NEI Nuclear Notes

Artist's rendering of Turkey Point 6&7 Today and tomorrow, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public meeting in Florida concerning adding two reactors to FP&L’s Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station . In this guest blog post, NEI’s Bill Skaff takes a quick look at how the nuclear energy industry is breaking new ground in using reclaimed water for reactor cooling. Carbon-free nuclear energy must continue to play a major role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Moreover, the industry is responding in innovative ways. For instance, Florida Power & Light's (FP&L)  Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station   plans to use 80-90 million gallons of recycled municipal waste water each day for the cooling system of its two new nuclear units (6 and 7). This shouldn’t be a surprise since the nuclear energy industry has been and continues to be a pioneer in the large-scale use of reclaimed water for cooling. The Palo Verde nuclear plant in Ari...

If you need evidence of the power and value of the electricity market, Site Selection has you covered. The self-described magazine of corporate real estate strategy and area economic development has published a listing of utilities that have added the most jobs and invested the most resources in the last year. Site Selects lists the top 10, always a popular round number for this kind of endeavor. Frankly, the numbers of jobs in particular surprised and delighted me. These are the companies (most of them, also delightful) with nuclear holdings: Alabama Power : the Southern Company subsidiary's economic development team helped companies create 1,810 new jobs in 2013 with total capital investment closing in on $2 billion. American Electric Power : AEP hosted 10 educational forums across its service territory attended by more than 400 community partners and elected officials. [Writer Adam Bruns didn’t get job/investment numbers for AEP.] Duke Energy : The calendar year 2013 sa...

St. Luice Nuclear Plant For the past few weeks, we've taken note of attempts by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy to cast doubt on the safety of the steam generators at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant . Just this afternoon, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put an end to the nonsense by rejecting a request asking the commission to delay the plant's re-start : FPL spokesman Michael Waldron said, “There should be no doubt that this decision confirms the continued safety of the St. Lucie plant and the steam generator system. The NRC’s rejection of SACE’s petition clearly shows that the inflammatory rhetoric, scare tactics, and testimony by so-called “expert” witnesses, is about political theater, not safety. FPL would not put a nuclear unit online if it was unsafe, nor, would we be allowed to do so by our federal safety regulator.” In today’s order, the NRC said, “SACE’s concerns are connected to the 2007 replacement of the plant’s steam generators; the plant, how...

Dennis Spurgeon Over the past week, we've seen a spate of media activity concerning the safety of the steam generators at St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant . Despite the fact that the NRC has said that St. Lucie is safe , anti-nuclear activists are getting plenty of mileage in the local media over charges that don't hold any weight. In fact, anyone with any operating or regulatory experience  says this story is complete bunk. You can add former Department of Energy assistant secretary Dennis Spurgeon to that list. Today over at TCPalm.com , he's wondering out loud about the why behind all of this coverage. Though the text is behind a pay wall, we've excerpted this relevant passage: Before repeating the Times' story, shouldn't this newspaper have looked into why such a biased hit piece was written in the first place? Is it an attempt to discredit the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant because its successful power upgrade (retrofit) has demonstrated that Florida's ...

Last week, we saw a number of anti-nuclear activists try to kick up some FUD concerning the safety of the steam generators at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. Earlier today, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy filed a complaint with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission  (NRC) to attempt to prevent the plant from returning to service in April after a scheduled outage based on the same claims. A couple of paragraphs later in Ivan Penn's piece, you'll find this response from NRC: "There is no steam generator safety problem, nor tube integrity safety concerns, at St. Lucie," Joey Ledford, an NRC spokesman has said about the issue. "There is a significant difference between 'wear problem' and a 'safety problem' or 'safety concern.' " The NRC statement comes on the heels of an op ed piece that appeared in the same newspaper by former NRC commissioner Nils Diaz. In that piece, Diaz wrote , "I am convinced that the NRC and the plan...

Nils Diaz Last week, we saw the Site Vice President at the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant step up to debunk a story in the Tampa Bay Times concerning the safety and efficiency of the plant's steam generators in the wake of a power uprate. Now, former NRC Commissioner Nils Diaz is stepping into the fray, writing his own piece for the newspaper buttressing the plant's reputation for safety and reliability : The public health and safety of people who live within 50 miles of St. Lucie and beyond are protected by the demanding safety framework established by the nuclear power industry and confirmed by its regulators. No member of the public in the United States has ever been exposed to a radioactive hazard detrimental to their health from an operating nuclear power plant. I am convinced that the NRC and the plant operator have rigorously reviewed the safety of the St. Lucie Plant prior to and after the power upgrade and concluded that the public health and safety is protected. That...

St. Luice Nuclear Plant Last Saturday, the Tampa Bay Times published a story by Ivan Penn concerning wear in the steam generator tubes at FPL's St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. Earlier today, the paper published a letter to the editor from FPL's Joseph Jensen taking issue with the story's conclusions. Steam generators are safe The steam generators at the St. Lucie nuclear plant are safe. Since their replacement in 2007, our team of experienced engineers, with validation from independent experts and oversight from federal regulators, has inspected 100 percent of the tubes every 18 months during planned refueling outages. These inspections have shown that there are no tube integrity issues that would cause failure. Steam generator tube wear is not a new issue in the nuclear industry. In fact, there is significant data and operating experience detailing how to safely monitor and manage this issue. Like belts in a car engine, a certain amount of wear is expected ove...

The AP has an interesting story making the rounds about Florida’s Turkey Point nuclear energy facility. At first, I thought to call this post something like Unintended Consequences, because what’s happening there could seem a consequence of the facility being where it is. But really, it’s more than that, because Turkey Point, which is run by FPL, has taken an active hand in enhancing what is happening there. The good work there is active, not passive. Here’s the story : There are between 1,500 and 2,000 crocodiles in Florida — 40 years ago there were 300. They are listed as an endangered species by the state, but were downgraded a few years ago to "threatened" on the federal list. And that’s because of Turkey Point: Since the croc monitoring program began at the plant in 1978, some 5,000 hatchlings have been captured and marked. [Tukey Point biologist Mario] Aldecoa said that indicates that some female crocodiles are returning year after year to the habitat sur...