SCE's Restart PR Campaign Backfires in MV!

SCE's RESTART PR campaign is now in full swing, please tell your friends to find out what SanO insiders are saying about all the technical issues AGAINST RESTARTING SanO, before they attend the NRC Dana Pt. meeting on 10-09-12.

The complete 6 page PR memo can be viewed online http://be.rtgit.com/DABSANO  along with many other of the DAB Safety Team's "Papers", like "DAB Safety's Initial Response to SCE's Restart Plan", so please bookmark it as MORE information will be posted to keep you in the know.

Remember:

       Any SCE restart is nothing but a $1.2 Billion Get out of Jail Free Card for them!

Just SAY N☢ To Any Restart TESTING, SoCal cannot afford a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima!

CaptD

p.s. Kudos to Joe for the SCE PR Restart Pitch Info!

California ISO prepares for another potential summer without San Onofre generation

News Release

News Release

For immediate release | September 13, 2012 Media Hotline  888.516.6397

For more information, contact:

Steven Greenlee | sgreenlee@caiso.com Stephanie McCorkle | smccorkle@caiso.com

California ISO prepares for another potential summer without San Onofre generation

FOLSOM, Calif. – The California Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO) is taking steps now to prepare for the summer of 2013 should Southern California remain without the generation from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. ISO experts briefed the Board of Governors at their meeting today on recent analysis of grid needs should the nuclear plant not return to service.

Topping the list of recommended mitigation actions is converting Huntington Beach units 3 and 4 into synchronous condensers. The units were brought back into service this year to fill the void left by the nuclear plant shutdown. As synchronous condensers, the Huntington Beach units do not produce electricity and therefore, no air emissions credits are required.

Instead, the condensers, acting somewhat like spinning flywheels, adjust to grid conditions by providing the voltage support, normally supplied by the nuclear plant, to the local 230 kilovolt switchyard. Megavars, instead of megawatts, would be produced and used to push megawatts through the grid, much like water pressure helps push water through a hose.

Two analyses provide the basis for today’s briefing: The Addendum to the 2013 Local Capacity Technical Analysis and 2012-2013 Preliminary Reliability Results, both available on the ISO website, caiso.com. The analyses also identify adding capacitor banks on Southern California Edison’s electric systems to provide transmission line voltage support. The Board today approved the staff recommendation to designate the Huntington Beach units as reliability must-run for voltage support in 2013. The designation is one step toward providing reliability in southern Orange and the San Diego counties. If it later determined additional resources are necessary for must-run services, ISO management will seek further Board approval of those additional reliability must-run contracts.

The state’s resource adequacy program has greatly reduced the need for must-run designations over the past few years, although the Board did approve extending a contract for the Dynegy Oakland facility through 2013 for 165 MW. The ISO tariff allows must-run designations under very specific circumstances such as making sure areas have enough local capacity available, mitigating local market power or providing voltage support.

Link: http://is.gd/eyetRe

The Number 1 US Nuclear Safety Concern ==> San Onofre's Replacement Steam Generators

The DAB Safety Team is thankful to numerous anonymous concerned SONGS Workers, who have provided factual information in the interest of the Public Safety to us so that we could arrive at these “Reasonable Conclusions” regarding SONGS Replacement Steam Generators Degradation.  We acknowledge Fairewinds Energy Association, Professor Daniel Hirsch, Friends of the Earth, San Clemente Green, Media, News Papers and the SD Reader, whose material has contributed to the successful completion of this document.

NOTE: These Preliminary Conclusions are subject to change upon receipt of Southern California Edison's (SCE) SONGS Unit 2 Restart Plan and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Root Cause Evaluation.

 

If SONGS Unit 2 is allowed to operate at reduced power, an Un-isolable main steam line break accident can occur at any time, due to a postulated design basis earthquake and/or any other associated failure.  Due to this event, the depressurization of the steam generator caused by the steam line break coupled with the excessive vibrations due high differential pressure (> 2250 psi), high reactor coolant water temperature inside the tubes, the compact space between the SONGS U-Tube Bundle and the moisture separators (compared with other Mitsubishi Steam Generators) and the steam over-pressurization would cause the elastic deformation (NRC AIT Report, Mitsubishi Preliminary Cause Evaluation) of the taller U-tube bundle due to increased U-tube bundle height, high localized steam-voids or dry-outs (two-phase mist region, almost devoid of water in undefined central portion of the U-tube bundle above the 7^th support plate) and narrow-pitch/tube diameter ratio.  This unanalyzed and rare phenomena not experienced in the Steam Generators operating history, in turn, would cause the onset of fluid elastic instability conditions due to the 100% localized steam voids in the central portion of U-Tube bundle above the 7th Support Plate.  The fluid elastic instability conditions would result in further lowering the already low in-plane tube clearances (Attributed to unanalyzed effects because of addition of more tubes to achieve more thermal MWt out of the SGs). The combination of these factors along with a poorly designed anti-vibration support structure [low damping capability of the support structure (i.e., the tube support plates, the tube-sheet, and the anti-vibration bars)] would result in excessive and violent vibrations, cause tubes to hit each other in the in-plane direction, result in leaking tubes, which would cause high-pressure primary sub-cooled water jets.  These high-pressure jets would cut holes into other already worn tubes and create undetermined number of cascading tube ruptures.

The cumulative effects of the above conditions along with the unanalyzed effects of plugged and staked tubes would rupture other damaged, plugged, staked and worn tubes.  The amount of leaking reactor coolant through these ruptured tube cuts is beyond the analyzed limits of a SONGS UFSAR Analysis [Three combined independent events loads (DBE + MSLB + LOCA)] that would be released via the blowing radioactive steam carrying Un-partitioned reactor coolant from the Un-isolated steam generator into the environment.  This uncontrolled radiological accident would release significant amounts of radiation, which could adversely affect the health and safety of all Southern Californian residents plus the transient population within the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone.   We believe that this scenario can also progress into a nuclear meltdown of the reactor due to potential errors by plant operators unable to diagnose and control rapidly changing plant conditions due to the confusion caused by the non-user friendly and complex, abnormal, emergency operating and emergency plan implementing procedures.  

This scenario is a departure from a method of evaluation described in the UFSAR used in establishing the SONGS design bases or in the safety analyses and requires a NRC 50.90 License Amendment before SONGS Unit 2 or 3 can be allowed to restart.  A permission by NRC for SONGS restart of either Unit 2 or 3 without the 50.90 License Amendment would be construed as: (1) Repeat violation of NRC 50.90 License Amendment Process by SCE, (2) Violation of SCE’s Overriding Obligation to protect the health and safety of Southern Californians from radiological accidents, and (3) Inconsistent with the NRC's long history of commitment, transparency, participation, and collaboration with the public's oversight of Nuclear Reactor regulatory activities.

-- The DAB Safety Team

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