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Restart of Troubled Nuke Plant Appears Later than Sooner

By   /   January 20, 2012  /   8 Comments

It’s almost unheard of.

Top officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—with their eyes on the troubled Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant— have now made three stops in Omaha in the last eight months.

The latest, Thursday night, when officials with the Omaha Public Power District, the folks who run Fort Calhoun, were ridiculed by several members of the public. (Click here for exclusive video report).

These were furious and frustrated folks on hand for an NRC hearing exploring when the plant—which has been shutdown for 10 months—will be allowed to restart.

Late last year there was speculation the start-up might come as early as April, but in an interview with Nebraska Watchdog the NRC pushed back at that suggestion.

Nebraska Watchdog: I didn’t get a sense, at this meeting, that April was a likely start-up date.

Troy Pruett, NRC: Yea, I didn’t have that sense as well.

According to Pruett, the Deputy Director for the Division of Reactor Projects, Fort Calhoun has “a number of significant performance issues.”

The crowd was less diplomatic.

“Your performance is abysmal,” said Brian Kean of Missouri Valley. Kean says OPPD put his family at risk when fire broke out at the flood plagued reactor last June. During the fire OPPD failed to notify state and local officials within the government’s hard and fast 15 minute deadline.

As an exclusive investigation by Nebraska Watchdog discovered OPPD took between 16 and 19 minutes to get the word out, slow to make sure that those with a need to know were aware the fire had cut power to the pumps which circulate water through the spent fuel cooling pool.

No one in the public was hurt, but the fire along with the missed deadline and damage from the Flood of 2011, finds Fort Calhoun on a seldom used NRC watch list; described by regulators as ”an infrequent—and important—step to maintaining safety.” Since 1994 only 12 other nuclear plants have suffered a similar embarrassment.

David Bannister, OPPD’s Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, says the plant is safely shut down adding ,”We recognize our need to improve.” 

But those words were little comfort to LaVerne Thraen of Omaha. Thraen looked across the room at Bannister and said, “You just scared the hell out of me…I didn’t realize that you were still learning how to operate a 30-year-old nuclear power plant.”

Reported by Joe Jordan, joe@nebraskawatchdog.org

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Joe Jordan

  • ToucheTurtle

    To me the bottom line is this: where are we going to get our electricity if we are not able to count on our nuclear and coal plants? The EPA seems set on regulating the coal plants right out of existence, and now the nuclear plants we have are under fire. In fact if the waste product from the coal plants is designated as toxic waste, we will have to store it somewhere. Remember Boyd County???? It concerns me greatly that the nuclear waste being produced is being created without any real way of PERMANENTLY and EFFECTIVELY disposing of it.

    One has to wonder just how long it will be before we return to the way our ancestors lived a hundred years ago – no electricity, no gas for our cars, no fuel oil for our furnaces and other countless things we haven’t even considered yet. Am I supposed to get out Great Grandma’s kerosene lamps and start stocking up on lamp oil?? What about the electricity I need to run my furnace or my refrigerator? Do I need to install a wood-burning furnace in my home? Oh wait, it won’t be long before the environmentalists push for regulation and then outlawing the burning of wood.

    We pay our local, State and Federal officials to MAKE SURE this kind of gross negligence at Fort Calhoun does not happen. And when it does, heads should roll. WHY does David Bannister still have a job if he has failed to keep our nuclear plants in good working order and REQUIRE that regulations are met? It appears that OPPD is not really concerned enough to do all the preventative measures as required . . . it is only after-the-fact that the say something so demeaning as “We recognize our need to improve.”

  • Joe Sixpack

    OPPD should be insulating and sealing homes and businesses so they don’t need to generate as much electricity.

    Nebraska is the 4th windiest state in the USA. We are almost dead last in the amount of wind-generated electricity produced. What is wrong with all of our public power districts? Why don’t they want to create Nebraska jobs for Nebraskans by developing this wind energy potential?

    All they seem to want to do is burn more foreign coal which pollutes the rivers, lakes and streams with more and more Mercury which then shows up in human babies throughout our state. STOP THE POLLUTION!

  • http://enenews.com/ Jimbo

    Agree with Joe Sixpack.

    Time for nebraskans to ask their state to require a 20% “green renewable american energy” portfolio standard by 2020. That will get some utilities’ ass in gear.

    Until then… keep prayin!

  • http://enenews.com/ Jimbo

    If you look around, you can see that it’s possible to run a refrigerator without electricity. Who loses in that scenario? Not you. Not your air/water/soil quality. Only the massive centralized corporate have-the-least-workers-and-safety-checks-possible companies…

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/japanese-engineer-life-without-electricity

    Insulation and working WITH nature and not AGAINST nature (quit fooling ourselves) is job #1.

    Yes ToucheyTurtle, we are living our grandparents’ lives in reverse… to a time without fossil fuels…because you can’t unburn fossil fuels. Prove me wrong and get rich!

    If not, welcome to the 1800s. Now with more people, less food money, clean water and trees for everyone to share… enjoy!

  • Brian Kean

    Good coverage. The fact of the matter is it is going to cost a lot more to keep this old bag of bolts in operation than it will be worth – but I believe OPPD is trying to delay the expense of removing the nuclear waste which is what would happen if it shut down in 2013. So twenty more years on pins and needles just to delay an inevitable expense. Fact is these plants are not producing electricty nearly as cheaply as other convential means – and it’s a big cover up to prevent the public from catching on. No one gives a rats rear what the small towns downwind think – they have lost their trust and implicit contract with the public by not abiding by the rules (like 15 min notification) – game over in my opinion.

  • sad situation

    Over 36 yrs ago, I made a speech at UNO saying that nuclear power plants may be exceptionally dangerous, since we have NO safe place to dispose of the radio-active waste products, & there are numerous ways for the plant to melt down & cause an environmental disaster of immense proportions. We should not still be using this technology, since we have been unable to figure out the way to dispose of all the spent fuel. This flood disaster is a WAKE UP CALL that we should quickly be switching to other cleaner methods, & getting rid of any hazardous materials far away from our rivers & cities. It is much worse that this happened in a time of economic hardship. No easy answers. We can only hope that wind & solar power can somehow be used to replace the nuclear & coal plants.

  • Watching From Lincoln

    @ Joe Sixpack, Jimbo, Brian and Sad. YES!!!!!! Saying no to the KXL is a step in that direction, too!

    @ Touchas Turtle. Go stick your head back in your shell (or some place else) and stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution!

  • Gary Aksamit

    Nebraska rate payers send $500million a year to Wyoming for the coal to generate Nebraska’s electricity. Spoke to a good friend in Omaha who said OPPD’s position on energy efficiency in our homes and business is they’re all for it as long as not too much because after all OPPD is in the business of selling electricity. Public Power doesn’t want to unhitch from power generation because then they won’t have anyone to blame for raising the rates. Think about it natural gas is at 20 year lows and Nebraskan’s still get a 5% rate hike. It’s because Public Power is a bloated GSE. They can’t figure out how to make a profit–it isn’t their mandate to! If they didn’t have a commodity to blame for rate increases then it would be obvious the culprit is their over head. Energy independence is NEBRASKAN’s resposibility right down to the chioce of each rural power provider each town and each consumer. Our grandparents that settled this state would be ashamed of our lack of curiosity and drive to take responsibility for ourselves. All I hear is bad mouthing wind when it is infact the second most valuable natural resource behind the water in the Ogallala. We’ve become a NANNY STATE depending on Public Power to dictate our future. All they are worried about is control of your electric bill and making sure you pay it. Public Power has become another beurocratic money pit GSE and their only fear is you don’t figure out they blew $5billion on power lines across the state in the 60′s and 70′s in the belief people were going to move back to rural Nebraska. Brilliant plan!

    Wind is cheap–VERY cheap. It consumes NO natural resource OR WATER to produce electricity. That’s what the coal and nat gas industry is so worked up about wind. And it can do it at 3.5-4 cents per kWh. And once the turbines are paid for that price goes DOWN to under 2 cents per kWh because there is no debt to service.

    Some how wind became a crazy European WAY left wing energy touch stone. It’s not it’s a LIBERTARIAN touch stone! It’s ours so lets use it!