Victor Dricks
Senior Public Affairs Officer
Region IV
NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane (second from right) listens as Southern California Edison executive Richard St. Onge (third from right) discusses issues with one of the damaged steam generators at SONGS. The steam generator is in the right foreground.
The NRC has established a special panel to coordinate the agency’s evaluation of Southern California Edison Co.’s proposed plan for restarting its Unit 2 reactor and ensuring that the root causes of problems with the plant’s steam generators are identified and addressed.
Art Howell, the NRC’s Region IV deputy regional administrator, will serve as co-chairman of the panel along with Dan Dorman, deputy director for engineering and corporate support in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). Jim Andersen, chief of NRR’s Electrical Engineering Branch, will serve as deputy team manager of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Oversight Panel.
The panel will ensure that NRC communicates a unified and consistent position in a clear and predictable manner to the licensee, public and other stakeholders, and establishes a record of major regulatory and licensee actions taken and technical issues reviewed, including adequacy of Southern California Edison’s corrective actions.
The panel also will be responsible for conducting periodic public meetings with the utility and providing a recommendation to senior NRC management regarding restart of SONGS Unit 2. In comments to reporters Monday following a tour of the plant, Chairman Allison Macfarlane said Unit 2 will not be permitted to restart unless the NRC has reasonable assurance it can be operated safely.
Other panel members include:
- Ed Roach, chief, Mechanical Vendor Inspection Branch, NRO
- Ryan Lantz, chief, SONGS Project Branch, Region IV
- Greg Werner, inspection & assessment lead, SONGS Project Branch, Region IV
- Nick Taylor, senior project engineer, SONGS Project Branch, Region IV
- Greg Warnick, senior resident inspector, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
- Doug Broaddus, chief, SONGS Special Project Branch, NRR
- Randy Hall, project manager, SONGS Special Project Branch, NRR
- Ken Karwoski, senior level advisor, Division of Engineering, NRR
- Michele Evans, director, Division of Operating Reactor Licensing (alternate is Pat Hiland, director, Division of Engineering)
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In 2009 songs 2 & 3 decomissioning budget was 3.5 billion in 2013 it exceeds 4. Billion how can nrc and public trust sce to manage decommissioing after rsg catastrotphy give the contact to another vendor sce is only interested how much money they can squeeze out of the decommissioning funds to make profits for themselves shareholders and return to ratrpayers for rsg fiasco sce has no trust left with nrc and public
Sce shutdown songs because of its greed negligence and fear of criminal investigations and not because of aslb nrc arnie gundersen or the anonymous steam generator in the last 36 years sce has shutdown 3 units destroyed eight generators because they do not understand the relationship between high steam flows high void fractions and tube vibrations caused by fei and firv. 18 feet/sec is the limit of fluid velocity and 96% void fraction with a circulation ratio GREATER THAN 4 is the secret to avoid fei & firv but for the last I 6 yrars songs has missed the boat on these operational parameters. The point is sce does not kno what how to operate a power plant. After all this experience how can ratrpayers trust sce with $2B in Decommissioning Funds?
Decontamination, Demolition, Dismantling and Decommissioning San Onofre is a very serious business, which requires the right management, procedures, contractors and strict NRC Oversight. Based on the last 10 years of observations at SONGS for SGRP, all these factors are missing at San Onofre now. Therefore, a 3rd neutral party with competent oversight organization reporting directly to NRC Resident Inspector and with Decontamination, Demolition, Dismantling and Decommissioning experience of a NPP is needed to do the job right first time following the INPO Principles of Excellence. Ratepayers cannot afford by Edison another Multi-Billion Dollar Mess.
By The Times editorial board
June 8, 2013
Southern California Edison on Friday made its smartest decision yet about the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant: It announced it was closing the facility once and for all. A year after the plant was taken off-line as a result of several problem-ridden steam generators, one of which had leaked a small amount of radioactive steam, the company finally decided to cut its losses and move on.
It didn’t have to be this way. If Edison had gone through full regulatory oversight in 2010 and 2011, when its then-new $670-million steam generators were being designed and built, rather than choosing the cheaper and more expedient route of claiming that the new machinery was virtually the same as the old, there’s a good chance the design errors would have been caught in time. Edison might have a thriving nuclear plant today, well-positioned for license renewal in several years, which would have kept the two reactors operating for decades to come.
REAL REASONS FOR SAN ONOFRE SHUTDOWN, INVESTIGATIONS NOT ASLB OR ECONOMICS
[Information removed by the moderator]
There may be lots of questions yet to be answered about Southern California Edison’s permanent shutdown of its San Onofre nuclear plant, but here are a couple about which there’s no doubt.
Who’s responsible? Edison, 100%. Accept no argument that it did the best it could in overseeing a $700-million generator replacement project, but accidents happen. This wasn’t an accident: It was the failure of what Edison claims was its rigorous and negligent oversight of contractors. MHI was unable to build a steam generator specified by the inexperienced Edison Steam Generator Designers. On top of that Edison Engineers prepared defective 10CFR 50.59, subverted NRC regulatory process, ignored recommendations of SCE/MHI AVB Joint team established by Dwight Nunn, and misdirected MHI, Westinghouse, AREVA and Intertek in preparation of Unit 2 Return to Service Reports. SCE used and abused any body they could find to achieve their end goal, but failed and abandoned the San Onofre Sinking Ship in Panic.
How much should Edison’s customers pay for the miss-engineering and inept mismanagement that led to mothballing a hugely important generating station? That’s easy. The answer is nothing. Not a dime.
SONGS Management has been misleading the public since the inception of Steam Generator Replacement Project. Their focus has always been on profits/production and preaching false sermons of their overriding obligation to safety and achieving excellence in operations. They have indulged in systematic retaliation of workers reporting nuclear safety concerns regarding steam generators, cyber security program, fire/safety, discrimination and harassment. SONGS Unit 3 Root cause was rejected in early June 2012 by SONGS Insiders and they were warned about MHI. SONGS Management were warned by many insiders that the Unit 3 Root Cause was a result of design deficiencies and changes as a result of 11% increase in heat transfer area of the tubes due to change of Alloy 600 from to Alloy 690 and evolutionary untested AVB design. Dwight Nunn’s 2004 and 2005 letters warned about high void fractions and the capabilities of MHI to build such massive steam generators and evolutionary AVBs capable of handling high void fractions and tube fractions. Good SONGS SNO’s like Dwight Nunn and Ross Ridenoure were kicked out by SCE and resigned abruptly without explanation.
It is not the Atomic Safety Board, NRC, MHI, Independent Safety Experts, CPUC or Public, which created significant additional uncertainty regarding SCE’s decision to get to an NRC decision to restart Unit 2 this year. It is the inept, inefficient and cunning SONGS Senior Leadership Team, which was focused on making money and bonuses for themselves, and subverting the regulatory process and not worried about plant safety, workers or the public. Justice Department, NRC Office of Inspector General and Investigations should continue their investigations into allegations of wrong doing by SONGS Senior Leadership Team. In the end, SONGS Senior Leadership Team was so afraid of these investigations, that they decided to abandon the ship by announcing Shutdown of SONGS blaming ASLB, NRC and Economics and coming with a new excuse, “This is not good for our customers, our investors and the region.” SCE was never worried or concerned about the customers, safety and the region. These guys did not have the courtesy of informing NRC, MHI, SONGS Workers, CPUC and SDG&E, their supporters through this crisis before announcing the decision.
Thought of the Day on Dangers of Unit 2 Restart Experiment issued the day before Sanofre Panicky and Sudden Shutdown Announcement
Continuous monitoring of primary-to-secondary leaks led to three shutdowns at the Cruas
NPP: unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006. Analyses
carried out by EDF, further to the last two events, resulted in them being attributed to high
cycle fatigue of steam generator tubes due to flow-induced vibration.
The results of in situ examination initiated by the Cruas NPP operator showed that the flow
holes of the uppermost Tube Support Plates (TSPs) were partially or completely blocked by
corrosion products. This phenomenon is referred to in this paper as TSP “clogging-up” and it
was considered potentially generic for EDF NPP fleet. For the Cruas leakages, it was
established that the association of TSP clogging-up and the specificity of the Cruas steam
generator (central area in the tube bundle where no tubes are installed) were responsible for
a significant increase in the velocity of the secondary fluid in the tube bundle central area.
The high velocity of the fluid in this region increases the risk of fluidelastic instability for the
tubes. Based on this preliminary analysis, EDF has implemented preventive measures
(stabilizing and plugging of tubes in the central area of the tube bundle deemed sensitive to
high cycle fatigue risk).
AREVA states, “Out-of-plane fluid-elastic instability has been observed in nuclear steam generators in the past and has led to tube bursts at normal operating conditions. Given identical designs, Unit 2 must be judged, a priori, as susceptible to the same TTW degradation mechanism as Unit 3 where 8 tubes failed structural integrity requirements after 11 months of operation. Based on the extremely comprehensive evaluation of both Units, supplemented by thermal hydraulic and FIV analysis, assuming, a priori, that TTW via in-plane fluid-elastic instability cannot develop in Unit 2 would be inappropriate. The nominal distance between extrados and intrados locations of neighboring U-bends in the same plane ranges from 0.25 inches to 0.325 inches due to the tube indexing. There are 36 U-bends in Unit 2 SG E-088 and 34 in SG E-089 with a separation less than or equal to 0.050 inches. “
The circulation ratio of the replacement steam generator secondary-side fluid (ratio of riser mass flow-rate to steam outlet mass flow rate) at 70% power is ~ 4.9. A higher circulation ratio limits concerns regarding heat transfer performance, generator sludge management, corrosion product transfer, and tube dry-out.
Based on recent Mitsubishi Testing conducted in Japan, tube-to-AVB contact force more than 30N is required to counteract the adverse effects of in-plane fluid-elastic instability. Unit 2 AVBs only have 2N contact force, which cannot stop tube-to-tube wear and tube burst at 70% Unit 2 normal power operations, if in-plane and out-of-plane fluid-elastic instability develops due to abnormal operation occurrences, main steam line breaks, inadvertent equipment errors and other plant transients.
Let us assume, hope and pray for the benefit of 8.4 Million Southern Californians, IPC, State of California, CPUC, MHI, SCE and NRC, the probability of occurrence of these events is very low and nothing happens. But as stated above, there are 36 U-bends in Unit 2 SG E-088 and 34 in SG E-089 with a separation less than or equal to 0.050 inches. The problem lies that in these U-bends, even at 70% power and a circulation ratio of 4.9, localized areas with very poor circulation ratio and no flow zones (Flow areas blocked by SG debris and corrosion products) can develop resulting in very high void fractions. With no tube damping and insufficient contact forces, in-plane fluid-elastic instability and out-of-plane vibrations can develop, as we witnessed in Unit 3. Just like Unit 3, now, the tubes will start moving in the in-plane direction and hit other worn and plugged/stabilized tubes with low clearances and cause tube-to-tube wear. Also, the tubes in other non in-plane FEI areas will also start moving in the out-of-plane direction, hitting already damaged AVBs with sharp corners (Zero Radius) resulting in the existing incubating cracks in the tubes to grow at a undefined rate.
Now the tubes are wearing and cracks are growing without the knowledge of the operator, because there is no instrumentation installed in the SGs as a part of the NRC Confirmatory Letter to warn/alarm the operator, as to what is going on about this kind of event. This event can occur at any time and propagate during the Unit 2, 5-month experiment window. Now, one, two or more than 5 tubes can potentially leak and/or rupture and the operator gets sudden warning/alarms through existing radiation monitors and proposed temporary N-16 detectors located on the main steam lines.
Shift Manager has only 15 minutes to diagnose, trouble shoot, declare the event and notify the Offsite Agencies for activation of the SONGS Emergency Plan. Before, Shift Manager can call for additional help, activate TSC, OSC, EOF, JIC or start taking actions to mitigate the consequences of a nuclear accident in progress, the reactor trips, turbine trips, main steam lines over pressurizes due to sudden turbine load rejection. The main steam lines atmospheric valves and/or main steam line relief valves will instantaneously open to prevent the main steam line from over pressurization and start dumping the un-partitioned radioactive coolant containing iodine with steam into the environment. In less than 15 minutes, 60 tons of radioactive coolant contained in the faulty and un-isolatable steam generator, will leak to the environment, melt the fuel in the reactor and release offsite doses in excess of Control Room limit of 5 Rem TEDE, and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE.
Based on the NRC Studies, Independent Safety Experts Observations and observation of SONGS Emergency Plan Drills, San Onofre Emergency Plan is not proven to notify, shelter (Plus KI Tablets) and evacuate the transients, disabled residents, affected families and children within the 10 mile zone during rush traffic hours in the event of above described a sudden large early frequency release radiological accident. A nuclear fallout from San Onofre can shutdown completely the business at Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors and chock the already fragile economy of Southern California.
NRC Job is not done. Now they should start investigating SCE SG cover up, discrimination, intimidation, and retaliation concerns. SCE officers were afraid of testifying under oath and being investigated by US Justice Department, NRC Office of Inspector General and Investigations.