Bi-national coalition defends its challenge against risky steam generator replacements at Davis-Besse

Terry Lodge, Toledo-based attorney, speaking out against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension in August 2012 at Oak Harbor High School, OHTerry Lodge (pictured left), Toledo-based attorney representing a bi-national environmental coalition intervening against FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) risky steam generator replacements at its Davis-Besse atomic reactor, has filed PETITIONERS’ REPLY IN OPPOSITION TO FENOC ‘MOTION TO STRIKE.’

The coalition includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club. Its expert witness, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc, has warned that FENOC has taken similar shortcuts on safety as did Edison International with its dangerously flawed steam generator replacements at San Onofre, CA. Edison was forced to permanently shut San Onofre 2 & 3, after Friends of the Earth (FOE) successfully intervened for license amendment hearings after the replacement steam generators suffered extensive, premature degradation, putting 8 million residents and workers within 50 miles at risk. Arnie serves as FOE's expert at San Onofre, as well.

The coalition plans to reply in opposition to similar U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff motions to strike in coming days. More.

Davis-Besse has emergency shutdown, pressure boundary leakage; coalition presses case against risky steam generator replacements

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge speaks out against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension at an August 2012 press conference in Oak Harbor, OhioOn June 29th, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore near Toledo experienced an emergency shutdown.

The event notification report posted on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) website states:

'AUTOMATIC REACTOR TRIP DUE TO REACTOR COOLANT PUMP TRIP 

"Automatic trip of Reactor Coolant Pump 1-2 due to an electrical differential current fault resulted in an RPS actuation on Flux/Delta Flux/Flow. Startup Feedwater Valve 1 did not respond as expected post-trip and has been placed in manual control. All secondary side steam reliefs initially re-seated following reactor trip. Subsequent Main Steam Line #1 Safety Valve leakage mitigated during post-trip recovery actions. All other systems have functioned as expected. The plant is stable in Mode 3 - Hot Standby."

All rods inserted into the core during the trip. Decay heat is being removed via turbine bypass valves to the main condenser with normal feedwater to the steam generators. The plant is in its normal shutdown electrical lineup. The licensee characterized the trip as uncomplicated. 

The licensee will be notifying Lucas and Ottawa counties, the State of Ohio and will be issuing a press release. They have notified the NRC Resident Inspector.'

Helpfully translating that Nukespeak into plain English, David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Nuclear Safety, has prepared a powerpoint presentation to explain what happened at Davis-Besse.

Vanessa McCray at the Toledo Blade has reported on this story. She quotes Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

'...Kevin Kamps, a radioactive-waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear, said the most recent incident is another worry.

“A lot of plants have problems, but often times it’s a single problem a plant will have ...,” he said. “But for Davis-Besse, they have just a whole long list of problems, and that’s what concerns us too —that those might line up one day in a very bad way.”...' 

A U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear and Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, has challenged both Davis-Besse's proposed 20-year license extension, as well as its risky steam generator replacements.

More.

URGENT: Register NOW for a CHANCE to speak out against Lake Huron nuclear waste dump

Ontario Power Generation's Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada -- with 9 reactors on one site, one of the single biggest nuclear power plants in the world -- is now targeted for Ontario's "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive waste dump as well. The so-called Deep Geologic Repository (DGR, or, more appropriately, DUD, for Deep Underground Dump) would be within a mile of the Lake Huron shoreline, and could very well open the door to a national Canadian high-level radioactive waste dump at, or near, the same site. All this, despite the Great Lakes comprising 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and serving as the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.Thanks to Dr. Gordon Edwards, long serving President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, for the following action alert:

Please ACT NOW (TODAY or TOMORROW) -- In typical bureacratic fashion, the powers that be have set JULY 5 as the DEADLINE for REGISTERING to make a "COMMENT" on plans to bury Nuclear Waste on the shore of Lake Huron for the next 500,000 years or more

http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/intervention/eng/

Please note:

(1) IF WE REGISTER WE DO NOT HAVE TO COMMENT NOW -- WE JUST HAVE THE GUARANTEE THAT WE CAN DO SO LATER IF WE WANT.

(2) REGISTERING IS VERY IMPORTANT NO MATTER WHAT ELSE WE DO OR DON'T DO, AS IT INDICATES A LEVEL OF PUBLIC INTEREST.

(3) A WRITTEN SUBMISSION CAN BE VERY SHORT AND GENERAL, OR LONGER AND MORE DETAILED -- THAT'S ENTIRELY UP TO US.

(4) AN ORAL SUBMISSION DOES NOT REQUIRE ATTENDANCE AT THE HEARING SITE -- IT CAN BE DONE BY "TELECONFERENCE" (I.E. PHONE).

(5) IF YOU REGISTER PLEASE COPY ME ("GORDON EDWARDS" CCNR@WEB.CA) AND I WILL SHARE SOME IDEAS TO HELP US FOCUS ON KEY ISSUES.

GORDON EDWARDS

Happy Canada Day (July 1) to all my Canadian friends and colleagues

Happy Independence Day (July 4) to all my American friends and colleagues 

Happy Nuclear-Free Future Day to all inhabitants of planet Earth, human or otherwise

Coalition defends its challenge against risky steam generator replacements at Davis-Besse

Terry Lodge speaks out against 20-year license extension at Davis-Besse at Oak Harbor High School in Ohio, August 2012On June 21st, a U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge (photo, left) re-asserted its challengeagainst risky steam generator replacements at FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo. The filing rebutted June 14th attacks byFENOC as well as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff on the coalition's standing, as well as the merits of its contentions.

The coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club, launched its intervention petition on May 20th. The coalition's expert, Fairewinds Associates, Inc's Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen, also serves as Friends of the Earth's (FOE) expert in the San Onofre defective replacement steam generator proceeding, which recently resulted in the permanent closure of two reactors. FENOC has taken similar short cuts on safety as did Edison International, which resulted in the San Onofre engineering catastrophe that put 8 million southern Californians at radiological risk, and has resulted in a $2.5 billion boondoggle.

Davis-Besse's "San Onofre-like" shortcuts on safety with steam generator replacements focus of NRC public meeting

Terry Lodge speaks out against Davis-Besse in August 2012 at an NRC public meeting held at Oak Harbor High SchoolBeyond Nuclear set up an info. table at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "annual performance review" public meeting in Carroll Township, Ohio, just a few miles down the road from FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor. Beyond Nuclear was there to let the public know about the ongoing resistance by an environmental coalition to Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension, and its recently filed intervention against FENOC's San Onofre-like shortcuts on safety regarding its proposed 2014 steam generator replacements.

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge (photo, left) represents the coalition, and Fairewinds Associates, Inc's Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen, serves as its expert witness. Gundersen also serves as Friends of the Earth's (FOE) expert, which just successfully forced Edison International to permanently shutdown the San Onofre 2 & 3 atomic reactors due to fatally flawed replacement steam generators.

The coalition includes Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, making it bi-national.

WTOL's Jennifer Steck quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps (print article; television report):

'..."We want to prevent a Chernobyl or Fukishima on the shoreline of the Great Lakes," said Kevin Kamps, of Beyond Nuclear. "There is no reactor in this country that's come closer to that as many times as Davis-Besse has."

Davis-Besse is licensed for operation through 2017, and in the process of a 20-year license renewal. Delaying that renewal and preventing a steam generator replacement in 2014 are the main goals of Beyond Nuclear.

"We've long strived to shut down Davis-Besse, and we're not going to give up now," Kamps said. "We're just going to re-double our efforts."...'

The Toledo Blade's Roberta Gedert also quoted Kevin:

“They went way out of their way to avoid a license amendment on this major organ transplant,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog for Beyond Nuclear. “If they have made any mistakes, they have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars because we are going to challenge them at every turn.”

Update on June 13, 2013 by admin

The June 12, 2013 Fairewinds Energy Education podcast, featuring Arnie and Maggie Gundersen, is mostly focused on last week's permanent closure of San Onofre Units 2 & 3 in CA. But beginning at minute 23:00, Arnie applies the lessons learned at San Onofre -- where he serves as Friends of the Earth's expert witness -- to the new "leader of the pack" regarding the San Onofre like-for-like issue: Davis-Besse in Ohio. 

San Onofre 2 & 3 had insisted that its old steam generators and its new replacement steam generators were like-for-like. In this way, Edison International avoided the very public license amendment proceedings that likely would have revealed the replacement steam generator design and fabrication defects that have now proven fatal at San Onofre 2 & 3.

Ironically, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) has followed Edison International's unwise path. FENOC has convinced the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that its proposed 2014 steam generator replacement is "like-for-like," thus far avoiding a public license amendment proceeding. But a coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, is challenging this. They have retained Arnie Gundersen as their expert witness.