[ RadSafe ] [Nuclear News] Nuclear plant's safety rating takes hit

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Nuclear plant's safety rating takes hit
Hungary Nuclear Plant Paksi Plans To Double Pretax Profit In '07 
Stress of nuclear plant worker tied to deaths of wife, daughter, self
Fermi nuke plant used wrong test for years
Safety in question at Texas nuclear weapons plant
Entergy Nuclear One Plant in Russellville 
U.K. Government Delays Nuclear Power Recommendation 
Ill. lab may begin recycling nuclear fuel
----------------------------------------

Nuclear plant's safety rating takes hit 

PHOENIX - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday downgraded 
the safety rating of the nation's largest nuclear plant, subjecting 
it to more inspectors and a level of scrutiny shared by just one 
other plant in the nation. 
 
The NRC made the announcement following three years of problems in 
various safety systems at the Palo Verde nuclear plant west of 
Phoenix.

Inspectors in September found that one of its emergency diesel 
generators had been broken for 18 days. Emergency generators are 
critically important at nuclear reactors, providing electricity to 
pumps, valves and control rooms if the main electrical supply fails.

Only FirstEnergy Corp.'s Perry nuclear plant in Ohio has a safety 
rating as bad as Palo Verde's, NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said.

APS, a subsidiary of Phoenix-based Pinnacle West Capital Corp., said 
it will not appeal the ruling.

"It is important to know that despite the operational difficulties 
over the last few years, at no time was the safety of the public or 
our employees at risk," APS chief executive Jack Davis said on the 
company Web site.

Palo Verde can provide enough electricity for nearly 4 million homes 
and is owned by a consortium of utilities in Arizona, Texas, 
California and New Mexico.
-----------------

Hungary Nuclear Plant Paksi Plans To Double Pretax Profit In '07 

BUDAPEST -(Dow Jones)- Hungary's only nuclear power plant, Paksi 
Atomeromu Zrt. is looking to at least double its pretax profit in 
2007 from a year earlier, Paksi's Chief Executive Jozsef Kovacs said 
Wednesday.

"We will at least double our pretax profit in 2007 as none of our 
four blocks will be out of operation this year and two of our blocks 
will produce more energy (as a result of a program to increase 
productivity)," Kovacs told journalists.

Paksi, which is state-owned, made a pretax profit of 2.8 billion 
forints ($ 14.6 million) in 2006, up 7.7% from a year earlier.

One of the reactor's blocks was shut down for three months in 2006 
for the removal of fuel rods damaged in a 2003 accident. The four 
reactors in the southern town of Paks supplied 38% of Hungary's total 
electricity in 2006; the plants current capacity is 1,880 megawatts.

The oldest reactor was built in 1982 and will be decommissioned by 
2012 unless a 20-year life extension is approved by the National 
Atomic Energy Office in 2012.

In November 2005, Hungarian lawmakers passed a resolution to extend 
the life span of Paksi's four reactors by 20 years, but final 
approval is needed by the NAEO. 

"We're progressing according to schedule with the planned extension 
of the four blocks' life span," Kovacs said.

The company has until Dec. 14, 2008 to present the detailed plan for 
the life- span extension.

At the same time, Paksi is also focusing on boosting the production 
capacity of the four blocks. In 2006, one of the block's capacity was 
increased by 8% to 500MW and the plan is to have the other three 
blocks at 500MW of capacity by 2009 versus the current 460 MW, thus 
boosting total production capacity to 2,000 MW.

Paksi invested HUF10 billion in security and technological upgrades 
in 2006.

"We have to keep in mind that Hungary's electricity market will 
become fully liberalized soon and competition will become tougher," 
Kovacs said.

The government plans to open up fully the electricity market Jan. 1, 
2008, according to local press reports.

Paksi, which only sells the electricity it produces to the state-
owned national wholesaler MVM Zrt. (MVM.YY), doesn't plan to sell 
directly to the market after the liberalization of the sector, Kovacs 
added.

"We will continue with the current practice of delivering to MVM 
only," he said.

Hungary's electricity market is partially liberalized at the moment 
with industrial users having the right to choose their supplier. 

Company Web site: http://www.npp.hu
-----------------

Stress of nuclear plant worker tied to deaths of wife, daughter, self

State troopers secure the perimeter of a Lake Peekskill home as they 
investigate a multiple homicide at the house Monday.
 
WHITE PLAINS (Buffalo News) Feb 21 - If some mental demon drove 
Steven Lessard to strangle his wife and daughter last week, it may 
have been rising to the surface a week earlier, when he got to work 
at the Indian Point nuclear power plant. 
He told his colleagues he had had a flat tire, but they found his 
tone alarming. 

"He was inordinately concerned about getting the car fixed," said Jim 
Steets, spokesman for Indian Point owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast. 
"He was clearly having difficulty with relatively minor issues . . . 
His co-workers observed that he was overly stressed and just behaving 
somewhat irrationally." 

Nuclear plant workers are trained to spot aberrant behavior and 
required to report it, Steets said, and Lessard's co-workers spoke to 
a supervisor who sent him to the fitness-for-duty nurse at the plant.

Lessard, 51, accepted a leave of absence and went home to Lake 
Peekskill, about 40 miles north of New York City. 

"They thought it would be good if he could just take some time off to 
deal with what was bothering him," Steets said. 

Lessard's paid, open-ended leave of absence seemed to start well. His 
wife had called Indian Point to say thanks and to report he was doing 
better, Steets said. 

He had an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist, although 
Steets said it's not known if he kept it. He had been scheduled for a 
follow-up conference call this week with his supervisor and the 
nurse. 

Friday, Lessard's daughter, Linda, an eighth-grader at Putnam Valley 
Middle School, went to class as usual, but his wife, Kathy, didn't 
show up for her clerk job at Lowe's. All weekend, relatives were 
unable to reach the family by phone, and on Monday, police broke in 
and found the bodies. 

Lessard had strangled his wife, 48, and his daughter, 14, in their 
bedrooms, state police said. Lessard was found dead on a staircase, 
after stabbing himself in the groin with a steak knife, police said. 
There was no forced entry or robbery, police said. No gun or suicide 
note was found. Police said they found e-mail evidence suggesting 
marital trouble. 

Lessard, an engineer, had worked on various projects at Indian Point 
but was not involved in the operation of the reactor, Steets said. He 
had worked there since 1995, and a psychiatric test was part of his 
screening, Steets said, but it was his last one. 

Steets said Lessard's job was "relatively low-stress," and he had 
earned good evaluations, including one calling him a "valuable 
contributor." 

"He was well-regarded by supervisors and co-workers, but was 
extremely hard on himself," Steets said. "When his supervisor offered 
to lighten his workload, his reaction was concern about co-workers 
having to take up his workload." 

Debbie Weeks-Petranchik, vice president of the middle school PTA, 
said she met the Lessards several years ago, when Linda was a Girl 
Scout. 

"The mother was a sweetheart. She always did things for the kids at 
school," she said. "He was very quiet and polite. There was nothing 
you would have said, "Hmm.' They were just an average family." 
------------------

Fermi nuke plant used wrong test for years

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- The U.S.-based Union of Concerned 
Scientists says the Fermi Nuclear Power Plant near Detroit used the 
wrong backup systems safety test for 20 years.

The UCS says it documented multiple failures during the two decades 
to detect a flaw in an emergency backup diesel generator safety test 
at the plant.

The organization says backup generators are one of a nuclear power 
plant's most important safety features since they provide backup 
electricity during off-site power outages and brownouts.

After discovering the problem last November, the UCS said the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission levied no fines, failed to ask Detroit Edison 
for an explanation and failed to require the utility to fix the 
flawed safety processes that enabled plant workers to perform the 
test inaccurately for 20 years.

Dave Lochbaum of the UCS's nuclear safety program said, "This may not 
be the most useless agency sanction over the last 50 years but it's 
likely in the top five."
----------------

Safety in question at Texas nuclear weapons plant
 
AMARILLO, Texas · Electrical failures have shut down the plant. The 
roof has leaked. Decrepit machinery dates back more than 40 years. 
Safety lapses led inspectors to levy fines twice within two years. 
And employees, under deadline pressure, complain they often are 
worked past the point of exhaustion.

If this factory were producing medical devices or refining gasoline, 
the conditions would be serious enough. But this is where they work 
on nuclear bombs.

Pantex is the Energy Department's main nuclear weapons factory, a 
linchpin of the nation's defense for a half century. The nation no 
longer makes nuclear weapons, so the plant's chief roles are 
servicing them or dismantling them to meet the terms of disarmament 
pacts.

On a 25-square-mile swath of the Texas Panhandle, a series of massive 
white concrete domes mark where live nuclear weapons are opened up. 
The rituals and procedures inside those cells are supposed to be as 
strict as any operating room, part of a safety culture that reduces 
any chance of an accidental nuclear explosion to one in 100 million.

But lately, outside experts are questioning whether those safety 
margins are eroding. Federal investigators are trying to assess the 
overall safety of the plant, which employs 3,300, amid troubling 
safety snafus and what employees call an atmosphere of intimidation. 

Energy Department officials acknowledge that the plant has fallen 
behind schedule on reliability testing of weapons. Long delays have 
occurred in decommissioning thousands of surplus warheads to satisfy 
disarmament pacts. They also concede the plant has maintenance 
problems and has violated safety procedures. But they insist there is 
no danger of a conventional or nuclear explosion. 

"Pantex is safe, no doubt," said Marty Schoenbauer, the acting chief 
of the Energy Department's nuclear weapons program. Safety has 
improved in recent years, he said, thanks to better procedures. 

But outside experts, union officials and watchdog groups say the 
opposite is true -- that safety has regressed since 2000 as the most 
knowledgeable senior safety experts of the Cold War era retire and 
the plant's condition deteriorates. Energy Department Inspector 
General Gregory Friedman is investigating safety conditions at 
Pantex.

"You can't run a plant on glittering platitudes and generalities and 
call that a safety program," said Bob Alvarez, a former deputy 
assistant secretary of energy and now a senior scholar at the 
Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank. "A nuclear 
detonation accident is a low probability, but it is not incredible."

The backdrop to problems at Pantex is a growing concern that the 
Energy Department has mismanaged the nuclear weapons program. Last 
year, the Defense Department bluntly said that it had lost confidence 
in the Energy Department, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has 
acknowledged.

"We have constraints," Bodman said in an interview, conceding the 
department hasn't met all of its commitments to the Pentagon. Last 
month, he fired the head of the nuclear weapons administration.

The problems at Pantex came to light in the fall after Danielle 
Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a 
Washington watchdog group, wrote two letters to Bodman complaining 
about safety. The group has cited a lengthy report in 2000 by former 
Energy Department safety expert Frank Rowesome, who said that a 
detonation caused by lightning strikes, solvent fires or other 
incidents at Pantex was more probable than the Energy Department was 
admitting. 

In an interview, Rowesome, who retired in 2004, said he did not want 
to alarm the public, but he believes Energy Department officials are 
so "overly confident" and "complacent" about safety that they are not 
alert to deteriorating safety conditions.

Where some people see problems, others see progress. Last month, 
Pantex finally began overhauling the B83, a nuclear bomb designed to 
be dropped from a plane, after an 18-month delay triggered when 
scientists discovered potentially dangerous static electricity in 
work cells. Schoenbauer said the delay shows how far the Energy 
Department will go to protect safety. Critics say it shows that 
hidden safety problems can still exist.

Meanwhile, Pantex has fallen behind schedule in performing critical 
surveillance tests required by laboratory scientists to certify the 
reliability of the bombs, Schoenbauer acknowledged. "That backlog has 
not affected the lab's ability to certify weapons," he said.

But Ralph Levine, who once ran the Energy Department's nuclear 
weapons surveillance testing, wrote a letter in 2005 asserting the 
backlog would allow defects in nuclear weapons to go undetected for 
years. As a result, he said, energy officials removed him as manager 
of the program and he retired last year. 

John Duncan, who until four years ago headed surveillance testing at 
Pantex for Sandia National Laboratory, agreed that testing problems 
at Pantex are undermining confidence in the stockpile. Even today, 
the certifications of nuclear weapons are being made with less 
certainty than scientists should have, Duncan and Levine said. 
------------------

Entergy Nuclear One Plant in Russellville  

Russellville - Entergy owned Nuclear One in Russellville is one of 69 
nuclear power plants of its kind in the country. 

But with the benefits of nuclear energy, comes the possibility for 
disaster. 

Although Nuclear One has remained accident free for more than 30 
years, it potentially poses as one of the state's greatest emergency 
threats: an accident of nuclear proportions. 

The mere mention of nuclear accident invokes explosive images, and 
brings to mind meltdown at a Three Mile Island in 1979. Which 
prompted protests from Arkansans who imagined the same could happen 
at then, new Arkansas Nuclear One. It's a scenario some still fear. 

(Robert Holeyfield, ANO Emergency Planning)"When people worry about 
the plant blowing up like in a nuclear explosion, that cannot happen. 
It is physically impossible for that to happen." 

Holeyfield says the plant uses very little uranium 235, the substance 
in nuclear weapons, and any fire would remain in the containment 
towers. 

Instead of an explosion, an emergency event at nuclear one would be a 
radioactive leak, which could affect thousands. 

(Holeyfield)"Based on what would happen, you could have potentially, 
up to 46 thousand people evacuated." 

That's how many people live within a 10-mile radius of the plant, 
making up the five county emergency planning zones. 

To the public, a gas emission would be silent. But the warning: 
anything but. In the plant's control room, a simulated leak 

is detected by one of eleven computerized monitors, called spings. 

(Carl Harris, ANO Sr. Emergency Planner)"That stands for super 
particulate iodine and noble gas monitors that monitor anything that 
leaves this site." 

It projects an image showing how far the release might reach. 

(Harris)"To be able to decide what we've got off-site, you've got to 
know what are we releasing, which direction the wind's coming from, 
what's the speed and how much mixing there is in the atmosphere." 

The least harmful scenario is simply called, an "unusual event," and 
the public's not even notified. The most dangerous, shown in this 
simulation is a general emergency. 

(Holeyfield)"The counties are made aware of that and the state, 
within 15 minutes. We're required by law to notify them within 15 
minutes." 

The emergency response team then springs into action. 

(Holeyfield)"This is our emergency operations facility. It's known as 
the command room." 

Around this table, directors from the facility, the state, and if 
needed, FEMA (website/news) will decide how many people are at risk 
and how to protect them in a general emergency. 

(Holeyfield)"Our protection we recommend when that happens is a 5 
mile evacuation, 360 degrees around the site and out 10 miles in the 
downwind direction." 

The state Department of Health and Human Services makes the final 
call to evacuate. 

Then based on their emergency zone, affected residents retreat to 
shelters in Hector, Morrilton, Clarksville or Paris. 

(Holeyfield)"People do not want to get into a panic mode where they 
would go and decide on their own that they need to evacuate because 
it might be entirely unnecessary for them to do that, and it could 
impact evacuating a zone that is affected." 

DHHS decides when radiation levels are safe for return. 

Since opening in 1973, nuclear one has never had a general emergency, 
nor has there been an evacuation. Holeyfield says he's confident the 
record will stand. 

(Holeyfield)"We have about 85-90 percent of our people who live 
within 10 miles of this plant, so if you think about it from that 
standpoint, you've got to understand it's safe, or we would not put 
ourselves and our families in the position to live right here in the 
shadow." 

Nuclear One passed the safety and environmental reviews during its 
last federal inspection
-----------------

U.K. Government Delays Nuclear Power Recommendation

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling 
said he will delay publication of his recommendation on whether 
Britain should build more nuclear power plants as the government 
takes account of a court ruling. 

Darling said he accepted a Feb. 15 ruling by the High Court in favor 
of Greenpeace, which found that ministers hadn't provided enough 
information on the disposal of radioactive waste and the cost of new 
plants when they favored nuclear power. In July, the government said 
it would reshape Britain's energy market to encourage more nuclear-
powered electricity plants. 

``Industry would rather we got the consultation right even if that 
means a delay of six or seven weeks,'' Darling told Parliament in 
London today. ``There is no reason to believe that we can't get 
energy policy back on track.'' 

Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to spur utilities including E.ON AG 
and Electricite de France SA to invest in new power stations that 
pollute less than Britain's existing capacity, two- thirds of which 
rely on natural gas and coal. The government had planned to present 
more precise recommendations by March. 

`Pyrrhic Victory' 

The court decision was ``a fairly pyrrhic victory,'' for Greenpeace, 
said Andrew Poole, a partner in the energy and utilities group at 
legal firm Martineau Johnson. ``I don't think it's going to impact on 
the timetable'' for the completion of new nuclear power plants. 

Up to a third of Britain's existing power plants including 23 nuclear 
stations will finish their life in service in the next two decades. 
More nuclear power would help fill the shortfall and limit carbon 
dioxide emissions blamed for harming the Earth's climate. Britain's 
Conservative opposition said the delay suggests the government is 
focused more on Blair's retirement than on policy. 

``The whole energy review is a complete mess,'' said Alan Duncan, the 
Conservative Party's lawmaker in charge of industry. ``The supposedly 
urgent decision on energy will now take two years. The government is 
absolutely, totally paralyzed.'' 

The government is worried that nuclear power's share of the market 
may fall to 6 percent in 15 years from 20 percent currently unless 
more plants are built. Nuclear-generated power produces almost no 
carbon dioxide. 

Nuclear Targets 

Darling in July said the government has no targets for the number of 
nuclear stations required, and he offered no estimates of the shares 
of coal, gas and nuclear in future electricity supply. The government 
wants to encourage private companies to build the new plants. It will 
issue its recommendations in a government White Paper. 

``The industry was very disappointed by the court ruling,'' said 
Adrian Bull, the U.K. relationship manager for nuclear engineering 
company Westinghouse Electric Co. ``Time is very important. We are 
encouraged the DTI is keen to press on with the White Paper.'' 

To help encourage construction of nuclear plants, the government said 
it would streamline the planning process for major infrastructure 
projects. Greenpeace said the court decision means the government 
needs a complete rethink of its plan. 

``I can't see how they can press ahead with a White Paper based on a 
procedure that has been deemed to be legally flawed,'' said 
Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Nathan Argent in a phone call on Feb. 
20. ``The government would like to think that they can carry on 
regardless. I don't think they can.'' 

Delay, Not Rethink 

Ian Fells, a pro-nuclear power consultant who has advised U.K. and 
European policy-makers on energy issues, said the court decision is 
more likely to set back the government policy by about six months. 

``The government will have to put right the anomalies in the 
consultation process that the judge drew attention to,'' Fells said. 
``I think it will be postponed to the summer. The White Paper will 
come out and say nuclear is part of the solution.'' 

Darling, who reiterated that final proposals will be set out ``by the 
autumn,'' said that the court ruling had changed how the consultation 
process, not the actual decision on whether the U.K. needs nuclear 
power. 

``The issue is not going to go away,'' Darling told lawmakers in 
Parliament today. ``We have got to have greener sources of supply and 
we have got to ensure energy security.'' 
----------------

Ill. lab may begin recycling nuclear fuel

ARGONNE, Ill., Feb. 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy is set 
to hold a meeting this week to discuss whether Illinois' Argonne 
National Laboratory should begin recycling nuclear fuel.

The Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald said Thursday's meeting in 
Joliet would be used not only to explain the process, but also to 
gauge the community's reaction to its presence at the lab in Argonne, 
Ill.

The proposed site is part of the government's Global Nuclear Energy 
Partnership program, which is aiming to expand nuclear energy 
production without adding to the dangers typically associated with 
the process.

If approved, the lab would ultimately be one of three types of 
nuclear recycling facilities created by the U.S. government.

The three planned types of facilities include base recycling centers, 
research laboratories and special reactors oriented toward producing 
electricity by destroying the fuel's radioactive elements

Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at cox.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/