Coalition defends intervention against risky Davis-Besse steam generator replacements

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 an 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 San Onofre "engineering catastrophe" has resulted in a $2.5 billion boondoggle thus far.

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

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, Ohio in August 2012On June 21st, an environmental coalition represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge 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.

Prohibitively expensive cost of safety repairs at age-degraded atomic reactors leads nuclear utilities to simply shut them down

"Burning Money" image by Gene Case, Avenging AngelsBloomberg has reported:

"Edison International (EIX)’s decision to abandon its San Onofre nuclear plant in California is the latest blow for an industry already facing questions about its long-term survival.

Edison, based in Rosemead, California, announced June 7 it will permanently shut the plant’s two reactors, trimming total U.S. operating units to 100 from 104 at the beginning of the year and 110 at the peak in 1996. The announcement brings to four the number of units permanently removed from service this year, the most in any year since the nation embraced nuclear power.

Other facilities are nearing the end of their projected lifespans and may need costly renovations while cheap natural gas has siphoned off market share. Potentially expensive regulations to bolster safety in response to a triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in 2011 have raised the concerns of investors...

The last wave of U.S. plant closures was in the late 1990s, when falling gas prices helped tilt economics in favor of retiring rather than attempting large-scale repairs. Six reactors were closed from 1996 to 1998, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission data, and peaked in 1996 when Haddam Neck in Meriden, Connecticut; Maine Yankee in Wicasset, Maine; and Unit 2 at the Zion plant in Illinois shut...

“The decision to shut down rather than retrofit the San Onofre nuclear plant shows the changing economics of the power market,” Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Chicago-based advocate of cleaner energy, said in a telephone interview. “We suspect other nuclear plant owners may start reaching the same decision.”

In fact, Dominion Nuclear made just such a decision, to permanently shutdown its Kewaunee atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline of Wisconsin last month. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on October 22, 2012 that Dominion, referring to its losing battle to remain competitive in a deregulated electricity market, could not afford the needed safety repairs at Kewaunee:

'We looked at all alternatives to keep the unit operating, but we could not make the reductions in the cost without it affecting safety,' [Dominion spokesman Richard] Zuercher said." (emphasis added)

As Howard Learner stated above, such market realities begs the question, which reactors will close next? On Feb. 8th, Entergy's brand new CEO, Leo Denault, when asked why several reactors in his fleet were so financially strapped, admitted in an interveiw with Reuters that:

"...some plants are in the more challenging economic situations for a variety of reasons, including 'the market for both energy and capacity, their size, their contracting positions and the investment required to maintain the safety and integrity of the plants.'" (emphasis added)

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

Environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge speaks out against Davis-Besse at an NRC public meeting held at Oak Harbor High School in August 2012Beyond 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.

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.

Battle looms over who gets to pay for San Onofre shutdown costs

As reported by Bloomberg:

'...Edison International (EIX) faces a regulatory battle over who will pay for about $3.4 billion of costs related to the decision to retire the San Onofre nuclear plant amid a record number of U.S. nuclear closures.

Southern California Edison, the utility unit that owns and operates what had been California’s largest source of round-the clock electricity, has a $2.1 billion investment in the two reactors and may have to refund some of the $1.3 billion collected from customers since the plant quit producing power in January 2012, Chief Executive Officer Ted Craver told reporters today on a conference call.

Four commercial nuclear-power units, including Edison’s two, have been permanently closed in the U.S. this year, the highest-ever annual total, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission data. A glut of shale-fed natural gas and government-subsidized wind has upended power-market dynamics and squeezed margins, making costly repairs uneconomical for some nuclear operators.

“It no longer makes sense to restart San Onofre,” Craver said today. Buying power on the open market became the cheaper alternative because a year of delay cut too deeply into its operating life, he told reporters. The reactor license expires in 9 years. Edison was spending $30 million a month preparing for the restart, he said.

Edison estimates that shareholders will absorb after-tax costs of $300 to $450 million, although further writedowns are possible, Chief Financial Officer Jim Scilacci said. The company hasn’t determined how much it will seek from customers, he said...

The California Public Utilities Commission will decide how much customers will have to pay for the retirement of the reactors, which provided almost 20 percent of the power for Edison’s customers.

The CPUC will decide “as quickly as possible” who will pay for the shutdown, Michael Peevey, president of the CPUC, said in an e-mail statement.

Sempra Energy (SRE), which had a 20 percent stake in San Onofre, expects California regulators to allow it to recover its $519 million investment from ratepayers, the San Diego-based company said in a filing today. The company’s San Diego Gas & Electric Company utility will likely record an after-tax charge of $30 million to $110 million in the second quarter of 2013 related to the plant...

Edison should be able to bill ratepayers for its investment in the plant based on previous commission decisions, Smith from Drexel Hamilton said today. He rates Edison shares buy and owns none.

Some of the $529 million Edison charged customers for replacement power since the plant was shut or the $813 million charged for operating it when it wasn’t generating electricity, will have to be refunded given previous rulings, he said...'