ML052790201
| ML052790201 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 09/21/2004 |
| From: | Robert Williams Entergy Nuclear Operations |
| To: | Neil Sheehan NRC Region 1 |
| References | |
| FOIA/PA-2004-0369 | |
| Download: ML052790201 (13) | |
Text
Neil Sheehan - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September21, 2004 Page 1 From:
'Williams, Rob" <rwill23@entergy.com>
To:
'Williams, Rob" <rwiIl23@prod.entergy.com>, "Cosgrove, Brian"
<jcosgro~prod.entergy.com>, "Smith, Larry" <Ismit14@prod.entergy.com>, "WIESE, JR, ARTHUR E. F."
<AWIESE@entergy.com>, "Sienel, Beth" <bsien90@prod.entergy.com>, "Finn, Brian"
<bfinn~prod.entergy.com>, "CRAWFORD, CARL W' <CCRAWFO~entergy.com>, "Nichols, Craig"
<cnichol@prod.entergy.com>, <bruce.wiggett@telcove.net>, "David M. Rocchio"
<drocchio~theamogroup.com>, "McElwee, David" <dmcelwe~prod.entergy.com>, "Pelton, David"
<dpelt90@prod.entergy.com>, "Finkenstadt, Eve" <efinken@prod.entergy.com>, "Ferland, Brad"
<bferland@together.net>, 'TAYLOR, GARY (Nuclear)" <GJTAYLOR~entergy.com>, 'Thomas, George"
<gthomas~prod.entergy.com>, "Gerry Morris" <gmorris~vtlobbyists.com>, "Metell, Mike"
<hmetell~prod.entergy.com>, "Howard C Shaffer" <howardmariann@juno.com>, "Bennett, Jan"
<jbenne4@prod.entergy.com>, "Thayer, Jay" <jthayer~prod.entergy.com>, "Dreyfuss, John"
<jdreyfu@prod.entergy.com>, "Herron, John T." <JHerron~entergy.com>, "Hoffman, John"
<jhoffm1@prod.entergy.com>, "Bronson, Kevin" <kbronso~prod.entergy.com>, "Marshall, John"
<jmarshall@drm.com>, "Desilets, Mike" <mdesile@prod.entergy.com>, "Nancy Malmquist"
<nmalmquist@drm.com>, "Perez, Pedro" <pperez1@prod.entergy.com>, "Wanczyk, Robert"
<rwanczyeprod.entergy.com>, "Smith, Kelly" <ksmith@yankee.com>, "Gallagher, Sue"
<SGallag@entergy.com>, "Norton, Tom" <tnorton@prod.entergy.com>, "V Brown"
<vbrown@ecvtlaw.com>, "Sheehan, Neil" <nas~nrc.gov>, "Screnci, Diane" <dps~nrc.gov>, "Daflucas, Ronda" <rdafluc~prod.entergy.com>, <john.boguslawski@telcove.net>, "Empey, Mike"
<mempey@prod.entergy.com>, "HUTSON, LAURA" <LHUTSO1 @entergy.com>,
<Jay.Silberg@shawpittman.com>, "Shuman, Eileen" <eshuman~prod.entergy.com>,
<maeshe@sover.net>, <william.sherman@state.vt.us>, "Canty, Christine" <ccanty@prod.entergy.com>,
'Tkaczyk, Lori" <Itkaczyeprod.entergy.com>, "Williams, Audra" <awill16@prod.entergy.com>
Date:
9/21/04 11:31AM
Subject:
RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 September 21, 2004 VY uprate controversy continues to simmer By CAROLYN LORIE Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO - Controversy continues to swirl around Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee's uprate application.
Officials at the 32-year-old plant applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year to increase power generation by 20 percent. This is known as an extended power uprate and is the most allowed in the industry. Vermont Yankee is the oldest plant to have requested a 20 percent power boost.
On June 28, nuclear industry experts Paul Blanch and Arnold Gundersen wrote a six-page letter to the Vermont congressional delegation and the chairman of the Vermont Public Service Board, outlining their concems with the application, as well as with the NRC's review process.
"Put in its simplest terms, we are convinced that the proposed uprate will make Vermont Yankee significantly less safe than it is today, and we are also convinced that the NRC has tumed a deaf ear on the irrefutable facts that support this powerful statement," wrote Blanch and Gundersen.
In their letter, Gundersen and Blanch contend that safety margins at Vermont Yankee will be greatly reduced if the uprate occurs. The two also charged that the NRC has refused to show how the plant conforms to or deviates from current safety and design basis regulations.
The two asked that the delegation and PSB Chairman Michael Dworkin use their authority to demand answers from the NRC.
Earlier this month, Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and James Jeffords, I-Vt., and Congressman Bernard Sanders, l-Vt., responded to the letter, saying that they had "asked for an official response to [the] letter from the agency that addresses each of the safety concerns that [were] raised."
I[Neil Sheehan - RE: Vermnont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 Page 2 1 IS According to Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman for Region I, the official response came on Sept. 14.
Luis Reyes, NRC executive director of operations, wrote to the delegation stating that the issues raised by Blanch and Gundersen had already been raised by petitions to intervene filed by the state and the nuclear power watchdog group, the New England Coalition. The NRC has not responded formally to either party.
Sheehan said the letter explained that answers would be provided when the petitions are addressed.
"Until then it would be premature to comment on the issues raised," closed the letter.
Upon hearing about the NRC's response, Blanch accused the agency of "leading us around in circles."
One of the central safety issues in question has to do with containment overpressure. Under uprated conditions, the water in the containment tank will be warmer which will allow bubbles to form. If a loss of coolant accident were to occur, the bubbles in the water would interfere with the emergency pumps' functioning, possibly destroying them over time. Without the pumps, the water necessary to keep the core cool could not circulate, resulting in a meltdown.
According to Vermont Yankee engineers, during the type of loss of coolant accident postulated in the above scenario, there will be sufficient pressure in the tank to prevent the bubbles from forming. This is known as taking credit for overpressure.
Although NRC regulatory guides state that credit should be taken only when necessary and minimized to the extent possible, many plants have been allowed to do this in order to increase power generation.
Both the coalition and the state have included this issue in their petitions.
The state has gone one step further, however, calling on the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to "specifically review" this point.
The ACRS is an 11-member panel that is appointed by the NRC, but operates independently. All uprate applications go before the panel, which makes a recommendation to the NRC. So far all applications for increasing power generation have been approved by the committee.
In a letter addressed to Mario Bonaca, chairman of the ACRS, Vermont Department of Public Service commissioner David O'Brien questioned the NRC's decision to grant exceptions to its own regulatory guides.
"...The NRC, industry and the Committee [ACRS] were adamant about retaining the defense-in-depth safety margin provided by not linking emergency core and containment cooling functions with containment performance," O'Brien wrote. "And then, with the advent of extended power uprates, it appears the NRC began granting overpressure credit whenever an applicant asked for such credit" The 10-page letter outlines the evolution of granting credit for overpressure and questions whether the ACRS "thoroughly reviewed and recommended this major policy change."
State nuclear engineer Bill Sherman first raised questions about the containment overpressure in December, prompting him to write a letter to the NRC about the issue. The federal regulator responded in May but not to the satisfaction of the department.
"The department has always vowed to have our safety concerns heard in the correct venue - the NRC,"
said O'Brien in a press release. "Requesting the ACRS to review the containment overpressure issue in addition to requesting a hearing on the issue is a second avenue to having our questions resolved. We want to make sure that Vermont Yankee is safe if an uprate of power output is allowed."
NWe il S~hee~hagn-RE:-. Vermion t Yan-ke-eP Newsc CipS', -Setm r 21,2004 Page ~3 Another issue raised in the department letter was the fact that the plant could be modified in such a way that taking credit for overpressure would be unnecessary.
When asked about the possibility of modifications being made to avoid this problem, Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, refused to answer, saying that he was not in a "position to speculate about that."
Williams did state, however, that the uprate application was "grounded in NRC regulations" and that ACRS review is a routine part of the regulatory review process.
"The ACRS was set up to give an independent view on safety matters that came before the NRC and we expect they will review this issue as well," said Williams.
Blanch, who has worked in the nuclear industry as an electrical engineer for 35 years, said that the department's appeal to the ACRS marked a first, as far as a state's involvement in nuclear regulatory affairs.
"It is extremely significant. I've never seen anything like this," he said.
While he expressed frustration with the NRC, Blanch was optimistic about how the ACRS might respond.
Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the New England Coalition, was less hopeful.
'This is good. It can't be bad," he said. "But we should not raise our hope that this is a comprehensive answer."
September 21, 2004 Apple Days back for ninth year By DANIEL BARLOW Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO - It may have all started with the apple pie contest, but year after year, it's games such as the apple tire throw and the apple basket toss that brings kids back.
Now in its ninth year, the Apple Days event on Saturday will feature up to $500 in gift certificates for the top apple pie and more than a dozen games and events to keep kids entertained.
The games this year include an apple derby, apple bowling, a coloring contest, an apple tire throw, apple decorating and crafts, a hula-hoop competition, limbo, a moonwalk, tattoos and face painting and the opportunity to get a picture taken with a cut-out apple tree.
Two new events will be featured this year. The apple basket toss will have children throwing apples in a basketball hoop and the apple woodworking workshop allows kids to transform their apples.
Kids will receive tickets from the games that can be cashed in for prizes donated for the event by local businesses, according to Kelli Corbeil of Chittenden Bank and a member of the Putney Road Business Association, which is sponsoring the event.
"It's a lot of fun and it's free," Corbeil said. "At the apple decorating table, kids can make their apples into little people with eyes, ears and hats. And then they bring them to the apple derby for a race."
The event actually grew out of the apple pie contest, explained Corbeil. The games were introduced to entertain the contestants' children while the judges looked over the pies.
I Neil Sheehan - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 Pa-ge 41l
.Nl S n
R: V t Y And while the games are a major attraction now, last year's pie contest drew 77 contestants and the positions for the event's 12 judges are highly sought after, Corbeil said.
This year, pie judges will include Brattleboro Police Chief John Martin, the manager of The Home Depot on Putney Road and Bruce Wiggett from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
"Everyone wants to be a judge," Corbeil said. "I get calls from people all the time who want to be the ones tasting the pies."
Pies should be dropped off at the event tent in front of Nationwide Insurance, 896 Putney Road, between 9 and 10:30 a.m., according to Corbeil. The judging will begin around 11:30 a.m.
The pies become the property of the Putney Road Business Association after the judging and slices will be sold at the contest's completion.
Top prize for the pie contest is a $500 gift certificate for Hannaford's Supermarket, which sponsors the event, and second and third place prizes will be $250 and $100 gift certificates to the store.
Aside from "having fun," Corbeil said there is no underlying message to the Apple Days festivities. But she said it is amazing to see Brattleboro businesses - some of them fierce competitors - team up together to host a free event.
"Some of these businesses, like Home Depot and True Value, are competitors, but they all come together for this event," she said. 'When we approach a business to see if they want to help, nobody says no."
The event is scheduled for Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Hannaford's Plaza on Putney Road.
For more information on Apple Days, call (802) 258-6075.
WCAX Burlington, Vermont - September 20, 2004 Today In History This week in 1979, a major anti-nuclear demonstration outside the Vermont Yankee plant in Vermont. 400 protesters marched on the Vermont plant and blocked the front gate. Channel 3's Michael Gilhooly reports.
'When Vermont Yankee officials requested the protesters be removed from the front gate, state and local police moved in. Each demonstrator was asked to leave the site of their own free will and each of the 167 arrested responded they were not breaking any laws and would not leave."
The police used busses to haul the protesters away to face trespassing charges.
09121/2004 Leavitt looks to end-run Yucca 2010 opening: The EPA chief and former Utah governor may seek a safety law rewrite By Christopher Smith The Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON - With plans to bury the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada looking more uncertain, Environmental Protection Agency head Mike Leavitt may ask Congress to rewrite a critical radiation safety law so the dump can open as planned in 2010.
But the National Academies of Science Board on Radioactive Waste Management - charged with advising Congress on radioactive waste policy - was told Monday there may not be much political appetite to waive another set of regulations for the sake of keeping the proposed Yucca Mountain repository alive.
I NeiJSheean - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004-Page 5 I N
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Utah lawmakers, who have supported entombing the 77,000 tons of high-level waste, now scattered in 39 states, at Yucca Mountain, are concerned continued delays in the Nevada repository could mean more pressure to license temporary storage at Utah's Skull Valley.
Adding to the uncertainty is the race for the White House. Democratic nominee John Kerry has pledged to stop waste from being buried in Nevada, while President Bush signed the decision that cleared the way for the Yucca Mountain repository.
"That is rhetoric, since Kerry could have stopped it when he was in the Senate if he wanted to, but if so, Skull Valley becomes a primary temporary site, and temporary can be up to 100 years," Utah Republican Congressman Rob Bishop, whose district includes Skull Valley, said in an interview. "I had one Nevada politician tell me that if there's only a temporary reprieve that lasts 100 years, they don't care, they'll be happy."
The trouble now is a federal court ruling that EPA's 10,000-year limit on the amount of radiation released from the dump should have followed a National Academies recommendation for a limit on releases over hundreds of thousands of years. The Department of Energy designed Yucca Mountain to meet EPA's 10,000-year radiation standard, not the longer term the court says is required by law but that some lawmakers feel is virtually impossible to comply with.
The ruling means Leavitt, who as Utah's governor crusaded against temporarily storing Yucca-bound waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley, must decide whether EPA should write a new set of radiation limits to protect future generations or ask Congress to rewrite the 1992 Energy Policy Act to uphold the EPA's 1 0,000-year standard.
"The appearance to the public would be that Congress, having realized Yucca Mountain could not meet existing standards, was trying to dumb down the standards to meet Yucca Mountain," Sam Fowler, Democratic chief counsel to the Senate Energy Committee, told the board Monday.
Whatever the federal government does, the state of Nevada vows it will continue to fight.
"As a matter of actual morality, you shouldn't have a repository that you know will eventually be unsafe,"
said Joe Egan, lead attorney for the state.
Fowler said Yucca Mountain faces "a number of potentially fatal problems" on Capitol Hill, including a chance congressional budget writers could slash funding for Yucca Mountain this year to the point "there's not even enough to decently shut it down."
The DOE still intends to file a licensing application for Yucca Mountain in December based on EPA's 1 0,000-year protection standard. EPA Assistant Administrator Jeff Holmstead said "it's certainly possible we would go back to Congress" and ask lawmakers to rewrite the law, but no decisions have been made yet.
'We are committed to developing an appropriate regulatory response," said Holmstead. "The direction I've received from my boss, the administrator, is we want to respond to the court as quickly as we can."
Asked by Radioactive Waste Management Board member Norine Noonan just when EPA plans to decide what to do next, Holmstead said the internal discussions will "take a number of months, but we will have a decision in less than 10,000 years."
2002 Ohio nuclear scare ranked as serious Accident among top five since 1979, regulators say The Associated Press Sept. 21, 2004 WASHINGTON - Damage to the reactor head of the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio ranks among the five most serious nuclear plant accidents or near-accidents since Three Mile Island in 1979, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday.
Davis-Besse, along Lake Erie in northwest Ohio, was closed for two years after inspectors found corrosion on the reactor in March 2002. Leaking boric acid almost had eaten through a 6-inch-thick steel cap; repairs cost $600 million.
While the plant was shut down, engineers found that its undersized sump could have become clogged with debris during an accident, which choked off the flow of water to cooling pumps, according to an NRC analysis released Monday.
lNeilSheehan -RE: Vmo Yanee News Clips, Septemier21,2004 Page 6 Risk assessed Federal regulators estimated there were six chances in a 1,000 that the plant could have experienced a meltdown during the year before it was shut down for routine maintenance in February 2002.
Normally, the risk of an accident happening at Davis-Besse is about six irk 100,000, NRC spokesman Scott Bumell said. The NRC considers the risk "significant" when circumstances at a plant bring the possibility of core damage within one chance in 1,000.
Richard Wilkins, a spokesman for plant operator FirstEnergy Corp., said the agency's analysis assumes that all pumps and safety systems would fail, which is highly unlikely. Still, he said the conditions that led to the NRC's risk estimate was unacceptable.
Even if Davis-Besse's core had been damaged, its containment vessel and other safety systems would have protected the public from a radioactivity release, the NRC report said.
Past incidents Since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, only three other events at nuclear plants had a higher probability of causing a meltdown than the corrosion at Davis-Besse, the report said. These events were:
The 1985 breakdown of feedwater pumps necessary to cool the nuclear core at the Davis-Besse plant, a seven out of 100 chance of core damage.
The 1981 failure to close quickly of three main steam isolation valves at the Brunswick plant near Southport, N.C., which had a nine out of 1,000 risk factor.
The 1991 unavailability of a high-pressure injection pump at the Shearon Harris plant southwest of Raleigh, N.C., which had a risk rating of a little more than six out of 1,000.
Two other events in the last decade have had about the same risk factor as the reactor head damage at Davis-Besse:
The draining of reactor coolant at the Wolf Creek plant near Burlington, Kan., during a 1994 maintenance outage.
The loss of offsite power at the Catawba plant near Rock Hill, S.C., in 1996.
Paul Gunter, a nuclear expert at the watchdog group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said the analysis shows how close the plant came to a serious accident.
"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at this and realize how fast and loose and reckless both the industry and regulator played with public safety here," Gunter said.
The NRC report also corrects previous estimates that the Davis-Besse plant's reactor head could have continued to operate safely for two to 13 months after it was shut down in 2002. Regulators now say the plant would have been safe to operate for two to 22 months.
September 21, 2004 Mid-Hudson News Kelly repeats call for Indian Point cable probe Congresswoman Sue Kelly continues to pressure the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to fully investigate possible electrical cable separation problems at Indian Point 2 as today she reiterated her call to conduct a complete walk-down of the plant's cable and raceway system.
"We must determine that there are absolutely no weaknesses or even potential weaknesses in plant operations, and the most appropriate way to ensure that is to conduct a complete walk-down to substantiate that the plant is entirely safe," Kelly said.
On Sept. 17, Kelly wrote the latest in a series of letters she has sent to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz
I Neil Sheehan - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004
~Page 7 1 INeil Sheehan - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 Page 71 expressing her dismay with the NRC's handling of safety issues regarding the IP 2 cable and raceway system after concerns were raised publicly by former Entergy employee William Lemanski earlier this year. Kelly also has met with Diaz to make the case for a plant walk-down.
An August 20 inspection report documents the findings from the NRC's inquiry into Lemanski's concerns.
NRC inspectors identified three violations of federal regulations, but characterized each of them as "Green" in the reactor oversight process.
Lemanski remains unsatisfied with the level of scrutiny given to his concerns and David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists; last week contacted the NRC to further underscore Lemanski's case. Kelly believes the walk-down has become necessary to ensure the safety of local residents.
"At a time when plant security and safety is of paramount concern to communities surrounding the Indian Point Energy Center, it is critically important that the NRC do everything it can to ensure the safe operation of this facility," Kelly wrote to Diaz. "Again, I urge your support for an immediate and thorough inspection of the plant's cable and raceway system."
Kelly calls for wiring inspection at Indian Point 2 By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS September 21, 2004)
U.S. Rep. Sue Kelly has asked federal regulators for a visual inspection of the hundreds of miles of wiring at Indian Point 2 to ensure they are properly installed and will not fail following an accident or attack.
Kelly,tR-Katonah, wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to fully examine the plant's cable system rather than rely on a recent sample inspection of about 1 percent of the thousands of wiring circuits.
"I am very disappointed that, despite repeated requests for a complete walk-down of the plant's cable and raceway system, that this proposal has not yet been supported by the NRC," Kelly wrote in a letter to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz. The cable and raceway are a conduit system.
The letter, dated Sept. 17, was released by Kelly yesterday.
- NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency would consider Kelly's request.
But he added that regulators "have confidence that what has been done so far has demonstrated the plant can safely operate."
Sheehan acknowledged violations of wiring rules have been found at the plant, but he said "all of the concerns identified were of very low safety significance and would not defeat a safety system function."
Sheehan said Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point 2 and 3 in Buchanan, was spending
$42 million on a multi-year project to examine all wiring at Indian Point 2, and any serious problems should be uncovered during that process.
A similar project was conducted at Indian Point 3 in the 1980s when the plant was owned by the New York Power Authority.
Entergy officials declined to comment on the issue yesterday.
The issue of cable integrity has been a critical one for the NRC since a 1975 fire in a room at the Browns
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Ferry nuclear plant in Tennessee disabled all of the reactor's main and backup safety systems.
Since then, the NRC has had a strict cable separation rule requiring individual conduits, or raceways, for each circuit.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former consultant on the wiring issue at Indian Point 3, said Indian Point 2 shouldn't be allowed to operate with a problem that has existed for more than a decade.
'What troubles me is that unless you have some assurance that the few circuits you looked at were the worst, then you really can't say that there are no other problems out there," he said.
The NRC's sample inspection at Indian Point 2 was prompted by a formal complaint filed in March by William Lemanski, Entergy's former engineering manager.
He claimed that thousands of circuits at Indian Point 2 were in violation of the cable separation rule and that the plant's electronic tracking system was not reliable.
Lemanski, now a city councilman and police commissioner in Tuxedo, N.Y., said yesterday that the NRC's sample examination was not sufficient enough to detect problems.
"I think they gave Entergy a free pass concerning the magnitude of the issues," Lemanski said. "I am not at all satisfied with the results."
Middletown (Ct) News Lawyer explains nuke plant reassessment plan BY JOSH MROZINSKI, Middletown Press Staff 09/21/2004 HADDAM - A lawyer representing Wiscasset, Maine explained how the town is trying to get more taxes from the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Plant, a sister facility of the Connecticut Yankee Power Plant, at Monday night's public hearing.
The public hearing was scheduled by town officials to give residents an opportunity to learn enough about Wiscasset's actions so they can decide whether they want to pursue a similar path against Connecticut Yankee.
Town officials found out about Wiscasset's plans when they visited the Maine town in November to look at what was happening to the decommissioned plant's property. Maine Yankee had been in the process of decommissioning since 1997, gradually paying lower taxes so the payment was reduced to $1 million by 2002 from $12.4 million in 1997.
The decommissioning process involves storing spent-fuel and nuclear waste in dry casks on its property.
In 2003, though, Wiscasset assessed the power company's land at a greater value. The power company disputed the assessment, appealing to the Maine Property Tax Review Board in Augusta.
Peter L. Murray, the Wiscasset attorney, said he has worked on a team that has had a nuclear power expert, an economist, an appraiser and a real estate appraiser to determine the $135 million to $225 million value of the land.
The town will have spend from $250,000 to $500,000 for the entire effort, which could reach the Maine Supreme Court, he said.
He said they first determined the highest value and best use of the land. The land, he said, has high value because it is on the state's coast, is surrounded by fabulous scenery, is on a bay and near the highway and rails.
I Neil Sheehan - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 Page 91 I Neil Sheehan - RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 Page 91 "So you can imagine many commercial and industrial uses that can be used for this land," Murray said.
But it's current use, he said, is to store the spent-fuel rods and nuclear waste. He said they then asked what the property is worth. The storage of the waste is very valuable, he said.
- He said they chose to use the reproduction cost, less depreciation method to determine the value of the utility's buildings and improvements.
"(You) depreciate it down by a factor to reflect that it is not new," Murray said about the method.
The value of the land was determined by the capitalization of income method, which is based on what a person would pay to get the stream of income produced by a property.
As part of the capitalization of income method, Murray determined with the rest of the committee how
-much rent the power company would pay to store waste anywhere by looking at the fuel storage market.
Their analysis, he said, showed there is a market and that Maine Yankee would pay $12 million a year to
-have it stored. The period of time, he said, to have it stored would be at least 10 years, and more than likely 20 years or more.
The assessor took the lower number attached to the value of the property - $135 million - and added it to the $60 million in reproduction costs to get a total assessment of $195 million.
Sept. 21, 2004 Protesters await plutonium shipment U.S. sending material to France for conversion to fuel for nuclear plant JENNIFER HOLLAND Associated Press Protesters kept watch along the Charleston waterfront Monday for an overseas shipment of weapons-grade plutonium, which they say poses both an environmental and terrorist threat..
The U.S. Department of Energy is sending the material to a reactor in the south of France, where it will be converted into fuel for a nuclear power plant and returned next year for a test run in a commercial reactor.
"This is really the wrong signal to be sending to countries around the world," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International.
The mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel will be made by mixing uranium oxide and plutonium oxide from older nuclear weapons and placing the material in fuel rods. The department must ship the material overseas for conversion because there isn't a plant in the United States that can do it.
Officials want a facility at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., but construction has been delayed.
The facility is part of an agreement between the United States and Russia to dispose of 68 metric tons of plutonium.
Rick Ford, a Department of Energy spokesman, said his agency does not discuss the details of transporting plutonium and would not confirm where the shipment was in its journey.
Areva, a govemment-owned company in France coordinating the shipment, had said two freighters loaded with naval guns and armed guards were sent from a British port this month to pick up the material in Charleston.
Federal officials have said the Energy Department has adequate safeguards in place to meet sabotage or
Neil Sheeh-an-iRE: Vermon-tYankee News Clips,-September21, 200 Page 10 terrorism threats. Activists, for example, were barred from launching a protest flotilla.
The Coast Guard would not discuss efforts to escort the shipment through Charleston harbor. "We can tell you that every effort has been made for safe, unimpeded transit of all commercial vessels in the Port of Charleston," said Lt. Calvin Summers.
Anti-nuclear activists still are concerned about environment hazards during the busy hurricane season.
'There certainly are a lot of safety questions, and also it sets a really bad precedent from a nuclear nonproliferation perspective," Clements said.
September 20th, 2004 Q-C nuclear station records highest capacity in fleet By Jennifer DeWitt CORDOVA, Ill. - Exelon Nuclear's 10 nuclear generating stations set a new company record this summer operating at 97.3 percent of their rated capacity, the company announced Monday.
Leading the charge was Exelon's Quad-City Station, which had the best capacity factor in the fleet, operating at 99.8 percent of its rated capacity. Capacity factor is the ratio of electricity generated for a period of time to the energy that could have been generated at continuous full-power operation during the same period.
'The record performance resulted from a combination of better preseason preparation and an overall higher level of equipment reliability,' said Chris Crane, Exelon Nuclear's president and chief nuclear officer.
The fleet surpassed it previous capacity factor record, set in 2003, by more than a full percentage point. In 2003, Exelon operated at 96.2 percent of its rated capacity.
'This accomplishment is the direct result of the dedicated efforts of every employee at Quad-Cities station," said Quad-Cities station site vice president Tim Tulon. 'This outstanding performance is a reflection of the continued focus on safe and reliable generation at our nuclear power plant."
Bill Stoermer, spokesman for the Quad-Cities Station in Cordova, Ill., said Exelon Nuclear measures capacity factors year-round, but summer - the period from June 1 to Aug. 31 - is particularly critical because it is when electric demand is the highest. 'This summer wasn't as demanding as other summers," he said, adding that the weather does not impact the generation level. 'Whether it is hot or cold, we would produce the same amount of electricity."
Stoermer said all utilities use capacity factor as a means of measuring their performance. 'We're always trying to be above 90 percent - which is the median for the industry."
The high ranking among its sister plants comes after three summers in which the Quad-City plant has had forced, unplanned shutdowns, which have led to lower capacity factors.
With 17 nuclear reactors, Exelon Nuclear is the largest operator of nuclear energy in the nation. Together, the 10 stations produced about 34 million megawatt hours of electricity over the summer, which is enough electricity to power 11 million homes for the summer period.
The Quad-Cities station was one of five Exelon stations that remained at full power throughout the summer season. The other five stations reduced power or shut down briefly for maintenance this summer.
END
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RE: Vermont Yankee News Clips, September 21, 2004 Creation Date:
9/21/04 11:30AM From:
"Williams, Rob" <rwill23@entergy.com>
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