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Power Technology

Nuclear Plant Taken Down In Anticipation of Snowstorm 311

Posted by samzenpus from the too-much-to-shovel dept.
mdsolar writes Pilgrim Power Plant in Plymouth was taken offline in anticipation of the weekend snowstorm. According to a statement from Entergy, the owner of Pilgrim, the plant was taken off line in preparation of "a potential loss of offsite power or the grid's inability to accept the power Pilgrim generates." This is the second time this season the plant has been shut down due to storm conditions. On January 27 the facility was taken offline after the two main power transmission lines were knocked out by blizzard conditions. Although the transmission lines were restored within a few days, the plant remained offline until February 7 at which time it was reconnected to the grid.
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Nuclear Plant Taken Down In Anticipation of Snowstorm More

Nuclear Plant Taken Down In Anticipation of Snowstorm

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  • A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:37PM (#49063387)

    An emergency measure when done after the fact.

    • Re:A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:25PM (#49063647)
      The plant will be shut down in anticipation that the transmission grid will suffer problems and not be able to take the power. It has nothing to do with the plant itself or inability to run through the storm. Plants all over the northeast have kept the lights on for millions throughout that rash of harsh winter weather we have been having. Pilgrim is a reliable station still going strong after many years.

      Snow covered solar panels won't be very useful, that is for certain. Windmills are shut down in blizzard conditions. Thankfully other sources are available.

      • Snow covered solar panels aren't an issue. Try solar panels covered by 12-18 inches of ice. I have seen many of those in Massachusetts.

      • Re:A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:44PM (#49063747) Homepage

        "Potential loss of offsite power" was listed as one of the two reasons for taking it down; the inability of the grid to accept power is only one. I would presume based on this that offsite power is part of their scenario for dealing with emergencies wherein the plant can no longer supply power for cooling its reactor, and hence the risk of loss of offsite power means an unacceptable meltdown risk should a disaster occur at the plant in the coming days.

        • Re:A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:58PM (#49063801)
          True.

          Loss of offsite power is an analyzed condition and the plant's license requires it to shut down when offsite power is lost. The safety analysis shows that the plant is in a higher risk level as it becomes reliant on its emergency diesels should another severe accident occur at that time. (Even though in those situations, the plant is designed to still be able to cope with all design basis accidents)

          There is no license requirement to shut down in anticipation of a loss of offsite power, and the plant is designed to handle it safely.

          Plants keep running through major storms all the time. This is particular to the local grid.

          • Re:A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score:4, Informative)

            by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:33PM (#49063947)
            I'd like to correct my statement above which says "There is no license requirement to shut down in anticipation of a loss of offsite power".

            Actually, there is a generic requirement to monitor grid reliability, and an unreliable grid determination could force a licensee to shut down. That is typically based on actual performance, not on anticipation, but I wanted to be accurate.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by confused one ( 671304 )
          That's basically the idea. Shut down now, and use grid power to bring it down in a controlled fashion... Or, shut down later, and rely on the diesel backup generators to bring it down in a controlled fashion. Either works. Either is safe. Using grid power is safer.

          • The problem is not 'bringing it down'.
            The plant needs cooling after it shut down for MONTHS!

      • Re:A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score:5, Informative)

        by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Monday February 16, 2015 @01:00AM (#49064233) Journal

        Pilgrim is a reliable station still going strong after many years.

        Lol @ reliable. Pilgrim has been on the NRC's worst-ten shit list for a few years now.

        The same day the storm hit, the NRC sent Pilgrim a letter.
        http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1502/ML15026A069.pdf [nrc.gov]

        Overall, the NRC has determined that your act ions have not provided the assurance level to fully meet all of the inspection objectives and have correspondingly determined that Pilgrim will remain in the Degraded Cornerstone of the Action Matrix by the assignment of two parallel White PI inspection findings. [Green, White, Yellow, Red, in increasing order of severity] [...] . Additionally, for one of the
        root cause evaluations, inspectors determined that Entergy failed to investigate a deficient condition in accordance with corrective action program (CAP) requirements to ensure they fully understood all of the causes of one of the [four unplanned] scram events [that happened in 2013].

        Reliable != multiple unplanned SCRAMs per year.

        Anyways, on January 27, while the reactor was SCRAMing, these three things happened:

        The High Pressure Coolant Injection System had to be secured due to failure of the gland seal motor.
        The station diesel air compressor failed to start.
        One of the four safety relief valves could not be operated manually from the control room.

        Those safety relief valves are the ones that get used to vent pressure after the coolant injection system fails.

        Pilgrim has problems. On top of all those problems, locals are spitting mad because the disaster plans fail to include scenarios like "giant blizzard shuts down all the roads and nobody can evacuate."

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Those are pretty severe problems, likely related to the age of the plant and the lack of necessary maintenance. Strange that regulator cannot force plant overhaul to newer safety hardware.

  • mdsolar strikes again (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_+! ( 2743031 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:38PM (#49063391)
    He probably wouldn't post something about a 'renewable' going offline, based on his posting history.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Gadget_Guy ( 627405 )

      He probably wouldn't post something about a 'renewable' going offline, based on his posting history.

      What difference does that make? You are attempting to discredit this story by maligning the submitter. That is known as playing the man, not the ball. Nothing that mdsolar wrote was untrue, and it didn't even sound judgemental.

      Rest assured that if a renewable power station went offline there would be plenty of other people who would submit stories about it, and I'm sure lots of them would have similar partisan posting histories (albeit with an anti-renewable agenda). The question is, would you write a simil

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_+! ( 2743031 )

        While you're right, I am guilty of attacking the submitter, he has a history of posting "facts" with no further comment or context.

        Is this story relevant? Maybe. Is this story abnormal? No. What is the first thing that will happen when an uninformed person reads this story? They'll probably post something like the AC with the headline "Devil's advocate" a few posts below after having formed an unjustified negative opinion.

        There's a difference between posting pure "facts" and "just posting something with min

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          No. What is the first thing that will happen when an uninformed person reads this story?

          They will take it on face value, most likely that it's both a good idea and standard operating procedure, unless of course they have an agenda to push.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          A lot of people on Slashdot like to paint nuclear as the solution to all are problems, but as stories like this demonstrate it does have limitations. If this were a renewable energy source there would be endless comments about how people advocating its use were really advocating more coal to back it up, and how it would never work because it isn't 100% reliable, and how we can't build many more because there are only so many locations in the US and NIMBYs will lawsuit it to death etc.

          In other words there ar

      • Well, read the article and realize it is the anticipated loss of the transmission system for which the plant is being shut down. That should have been the headline.

      • Re:mdsolar strikes again (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:50PM (#49063775)

        Nothing that mdsolar wrote was untrue, and it didn't even sound judgemental.

        To be fair, the title was changed by samzenpus. mdsolar's submittal title said something like "unreliable nuclear plant shut down....". An attempt to mislead on the reason for the shutdown.

      • renewable power sources go offline all the time. Its called night time.

        in all seriousness though you are spot on. this article didnt have any political tones on it, i didnt even think politically until the previous posters comment

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by fnj ( 64210 )

          And there is zero chance for a nuclear holocaust when a solar array stops outputting. None of that nasty decay heat whatsoever. No emergency cooling measures necessary.

      • Re:mdsolar strikes again (Score:5, Informative)

        by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:23PM (#49063893)

        You are attempting to discredit this story by maligning the submitter.

        The story is FUD. That's mdsolar's MO; post transparently stupid, fear mongering stories about nuclear power. He deserves to be maligned; he's earned it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        The problem here is infrastructure design and it's vulnerability to inclement weather. Perhaps they should consider revising infrastructure design and start putting buildings over major routes. Not only will this protect access routes, private and public (private vehicles, trucks and trains) but also energy and communications built into those structure. By distributing accommodation, residential, commercial, retail and light industrial along and above major access route leading from points of major value t

  • any spin there? (Score:2, Informative)

    by lophophore ( 4087 )

    That plant is not known for being run well.

    More likely, they wanted to shut it down to cover their asses in case something bad happened, e.g. storm surge. Not a bad idea, considering.

  • We could have a replay of this event as the Boston area is dealing with a similar weekend storm this week too.

  • Nuclear plants don't like sudden shutdowns (Score:4, Informative)

    by ZombieEngineer ( 738752 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:48PM (#49063469)

    Sounds like this is a "preventative measure".

    Normally there is some time between neutron capture and actual nuclear fission (I have heard a figure of 15 minutes). This means that even if the control rods are slammed in when the power transmission lines were cut the previous heat load would still be generated for a period of time. Often this means resorting to drastic measures to reduce the neutron flux to zero ASAP (certain salts are added to cooling loops which achieve this but requires a good flush to get rid of).

    Controlled shutdown means the reactor can be restarted in "a couple of hours"
    Emergency shutdown means the reactor can be restarted in "a couple of weeks"

    Burnt once, twice shy...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shakrai ( 717556 )

      This means that even if the control rods are slammed in when the power transmission lines were cut the previous heat load would still be generated for a period of time.

      The cooling system is designed with such considerations in mind. The plant isn't going to melt down even if you cut the transmission lines directly at the plant and have to quickly power the reactors down. The line about "a potential loss of offsite power" is perhaps more telling, they use offsite power to operate the control mechanisms and cooling systems if they have to shut the reactors down, though one would presume that they also have UPSes and diesel generators on site.

      • Re:Nuclear plants don't like sudden shutdowns (Score:4, Interesting)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:55PM (#49064045)
        Yes, that was the problem with Fukushima. The design guaranteed a meltdown in the case of loss of power. If you lost mains power, and your generator didn't start, you have a 100% chance of a meltdown. The tsunami took out the mains and the generators. So a meltdown was guaranteed, because they didn't restore power. Nothing else matters from that point. If they had requested a generator and fuel from someone and gotten it in the 12 or so hours the batteries lasted, then we'd know for sure whether the loss of containment was guaranteed by a breach caused by the earthquake. But Japan never asked, so nobody even tried.

        I'd assume that the plant in question is of a similar design.

        What I'd do is that because a meltdown makes more than enough power for a secondary, smaller generator to make enough power to prevent a meltdown. Sort of an active-verson of a passively cooled reactor. But cost and liability are more important than safety.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shakrai ( 717556 )

          One would assume that a snowstorm isn't going to destroy the on-site backup generations as a tsunami can. This seems like an overabundance of caution to, though IANANP, and if the grid can absorb the shutdown I suppose there's nothing wrong with excessive caution. There's a bit in TFA about them doing maintenance that required a shutdown during the last forced shutdown, so maybe they're planning to do the same here rather than do it over the summer months when energy prices and demand are higher.

          Since yo

          • Re:Nuclear plants don't like sudden shutdowns (Score:5, Interesting)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Monday February 16, 2015 @01:44AM (#49064379)

            Since you bought up Fukushima, I've long wondered how a modern first world nation-state could not manage to get generators on-site before the batteries went flat. I've read that the utility tried but could not get them there in time due to traffic jam and destroyed infrastructure on the ground. Did nobody think of picking up the phone and calling someone at the military to dispatch some bloody helicopters? I can't fathom that you need so much power to run cooling pumps as to render the required generators too heavy to fly in.

            I didn't want to say, because it sounds like the "depend on the US" cliche, but I could have driven to work, chained up a generator (not sure what they needed, but I had a 40kVA that I could have sent), and driven it to a C130 (nearby military base) and gotten it on the ground in Japan well under the 12 hours battery they had (presuming the US military would give civilian aid). Then arrange some helicopter transport to the site.

            My understanding is that Tepco lied to everyone. They lied about it being under control, and whether it would be "saved" and what they needed and such. An international call for generators, and I'm sure there are hundreds (or thousands) that could have come from South Korea in time, even if they couldn't find a single one in Japan. And there would have been many options to getting it there. Tanks don't mind mud so much, and you can hook a civilian trailer to one. So tow the damn thing. On the road, where you can, on the shoulder where you can, over fields and through houses where you have to. It's a fucking nuclear meltdown.

            But Tepco said "it's under control". "There was an incident, but it's currently contained". At least that's how I understand it from the information I saw released. Everyone with a "C" in their job title should be in jail, or working from the reactor floor.

            • Re:Nuclear plants don't like sudden shutdowns (Score:4, Interesting)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) * on Monday February 16, 2015 @08:54AM (#49065807) Homepage Journal

              See my other comments, generators were available but would not have helped. In fact they had extra pumps attached and working, but it didn't do anything.

              TEPCO were confused due to the difficult situation on the ground, and didn't want to start doing press released for every bit of data that came in and creating a lot of wild speculation in the media. The surrounding area had already been evacuated and as I mentioned there was little anyone could have done to help, so there wasn't much point saying anything until they were certain.

              It was still badly handled of course, but there was also a genuine belief that things were not that bad due to flawed operating procedures. Much of the monitoring equipment had failed due to lack of power and earthquake/tsunami damage, so the plan to make manual readings was put into place. That was hampered by lack of access to critical areas due to high radiation and damage to the plant. The procedures were written with the assumption that data could be relied on and that a lack of data was not a cause for action or assuming the worst. Note that TEPCO didn't write the procedures, they were standard on that type of plant.

              Sticking to procedure is viewed as best practice in many industries. For example, on the bullet trains the drivers are taught to always refer to the manual. If there is any kind of fault they never rely on memory, they always open the manual and follow it step by step. They actually read out each step as they are doing it. That helps prevent mistakes, and so far they have an unblemished safety record with zero deaths or serious injuries despite constant operation since 1964. Clearly, it is less suitable for nuclear plant operation.

              Basically, this is the problem with most current plants. If something goes wrong it is hard to understand what is happening, and even with experts on hand a lack of data leads to bad decisions and mistakes.

        • Even if they had gotten the generators, you can't just rewire things on the spur of the moment like that, especially not when a significant section of the country has also been wiped out. Of course if they had proper hardened vents like are required in the US [nytimes.com], there wouldn't have been any explosions. Still would have been a technical loss of containment due to the necessity of venting, and probably still a meltdown, but the destruction of the outer containment and cooling systems by the explosions was the

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 )

            Even if they had gotten the generators, you can't just rewire things on the spur of the moment like that, especially not when a significant section of the country has also been wiped out.

            The last time I replaced the generator and UPS at the (not a real) datacenter I work at, there was about 10 seconds of downtime, and 4 hours of electrical work. Had we de-powered everything during the work, it'd have been done in under 30 minutes.

            Yes, better to let the meltdown happen than take the time to wire it in the middle of a flood. But if you were right, why did they have generators on the way, stuck in traffic? The failure was they were to cheap (and afraid of people knowing how many screw ups

          • There is nothing to 'rewire'. You simply connect the flown in generator to the same connections the flooded generators use.
            Pretty simple.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by uncqual ( 836337 )

              To be fair, you do probably have to disconnect the wiring from the flooded generators as you don't want the electricity from the temporary generators shorting to ground through the flooded generators. And, you do need to connect the temporary generators somehow and, if that contingency was not considered in the existing wiring, you probably need to do some "rewiring".

              So, some rewiring may consist of bolt cutters while some may consist of clamping existing cables to the cables of the temporary generators. Ne

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          Actually there was emergency cooling provided by fire engines and mobile pump vehicles, as per the emergency plan. A meltdown was by no means guaranteed. What caused it was the fact that a broken valve, which no-one knew about at the time due the fact that it was inaccessible and the monitoring equipment had failed because of earthquake and tsunami damage, was stuck in the wrong position so most of the water being pumped in never made it to the reactors. Instead it was found weeks later in storage tanks.

          So

    • Absolutely. Entergy has multiple options to power the grid, and this was a sane, safe way to react to another bout of record snowfall.

      But hell, if you put it like that, there's no controversy.

      FWIW, I an a big fan of renewable power generation too, but I recognize that we're not there yet for reliable grid electricity generation. The nuclear option should not be off the table.

    • Emergency shutdown means the reactor can be restarted in "a couple of weeks"

      Absolutely not true. It can restart rather quickly, it depends on the reason for shutdown.

      And beside that irrelevant point, don't forget that nuclear plants all over the north-east have kept running reliably through the recent rash of heavy winter storms. The shutdown at Pilgrim is because of reliability issues with the local transmission/distribution network and expectation that it will go down.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Emergency shutdown means the reactor can be restarted in "a couple of weeks"

      When we had that massive power outage around the great lakes a few years back due to the transmission line issue. Bruce Nuclear here in Ontario did an emergency shutdown. It was back up and running in 8 hours after the initial outage.

    • "Normally there is some time between neutron capture and actual nuclear fission (I have heard a figure of 15 minutes)."

      The fact that you can detonate a nuclear bomb by bringing together two subcritical pieces of U-235 shows that this can't be true.

      In a nuclear reactor, 7% of the heat output is from the decay of the fission products (alpha and beta decay). This 7% will continue to be generated regardless of control rods or neutron absorbers. It will last hours to weeks, depending on where you put the thresho

    • What you write is complete nonsense.

      There is no 'neutron capture' taking 15 minutes.
      Either it smashes an uranium atom, that is called fission, or it is captured by boron ...

      There is absolutely no difference if a reactor is shut down by emergency or 'controlled'. If it is down longer than 30 mins, the time to reactivate it is days. The reason is neutron poisoning ... or xenon poisoning, depending how you want to call it.

      That means, the decaying products of the fission reaction produce so much Xenon and Boron that the neutrons of an start attempt get captured by them. Hence a new 'controlled' fission reaction is not possible, until those elements decay further.

      That takes hours, up to days. This is the main reason why nuclear plants can only be used very limited for load following (if you power it down considerably, you have to make sure you either don't need it full powered soon, or you know you will power it back up VERY soon)

  • MDSolar must be disappointed... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dfenstrate ( 202098 ) <dfenstrate&gmail,com> on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:50PM (#49063479)

    ...that it didn't melt down. We get it, MD, you don't like nuclear power.

    • ...that it didn't melt down. We get it, MD, you don't like nuclear power.

      He probably lives in the Northeast where everybody is doing what they can to bring on some global warming.

  • Maybe if they put Power lines underground they wouldn't come down every time there is a storm, which seems to be twice a week in New England

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