Author Archive

Jul 26, 2012

Christine Harvey

Bloomberg News

Nuclear-power production in the U.S. is at the lowest seasonal levels in nine years as drought and heat force reactors from Ohio to Vermont to slow output.

Generation for the 104 plants in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent from yesterday to 94,171 megawatts, or 93 percent of capacity, the lowest level for this time of year since 2003, according to reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The total is down 2.6 percent from the five-year average for today of 96,725 megawatts.

"We’ve had a fast decay of summer output this month and that corresponds to the high heat and droughts," Pax Saunders, an analyst at Gelber & Associates in Houston, said. "Plants are not able to operate at the levels they can."

FirstEnergy Corp. (FE)’s Perry 1 reactor in Ohio lowered production to 95 percent of capacity today because of above- average temperatures, while Entergy Corp. (ETR)’s Vermont Yankee has limited output four times this month. Nuclear plants require sufficient water to cool during operation, and rivers or lakes may get overheated or fall in times of high temperatures and drought, according to the NRC.

Dry conditions have worsened in the past week, with at least 63.9 percent of the contiguous 48 U.S. states now affected by moderate to severe drought, the U.S. Drought Monitor said today. That compares with 63.5 in the previous week.

High Temperatures

Temperatures will rise about 3 degrees above normal in the U.S. Northeast from Aug. 4 to Aug. 8 and computer modeling shows another heat wave may arrive the week of Aug. 6, according to Commodity Weather Group President Matt Rogers.

"Heat is the main issue, because if the river is getting warmer the water going into the plant is warmer and makes it harder to cool," David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman, said.

Production at FirstEnergy’s 1,261-megawatt Perry 1 reactor dropped by 63 megawatts early today in preparation for high temperatures and humidity, according to Todd Schneider, a company spokesman in Akron, Ohio.

The region is under a weather advisory from noon to 7 p.m. today, with heat index values as high as 102 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius), according to a report from AccuWeather Inc. Perry 1, 35 miles northeast of Cleveland, has slowed production four times since July 1.

Fluctuating Output

"Output has fluctuated throughout July because of the weather conditions including outside temperature and humidity," Schneider said by phone today. "The higher temperatures make it more difficult to run at 100 percent."

Vermont Yankee, the 620-megawatt plant operated by Entergy Corp., reduced power to 83 percent of capacity on July 17 because of low river flow and heat, according to Rob Williams, a company spokesman based in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The reactor has lowered generation at least once every week since July 1, according to commission data.

"We’ve been having to do it with the warmer weather conditions," Williams said. "The weather dictates how much electricity we can produce and it’s the nature of doing business on a river with variable flow and variable temperatures."

Exelon’s Byron 1 and Byron 2 plants in Illinois have been operating below full capacity since June 28, according to filings with the NRC and data compiled by Bloomberg. The plants are preparing for a yearlong maintenance project that will upgrade equipment inside the cooling towers.

Byron Output

Generation at the 1,164-megawatt Byron 1 reactor slowed to 80 percent of capacity today, while Byron 2 operated at 84 percent. Production has fluctuated because adjustments to cooling tower operations vary with weather conditions, Paul Dempsey, communications manager at the plant, said by phone from Byron, Illinois.
As long as the heat persists, Saunders of Gelber & Associates expects nuclear supply to stay low while demand continues to climb.

Hotter-than-normal weather in the large cities along the East Coast usually raises demand for electricity as people turn to air conditioners to cool off. Generation in the region was 24,043 megawatts today, 3.8 percent lower than a year ago.

Production in the Southeast was 4.9 percent lower than a year earlier, compared with 6.6 percent for the Midwest and 4.1 percent for the West, according to commission data.

"We expect the trend of things getting tighter and tighter to persist," Saunders said in a phone interview. "The impact of the last few weeks have been the largest of the summer."

To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harvey in New York at charvey32(at)bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bill Banker at bbanker(at)bloomberg.net

07/05/2012 7:05

Associated Press/ Houston Chonicle

LOS ANGELES — The future of the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant could balance on an inescapable question: Is it worth the money to fix it?

Engineers face a daunting task finding a solution for problems that knocked the seaside plant offline last winter. And even if they come up with a plan that fully addresses safety and operational issues, will it all make sense on a balance sheet?

The twin reactor plant between San Diego and Los Angeles has long been a source of lower-cost power, but its complex and costly mechanical troubles have raised questions that might have seemed unrealistic just months ago.

"Shutting down the plant, at the end of the day, might not be the worst-case scenario for shareholders or customers," says Travis Miller, director of utilities research at equities analyst Morningstar Inc.

Two decades ago, San Onofre’s Unit 1 reactor was shut down and then dismantled when owners faced the prospect of swallowing a $125 million bill for upgrades and repairs. Oregon’s Trojan nuclear plant closed its doors in 1993, rather than replace steam generators that had leaky tubes.

Now, similar issues will be on the table for San Onofre’s two remaining reactors, shuttered as engineers try to figure out how to stop unprecedented decay in generator tubes that carry radioactive water. The plant hasn’t produced electricity since Jan. 31.

The plant normally generates enough power for 1.4 million homes. With summer here and no restart date in sight, state officials are encouraging conservation to ensure the lights stay on in Southern California when temperatures and electricity use peak.

Regulators and plant owners insist the reactors won’t be restarted until all safety issues are addressed. Meanwhile, costs mount and scrutiny intensifies.

The state Public Utilities Commission plans to vote on an order next month requiring plant owners Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to disclose the potential economic hit for ratepayers, ranging from a relatively quick restart to a permanent shutdown of the twin reactors.

The agency, which determines how much utilities can charge homeowners and businesses for electricity, plans to scrutinize the cost of replacement power, repairs and, ultimately, who gets stuck with a bill that is increasing daily, according to a draft order.

Majority owner Edison hasn’t updated potential cost figures since March 31, when the utility said it had spent $30 million on replacement power and estimated repairs could hit $65 million.

That was at a time when Edison was discussing a June restart for at least one of the reactors, and before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined design flaws caused heavy vibration that damaged tubing. Eight tubes failed during pressure tests in the Unit 3 reactor, an unprecedented number in the industry.

Now, the repair cost is likely higher, as is the cost for replacement power.

The key issue, says analyst Miller, is whether the PUC allows the company to recover its costs from customers.

Among the questions: Is it fair to continue charging customers for generators that, at least for now, don’t work? Who should pay for replacement power that’s been needed during the long-running shutdown? And does continued operation make economic sense, with plenty of economical gas-fired electricity available?

The cost connected to the steam generator crisis is just part of the financial wallop that could come for a plant with just 10 years left on its 40-year operating license.

A multimillion-dollar study of earthquake risks is under way and could lead regulators to require expensive safety upgrades. And two years ago, state water regulators ordered San Onofre and other coastal power plants that suck up ocean water to phase out equipment in coming years blamed for killing fish and other sea life. There is continuing discussion over how that decision will impact nuclear plants, but one study commissioned by Edison estimated that it could cost up to $3 billion to comply at San Onofre.

Could the looming costs become so large that they would make operation of San Onofre financially unworkable?

"The short answer is they could," said Mark Pocta, a manager with the state Division of Ratepayer Advocates, an independent arm of the PUC. "You are talking about a lot of uncertainties."

Edison officials declined a request for an interview.

The trouble began to unfold in January, when the Unit 3 reactor was shut down as a precaution after a tube break released traces of radiation. That began a spiral of events that led to a months-long federal probe.

The NRC blamed a botched computer analysis for creating excessive vibration inside the generators that damaged hundreds of tubes, with agency officials saying last month it’s not known how the generators can be fixed.

The NRC left open the possibility that one or more of the huge machines, installed in a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010, might have to be replaced.

At the now-defunct Unit 1, costly upgrades sought by federal regulators drove the decision to shut it down, said engineer Murray Jennex, a San Diego State University professor who worked at San Onofre for nearly two decades.

At the time, state utility regulators argued Southern California Edison could find cheaper ways to produce kilowatts.

Jennex sees a tipping-point scenario for Unit 2 and Unit 3, in which costs for replacement power, repairs and possible seismic and other upgrades will be decisive. He also said running the plant at lower power, as has been suggested as part of a fix, would drive up maintenance costs.

At lower power "it’s like a car you drive at 35 mph all the time – you are not running it where it wants," Jennex said.

The Trojan nuclear plant was closed in 1993, rather than replace steam generators that had leaky tubes. The plant, about 40 miles northwest of Portland, was completed in May 1976 at a cost of $460 million and was designed to last 40 years. The projected cost of the replacement generators: $200 million.

Edison has indicated it plans to submit a plan to the NRC later this summer to restart the Unit 2 reactor, where tube damage has been more limited than at its sister, Unit 3.

In one Unit 3 generator, 420 tubes have been taken out of service, either because of heavy wear or the possibility they could be damaged by vibration. In the unit’s second generator, 387 tubes have been taken out of service, or what the industry calls "plugged."

The generators, which make steam to turn turbines that produce electricity, are designed to operate with up to 778 retired tubes. That means that in less than one year of service, one Unit 3 generator is more than halfway to reaching the limit and the other is almost there.

Although the two Unit 3 generators were installed in late 2010, they did not go into service until February 2011.

The tubes are a critical safety barrier – if one or more break, there is the potential that radioactivity could escape and serious leaks can drain cooling water from a reactor.

Activists critical of the nuclear industry argue it’s too dangerous to restart a damaged plant with 7.4 million people living within 50 miles of its twin domes.

The tube damage "has the potential to cause extremely serious releases of radioactivity into the environment, which in turn could cause grave injury to public health," environmental group Friends of the Earth said in a recent petition to the NRC. The group has argued that Edison misled the NRC about modifications, including adding 400 tubes to each generator.

An assessment of its finances will be critical as the three-decade old plant moves into the sunset years of its operating license, which expires in 2022. Edison has not said if it intends to seek a license renewal from the NRC or close the plant at that time.

San Onofre is owned by Edison, SDG&E and the city of Riverside. The Unit 1 reactor operated from 1968 to 1992.

San Onofre’s troubles come at a time when some saw signs of a new dawn for the long-struggling U.S. nuclear industry, with plants being constructed in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina.

"The decision for closing a nuclear plant is much above and beyond economics," says University of Southern California engineering professor Najmedin Meshkati. "Closing (San Onofre) really has a very heavy political burden."

June 27, 2012

By THERESA CLIFT
San Antonio Express-News

Two Texas billionaires are now the largest donors to active federal Super PACs together giving more than $20 million in support of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the GOP since the fall of 2010 through May 31.

Harold Simmons of Dallas — owner of Contran Corp., a holding company — is the largest contributor nationwide to give to super PACs still active in the 2012 presidential election. Simmons and his company gave $13 million to pro-Republican group American Crossroads and $800,000 to pro-Romney Restore Our Future, federal campaign finance reports show.

House builder Bob Perry of Houston comes in second for GOP-related campaign contributions. Perry gave $2.5 million to American Crossroads and $4 million to Restore Our Future.

Such sizable donations are made possible by a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that eliminated the cap on contributions from corporations and unions in national elections and allows them to pay for political advertisements in the waning days of campaigns.

In a 2010 ruling, the Supreme Court decided it could not limit contributions to organizations that only made independent expenditures "uncoordinated" with a candidate’s campaign, leading to the rise of super PACs.

This is the first federal election with no cap since the early 1970s. Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said it would have a dramatic effect in the process, especially from Texas donors.

"Texas has long had a history of big money affecting Texas elections, and before campaign finance came in the 1970s, national elections," Jillson said. "Oil money has always played a large role."

In state elections, Texas has not had a cap on donations, so Perry, Simmons and San Antonio donor James Leininger have historically given hundreds of thousands to campaigns and causes, Jillson said.

Leininger has donated to other campaigns, but has not contributed to the federal election this year, aside from a $2,500 donation to Rick Santorum in March.

Although there are several other states that have no donor limits, they have not yielded the same effect.

President Barack Obama opposed the 2010 decision, calling it a major victory for powerful interests, including big oil.

Although Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama super PAC, has now raised more than $14.5 million, super PACs still are primarily utilized by the right.

"Republican super PACs likely will outspend Democrat-related super PACs by a multiple of four or five to one," Jillson said.

Jillson said GOP operative Karl Rove‘s group, which organizes American Crossroads and other Republican PACs, set a goal to raise $600 million this election and will spend most of the money on negative advertisements.

Campaigns, on the other hand, will spend most of their money on voter registration and turnout.

So far, American Crossroads has raised almost $35 million, with more than $19 million from Texas donors, including $50,000 from two San Antonio donors.

Restore our Future has raised more than $60 million, with more than $8 million from Texas donors, $50,000 of it from San Antonio donor James Cowden, who is self-employed.

Robert B. Rowling of Irving gave $2 million to American Crossroads, half of it from his company, TRT Holdings.

Jillson said big donors might also plan on giving more money right before the election or right after it, known in Texas as "the late train."

Calls and emails to Simmons, Perry, American Crossroads and the Obama campaign were not returned.

In March, Simmons told Politico he planned to spend $36 million total during this campaign.

This is not Perry’s first time as a super PAC contributor at the federal level. In the 2003-04 election cycle, Perry contributed almost $8.1 million to 527 groups, according to OpenSecrets.com.

In 2004, he was the largest donor to the Swift Boat group, which challenged Sen. John Kerry‘s Vietnam War record when he was the Democratic presidential nominee, according to a 2010 New York Times article.

February 28, 2012

By MSNBC.com News Services

Japan’s prime minister ordered workers to remain at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant last March as fears mounted of a "devil’s chain reaction" that would force tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo, a new investigative report shows.

Then-Premier Naoto Kan and his staff began referring to a worst-case scenario that could threaten Japan’s existence as a nation around three days after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to the report by a panel set up by a private think-tank.

That was when fears mounted that thousands of spent fuel rods stored at a damaged reactor would melt and spew radiation after a hydrogen explosion at an adjacent reactor building, according to the panel report.

Yukio Edano, then Japan’s top government spokesman, told the panel that at the height of tension he feared a "devil’s chain reaction" in which the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the nearby Fukushima Daini facility, as well as the Tokai nuclear plant, spiraled out of control, putting the capital at risk.

Kan, who stepped down last September, came under fire for his handling of the crisis, including flying over the plant by helicopter the morning after the disasters hit — a move some critics said contributed to a delay in the operator’s response.

Kan, 65, has spoken of how he was haunted by the specter of a crisis spiraling out of control and forcing the evacuation of the Tokyo greater metropolitan area, 150 miles away and home to some 35 million people.

The private Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation report also said Japan’s government withheld information about the full danger of last year’s nuclear disaster from its own people and from the United States, putting U.S.-Japan relations at risk in the first days after the accident.

The report, compiled from interviews with more than 300 people, delivers a scathing view of how leaders played down the risks of the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant that followed a massive March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

It paints a picture of confusion during the days immediately after the accident and says the U.S. government was frustrated by the scattered information provided by Japan and was skeptical whether it was true.

The U.S. advised Americans to leave an area within 50 miles of the plant, far bigger than the 12-mile Japanese evacuation area, because of concerns that the accident was worse than Japan was reporting.

The misunderstandings were gradually cleared up after a bilateral committee was set up on March 22 and began regular meetings, according to the 400-page report.

The report, compiled by scholars, lawyers and other experts, credits then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan for ordering Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility running the plant, not to withdraw its staff and to keep fighting to bring it under control.

TEPCO’s president at the time, Masataka Shimizu, called Kan on March 15 and said he wanted to abandon the plant and have all 600 TEPCO staff flee, the report said. That would have allowed the situation to spiral out of control, resulting in a much larger release of radiation.

A group of about 50 workers was eventually able to bring the plant under control.

TEPCO, which declined to take part in the investigation, has denied it planned to abandon Fukushima Dai-ichi. The report notes the denial, but says Kan and other officials had the clear understanding that TEPCO had asked to leave.

But the report criticizes Kan for attempting to micromanage the disaster and for not releasing critical information on radiation leaks, thereby creating widespread distrust of the authorities among Japanese.

Kan’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.

Kan acknowledged in a recent interview with The Associated Press that the release of information was sometimes slow and at times wrong. He blamed a lack of reliable data at the time and denied the government hid such information from the public.

It will take decades to fully decommission Fukushima Dai-ichi. Although one of the damaged reactor buildings has been repaired, others remain in shambles. A group of journalists, including a reporter from The Associated Press, were given a tour of the plant on Tuesday.

Workers have used tape to mend cracks caused by freezing weather in plastic hoses on temporary equipment installed to cool the hobbled reactors.

"I have to acknowledge that they are still rather fragile," plant chief Takeshi Takahashi said of the safety measures.

The area is still contaminated with radiation, complicating the work. It already has involved hundreds of thousands of workers, who have to quit when they reach the maximum allowed radiation exposure of 100 millisieverts a year.

The report includes a document describing a worst-case scenario that Kan and the chief of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission secretly discussed two weeks after the disaster.

That scenario involved the possibility of more nuclear fuel rods burning, causing the release of more radiation and requiring the evacuation of a much wider region, including Tokyo.

The report also concludes that government oversight of nuclear plant safety had been inadequate, ignoring the risk of tsunami and the need for plant design renovations, and instead clinging to a "myth of safety."

"The idea of upgrading a plant was taboo," said Koichi Kitazawa, a scholar who heads the commission that prepared the report. "We were just lucky that Japan was able to avoid the worst-case scenario. But there is no guarantee this kind of luck will prevail next time."

After the quake and tsunami struck, three reactors melted down and radiation spewed widely through eastern Japan, forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate from the area around the plant.

TEPCO managed to avert the worst scenario by pumping water, much of it from the sea, into Dai-ichi’s damaged reactors and spent fuel pools. The reactors were stabilized by December.

A year after the disaster, however, Fukushima Dai-ichi still resembles a vast wasteland. High radiation levels hamper a cleanup that is expected to take decades.

The damaged 125-foot-tall No. 2 reactor building stands like a bird’s nest of twisted steel beams. A TEPCO official who accompanied foreign media to the plant on Tuesday said metal debris was being painstakingly removed by giant cranes and other equipment as radiation doses were too high for workers.

Another challenge is keeping a new cooling system, built from a myriad of technologies and prone to breaking down, running without major glitches.

"An earthquake or tsunami like the ones seen a year ago could be a source of trouble for these (cooling) systems. But we are currently reinforcing the spent fuel pool and making the sea walls higher against tsunamis," Takeshi Takahashi, the Dai-ichi plant’s manager, told reporters. "A series of backup systems is also being put in place in case one fails."

Edano on Tuesday acknowledged he had feared the worst around March 14-15. "I was working with a strong sense of crisis that under various circumstances, such a thing may be possible," he told a news conference in Tokyo.

But he defended his silence as government spokesman.

"I shared all information. Back then, I was not in a position where I, as someone who is not an expert, could irresponsibly speak about my own personal impressions and my sense of crisis," he told a news conference.

"I conveyed assessments and decisions of the government, government agencies and experts," he added.

The panel report said some of Kan’s seemingly inexplicable behavior stemmed from his belief that TEPCO was going to abandon the plant and the accident would spiral out of control.
An irate Kan blasted TEPCO on Marc
h 15, yelling: "What the hell is going on" in an outburst overheard by a Kyodo News reporter and quickly reported around the globe. "I want you all to be determined," he was quoted as telling utility executives.

The utility ultimately left a corps of workers who were dubbed the "Fukushima Fifty" by media and won admiration at home and abroad as they risked their lives to contain the crisis, although their names were never formally made public.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

June 8, 2012

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press via Google News

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s leader appealed to the nation Friday to accept that two nuclear reactors that remained shuttered after the Fukushima disaster must be restarted to protect the economy and people’s livelihoods.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said the government has taken ample safety measures to ensure the two reactors in western Japan would not leak radiation if an earthquake or tsunami as severe as last year’s should strike them.

All 50 of Japan’s workable reactors are offline for maintenance and safety concerns since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, swept into a coastal plant in Fukushima and sparked the world’s second-worst nuclear disaster.

The two reactors at the Ohi nuclear plant are the first two ready to resume generating power, but the public has shown great concern that government failures worsened last year’s crisis and may recur.

Nuclear energy is crucial for Japanese society, Noda said in a news conference broadcast live. The government wants the reactors to be operational ahead of a summertime energy crunch.

"We should restart the Ohi No. 3 and No. 4 reactors in order to protect the people’s livelihoods," Noda said. "The Japanese society cannot survive if we stop all nuclear reactors or keep them halted."

Noda said a 15 percent power deficit is expected in the western region, a level he called "severe." Without nuclear energy, utilities would have to rely more heavily on expensive fossil fuel, which would increase electricity bills and financial strain on small businesses.

He said the public opinion is polarized but he has to make a decision because "I cannot put people’s safety and livelihood at stake by not restarting the reactors."

Local consent is not legally required for restarting the reactors, though government ministers have promised to gain understanding from the prefecture. Noda said he understands the mixed feelings many people have about a startup. He promised to publish a long-term energy policy that aims to reduce nuclear dependency and promote renewable energy around August — a delay from an earlier target of June.

Noda’s speech Friday possibly removes the last obstacle before a resumption of the Ohi reactors. The Fukui governor made Noda’s public appeal conditional to his consent for the startup. With the governor’s consent, Noda is expected to make a final go ahead as early as next week, so the restart could take place within days.
Noda said the peak of energy demand for the summer is approaching, requiring a quick decision.

He said major cities around the Ohi plant should thank local residents for their burden of supplying electricity to towns around the west, despite the safety concerns, apparently seeking to gain their understanding for the resumption.

Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa took Noda’s comment "seriously," indicating an approval, a local newspaper Fukui Shimbun reported.

Fukui, where 13 reactors are clustered in four complexes along the coast, is often called Japan’s "Nuclear Alley," making the region Japan’s most nuclear-dependent area.

Noda said the startup is not intended just for the summer, rejecting calls for limited operation by Osaka city and other nearby towns. He said he planned to start up more reactors whenever their safety is confirmed.

The government issued new safety guidelines in April to address residents’ worries. In response, Kansai Electric Power Co. submitted its safety plans for two reactors at the plant, saying the full upgrades will take up to three years.

Some of the most crucial measures to secure cooling functions and prevent meltdowns as in Fukushima were installed, but more than one-third of the necessary upgrades on the list are still incomplete.

Filtered vents that could substantially reduce radiation leaks in case of an accident threatening an explosion, a radiation-free crisis management building and fences to block debris washed up by a tsunami won’t be ready until 2015. This means the plant, as well as plant workers and residents, won’t be fully protected from radiation leaks in case of a Fukushima-class crisis.

Masataka Shimizu, former president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima plant, said its crisis management building installed in 2010 saved the crisis from becoming a catastrophe.

"It’s horrifying just to imagine if it hadn’t been there yet," Shimizu told a parliamentary accident inquiry Friday.

Noda, however, said that the safety measures are provisional and that they would have to be more closely examined when a new regulatory agency is installed. The step has been delayed due to demands by opposition parties to make it more independent than the government proposal.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.