region downwind and downstream as a nuclear sacrifice area.

Dec. 21st marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Such laws, transferring title and liability from the nuclear utilities which generated the wastes -- in order to make a profit -- onto ratepayers and taxpayers, represent an unprecedented, large-scale, and open-ended subsidy.

Update on December 23, 2012 by admin

Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, has published an op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun entitled "Winning the Yucca battle -- 25 years later."