4 generator failures hit US nuclear plants

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

Four generators that power emergency systems at nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans.

None of these failures has threatened the public. But the diesel generators serve the crucial function of supplying electricity to cooling systems that prevent a nuclear plant's hot, radioactive fuel from overheating, melting and potentially releasing radiation into the environment. That worst-case scenario happened this year when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan lost all backup power for its cooling systems after an earthquake and tsunami.

Three diesel generators failed after tornadoes ripped across Alabama and knocked out electric lines serving the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear plant in April. Two failed because of mechanical problems and one was unavailable because of planned maintenance.

Another generator failed at the North Anna plant in Virginia following an August earthquake. Generators have not worked when needed in at least a dozen other instances since 1997 because of mechanical failures or because they were offline for maintenance, according to an Associated Press review of reports compiled by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.




Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/09/national/a075800D08.DTL

[1776Forever]

1. One of these days - Wonder what the ratio for these failures are to danger of radioactive leaks? n/t

[plumbob]

2. If a more fragile, complicated, dirty, and unreliable system has been

invented to make electricity other than nuclear, I don't know what it would be.

Every one of these plants needs to be taken apart.

Get with a modern type, like wind farms - burn nothing, work great, and now even the skeptics must admit that the large scale batteries being used to store energy during high wind times and used back during low wind conditions have answered the ONLY question remaining.

[madokie]

3. Your assessment it spot on

"If a more fragile, complicated, dirty, and unreliable system has been invented to make electricity other than nuclear, I don't know what it would be."

[RC]

4. In a word, Coal

Kills more people every year too.

[sce56]

8. Two wrongs don't make a right! Both need to go!

This SeaWiFS image of eastern China shows the widespread nature of the pollution problem. Beijing has completely disappeared under the haze.

Coal is the main power producer in China and the pollution travels across the ocean to the US and beyond!

[madokie]

12. Its a favorite excuse of the pro nuclear crowd

like because nuclears emissions aren't visible it somehow is better
I'm surprised I wasn't accused of being pro-coal because I'm anti-nuclear. Nuclear and coal are opposite sides of the same coin. You have to rape and destroy the environment to get either and the pollution from one is as bad as the other. The very real danger one poses doesn't compare in the slightest with the other is the only difference in the two.

[wordpix]

20. +1 and not surprised the back up systems don't work---the entire industry is dirty & expensive

and they want your tax dollars for billion$ in guaranteed loans to build more.

[Devil_Fish]

13. That is really gross, but dosn't justify Nukes. NT

[caseymoz]

5. Examine their emergency plans???? hahahahahaha! hahahaha!

These reactors are what? Forty years old? They're in the profit taking stage. Cut margins, spend the least that they have to. Any emergency plan is there for show. They already know if one of these things fails, people are fucked, so why bother? They won't be held responsible anyway.

[sce56]

7. +100 Bingo

Yeah I know I work at a conventional powered 50+ year old plant you got it right!

[ensho]

6. kick

nt

[red dog 1]

9. We Have More Nuclear Power Plants Than any Other Country in the world

Instead of leading the world in the number of nuclear power plants; why aren't we leading the world in the number of factories producing solar panels and wind generation
equipment?

[wordpix]

21. " why aren't we leading the world in...producing solar panels and wind.."? Because 1)

our repuke-led Congress is against taxing the rich and 2) because of endless wars endlessly depleting our Treasury and any effort to develop solar/wind in a serious way.

[TexasProgresive]

10. There is a class 4 NOC near me

Network Operations Center.

They have 3 diesel generators which can run the whole center alone. They have commercial AC coming into the center from two sections of the local grid. I work in a telco central office we have one diesel generator and if that fails massive battery backup.

So do these nuclear power plants have just one genset and how is it maintained? Our neighbor does a maintenance run once a week so each genset is run every 3 weeks. We run ours once a month. Neither operation is as critical a nuke.

[Throckmorton]

17. No, at least two, plus multiple battery banks.

My two unit nuke has 5 EDG's, plus about 10 battery banks. It also has a large number of small gensets.

EDG's are a major reliability issue.

[TexasProgresive]

18. That's what I would think.

So did the nukes lose emergency power or did they just lose one of their gensets. My guess is this is a cause of journalism hype caused by journalism stupidity. A lot of that going around.

[Throckmorton]

19. They loss off-site power,

then had one emergency diesel either not start, or need to be shutdown to prevent catastrophic damage to it.

These diesels need to go from cold standby to full load in under 60 seconds, which is very hard on the machinery.

I am actually standing by right now for an all up emergency diesel cold start full load test (aka an ESF/LOP test). This is done every refueling to all of the stations EDG's. We black out one train of the station, and watch the systems respond. The next day, we swap everything over and test the next diesel generator. It takes 3 or 4 days to complete.

[Hatchling]

11. One Carrington Event and we're screwed. nt

[No Elephants]

14. Here comes a bailout of nuclear power plants.

"The best way to begin restoring our economy is to spend the $10 billion over the next four years on strategic investments in building up our public infrastructure -- our airports, roads, bridges, ports, nuclear power plant security, broadband networks and environmental technologies."


http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254709&kaid=85&subid=65



From an article supposedly by Harold Ford, Jr. at the Democratic Leadership Council's website.


Since when were nuclear power plants part of our PUBLIC infrastructure?

Who is making money on them? Not taxpayers.

[Vinca]

15. The taxpayer involvement comes when they melt down

and we pay the bill since no insurance company will cover them.

[wordpix]

22. well, Obama STILL states he wants $36 BILLION in taxpayer-GUARANTEED loans for building new nukes

This, AFTER Fukushima.

This makes me think he's totally bought by the nuke industry. Someone needs to have him read "Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against a Nuclear Renaissance." I was already opposed to nuke energy when I read it but the costs, risks and downright dangerous events that have already happened are laid out in startling detail in this booklet.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. Unavailable due to planned maintenance?

My car is unavailable when I'm changing the oil. I don't count that as a car failure.

If a generator fails, that's bad. If a generator is off-line for maintenance, that's not bad. They are not the same thing.