Vermont Yankee Nuke job losses will hurt

[Marlin]

Vermont Yankee Nuke job losses will hurt


http://www.recorder.com/home/14945316-95/nuke-job-losses-will-hurt

[Rennhack]

Time to sell your house there.

[Content1]

Thanks to fracking and natural gas, "Another one bites the dust."  Holding off decommissioning will provide future jobs for our grandchildren.

[Already Gone]

You really need to get yourself informed.  Fracking and natural gas had absolutely ZERO to do with shutting down VY.
If you knew anything about the New England power system, and the fuel situation here, you would say "Wow! why would you shut down 620 MW of base load that you can't replace because you don't have the pipeline capacity to run more natural gas?"
Y'see, even with fracking and the huge abundance of cheap, clean, reliable natural gas, you can't get any more of it into New England because the pipelines are all maxed out.
My winter electric bill will be going up almost 50% but not because natural gas made electricity too cheap for nuclear to compete with (which is the case in most of the country).  It's going up in part because the 580 MW natural gas plant where I work can't get gas to run on very cold days and has to burn oil instead.  If VY were still running, oil would be out of the question we would sit idle through the winter as usual.
VY is gone because of short-sighted left wing politics disguised as environmentalism.  No other reason.

[GLW]

Time to sell your house there.

Too late,...

well,....not really,...

but this is the wrong thread for all that,...

[GLW]

BOT,...

part of the reason for the shutdowns is the very big number of people it takes to run 600MW of nuke power,...

we have hashed this all out before on other threads,...

small, single unit site, nuke plants cannot compete well under the current regulatory structure in the face of expanding base load capacity from less expensive, lower liability energy options
(read corporate profit margin standards, not "break even" or "orphans & widows" profit margin),...

there are "A LOT" of jobs to be lost because the utilities regulators and standards partners require A LOT of jobs in just the regulatory and standards compliance overhead,....

and then,... there's the security overhead,...

and then the RP overhead,...

and then, and then and then,...

this country shut down dozens of little nuke power plants all through the 60s and 70s without the local economic damage incurred by shutting them down in the current era,...

because it did not require 600+ employees to put 600MW on the grid all those years ago,...

indeed, in days of yore they could turn a profit with a lot less capacity and on-line time than they do nowadays,...

for all of our "from the sidelines" grousing about tight outage & maintenance schedules, or running plants to new records for on line runs, we tend to ignore the biggest part of the calculus for all that:

the plant owners & operators need to do those things to make the needed profit to be viable as a business unit,...

it is either permanent jobs and careers for nukes or no jobs,...

and that is all predicated by profit margin and long term liability,...

and, with the federal government pretty much reneging on it's commitment to long term liability (Yucca Mountain done & gone), that long term liability picture is getting more expensive with every stick of burned fuel generated,...

my crystal ball says 2016 will be a bell weather year for the commercial nuke power status quo,...

then again, with the way 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has things scheduled to arrive, 2016 is a going to be an unhappy year for a lot of facets of American life as we know it,...

so commercial nuke power business and viability challenges will be a small headline if a headline at all,...

2017 will be worse, 2018 has possibilities of settling out,...

add in the local politics, the NIMBYs and our own, self-inflicted, integrity failures (SONGS & DB come to mind) and commercial nuke power generation in the US of A under the current business models has steep challenges for the big boys and nearly insurmountable challenges for the small players (Kewaunee, VY, et al),...

just keeping it real,...

[HydroDave63]

Thanks to fracking and natural gas, "Another one bites the dust."  Holding off decommissioning will provide future jobs for our grandchildren.

Only if they speak Spanish, Mandarin and have a H1B visa in hand...

[Marlin]

Circles of pain around Vermont Yankee closing

http://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurecircles-of-pain-around-vermont-yankee-closing-4498748/#.VM_rVclf5wY.linkedin

[retired nuke]

Circles of pain around Vermont Yankee closing

http://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurecircles-of-pain-around-vermont-yankee-closing-4498748/#.VM_rVclf5wY.linkedin

It is my fondest hope that every tree hugging liberal in Vermont dies a slow painful cold death in the dark, screaming for Nobama to save them...

But I mean that in a good way 

[mjd]

The NRC certainly contributed its fair share of damage to the plant manning after TMI2, but the current make or break plant killer is the INPO overhead. It does not take ~1 employee/MW to safely run one of these plants. INPO is causing that and adding nothing but overhead. Thirty five years after the birth of INPO, if utilities do not understand the basic principles of good plant operation, without INPO, INPO has been a dismal failure. INPO will continue to take down plants until the utilities wake up.

[HydroDave63]

The NRC certainly contributed its fair share of damage to the plant manning after TMI2, but the current make or break plant killer is the INPO overhead.

Agree that staffing overhead is currently one of the plant killers, but not the only cause. Another contributing factor would be bad engineering leading to S/G replacements leading to bean-counter shutdowns. http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-99/issue-11/news-update/steam-generator-problems-plague-pwrs-nationwide.html
Which is why we aren't having this debate at the Cornerstone Cafe in Rainier, or Big Helyn's in San Clemente 

It does not take ~1 employee/MW to safely run one of these plants. INPO is causing that and adding nothing but overhead.

This is a chicken-or-the-egg question. I don;t recall any NRC Federal Register posting about NOPR for plant headcount. INPO may have mentioned staffing over the years in conjunction with plant inspections, but until plants trip on their own shoelaces and get NRC yellow and red findings, helpful outside suggestions are usually ignored. On the other hand, there are plants that got down to 0.7 FTE/MW in the 90s before it was cool, pioneered refuel outages below 40 days, placed design margin above profit margin, and aren't in the news all that often. More engineers and fewer marketeers in the boardroom can help.

INPO has been a dismal failure. INPO will continue to take down plants until the utilities wake up.

The 'Dayshifter Surge Tank' has its shortcomings. But with the first plants of the "Nuclear Renaissance" having construction costs over $7/watt (so far), that isn't a nail in the coffin, it's Homer Simpson using the coffin as a couch. Wind-powered eagle shredders cost $1.50/watt to build, combined-cycle gas around $2/watt, and neither require tons of staff or huge decommissioning funds. INPO didn't build that!

In the past, the specter of power outages due to shutdown coal and nuclear plants provided adequate deterrence in the minds of state Public Utility Boards. Now, those same Boards allow or mandate renewables, and 'Smart Grid' (which simply turns off customer load using computers), regardless of electric reliability or economic impact to the citizens of the state. Electric rates will climb, the utilities will cite lowering revenues as reasons to avoid maintaining or upgrading plants, yet hire more headquarters cube-farmers in polyester pant suits...

[surf50]

The 'Dayshifter Surge Tank' has its shortcomings.

, got a chuckle out of that!

I don't know how it was at other utilities, but the only people my usta plant sent (volunteered) to INPO were the ones management really wanted to see go away, for various reasons.

[Chimera]

No plant wants to send their best to INPO.  Conversely, no plant wants to send their worst to INPO lest it reflect poorly on that plant.  I always considered INPO to be the cream of the crap - the best of the worst and the worst of the best.  While they have done some things right, unfortunately they have managed to live down to my expectations as a general statement.  Like most bureaucracies, they do seem to exist primarily to justify their own existence these days.

[mjd]

@HydroDave63 06:13 PM. I haven't mastered the partial quote response method, so I'll do it this way.

You are absolutely right about other cost factors in the equation being a big problem also. I was only addressing the one utilities should at least in theory have some direct control over; and that is plant staffing on their O&M budget.
Yup, the new plants cost too much, we can't control that, it's the dysfunctional NRC still over reacting to their errors from TMI2, mainly affecting the Design Certification cost (and delay).

And don't forget the intervenors who get a free ride to do direct financial harm, with no recourse for cost recovery, with frivolous claims. (If your neighbor harms you financially with a frivolous claim against you, and you win in a legal proceeding (ASLB), you can recover those costs. Utilities did not make the current system)

I don't have to read about manning in Fed Reg notices, besides as you say they aren't there, but the regulation changes are and those lead to more people, always. But again we can't control that, beyond NEI squawking to congress and the NRC. It is beyond our control.

The price of natural gas is beyond our control.

Yup, the "unreliables." But state Utility Commissions don't mandate their use and set targets, state legislatures do, and we apparently can't control that either.

INPO doesn't have to talk about manning, they dictate programs, which require a lot more people. Especially in the area of "proceduralize everything" and there is no such thing as "skill of the craft". Very ironic, especially in view of the nuke navy I served in, which is supposedly the heart of the INPO way, skill of the craft was the yard stick. If you couldn't (and didn't demonstrate it) without the procedure, you didn't get your qual card signed.

Of all the complicating factors affecting the ability of a nuke to make money, there is only one which seems to be within our control. And that is our O&M budgets driven by INPO programs. INPO has gone too far, but it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, as they were given dictatorial power and "assumed" to be infallible. IMO that's just not a good starting point for an org that works for us.

It was actually a necessity at INPOs birth, and there is nothing like the way most plants run today to prove it. But we are past that point. The root cause of the '60s/'70s problems has been fixed; that was utility board rooms controlling budgets for "just another power plant, run it until it breaks, and do it with about 200 staff."

I guess we disagree, but it is not a chicken or egg problem at all. I will agree if INPO is the egg, the utilities certainly are chicken. It doesn't take 700-800+ employees to run one of these plants safely and correctly. But it does to do it the INPO way. Because "striving for excellence" eventually costs an infinite amount of money if you can't recognize when you've hit that goal. It's also pretty easy to do when you start with the bar set pretty low.

I stand by my opinion, INPO is the plant killer today. And as long as the "boots on the ground" opinion, from equipment operators to VP Nuke is "disagreeing with an INPO sacred cow is a career ending move" they will continue to be the problem. They either need to back off, and reassess, or disappear.   

[HeavyD]

Yup, the new plants cost too much, we can't control that, it's the dysfunctional NRC still over reacting to their errors from TMI2, mainly affecting the Design Certification cost (and delay).

The increases with the two construction projects have close to zero to do with the NRC.  Our delays are directly related to primarily one thing; issues with CB&I Lake Charles (structural module vendor), that both we (VC Summer) and Vogtle have reported to Wall Street.

The number of design changes are also not attributable to the NRC; those are WEC's doing because of WEC reasons, with very little to do with the NRC.

As for intervenors, the ITAAC process is intended to spread their chances to voice their concerns throughout the project's build time.  This is due to the Part 52 licenses issued to us (Combined Operating and Construction License) eliminating the intervention point between construction completion and issuance of an Operating License.

Just wanted to offer up some first-hand info concerning our projects, as they relate to the topic discussion at hand 

[mjd]

@HeavyD reply #14
Your information is undoubtedly correct. But let me clarify my comment about NRC certification driving cost and schedule. The gory details are in this link: http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2014/11/12/root-cause-of-vogtle-and-vc-summer-delays/
This author is talking about a slightly different topic, but useful info is provided in his discussion, which confirms my claim about NRC certification driving costs too high. The issue is the AP1000 had an approved preliminary containment/shield design, and then at a later date the NRC forced the "Aircraft Impact Rule" to be backfit on that design. This is all pre-COL.

"The 36-page Federal Register notice issued in July 2009 acknowledged that the Aircraft Impact Assessment rule was not necessary to provide “adequate protection” and it acknowledged that applying the rule to a project that was already under construction would impose an undue financial burden:

    “In making these additions, the NRC is making it clear that the requirements are not meant to apply to current or future operating license applications for which construction permits were issued before the effective date of this final rule. This is because existing construction permits are likely to involve designs which are essentially complete and may involve sites where construction has already taken place. Applying the final rule to operating license applications for which there are existing construction permits could result in an unwarranted financial burden to change a design for a plant that is partially constructed. Such a financial burden is not justifiable in light of the fact that the NRC considers the events to which the aircraft impact rule is directed to be beyond-design-basis events and compliance with the rule is not needed for adequate protection to public health and safety or common defense and security.”

So these plants are not yet under construction, and they get stuck with the cost of a totally new concept Shield Building to protect the containment from aircraft impact. By my reading of the last line, it is not needed, so it just added cost. Driven by political pressure from 9/11 fallout?

This new Shield Building was not needed. And it certainly was not done for free. I'm not disagreeing with anything you said. I'm just providing an example to support my view the NRC certification process is one of the things driving new designs into the realm of unaffordable.   

[HeavyD]

I normally agree with Rod Adams and his posts.  His entire post, however, is written after a visit to the Vogtle project, so I'm not 100% sure that can be correlated to our project as well.  That said, seeing the V.C. Summer project firsthand, the shield building redesign isn't the "root cause" (Rod's statement, not mine) for the shift in our commercial dates.

Delays in fabrication of structural modules from CB&I Lake Charles, and to an extent CB&I's overall failure to adequately address the issue at Lake Charles in a timely manner, are the number 1 cause.

As far as the shield building is concerned, the design change does add cost, yes.  Again, it is not the root cause of our delay.

[GLW]

http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/09/05/vermont-rowe-lessons

[Bonds 25]

Why in the hell did the guy keep saying there will be "buried rods" at Vermont Yankee?

Yeah, I would be very worried about the indestructible, self cooling, basically maintenance free "spent" fuel casks with dose rates barely above background......that are built to last hundreds of years.

[GLW]

Why in the hell did the guy keep saying there will be "buried rods" at Vermont Yankee?

because he's a professor with an agenda,....

....Yeah, I would be very worried about the indestructible, self cooling, basically maintenance free "spent" fuel casks with dose rates barely above background......that are built to last hundreds of years.

your cold water facts will not silence the howling dog rhetoric,....

OBTW, they are not built to last hundreds of years sitting on an ISFSI pad, they are certified for 20, that certification must be renewed,...

IIRC, not all casks previously certified have passed renewal, some have needed "attention",...

facts are facts, dry casks are the better, safer long term option versus pools,...

[scotoma]

They are licensed for 50 years. That might be hundreds of political years.

[Bonds 25]

because he's a professor with an agenda,....

OBTW, they are not built to last hundreds of years sitting on an ISFSI pad, they are certified for 20, that certification must be renewed,...

And concrete the Romans used is still around.......

[GLW]

They are licensed for 50 years. That might be hundreds of political years.

Okay, it's a public forum and the public is likely to go to the NRC for that number,...

So here they (the public) might deduce a twenty year periodicity:

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/sf-storage-licensing/cert-process-casks.html#license

To renew a certificate of compliance at the end of the 20-year approval period, a certificate holder submits a request to NRC with any necessary supporting information describing (1) the capability of the cask design to meet technical requirements and (2) the capability of loaded casks to continue to meet technical requirements for another certificate of compliance approval period. After reviewing this information, the NRC would determine whether to renew the certificate in accordance with NUREG-1927, "Standard Review Plan for Renewal of Spent Fuel Dry Cask Storage System Licenses and Certificates of Compliance".

or here:

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/faqs.html#12

Dry casks are licensed or certified for 20 years, with possible renewals of up to 40 years.

and here they might deduce 40 years,...

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/licensing.html

If the application is approved, the NRC issues a license that is valid for up to 40 years.

and here they would only see 20 years:

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0037/ML003704081.pdf

Certificate No. | Effective Date | Expiration Date | Docket Number | Amendment No. | Amendment Date | Package Identification No.
      1025              04/10/00         04/10/20            72-1025                                                                         USNJ72-1025

and as to the 50 years I concede you are correct but I did not find it ( I knew the 50 year certificate was desired by the utilities and others, unaware it was a done deal) so, if you can post it here for the benefit of those members of the public who would like to know where to find it, that would be cool,...

 

[GLW]

And concrete the Romans used is still around.......

yes, it is,...

which Roman concrete structure was used to isolate 0.23% U235 for 703,800,000 years?!?!?!

,................................................

see how easy that was?!?!?

when debating with hyperbole masters, techtypes such as us, do better sticking to the facts,...

 

[Bonds 25]

That's usually where I counter with the fact we don't need massive shielding casks for long lived alpha emitting isotopes......technically we could use cardboard. After 200-300 years, the high energy gamma emitting fission products would have mostly decayed away to Never Neverland.......yada yada yada

But ok, I get your point.

[GLW]

My epiphany came in 1995,...

I was working a littlr dnD with a very educated woman (sic),...

She was about 27 years old at the time,...

And I made an observation that in an increasingly technological world that secondary school students should have a syllabus which incorporates statistics, critical thinking, benefit versus liability and civic responsibility,...

i.e. - the antithesis of the low information voter should be a product of our secondary education system,...

She dismissed my observation completely out of hand,...

Her position was that people have no obligation to, nor should they be encouraged to, make voting decisions based on facts, on truth,...

A person's truth was a unique perception onto themselves,...

Eeeeeyup, here she was with a MS in a hard science and the truth is what you want it to be,...

She eventually went to work for Pfizer in SE Connecticut,...

I guess her truth was your home is only your home until somebody else wants it,...

'cause last I heard she still worked there (now in Groton), was doing well, and I speculate her conscience is good,...

ref: Kelo v. City of New London

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

to bring this all home and BOT,...

when nukes do not prevail in the political arena, then the arena of responsible, benefits versus liability, decision making will not matter to an ignorant populace educated beyond it's intelligence,...