Entergy Watch: Palisades, Pilgrim, Vermont Yankee

Palisades

In April, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Nuclear Safety Project Director, David Lochbaum, will speak about "Preventing an American Fukushima" in west Michigan, about Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor. Beyond Nuclear is privileged and honored to co-sponsor the visit. He will present at a noontime event on the campus of Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo (about 40 miles east, and downwind of Palisades) on Thursday, April 11th, with co-sponsorship by the Kalamazoo Peace Center. Later that same evening, David will present at the Beach Haven Event Center in South Haven -- about 5 miles north of Palisades.

In 2010, David documented Palisades' 40 years of chronic control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) seal leaks, and has commented on the serious safety significance of the Sept. 2012 CRDM through-wall leaks. This included the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's, as well as Entergy's, failure to take proper, required precautionary reactor shutdown action for over a month. Beyond Nuclear provided backgroud about this at the time.

In his Feb. 2012 "The NRC and Nuclear Power Plant Safety in 2011: Living on Borrowed Time," of 15 near-misses across the U.S., Lochbaum documented two at Palisades. Entergy's 5 near-misses (2 at Palisades, 2 at Pilgrim near Boston, and 1 at Cooper in Nebraska) accounted for a third of the national total, far more than any other nuclear utility.

Pilgrim

Speaking of Pilgrim, last week the Pilgrim Coalition wisely called for the Plymouth, MA reactor's precautionary shutdown before the Blizzard of 2013 hit, but Entergy and NRC refused to listen. Sure enough, the off-site electrical grid -- the primary source of power for running safety and cooling systems on the reactor core -- went down in the nor'easter. Luckily, the back up power supply -- emergency diesel generators -- functioned as designed. However, the grid has remained problematic ever since, meaning Pilgrim has had to rely on its emergency diesel generators more than once over the past week. (As of Feb. 15, NRC's Current Reactor Status Report still shows Pilgrim as shutdown -- but recently shutdown reactor cores still need cooling, as shown by the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi.)

While Pilgrim's diesels have worked, thus far, this is far from always the case. Shortly after the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), Ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, documented that 74 cases of emergency diesel generator failure had occurred at U.S. nuclear power plants in just the preceding decade or so.

In fact, as reported by AP, the power grid has failed more than once since Winter Storm Nemo struck, throwing Pilgrim back onto its back up emergency diesel generators. As of Feb. 14th, NRC's Power Reactor Status Report shows Pilgrim as still shutdown.

Beyond Nuclear's Freeze Our Fukushimas pamphlet and campaign has long warned that, whatever the cause of "station blackout" (whether an earthquake and tsunami as in Japan two years ago, or a severe blizzard disrupting the power grid combined with emergency diesel failure), General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors (like Fukushima Daiichi Units 1-4, or Pilgrim), with their too small and too weak containment structures, could plunge quickly into meltdown mode, resulting in catastrophic radioactivity releases.

And, although Pilgrim is supposed to begin removing some fraction of its irradiated nuclear fuel from its storage pool, currently all the high-level radioactive waste ever generated there is still housed in this vulnerable location, several stories up in the air, outside of any primary radiological containment structure. To make matters worse, NRC does not even require emergency back up power connections to waste pool cooling water circulation pumps. When the grid goes down, the pool begins to heat up. After a number of days, enough water could boil away that the irradiated fuel would be exposed to air, allowing it to quickly overheat to the point of ingniting the zirconium fuel rod cladding, resulting in a radioactive waste fire and potentially catastrophic radioactivity release to the atmosphere. The ongoing lack of access to the off-site electric grid at Pilgrim is cause for concern, given its packed high-level radioactive waste storage pool.

On March 11th, the second anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter will be in Plymouth on behalf of 19 local residents who engaged in non-violent civil resistance against Pilgrim. Paul will testify before a court of law as to the legitimacy of the activists' "necessity defense," that trespassing onto Entergy property in an attempt to shutdown Pilgrim was justified, given the atomic reactor's risks to Cape Cod downwinders.

Vermont Yankee (VY)

Entergy Nuclear has argued it is above state law in Vermont. In a proceeding before the State of Vermont Public Service Board (PSB), Entergy has taken the U.S. Supreme Court's 1983 ruling in PG&E -- that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sole jurisdiction over radiological safety matters -- and is now attempting to extend that to other realms, such as Vermont's purview over tourism and recreation in the Green Mountain State. However, this flies in the face of settled law under PG&E, in which the Supreme Court recognized the retention of state government authority over such matters as economics, other environmental impacts besides radiological safety (such as thermal water discharges into surface waters), electricity reliability, and future energy planning.

As reported in last week's Beyond Nuclear weekly email bulletin, the Vermont Public Service Department, on behalf of Governor Peter Shumlin, has argued before the PSB that Entergy's many broken promises to the state justify a rejection of a Certificate of Public Good (CPG) for Entergy to operate Vermont Yankee any longer. A decade ago, Entergy agreed it would shutdown VY if it failed to secure a renewed CPG from the PSB. The PSB is still taking public comments re: its VY CPG proceeding, even from persons residing outside Vermont. The Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance and Citizens Awareness Network have prepared sample comments you can use to fashion your own. Any information about Entergy's misbehavior elsewhere in the U.S. could prove valuable to the PSB in rendering its decision. (The sample comments, and PSB contact info., is provided at the link above.)

Green Mountain State political leaders have long referred publicly to Entergy as a "rogue corporation," after Entergy officials lied under oath to Vermont officials regarding underground pipes leaking radioactivity into soil, groundwater, and the Connecticut River at VY. Richard Watts' book Public Meltdown: The Story of Vermont Yankee has documented how those official lies under oath utterly changed Entergy's destiny in the Green Mountain State.

In addition, Entergy's brand new CEO, Leo P. Denault, has acknowledged what UBS has reported for many weeks now -- that its merchant atomic reactors are suffering serious financial woes. In fact, UBS has advised that Entergy's VY, as well as FitzPatrick in upstate NY, and perhaps even Pilgrim, could well shutdown permanently in 2013, all of which would be a boon to Entergy shareholders. Disturbiningly, Denault admitted that the "economic challenges" are partially due to "the investment required to maintain the safety and integrity of the plants." (emphasis added) (Although Entergy has owned the Palisades atomic reactor since 2007, it has never dealt with its worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the U.S., has not replaced its corroded reactor lid, has not replaced its degraded steam generators (for the second time in the plant's history), and has not upgraded fire safeguards -- all identified by the previous owner Consumers Energy as needing to happen. This, while Entergy's previous CEO, J. Wayne Leonard, made a personal fortune of $20 million or more per year.)

Finally, the State of Vermont is considering legislation which would strengthen requirements for decommissioning and clean up once VY is finally shutdown for good. Incredibly, Entergy has not put one dime into VY's decommissioning fund since taking over in 2002. (Again, at Palisades in Michigan, the decommissioning fund was actually raided -- to the tune of $316 million -- when the reactor was sold from Consumers Energy to Entergy in 2007.)