Zion -- Another one falls...

["George J. Vargo, Ph.D., CHP" <vargo@physicist.net>]

Commentary:  While the premature loss of Zion is unfortunate, it is the
clearest example so far of just how much employees can influence their own
fate.  Were it not for the poor attitude and safety culture of staff in key
positions, these units would have had at least a few more good years of
operation.

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CHICAGO - The Associated Press via Individual Inc. : The nation's largest
nuclear utility said today it will permanently shut down its troubled Zion
nuclear power plant because the twin reactors are too old to compete in the
era of deregulation.
- About 800 jobs will be lost, including 426 management and 375 union
positions, ComEd said.
- Unicom Corp., the utility's parent company, will take a charge against its
earnings of $515 million to shutter the plant over the next three to six
months.
- The Chicago-based power company has paid more than $6 million in fines for
problems at its six nuclear plants, which all have two reactors. The Zion
plant and two others are on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's watch list
because of safety and maintenance problems.
- The Zion plant has been offline since last February after an operator
accidentally switched off the reactor and then tried to restart it without
following procedures.
- ``It is now apparent that restarting Zion does not make economic sense,''
said James J. O'Connor, ComEd's chairman and chief executive. ``Once we
concluded that Zion could not produce competitively priced power, we knew
that the station had to be retired, as difficult as it is for the people
affected.''
- In a stinging report to the company's board of directors last fall, the
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations said ComEd ``has never had a culture
that is conducive to a well-run nuclear program, and its nuclear program has
never run well.''
- INPO, based in Atlanta, was formed in 1979 by the nation's 44 nuclear
utilities after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. It
identifies problem facilities in an attempt to prevent accidents.
- The industry group cited a history of nonprofessional behavior by the Zion
plant operators that ``is totally unacceptable in a nuclear plant.'' Those
problems include a recent incident in which an operator refused to take his
assigned shift position and in which two shifts of operators removed their
shirts while on the job.
- ComEd responded by hiring Oliver Kingsley _ credited with helping to turn
around the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear program _ as president of
its Nuclear Generation Group. The Chicago-based utility also has been
undergoing a top-to-bottom review of its operations by management consulting
firm Booz Allen.
- ComEd has been considered particularly ill-suited for the wave of
deregulation sweeping the country.
- The utility's nuclear power plants were built at a time when it was
thought such technology would be the wave of the future. But many of the
reactors cost much more than original estimates and have been expensive to
maintain.
- ComEd supplies power to approximately 3.4 million customers in northern
Illinois.
[Copyright 1998, Associated Press]