Is Davis-Besse fit for a 20-year license extension?

[Kolesar]

by Tom Henry, The Toledo Blade, Toledo, Ohio, September 12, 2010

http://toledoblade.com/article/20100912/COLUMNIST42/100919897


Let’s be perfectly clear about this: FirstEnergy Corp.’s application for a 20-year extension to Davis-Besse’s operating license was totally expected when it was announced on Aug. 30.

But still. It’s Davis-Besse.

...

Remember 2002? That year, Davis-Besse’s old nuclear reactor head — weakened by years of neglect — nearly burst. If that had happened, radioactive steam would have formed in containment of a U.S. nuclear vessel for the first time since the half-core meltdown of Three Mile Island Unit 2 in 1979. Federal prosecutors later described that Davis-Besse event as one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S. nuclear history.

Remember 1985? Davis-Besse coped with the scary scenario of a 12-minute interruption in the feedwater flow to steam generators on June 9 of that year, another potential catastrophe.

Harold Denton, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineer who served as Jimmy Carter’s right-hand man at the scene of the Three Mile Island crisis, said at the NRC’s annual 2004 conference that he considered Davis-Besse’s 2002 and 1985 events, respectively, the industry’s second and third-lowest points after Three Mile Island.

...
Then, there was the press conference in Cleveland in January, 2006, when the federal grand jury indictments stemming from the 2002 cover-up were issued. Tom Uhlmann, the U.S. Department of Justice’s environmental crimes chief at the time, looked into the TV cameras and said that FirstEnergy had shown “brazen arrogance” and had “breached the public trust” for keeping the NRC in the dark about Davis-Besse’s dangerous operating condition. FirstEnergy admitted no wrongdoing but paid a record $34 million in fines to put the 2002 incident behind it.

Fast forward to 2010. Davis-Besse, which operated virtually error-free since being allowed back into service in 2004, experienced a slight case of deja vu. While there was no evidence of a cover-up this time, multiple nozzles jutting out of the replacement head were found with hairline cracks and weakened metal again. Some leaked reactor acid, though nothing like before. Even though the replacement head was made of an inferior alloy being phased out by the industry, nobody — not even the NRC — expected it to wear down so quickly. Repairs were made. By early summer, the plant was back online.

So would it be wrong for the NRC to grant FirstEnergy’s request for a 20-year extension?

Even if the utility has changed its ways, there’s still the question of just how well the plant is holding up. Metal fatigues after years of strain imposed upon it by a nuclear plant’s enormous heat and pressure. Records show Davis-Besse often is America’s hottest-operating plant.

The plain truth is that engineers don’t know how long nuclear plants will last. Numerous NRC officials have told me over the years that the original 40-year licensing periods had nothing to do with engineering calculations. They were based on the length of time expected to pay off construction bonds.

Is the optimum period 40 years? 60? 80? Nobody knows.

Is Davis-Besse limping along? Or is it a rejuvenated workhorse?

We wouldn’t be having this discussion if America had a clear-cut national energy policy. The new generation of nuclear plants, if they come, are enormously expensive and years away. Extensions will likely be sought for nearly all of America’s 104 operating nuclear plants simply because there isn’t anything comparable on hand to replace them. The existing fleet may be more than just a stop-gap.

Remember, though, that Three Mile Island Unit 2 never went back into service.

Davis-Besse did.

[madokie]

1. I'm hoping that they don't give them the extension

We've got a lot of old nuclear plants and as is stated in this report metal fatigues under heat and pressure. I sure don't want to see a large portion of our country cordoned off for no telling how long due to radiation poisoning of the area. Chernobyl, (even though we don't build them like the ruskies do) never the less, that incidence showed us what can happen and the consequences of that something happening. I'd rather see us spend the time, money and effort on renewables. One of the problems with nuclear is they take such a long time to complete and during that construction time they are responsible for tons of co2 emissions and it would take many years after they are completed just to get us back to where we were before the construction began. I don't have the link handy but its been posted here in the E/E forum that at best from the start of construction to the decommissioning taking into account all the co2 produced that they only produce something like 4% less co2 than if you just burned the fossil fuels to get the energy it takes to build and bury them directly. To me thats not worth the chance of something going woefully wrong like which we've seen can. By converting our direct burn coal power plants to using a gasifier instead of a direct burn that most use today would go a lot further towards slowing down global warming while we ramp up our alternates. Add co generation to the gasified coal plants and the percentages of co2 produced to the amount of power generated would be an even better ratio. We have alternates to nuclear and many studies have shown that nuclear isn't absolutely necessary to combat gobal warming in the short term nor the long term. Let the nuclear power plants run their licenses out then shut them down is my preference.
One of the things that sours me on nuclear power is the industry can't be trusted to be honest with us as time and time again its been shown that they've been less than truthful about their operations. We still don't really know all the facts about TMI and its been 30 plus years now since that incident

IMHO anyway

[bananas]

2. The Bathtub Curve

Nuclear power plants follow a bathtub curve, and these plants are starting to run up the far end of the bathtub curve, where the probability of multiple simultaneous component failures resulting in catastrophic failure skyrockets.
http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue21/hottopics21.htm

[NNadir]

3. The answer to that question would depend wholly on whether one is fond of coal and gas.

If one buys into the rhetoric of coal, oil and gas funded anti-nukes like Amory Lovins, the answer would be "OF COURSE NOT!!!!!!"

If on the other hand one is concerned with climate change caused by, um, coal, oil and gas interests, one can always make up paranoid stories.

Note we never hear here from anti-nukes about banning oil even though the industry that funds the anti-nuke industry dribbled million ton quantities of oil all over the gulf actually injuring real people."

But we hear endlessly from the same group how something almost happened at Davis-Beese, although it was discovered and repaired before even one person was injured.

The criteria used by the dangerous fossil fuel industry funded anti-nuke industry is that their imaginations are more important than the realities of the roughly one million people who will DIE THIS YEAR from the NORMAL operations of the coal, oil and gas industry.

Have a nice Amory Lovins kind of day.

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Amory+B.+Lovins">Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Confusious]

talk about calling people names, glass house and all.

the problem with armory lovins is that his opinions are not peer reviewed and he gets his money from big oil.

[madokie]

7. My question to you is would you jump in his grave for him?

You sure seem to take up for the fella a bunch around here.
I wasn't addressing you in any way so you can bug out if you get my drift. I was asking the man some questions that I'd like to hear the answers to

Of course I won't but that doesn't mean I can't try.

[Confusious]

5. talk about calling people names, glass house and all.

the problem with armory lovins is that his opinions are not peer reviewed and he gets his money from big oil.

[NNadir]

6. I despise all advocates off the dangerous fossil fuel industry. Ohio's coal waste

lands on my state, and the carbonized particles are in my children's lungs, and the mercury in my state's soil.

I hold anti-nuke ignorance directly responsible for this state of affairs.

It's not Amory Lovins source of income is unclear or hidden. The information comes directly from his website.

I wouldn't be surprised if he drops the "BP" from it, just like he dropped the "Enron" from his bio eight years ago.

I have made it consistently clear that 100% of the anti-nukes in the world - no exceptions, NOT ONE - are in my view apologists, supporters and/or employees of the dangerous fossil fuel industry.

Most of the world has very clearly rejected the rhetoric of the dingbat from Snowmass, as I never tire of pointing out.

Still, I am concerned that my country is heading for a third world dogmatic anti-science paranoid festival of ignorance, mostly defined by conservatism, including the clearly wrong and conservative idea that nuclear energy needs to be perfect than better than everything else.

It's pretty amusing though, that thirty years after the flake Lovins declared "nuclear power is dead" that all the tiresome consumer brats of his ilk are coming here regularly to complain not only about existing nuclear infrastructure - with almost all of its external costs amortized - but the fact that neither the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, the Czechs, the Finns, the Romanians give a fuck about their tired worn out toxic crap.

Have a wonderful evening under the solar powered pool light.

[Kolesar]

8. opinions ..., well you can't even give it away it seems

Ha ha ha :rofl:

[madokie]

9. The thing with Amory Lovins is he isn't claiming to be anything he isn't

whereas you on the other hand leave me believing you're a washed up old has been who hasn't ever contributed to society in any way other than come here and berate any and all who disagrees with your small minded look at the situation of the world. You claim you never get tired of pointing out that the rest of the world reject the, your words, "rhetoric of the dingbat from snowmass" and the fact is you're almost always proven wrong in the posts where you spout off your nonsense. I'm sorry but the flake in all this is none other that you yourself. No one can even have a decent discussion about anything that isn't nuclear powered with out bringing on the wrath of your bullshit. Why the du admins allow your tripe to continue here is beyond me. We're all grown ups and all of us can have civil discourse except for you, why is that I ask? I suspect its because of your own insecurity in your own little world and so you have to project that insecurity onto the rest of us because in that little mind of yours it makes you feel like a big man. Hiding behind a keyboard is not manly and I'll remind you of that as long as you continue with your rhetoric that is wearing mighty thin with many here as I can tell by the responses you illicit.

Now go crawl into your bottle of your choosing and drown your sorrows cause I for one am not buying your wares. I know what bullshit smells like and brother let me tell you you step in it quite often.

Otherwise have a good day, I plan too.

[Kolesar]

10. That is a fair point, considering the number of times he has been deleted and warned

...by the moderators.

One flame-baiting disruptor is too many disruptors in this forum.