Jack Frost plays havoc with U.S. nuclear power plants

Winter weather conditions in January 2014 pointed out how nuclear power plants are unreliable power generators just when communities dependent upon electricity need them the most.

Nuclear power plants completely rely upon the electric grid system to power all reactor safety systems during power operations. If the grid is unstable or interrupted, nuclear power plants shut down and are unavailable until stable grid conditions are restored. Take for example, January 21, 2014, both Units 1 and 2 at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear generating station in Lusby, Maryland automatically shut down when snow and ice caused an electrical short-circuit in a ventilation louver. The electrical power supply shorted out to reactor safety systems including motors needed to move both reactors’ control rods, a malfunction in Unit 1’s main turbine control system and the circulating-water pumps for Unit 2. Emergency diesel generators for both units started up to provide backup power and successfully shut down the reactors. 

Nuclear power plants also require tremendous amounts of water to keep the hot reactor cores from overheating during power operations and following shutdown. Ice flows getting sucked into the intake structures restricts vital cooling water to the reactor causing nukes to shut down like what happened to New Jersey’s Salem nuclear power plant in 2010.  Since the nukes have to be located on or near large water systems like rivers, lakes, reservoirs or the ocean, they also have to be protect the intake structures from ice. When these protective measures are reduced or lost, the reactors have to shut down.  This just happened on January 9, 2014 when the Fort Calhoun nuclear power station on the Missouri River had to manually shut down power production because sub-freezing weather caused an ice buildup on one of six flood protection gates preventing the gate from closing.  Fort Calhoun had just restarted after being closed for nearly three years after flood waters surrounded the nuclear power plant for weeks.

An investigation is still ongoing into whether cold weather was the cause of the 23 day shutdown of the Pennsylvania's Beaver Valley nuclear power station on January 6th when a ruptured fire suppression system sprayed Unit 1's electric transformer with water which immediately froze, failed and caused the unit to shutdown.

Volunteers Crowdsource Radiation Monitoring to Map Potential Risk on Every Street in Japan

As reported by Democracy Now! on the Pacifica Radio Network:

Safecast is a network of volunteers who came together to map radiation levels throughout Japan after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011. They soon realized radiation readings varied widely, with some areas close to the disaster facing light contamination, depending on wind and geography, while others much further away showed higher readings. Safecast volunteers use Geiger counters and open-source software to measure the radiation, and then post the data online for anyone to access. Broadcasting from Tokyo, we are joined by Pieter Franken, co-founder of Safecast. "The first trip we made into Fukushima, it was an eye-opener. First of all, the radiation levels we encountered were way higher than what we had seen on television," Franken says. "We decided to focus on measuring every single street as our goal in Safecast, so for the last three years we have been doing that, and this month we are passing the 15 millionth location we have measured, and basically every street in Japan has been at least measured once, if not many, many more times."

The atomic reactors that melted down and exploded at Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 were General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors. The U.S. has 23 still-operating Mark Is, as well as 8 more very similarly designed Mark IIs.

Chris Williams, VCAN & VYDA, "Entergy Nuclear, Resisting a Rogue Corporation," Palisades, MI, Thurs., Jan. 16th

Yard signs created by Michigan Safe Energy Future--Kalamazoo Chapter

[See below for links to the YouTube video recording of Chris's talk, as well as the press release, posted at the bottom of this entry as an update.]

[And please also mark your calendars for Dr. Jeff Patterson, National Board Chair of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who is scheduled to speak about "Nuclear Power: What you need to know about Price, Pollution and Proliferation," on the evening of Feb. 14th, at the same venue as Chris Williams below. Dr. Patterson will also speak in numerous additional Michigan communities, on a week-long speaking tour in mid-February. This will include Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo on Feb. 13th, at 7 PM. It will also include stops in southeast MI, targeted by Detroit Edison for the proposed new Fermi 3 GE-Hitachi atomic reactor in Monroe County. Dr. Patterson's additional stops in other Michigan cities will be announced ASAP.]

Entergy Nuclear: Resisting a Rogue Corporation and its Radioactive Risks

A presentation by Chris Williams of Vermont Citizens Action Network as well as Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance

Thursday, January 16, 2014, 6:30 to 9:00 PM,

Lake Michigan College,

125 Veterans Blvd., Room 141

South Haven, MI 49090

(For directions to campus, location of parking, etc.,
see: http://www.lakemichigancollege.edu/SH)

Come learn about Entergy Nuclear’s dirty dozen atomic reactors, including the problem-plagued Palisades near South Haven. Chris Williams is a leader of the ongoing, highly successful grassroots campaign to shutdown Entergy's dangerously degraded Vermont Yankee atomic reactor (a Fukushima Daiichi twin design). Having stopped proposed new reactors in Indiana during his 25 years of service as Executive Director of Citizen Action Coalition, he will show how community organizing can stop dirty, dangerous, and expensive atomic reactors, and replace them with efficiency and renewables like wind and solar.

Chris Williams, is a long time sustainable energy policy activist. He is currently organizer for the Vermont Citizens Action Network, a grassroots organization working to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear station and replace it with sustainable energy generation. Williams has a long professional history working with public interest organizations. For 25 years he was the executive director for Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a not for profit consumer and environmental advocacy organization. CAC conducts extensive grassroots public education campaigns concerning, public utility regulation, energy policy, environmental policy, and the preservation of family farms.

Co-sponsored by Michigan Safe Energy Future (http://michigansafeenergyfuture.com),
Beyond Nuclear (www.beyondnuclear.org),
and Don’t Waste Michigan (http://dwmi.homestead.com).

For more info, contact Bette Pierman, Michigan Safe Energy Future, (269) 369-3993 or

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, (240) 462-3216

[See the event flier here]

Update on January 20, 2014 by admin

Thanks to Kraig Schultz of Michigan Safe Energy Future--South Haven Chapter for filming Chris's presentation and posting it to YouTube (in five parts).

Here too is the press release ("Tiny Vermont inspires Michiganders, Hoosiers, and Chicagoans in campaign to shutdown Palisades atomic reactor: Green Mountain State victory against Entergy Nuclear serves as a hopeful model") issued about Chris's presentation.

Vogtle nuclear loan guarantee drags into fifth round of delays

As reported by Platts, and conveyed in a Friends of the Earth press release, the December 31, 2013 U.S. Department of Energy deadline for finalization of the $8.3 billion federal taxpayer backed nuclear loan guarantee for Vogtle 3 & 4 has been extended yet again, for a fifth time, until the end of January, 2014.

As reported by FOE: "Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation revealed that the credit subsidy fee offered to Southern Company ranged from 0.8 to 1.5 percent. The credit subsidy fee is supposed to insulate against default, but the fee offered to Southern Company is woefully inadequate to cover the risks involved in major nuclear construction. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 32 percent of reactor construction is cancelled before any electricity is produced."

Watchdog groups have long called for a credit subsidy fee commensurate with the risk of the nuclear new build proposals. Congressional auditors reported several years ago that new reactors, historically, have had a 50% risk of cancellation and potential default. The Vogtle 3 & 4 nuclear loan guarantee puts 15 times more taxpayer money at risk than did the Solyndra loan guarantee scandal, which had a significantly lower risk of default than does Vogtle 3 & 4.

Given the Obama administration offered the $8.3 billion nuclear loan guarantee nearly four years ago, and now this latest delay, concerns continue to mount that the project is a financial house of cards, and will ultimately leave taxpayers holding the bag. Nuclear Watch South has called for taxpayers to express their concerns to decision makers, as has Beyond Nuclear.