Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant

[Intense]

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A new leak of radioactive material has been found and fixed at the troubled Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant, officials said Saturday.

Vapor and water containing 13 different radioactive substances was found late Friday coming from a pipe in a hole workers dug to find the source of an earlier leak.

"This was a new leak," Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith said in an e-mail. "The leak has been stopped. ... There is no threat to public health or safety."

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission also said the public faced no danger.

Spokeswoman Diane Screnci said an NRC inspector will arrive Tuesday to help the two agency inspectors assigned to the plant year-round. She said they will look at company efforts to find what caused the leak, the repair of the piping, and remediation of any effects of the leak.
"The observed short duration and small volume of leakage from the drain line appears to indicate that the event did not result in any impact to public health and safety," according to an NRC statement.

Vermont Yankee was recently off line for routine maintenance and refueling. It went back in operation and was reconnected to the New England power grid early Saturday. Smith said the plant is expected to be running at 100 percent within the week.

The leak was the second mishap connected with the startup. On Wednesday, the reactor "scrammed" — went into automatic shutdown — when a problem developed with equipment in the switchyard where it connects to the power grid.

In January, plant officials announced that radioactive tritium, which can cause cancer when ingested in large amounts, had turned up in a monitoring well. In investigating, the company spent months digging wells, only to find more tritium and other radioactive substances.

Meanwhile, plant officials acknowledged they had misled state regulators and lawmakers regarding whether the plant had underground pipes that carried radioactive substances. The radioactive tritium was found in an underground pipe.

FOXNews.com - Vt. Yankee official: Leak of radioactive water found at nuke plant, fixed, no public threat

You know that another way to interpret this is that the reactor is short at least 1 additional layer of containment here. the coulda, woulda, shoulda, defense grows old real quick. We don't need excuses. Stop violating the trust and act responsibly in the first place.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

According to Rdean, Democrat scientists were responsible for the leak

 

[Old Rocks]

Frank, you don't have to make a purposeful attempt to look idiotic, you have that base covered naturally.

 

[Old Rocks]

There are many people pushing Nuclear Energy. Done correctly, it is clean, safe, and puts out a lot of power in one spot.

However, what we see here is the reason that Americans no longer trust Nuclear. The people building and using these plants cut corners, and try to do things on the cheap. They are taking chances with the lives of everybody downwind, and with the environment. Three Mile Island.

 

[gslack]

There are many people pushing Nuclear Energy. Done correctly, it is clean, safe, and puts out a lot of power in one spot.

However, what we see here is the reason that Americans no longer trust Nuclear. The people building and using these plants cut corners, and try to do things on the cheap. They are taking chances with the lives of everybody downwind, and with the environment. Three Mile Island.

And what happened at 3 mile Island? LOL, come on buddy tell us what happened...

 

[Old Rocks]

Three mile island involved a partial core meltdown that came very close to a full meltdown. There was a combination of bad engineering, and poorly trained personal that made some wrong decisions.

The point was at that time the Nuclear Industry was still selling nuclear power as totally safe. They claimed to have redundent safety measures in place that would prevent any accidents from happening, let alone reach the point where there was a danger of a total meltdown.

The Nuclear Industry had already lost a great deal of it's luster, because of the failure to deliver the cheap power that it had been promising. Then the near catastrophe at Three Mile Island destroyed what was left of the public's trust. And they have yet to regain that trust.

 

[Skull Pilot]

keep harping on a 30 year old accident as if there have been no improvements in design or safety since then.

I thought you science worshipers were all about focusing on the future yet you seem to be stuck in the past.

 

[Old Rocks]

Skull, it is not me you have to convince. It is the American Public. The Nuclear Industry created this situation, not I. Here in the Pacific Northwest, WHOOPS is still a bitter taste in the mouth.

You want nuclear? Address the failings of the Nuclear Industry. Too many instance like the one Intense has pointed out. Then you add BP into the mix, and you can see how much the Public as reason to trust the large corperations involved in these kinds of projects.

Windmills, solar, and geothermal do not have the potential for catastrophic failure that poisons hundreds to thousands of square miles of our nation.

 

[Intense]

It's about taking responsibility for actions. False claims are proved by the radioactive contamination that results. My reason hints to me that the industry is short at least one level of containment. The industry seems real comfortable with radioactive water and contaminated fish. That's a hard sell, I'm not buying. What we have here people is a failure to communicate. I'm not big on baloney sandwiches. Should you fail to address the short falling in your industry in regards to safety, and force confrontation with new construction, protesters, arrests, might I advise more humane accommodations, for us. Cuisine, breakfast, Eggs Benedict should be served at least once a week. I like my bacon crisp. Coffee, Starbucks, Melita Drip preferred. Lunch, Burgers, Hot Open Sandwiches, Barbecue, Full Vegetarian Menu, Kosher Menu, all meals. Tea's Juices, plenty of ice. 5 Star mattresses. Maybe it would be a good idea to just hold everyone in reputable 5 Star hotels rather than gymnasiums, Cable TV would be good too. Pool privileges are also a necessity. Think more along the lines of Hilton-Gitmo-Six Flags. Get it? Good. Wake up calls not before 8:30 AM, lights out after Greg Ferguson. Either that or build more responsibly. Take the hint. Stop lying to us and making excuses.

 

[Intense]

You guy's in the Nuclear industry even have me sold on the concept of reprocessing, under one condition, safety and security first. Show that you can do what you claim 100% of the time. No bullshit excuses, fail-safe 100% guaranteed. Oversight, Transparency, Accountability. Make it right or STFU. No more smoke and mirrors.

 

[gslack]

Three mile island involved a partial core meltdown that came very close to a full meltdown. There was a combination of bad engineering, and poorly trained personal that made some wrong decisions.

The point was at that time the Nuclear Industry was still selling nuclear power as totally safe. They claimed to have redundent safety measures in place that would prevent any accidents from happening, let alone reach the point where there was a danger of a total meltdown.

The Nuclear Industry had already lost a great deal of it's luster, because of the failure to deliver the cheap power that it had been promising. Then the near catastrophe at Three Mile Island destroyed what was left of the public's trust. And they have yet to regain that trust.

Three Mile Island | TMI 2 |Three Mile Island Accident.

Three Mile Island Accident

(March 2001, minor update Jan 2010)

In 1979 at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in USA a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in the # 2 reactor. The TMI-2 reactor was destroyed.
Some radioactive gas was released a couple of days after the accident, but not enough to cause any dose above background levels to local residents.
There were no injuries or adverse health effects from the Three Mile Island accident.
The Three Mile Island power station is near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in USA. It had two pressurized water reactors. One PWR was of 800 MWe (775 MWe net) and entered service in 1974. It remains one of the best-performing units in USA. Unit 2 was of 906 MWe (880 MWe net) and almost brand new.

The accident to unit 2 happened at 4 am on 28 March 1979 when the reactor was operating at 97% power. It involved a relatively minor malfunction in the secondary cooling circuit which caused the temperature in the primary coolant to rise. This in turn caused the reactor to shut down automatically. Shut down took about one second. At this point a relief valve failed to close, but instrumentation did not reveal the fact, and so much of the primary coolant drained away that the residual decay heat in the reactor core was not removed. The core suffered severe damage as a result.

The operators were unable to diagnose or respond properly to the unplanned automatic shutdown of the reactor. Deficient control room instrumentation and inadequate emergency response training proved to be root causes of the accident

So no one was hurt and no one was radiated enough to do any harm.... Got it.. And your point was??

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Nuclear energy is one of the few areas where the French run circle around us.

 

[gslack]

Nuclear energy is one of the few areas where the French run circle around us.

Yeah, I wonder what they do with their waste though... Never hear about it at least i don't...

 

[martybegan]

Skull, it is not me you have to convince. It is the American Public. The Nuclear Industry created this situation, not I. Here in the Pacific Northwest, WHOOPS is still a bitter taste in the mouth.

You want nuclear? Address the failings of the Nuclear Industry. Too many instance like the one Intense has pointed out. Then you add BP into the mix, and you can see how much the Public as reason to trust the large corperations involved in these kinds of projects.

Windmills, solar, and geothermal do not have the potential for catastrophic failure that poisons hundreds to thousands of square miles of our nation.

Wind and solar also cannot be turned on and off when the whim strikes you. Geothermal can but is limited to specifc sites.

The difficulty is explaining nuclear power is that most people are really not familiar with the concept of risk and risk mitigation. I agree that the nuclear industry could handle this stuff better, but when your oppositon has no qualms with blowing any incident out of proportion you tend to get a wee bit defensive.

The article you posted just says "radioactive." It gives no mention of dose, isotopes (well it did say tritium), or even when it happened. I remember giving a tour of the sub critical reactor my school had onsite during a visit day for high schoolers. People walked into the room and once you said "nuclear reactor" you saw people get squirrely. Trying to explain that they were sub critical and that they could barely power a lightbulb had an effect on only some. Just saying "nuclear" sent people to the exit.

 

[Intense]

(Host) Experts say relocating buried pipes above ground may be part of the solution to radioactive leaks at nuclear power plants around the country.

But some Vermont officials question whether it would be worth relocating the pipes at Vermont Yankee until they decide if its license will be extended.

VPR's Susan Keese has more.

(Keese) Democratic lawmakers demanded that Yankee's pipes be moved above ground after a new radioactive leak was found, just as the plant was restarting from a refueling outage.

A more extensive underground leak of radioactive tritium was discovered this winter. Plant officials said other buried pipes had been inspected during the outage.

But a one-eighth-inch hole in a drain pipe in the same underground system that caused the earlier problems, went undetected.

Outgoing Senate President Peter Shumlin, a candidate for governor, called for action.

(Shumlin) "Shut the plant down, replace all the underground pipes and then restart it knowing that the pipes won't leak anymore."

(Keese) Shumlin says that's what's planned at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey, which has also dealt with tritium leaking into groundwater. That plant is spending $12 million to move its buried pipes into above-ground vaults that can be checked for leaks more easily.

Neil Sheehan of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says federal officials are monitoring the work.

(Neil) "That plant is owned by Exelon and this is something they're talking about starting at Oyster Creek and then looking to do at other plants that they own. And certainly the rest of the industry would be looking at that as well."

(Keese) Sheehan says 34 of the country's 104 nuclear plants have experienced contamination from underground pipes.

Most of that is from tritium, which regulators don't consider a serious health threat. But other, more lethal radioactive elements have also been found, including at Vermont Yankee.

Sheehan says an NRC task force is reevaluating the agency's requirements for monitoring underground systems. But he says it's premature to call for wholesale replacement.

(Sheehan) "We will have to wait and see exactly what that task force comes out with because its work is still underway. We don't know exactly what they're going to recommend, but it will certainly get attention at the highest levels by the NRC."

(Keese) Sheehan says the task force could have recommendations later this month.

Congress is also scrutinizing the NRC's policies on monitoring underground pipes.

Vermont regulators are also studying the issue.

David O'Brien is the state's Public Service Commissioner.

(O'Brien) "There certainly is plenty of evidence that some of these pipes were difficult to get to and the excavation of the site was very complicated for the people on the ground."

(Keese) But O'Brien stopped short of recommending that the Vernon plant's underground pipes should immediately be moved.

He points out that Vermont Yankee is scheduled to close in two years, unless its operating license is extended.

He says it may not make sense to rebuild the piping system if Yankee isn't going to operate for another 20 years.

VPR News: Officials Study Re-locating Vermont Yankee Pipes

 

[Care4all]

Three mile island involved a partial core meltdown that came very close to a full meltdown. There was a combination of bad engineering, and poorly trained personal that made some wrong decisions.

The point was at that time the Nuclear Industry was still selling nuclear power as totally safe. They claimed to have redundent safety measures in place that would prevent any accidents from happening, let alone reach the point where there was a danger of a total meltdown.

The Nuclear Industry had already lost a great deal of it's luster, because of the failure to deliver the cheap power that it had been promising. Then the near catastrophe at Three Mile Island destroyed what was left of the public's trust. And they have yet to regain that trust.

Three Mile Island | TMI 2 |Three Mile Island Accident.

Three Mile Island Accident

(March 2001, minor update Jan 2010)

In 1979 at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in USA a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in the # 2 reactor. The TMI-2 reactor was destroyed.
Some radioactive gas was released a couple of days after the accident, but not enough to cause any dose above background levels to local residents.
There were no injuries or adverse health effects from the Three Mile Island accident.
The Three Mile Island power station is near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in USA. It had two pressurized water reactors. One PWR was of 800 MWe (775 MWe net) and entered service in 1974. It remains one of the best-performing units in USA. Unit 2 was of 906 MWe (880 MWe net) and almost brand new.

The accident to unit 2 happened at 4 am on 28 March 1979 when the reactor was operating at 97% power. It involved a relatively minor malfunction in the secondary cooling circuit which caused the temperature in the primary coolant to rise. This in turn caused the reactor to shut down automatically. Shut down took about one second. At this point a relief valve failed to close, but instrumentation did not reveal the fact, and so much of the primary coolant drained away that the residual decay heat in the reactor core was not removed. The core suffered severe damage as a result.

The operators were unable to diagnose or respond properly to the unplanned automatic shutdown of the reactor. Deficient control room instrumentation and inadequate emergency response training proved to be root causes of the accident

So no one was hurt and no one was radiated enough to do any harm.... Got it.. And your point was??

no humans other than from the explosion, have died from this oil gusher in the gulf either....does that make it any less of a tragedy?

 

[gslack]

Three mile island involved a partial core meltdown that came very close to a full meltdown. There was a combination of bad engineering, and poorly trained personal that made some wrong decisions.

The point was at that time the Nuclear Industry was still selling nuclear power as totally safe. They claimed to have redundent safety measures in place that would prevent any accidents from happening, let alone reach the point where there was a danger of a total meltdown.

The Nuclear Industry had already lost a great deal of it's luster, because of the failure to deliver the cheap power that it had been promising. Then the near catastrophe at Three Mile Island destroyed what was left of the public's trust. And they have yet to regain that trust.

Three Mile Island | TMI 2 |Three Mile Island Accident.

Three Mile Island Accident

(March 2001, minor update Jan 2010)

In 1979 at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in USA a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in the # 2 reactor. The TMI-2 reactor was destroyed.
Some radioactive gas was released a couple of days after the accident, but not enough to cause any dose above background levels to local residents.
There were no injuries or adverse health effects from the Three Mile Island accident.
The Three Mile Island power station is near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in USA. It had two pressurized water reactors. One PWR was of 800 MWe (775 MWe net) and entered service in 1974. It remains one of the best-performing units in USA. Unit 2 was of 906 MWe (880 MWe net) and almost brand new.

The accident to unit 2 happened at 4 am on 28 March 1979 when the reactor was operating at 97% power. It involved a relatively minor malfunction in the secondary cooling circuit which caused the temperature in the primary coolant to rise. This in turn caused the reactor to shut down automatically. Shut down took about one second. At this point a relief valve failed to close, but instrumentation did not reveal the fact, and so much of the primary coolant drained away that the residual decay heat in the reactor core was not removed. The core suffered severe damage as a result.

The operators were unable to diagnose or respond properly to the unplanned automatic shutdown of the reactor. Deficient control room instrumentation and inadequate emergency response training proved to be root causes of the accident

So no one was hurt and no one was radiated enough to do any harm.... Got it.. And your point was??

no humans other than from the explosion, have died from this oil gusher in the gulf either....does that make it any less of a tragedy?

WTF does that have to do with this????

An accident does not always mean negligence. And to try and pretend it does is childish and shows an immature grasp of reality..

If you are driving down the road, doing the speed limit and being vigilant as can be expected, obeying all the laws and so on. And some nut runs in front of your car and you hit him, are we to hold you responsible for it? If so how much of it can we hold you responsible for? And how much can you be vilified and then sued for? What would be the reasonable amount? Would it be okay that you were being harassed and threatened by your towns people? Should the neighbors of the victim be able to sue you as well as the family of the victim? how about the town itself, can it sue as well?

Accidents happen, and sometimes its awful, but that doesn't make every accident a result of negligence..

 

[Intense]

When dealing with Nuclear Power or anything that can result in a massive scale disaster, contingency is part of the equation. It is the responsible thing to be prepared. The excuses get old. Think Fail-Safe, multi-backup. Stop with the false claims.

 

[gslack]

When dealing with Nuclear Power or anything that can result in a massive scale disaster, contingency is part of the equation. It is the responsibility to be prepared. The excuses get old. Think Fail-Safe, multi-backup. Stop with the false claims.

Agreed but there is never 100% guarantees. In the case of 2-mile Island the backups worked and averted disaster. The first line of defense may have faulted but the backups got it done and with no harm outside that to the reactor itself.

The very concept of redundancy and backups is in case the first lines fail. In a perfect world there wouldn't be a necessity for either. But its not a perfect world so they are required. And in 3 mile the first line failed but the back ups worked...

I don't think making more of it than it actually was like has been the case in the media, helps anyone at all...

 

[Intense]

When dealing with Nuclear Power or anything that can result in a massive scale disaster, contingency is part of the equation. It is the responsibility to be prepared. The excuses get old. Think Fail-Safe, multi-backup. Stop with the false claims.

Agreed but there is never 100% guarantees. In the case of 2-mile Island the backups worked and averted disaster. The first line of defense may have faulted but the backups got it done and with no harm outside that to the reactor itself.

The very concept of redundancy and backups is in case the first lines fail. In a perfect world there wouldn't be a necessity for either. But its not a perfect world so they are required. And in 3 mile the first line failed but the back ups worked...

I don't think making more of it than it actually was like has been the case in the media, helps anyone at all...

Much has changed and improved since then. the one constant should be improvement. Why aren't the Vermont Yankee pipes better protected, double hulled, with a triggered alarm? Just a thought. It seems to be a wide spread issue. Again, is the design short a minimum of one safety level? Bringing the lines above ground seems an improvement, yet why not further protect against a known vulnerability, especially in future construction.