NEI Nuclear Notes

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 ...

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...

For a number of weeks, we've been paying close attention to our colleagues at Southern California Edison (SCE) as they work to resolve a problem with the steam generators at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station or SONGS. Unit #2 and #3 at SONGS have been out of service for several weeks ever since leaks were detected in the steam generators of both units. In a press briefing earlier this week, SCE's CNO delivered some good news, and said that there's a 50% chance that one or both of the plant's reactors will be back in operation by the Summer . The thing to remember here is that SCE and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission won't allow the plant's two reactors to restart until both parties are convinced that it is safe to do so. For real time updates from SCE, please visit SONGSCommunity.com . A number of outside observers, most notably Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates , have been commenting on the situation as well, with Gundersen publishing...

Nuclear consultants Fairewinds Associates and anti-nuclear activists Friends of the Earth are at it again with a new “report” that seeks to create concern, with little to no substance, over steam generator tube leaks at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) . The report, “ Steam Generator Failures at San Onofre ,” claims that without a thorough root cause analysis of why the plant’s recently installed steam generator tubes have become worn, that: “…radioactive releases might be significantly larger than those that occurred after the January 2012 tube leak. Such an accident would cause implementation of the California emergency evacuation plan and closing of the San Clemente beach and Interstate I-5, potentially for an extended period of time.” Fairewinds’ opinion misleads the general public to believe that the plant already released a large amount of radiation, which in fact, it has not. In a February 17 press release , Southern California Edison (SCE) clarified: ...

WGAL Channel 8 caught the video and pictures of one of two 510 ton steam generators crawling off the barge in Maryland. Here's TMI's page describing the project : Exelon Nuclear entered into a contract with AREVA NP Inc. , to design and build TMI's replacement steam generators. The cost of replacing TMI Unit 1's steam generators is a $300 million investment into the plant. The replacement steam generators will have numerous material and design enhancements compared to the original steam generators, such as Alloy 690 tubing for reliability and longevity, use of forgings to minimize pressure vessel welds, and improved access for inspections. By now, both steam generators should be on their 75 mile, 20 day land journey to Three Mile Island from Port Deposit, MD. I wish I could be the driver for those mammoths!

Should you ever find yourself in Lodz Poland, by all means stop by the Hotel Alicja. Here's some pictures of the hotel - and no, we don't know why they have a horse in their bar - it certainly seems tidy and comfy. I've seen pictures much like this at Expedia or other travel sites for hotels in this country. However, for whatever reason, they've left off one telling angle from the exterior of the hotel : So now we know how they keep the buffet table nice and toasty. This isn't what it looks like. Poland doesn't have a nuclear power plant -  the Zarnowiec plant was left uncompleted in 1972 - plus the tower seems a bit squat. We couldn't quite figure out what kind of plant the tower belongs to - maybe one of our Polish readers can fill us in - but we have to say that we'd be tickled to end up at this hotel after viewing the pictures at their site and then running into this tower. It would be almost as entertaining as finding a horse in the bar...

Details from KSBY-TV .