[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
FPL, Duke reactors join list of U.S. nuclear woes
Index:
FPL, Duke reactors join list of U.S. nuclear woes
US nuclear power snags may drain oil/natgas supply
Counties withhold documents on N.Y. Indian Pt nuke
Radiation Ready, Inc. Announces New Radiation Protection Pack
========================================
FPL, Duke reactors join list of U.S. nuclear woes
NEW YORK, May 5 (Reuters) - Two huge Southeast nuclear power plants have
been added to the growing list of U.S. reactors plagued by cracking or leaking
reactor vessels, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday.
The latest additions are FPL Group Inc.'s <FPL.N> Unit 2 at the St. Lucie nuclear
facility in Florida and Duke Energy Corp.'s <DUK.N> Oconee 3 unit in South
Carolina.
Both reactors are currently down for refueling and pose no public safety hazards.
Cracks and minor leaks have been discovered in several of the nation's 69
pressurized water reactors, which make up over half the U.S. fleet of 103 nuclear
power plants and generate about 10 percent of the nation's electricity.
FPL said the 839 megawatt St. Lucie unit, which generates enough electricity for
about 800,000 homes, would receive temporary repairs and the reactor vessel head
would not be replaced at this time.
"This is just two very small cracks that will be repaired, and at this time it is not
expected to add any time to the outage or impact the outage schedule," company
spokeswoman Rachel Scott said.
The unit shut April 20 for refueling, a job that typically takes 30-35 days. The
company has declined to comment on when the plant is scheduled to return to
service.
Scott said that after inspecting 80 of the reactor vessel lid's 102 nozzles, cracks
measuring about an inch in one and three inches in another were found in two
nozzles.
Inspection of the remaining 22 nozzles is expected to be completed within the next
day or two, she added.
A vessel head is a heavy carbon steel lid bolted on top of a reactor. Control rods and
various instruments penetrate the lid through the nozzles to reach into the radioactive
reactor core.
Industry inspectors became aware of cracking around some reactor vessel head
nozzles several years ago.
But the problem took on added urgency in February 2002, when FirstEnergy Corp.
<FE.N> found boric acid from inside its Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio had leaked
through tiny cracks in the vessel head, eating a hole through the six-inch metal.
FirstEnergy estimates the repair job at Davis-Besse, including buying replacement
power from other generators, will cost more than $400 million and keep the plant out
of service through most of the summer.
SYSTEMATIC INSPECTIONS
FPL, like other owners of pressurized water reactors, had anticipated possible
problems at St. Lucie.
The company has ordered replacement heads for all four of its Florida nuclear units
and will begin replacements next year during planned refueling outages, Scott said.
The first unit to receive a new vessel head will be the Turkey Point 3 unit, the oldest
of the four units.
The replacement heads are not yet on the sites, Scott added.
The reactor vessel head at Duke's Oconee unit, shut since about April 26, was
scheduled to be replaced during the current outage. The unit was tentatively set to
return to the power grid in early June, the company said previously.
Duke first detected cracks in the vessel heads at its three Oconee reactors in late
2000, ordered replacement heads, and scheduled their installation over the next 2
years to coincide with scheduled refueling outages.
Reactors typically need refueling every 18 to 24 months.
Oconee 3 is the first of the three identical 846 megawatt Duke units to receive a new
vessel head as part of a $60 million replacement program at the Oconee power
station.
Late last week, the NRC met with managers of the giant South Texas nuclear power
station to discuss the discovery of boric acid deposits under the reactor vessel, a
problem that points to a possible leak at the bottom of the reactor.
Early estimates put the cost of the South Texas outage at about $5 million to $6
million and the plant is expected to remain out of service until at least the end of the
summer, several months past its original return date.
--------------------
US nuclear power snags may drain oil/natgas supply
NEW YORK, May 5 (Reuters) - Extended summer shutdowns at U.S. nuclear power
plants threaten to push up oil and natural gas prices this summer by straining already
tight fossil fuel supplies, analysts said on Monday.
News of degraded reactor vessel heads at two more U.S. nuclear units fueled
concern that the problem could sideline several of the nation's 103 nuclear power
plants, which generate about 10 percent of the nation's electricity.
Natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 8 percent on Monday
after news that large nuclear power units in Florida and South Carolina were found
with reactor vessel head problems.
The June natural gas contract <NGM3> on Monday finished up 43.4 cents at $5.689
per million British thermal units (mmBtu).
"The nuclear plants being out helped push natural gas up because of worries that if
natgas use has to make up for a large number of nuclear snags, then natgas
injections (into underground storage) for winter will suffer," said Mike Fitzpatrick,
analyst for Fimat USA.
The two Southeast reactors are expected to return from their scheduled outages, the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Reuters on Monday.
Oil prices rose too, as the higher natural gas prices threatened to force utility users to
switch to oil for burning.
June crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange <CLM3> settled up 82 cents at
$26.49 a barrel, nearly $1.50 above last week's five-month low.
"It's definitely helping to support crude," said Kyle Cooper, oil and natural gas analyst
with Citigroup. "Clearly those nuclear issues remain price-supportive for fossil fuels."
Industry inspectors have been aware of cracking around some reactor vessel head
nozzles several years ago, but the problem took on added urgency in 2002 when
FirstEnergy Corp. <FE.N> found that its Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio had a leak that
went through the vessel head, eating a hole through six-inch metal.
Another large nuclear unit in Texas, owned by Texas Genco Holdings Inc. <TGN.N>,
may also be closed until late summer, months past its original return date, the
company said last month.
Nuclear capacity was 4 percent below where it was a year ago, Cooper said.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration storage data released last Thursday
showed U.S. gas storage stood at 54 percent below last year and 43 percent below
the five-year average.
The loss of 1,000 megawatts of electrical generation requires roughly 200 million
cubic feet a day of natural gas to replace it, according to Cooper.
For some locations the replacement power would come from oil-fired generators
burning distillate fuel or residual fuel oil.
Increased demand for distillate fuel could prevent the U.S. from replenishing
depleted inventories of heating fuel for next winter.
After one of the coldest winters in recent years, the EIA said in a recent report that
U.S. heating fuel inventories, including heating oil (high-sulfur distillate fuel) and
propane, "plunged to near historical low levels at the end of March".
Preliminary March data show heating oil inventories ended the 2002-03 heating
season at an estimated 36.6 million barrels, a near-record low for March, while at the
same time inventories of propane fell to an estimated 19.5 million barrels, the lowest
March level in more than 30 years.
---------------
Counties withhold documents on N.Y. Indian Pt nuke
NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters) - Keeping a promise to constituents, two counties
surrounding the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York refused on Friday to
submit documents required by federal officials to continue operations at the
controversial plant.
It is, however, unclear at this time whether the counties' reluctance to participate in
the review of Indian Point's evacuation plan will have any bearing on the plant's
future, which will ultimately be decided by federal authorities.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a groundswell of public
sentiment to shut the plant, which is only 35 miles (56 km) north of Manhattan, or at
least come up with a better plan for protecting people living near it from radiation in
the event of a major accident or attack.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires all nuclear power plants to have
evacuation plans in place that are approved by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency.
FEMA set a May 2 deadline for the state to certify the emergency plan or come up
with a schedule to revise it.
The certification process used to be routine, with the four counties around the plant
providing the state documents on such things as key travel routes, population and
school locations.
All four counties -- Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange -- have said they do
not support the existing emergency plan because they do not think it can adequately
protect the heavily populated area from a terror attack.
Moreover, on Thursday, Rockland and Westchester counties said they did not intend
to submit the required documents by FEMA's deadline.
"My ultimate goal is to shut the plant, but until that happens, I want to see an
emergency response plan put in place that really protects the residents of this region.
We don't think the existing plan does that," said Rockland County Executive C. Scott
Vanderhoef.
The plant's owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. <ETR.N>, has said the plant is
safe and FEMA can approve the plan based on the agency's analysis and other
available information.
FEMA spokeswoman Carol Hector-Harris told Reuters the agency has received a lot
of documents from the state and the counties, which it needs to review before
deciding on the viability of the emergency plan.
"The length of time for the review will ... be dependent upon the amount of
information made available," according to a statement from FEMA.
Ultimately, the counties cannot shut the plant.
Only federal officials can shut a nuclear power plant and, to date, the NRC has never
permanently closed an operating reactor due to a faulty evacuation plan.
--------------------
Radiation Ready, Inc. Announces New Radiation Protection Pack
Company Plans to Include Radiation Device Featured in Washington Post
SALT LAKE CITY, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Radiation Ready, Inc., a Salt Lake City
company, announced today that it has launched a new radiation preparedness pack
that includes a radiation fallout detection device as featured in the Washington Post
on April 12, 2003.
The Radiation Ready(TM) Dry Storage Pack is centered on the Kearny Ready- To-
Use Radiation Meter, manufactured by Steve Jones & Co. The KFM, or Kearny
Fallout Meter, has been featured recently in the Washington Post and has been
endorsed by several esteemed members of the nuclear science community. The
original KFM radiation kit was developed for public use by Cresson Kearny, while
working at Oakridge National Laboratory, under the management of the Department
Of Energy. Unlike the original KFM kit that takes hours to build, the Kearny Ready-
To-Use radiation meter can be used for testing as soon as it is unpacked from the
Radiation Ready(TM) Dry Storage Pack.
Mark Hufstetler, COO and Co-Founder of Radiation Ready, Inc stated: "Radiation
Ready Inc. was conceived to educate the public about radiation fallout and provide a
viable and affordable pack that would eliminate the need for a consumer to 'build' a
meter to measure radiation fallout. We decided what better way to address radiation
protection than offering a fallout meter devised from something that was created by
the United States government."
The Radiation Ready(TM) Dry Storage Pack is set to price at $129.99 and the Dry
Storage Pack II, which includes the NukAlert(TM), a portable radiation detector, is
set to price at $299.99.
Radiation Ready, Inc. is an inclusive radiation preparedness company based out of
Salt Lake City, UT. The company sells and manufacturers radiation preparedness
and protection products and conducts most of its business online at
www.radmeter.com . The company also assists organizations and communities in
developing radiation preparedness plans, customizing the content of each seminar to
each company. These seminars and education forums are a joint effort between
Radiation Ready, Inc., Steve Jones & Co., and consultants from the nuclear science
community.
***************************************************************
Sandy Perle
Director, Technical
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tel: (714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100 Extension 2306
Fax: (714) 668-3149
E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.
You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/