Electric cars are a pipe dream

[universaldistress]

That still means you need to extract it and transport it.
Where you grow this algae is not typically going to be right next to the power company you know, it's going to take a lot of land area and typically be in sunny warm locations with access to the ocean (need to grow this in seawater, almost no one has enough spare fresh water).
I do think this is one of the more promising methods for eventually using up some of our CO2, but I do question how soon and how much of the CO2 we could capture by this method. In the US alone, our CO2 from coal fired power plants would be over 5 million tons per day and CO2 from Natural Gas plants is another 3 million tons per day. If we managed to just use one quarter of this CO2 it would still yield about 20 million tons of aglae per day!

BUT

If they eventually make this work, the output from these huge algae farms would be Biofuels, which makes advanced hybrids like the Prius or Volt as the way to go, not EVs.

I personally see this as being a resource to make plastics. I am not confident enough about global warming to sign up for biofuels. Though I reserve judgement. IF global warming turns out to be not such a big issue then biofuels could be a goer. But I still see us needing to find alternative resources to make plastics, in the long run.

We don't have a world government which can dictate this and with our recent climate meeting in Copenhagen you can see that it is not quite as rosy as you think. Not all governments agree on what needs to be done or who should do it or that it even needs to be done. When you add to that that no one can yet point to any real harm caused to a significant number of people by GW it gets a bit difficult to convince govenments that they have to take drastic action because the sky is falling, or that if they don't the future is dire because 10 or 20 million people (out of 9,000 million people on the planet) living on low lying islands or river deltas might have to move sometime later this century, particularly when most of those people live in one of the countries that is not going to lower its net emissions of CO2.

Sadly true enough.

The developing countries of the world claim that reduction to 1990 levels penalizes them and prevents them from achieving a standard of living that the US and Europe enjoy and so they won't agree to CO2 restrictions except on a per-capita level, which means their CO2 is going to grow and grow.

It's unlikely that the industrialized nations will penalize themselves too much if they have to do it unilaterally since they already find it difficult to compete with the developing world and even if they do by forcing expensive CO2 scrubbing costs onto Electricity Generation (and we reallly have no alternative but Coal for generating electricity for many decades), then you significantly drive up the cost of running EVs and thus make them less attractive.

Arthur

Cost is not the only issue, but obviously I take all your points. A transition to EVs if needed will need subsidising no doubt.

It's just about finding that renewable or low CO2 resource that could work well enough to power the needs of the transition.

 

[universaldistress]

Ok. So IF the Chinese do manage to clean-up nuclear reactor technology then we could be in for such a good free ride; one that has the potential to not only clean-up nuclear technology but also reduce the amount of weapons grade fuel being produced, allow nuclear technology to be pursued safely by other nations without fear of nuclear weapons being produced (though I suspect dirty bombs could still be an issue), power the large energy requirements of EV technology (the reason why China are pursuing this no doubt), slowly eat meaningfully into the CO2 conundrum by removing gradually the need for coal powered stations (or at least buy some time on tackling the issues CO2 produce), in fact completely destroy the premise of this thread and back-up my assertion that EV is in fact not a pipe dream, and will in fact be very doable given the clean power Nuclear Power (thorium) COULD produce.

More importantly it could buy us time in the fusion issue, and mean fusion wouldn't need to be fast tracked under the risk of serious GW.

 

[universaldistress]

Would seem that thorium is actually a big factor in the pull-out of funding for existing reactors. Why fund a technology which harbours so many problems when a cleaner solution could be years away?

So Fukushima could be a variable in the mix (though I still back my initial stance that present nuclear is safe if done properly), but is there a much more swaying variable in the heads of the boards deciding the allocation of funding? They obviously don't want to tie up money in a technology that could be defunct within ten or more years. THAT doesn't make business sense.

 

[Billy T]

For optimistic POV on Throium reactor see: http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_reactor/thorium_reactor_1.php

The following is from wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor):
The advantages cited by Weinberg and his associates at Oak Ridge National Laboratory include:

It is safe to operate and maintain: Molten fluoride salts are mechanically and chemically stable at sea-level pressures at intense heats and radioactivity.

Fluoride combines ionically with almost any transmutation product, keeping it out of circulation. Even radioactive noble gases — notably xenon-135, an important neutron absorber — come out in a predictable, containable place, where the fuel is coolest and most dispersed, namely the pump bowl. Even given an accident, dispersion into a biome is unlikely.

The salts do not burn in air or water, and the fluoride salts of the actinides and radioactive fission products are generally not soluble in water.

There is no high pressure steam in the core, just low-pressure molten salt. This means that the MSR's core cannot have a steam explosion, and does not need the most expensive item in a light water reactor, a high-pressure steam vessel for the core. Instead, there is a vat and low-pressure pipes (for molten salt) constructed of thick sheet metal. Although the metal is an exotic nickel alloy that resists heat and corrosion, Hastelloy-N, the amount needed is much smaller and the thin metal is less expensive to form and weld.

The thorium breeder reactor uses low-energy thermal neutrons, similarly to light water reactors. It is therefore much safer than fast-neutron breeder reactors that the uranium-to-plutonium fuel cycle requires. The thorium fuel cycle therefore combines safe reactors, a long-term source of abundant fuel, and no need for expensive fuel-enrichment facilities.

The molten-salt-fueled reactor operates much hotter than LWR reactors, from 650 °C in the tested MSRE (see above) and related designs, to as hot as 950 °C in untested designs. So, very efficient Brayton cycle (gas turbine) generators are possible. The MSRE already demonstrated operation at 650 °C, making the 1965 MSR the most advanced of the "generation IV reactors." The efficiency from high temperatures reduces fuel use, waste emission and the cost of auxiliary equipment (major capital expenses) by 50% or more.

MSRs work in small sizes, as well as large, so a utility could easily build several small reactors (say 100 MWe) from income, reducing interest expense and business risks.

Molten salt fuel reactors are not experimental. Several have been constructed and operated at 650 °C temperatures for extended times, with simple, practical validated designs. There is no need for new science and very little risk in engineering new, larger or modular designs.

In most new reactor designs, the longest-lead item is the safety testing of solid fuel elements. Fuel tests for a new reactor design usually must cover several three-year refueling cycles, and therefore take more than ten years. Since the MSR uses molten salts, the fuel has already been validated, and development can proceed more quickly.

The reactor, like all nuclear plants, generally has little effect on biomes. Absent any nuclear incident, waste is entirely separated from the environment unlike fossil energy with constant CO2 emitting smoke stacks and thermal cooling ponds. It uses only small amounts of land and relatively small amounts of construction, unlike fossil and major renewable energy projects (i.e. macro rather than micro/nano/pico scale hydro, solar PV/thermal, wind etc.).

 

[adoucette]

No, the customers will pay EVENTUALLY for the capital that made quipment / plants/ that serve them, but not one cent while it is under construction. This is a major reason why nuclear units are so expensive – they get ZERO on the capital for typically a decade at least.

As you stated in post 1803, NRG Energy wrote off $481 million that they had invested in the planned but now cancelled Texas nuclear plant – the share holders, not the customers, will eat this loss as that capital never was / will be part of a unit that was placed on-line.

“In general, the rate base consists of the value of property, as used by the utility in providing service.” From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_base_(energy)
Thus the $481 million will never show up in the rate base as it never will provide any service to the utility’s customers.

Your link about the Kansas coal plant states: “The plant is now expected to start up in the fourth quarter of this year. Originally, the plant was to be supplying power in late summer. The new figures include additional costs for contingencies. Caisley said just when the higher cost would be reflected in rates was unclear." When they get to start charging for the capital of the new plant is uncertain because they don’t know when it will be on-line, especially as it has already experienced construction delays.
No the article say that when the customers start to pay higher rates is uncertain.

No Billy,
The article was quite clear:

The Kansas rate request, coupled with previous increases related to the plant, would raise rates by 40 percent.

Which means they had already raised rates because of this plant.

It is a state by state thing, but states do allow it.

Mississippi for instance recently allowed the PSC to authorize "pay as you go"

http://www.entergy-mississippi.com/baseload_generation/faq.aspx

Arthur

 

[universaldistress]

For optimistic POV on Throium reactor see: http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_reactor/thorium_reactor_1.php

Maybe a bit too optimistic, though thorium has been done, so only in application, not in plausibility.

 

[Billy T]

Recall my statement was that the cost of construction are not included in the rate base until the new unit is placed on line. I did note that public service commission can, and sometimes do, when they judge it to be in the public interest, allow increases in the RoR (rate of return) to help the utility meet current financing cost. I.e. customers pay more as if the rate base were increased.*

{post 1822} ...
We are talking about the rate base, not the rate of return. Thus, in the public interest, the public service commission can increase the rate of return allowed, to help the company out, but not the rate base. ...

All that has happened is that Mississippi has recently formalized this in law which compels the customers to help finance the capital cost but still does not include the invested capital in the rate base until the unit is placed on line.

... Mississippi for instance recently allowed the PSC to authorize "pay as you go" http://www.entergy-mississippi.com/baseload_generation/faq.aspx
Arthur

Yes, now long standing policy has been formalized in Mississippi. Here are some quotes from your link.
By paying the interest costs of a new plant during the construction process, we can avoid large rate increases in the future,

The “pay-as-you-go” financing option is of great advantage to customers as it eases their cost burden by saving millions in interest costs

Under previous Mississippi law, public utilities could not collect these costs {referring to interest costs, not capital costs} in rates until plant operation began.

This “pay-as-you-go” financing option is of great advantage to customers as it eases their cost burden by saving millions in interest costs

If the Mississippi Public Service Commission does not agree that halting construction is in the best interest of the customer, Entergy Mississippi would have to refund dollars {of interest costs} collected from customers.

Billy T insert: Note that if the unit does not come on line all these financing charges paid by the customers must be repaid, typically by reduced rate charges until they are. The underlying principle remains the customer does not pay unless served. By, “pay as you go” of INTEREST costs the compounding of these costs for ~10 years is avoided, resulting in lower later rate increases when the unit is placed on line and the company begins to recover its capital investment in an increased rate base.

Traditionally … The company then recovers these costs from customers after the plant begins operation. … Such plants take about 10 years to build, and we simply are not able to finance a project of this length and cost without being able to recoup {financing or interest cost} costs along the way. Even if traditional financing methods were an option, the interest accrued during this construction time frame would greatly add to the cost of the plant and would result in rates being higher than they otherwise would need to be when the plant went online. This is a unique project and it requires a different financing approach.

SUMMARY: Nothing different from what I have stated: CAPITAL INVESTED IN NEW PLANTS IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE RATE BASE UNTIL THE PLANT IS PLACED ON LINE.

In the past when states were not as broke as they are now, and interest rates were higher, it was not uncommon for the state to help with the financing of needed construction – I.e. at least giving a guarantee of the loans extended by the banks, as the Federal Government is doing now for the nuclear plant under construction in George by Southern Company. AGAIN: NEVER is construction capital included in the rate base until the unit is serving the customers. My claim stands unchanged

----------------
* This discussion of rate base got started because I noted the Three Mile Island nuclear plant was placed on line on 31 December by management more concerned with profit than safety. (About half of the back-up system water cooling pumps were not yet installed.) It is quite typical that utilities go on line in late December to get their construction cost included in the rate base for the coming year. Likewise plant are decommissioned typically in January, so they will still be in the rate base of that year. My point was and still is that profit is too much a consideration in US's privately owned nuclear power companies. They should be government owned and operated as in France where safety is the primary consideration, not corporate profits.

 

[adoucette]

Recall my statement was that the cost of construction are not included in the rate base until the new unit is placed on line. I did note that public service commission can, and sometimes do, when they judge it to be in the public interest, allow increases in the RoR (rate of return) to help the utility meet current financing cost. I.e. customers pay more as if the rate base were increased.

Just semantics Billy, if you pay more your rates have gone up.

When Mississippi allows them to "pay as you go", they are indeed paying for the plant's costs before it goes online.

Other states also allow this.

Rate Base: The investment value established by a regulatory authority upon which a utility is permitted to earn a specified rate of return. Generally, this represents the amount of property used and useful in public service and may include plant held for future use and may or may not include all or part of construction work in progress

http://www.northwesternenergy.com/display.aspx?Page=Glossary_of_Terms&Item=23

So clearly construction work in progress CAN be part of the Rate Base.


Arthur

 

[Billy T]

Just semantics Billy, if you pay more your rates have gone up... Arthur

No Rate base and Rate of Return are two different concepts, not "just semantics" All my statements have been That the rate base increases only when the unit is placed on line - That is why TMI (and many other power plants) are placed on line in late December, even if not fully completed.(In TMI case placed on line on 31 December, about half the back-up pumps of the safetry system were not yet installed.)

That, in the US system, places profits ahead of safety to some extent. This is safety issue and not "just semantics."

--------------------
Your link from a power company defining "rate base" does seem to allow construction costs to be collected prior to the unit going on line. This may be changing policy in some state but for all existing nuclear plants, their construction costs were added to the rate base only when units came on line. That power company definition conflicts with the one I quoted earlier, from Wiki, as I recall. What is allowed in the rate base is not a law of nature, so it can be changing now.

Again, I was discussing this because of fact TMI went on line 31 Dec without all the safety pumps installed to get more profit for the company, at some greater risk to the public. Not the way to run nuclear power in the US, IMHO.

 

[adoucette]

And Billy, my last link to the NW Energy site clearly states that Construction can be included in the Rate Base.

And NO Billy, safety is NOT put ahead of profits, because profits are regulated.

As for the TMI case, you keep asserting that, please provide some actual proof.
You know, that the NRC gave it it's operating licence when half of the required safety system was not installed, because the plants accident happened in March of 79, just 90 days later.

 

[Billy T]

And NO Billy, safety is NOT put ahead of profits, because profits are regulated. ...

Yes the rate of return is set by the public service commission but the profit can be increased by management cutting corners to get the rate base increased a year earlier. This often happens. In the TMI case management increased profits by 40 million dollars by going on line on 31 December. - see proof below.

... As for the TMI case, you keep asserting that, please provide some actual proof. ...

I will not spend much time looking for proof it was placed on line on 31 December for rate base reason and then shut down for pump installation etc. in January but did find this:

"By starting up before the year end, the plant qualified its owners for as much as $40 million in federal tax credits and write-offs. In the ensuing days of January, it had been shut down for a two-week interval while engineers from the Metropolitan Edison Co., operators of the reactor down-river from Harrisburg, Pa., traced sources of leaks in the piping and pump system..."

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/ch1.htm

Here, at least, is clear proof the profits, despite being regulated, were boosted by 40 million dollars. Most articles now available concern the accident, not the three months earlier period of placing the unit on line. Also note unit was paced on line with KNOWN leaks in the plumbing and shut down after less than 10 days of operation (as I recall) to fix these known problems. (If the leaks were not known, that is even worse as it means the plumbing was not even tested!)

When the accident occurred all of the safety pumps had been installed, but perhaps not adequately tested. (No one knows the cause of the accident, but it started with pump failures):

"... A pump that sends hot water to the steam generator failed for reasons still unexplained. Instantaneously, a second pump feeding cooling water to the reactor shut down. It had been fed water from the first pump.

A sensor – " realizing" that the steam generator no longer was receiving water – immediately shut down the plant's giant turbine. With electronic prescience the reactor sensed that the turbine did not want any more steam. A switch was automatically thrown, and a powerful jet of steam shot up from the plant's turbine building at a pressure of 1,000 pounds per square inch. ...''

From same link as above. Probably, IMHO, the pumps and piping were not adequately tested as shut down for that would eat into profits. Read the link. It tells the time line of the disaster, including fact another valve stuck open filling the containment vessel with radioactive steam that had to be released to the public.

Multiple pump and valve failures in only two moths of operation make me think profits had a lot to do with this accident - expensive to adequately test them so this was not done.

 

[adoucette]

I will not spend much time looking for proof it was placed on line on 31 December for rate base reason and then shut down for pump installation etc. in January

So what you are saying is you have NO PROOF of your oft repeated assertion.

"By starting up before the year end, the plant qualified its owners for as much as $40 million in federal tax credits and write-offs. In the ensuing days of January, it had been shut down for a two-week interval while engineers from the Metropolitan Edison Co., operators of the reactor down-river from Harrisburg, Pa., traced sources of leaks in the piping and pump system..."

So, had they started it up anytime that year they would have got the same savings, so putting it off till the end of the year implies just the opposite to me, that they used as much time as they could before starting up the reactor. And they don't mention any pumps that should have been installed but weren't, so a more reasonable interpretation is they took as much time as they could and yet also considered the impact to the bottom line if they waited a few more days, so I'd say that's when the plant was ready to begin operation, which was 10 months after it got it's licence to operate (Feb 78) and I suspect leaks wouldn't likely have been found until it got put in actual operation.

Sorry, but your humble opinion that they were compromising safety means very little to me.

Arthur

 

[Billy T]

So what you are saying is you have NO PROOF of your oft repeated assertion.

No. I am saying it hard to find it now after all these years. I lived in Columbia MD at the time and read all I could about it. The quote I found from the Washington Post does confirm it was placed on line in December as that got them 40 million dollars in credits etc. and also that it shut down in January for two weeks for repair of leaks.

So, had they started it up anytime that year they would have got the same savings, so putting it off till the end of the year implies just the opposite to me, that they used as much time as they could before starting up the reactor. And they don't mention any pumps that should have been installed but weren't, so a more reasonable interpretation is they took as much time as they could and yet also considered the impact to the bottom line if they waited a few more days, so I'd say that's when the plant was ready to begin operation, which was 10 months after it got it's licence to operate (Feb 78) and I suspect leaks wouldn't likely have been found until it got put in actual operation. ...

If unit was not put on-line before fully ready, then explain why they shut unit down almost immediately in January for more work on the unit. 40 million dollars, about to be lost by one more day's delay of not being on line, is quite a strong motivation to take some slight chances with the public safety, is it not? Especially as you can then promptly take the unit off line, fix the leaks and install what was missing. - That took two weeks.

The fact that half the back-system pumps were not installed on 31 December when unit went on line I remember from newspaper articles I read at the time of the incident. - Quite a few were critical of the management and contained facts like this. I am not particularly good at searching and these old newspaper articles are probably not on line to find now. That does not mean all the back-up pumps were installed when the unit went on line and that my memory is false.

 

[Billy T]

... You know, that the NRC gave it it's operating licence when half of the required safety system was not installed, because the plants accident happened in March of 79, just 90 days later.

No, I knew that only after the accident, when I read it in local papers, (Baltimore Sun, I think, but could have been Washington post.)

I had not noticed until now that you have already admitted my memory (that half the back-up system pumps were not installed) was correct.

As I stated in earlier post, part of the problem with US approach to nuclear power, was that just like one agency was both promoting drilling in the gulf and regulating it, there was no US agency concerned ONLY with safety. The same agency also promoted nuclear power. When that agency was the AEC, promotion was their main focus.

You should also now admit that management can and does, "cut corners" to boost profits - 40 million dollar in the TMI case. I.e. your statement that they can not because public service commission regulates profits is FALSE. They control the rate of return on the invested base but not when new units are added to the base by corporate management deciding to put them on line, ready or not. More reason why distinguishing between rate of return and rate base is not "just semantics."

...And NO Billy, safety is NOT put ahead of profits, because profits are regulated. ...

FALSE.

 

[adoucette]

I had not noticed until now that you have already admitted my memory (that half the back-up system pumps were not installed) was correct.

I made no such admission Billy.

You should also now admit that management can and does, "cut corners" to boost profits - 40 million dollar in the TMI case. I.e. your statement that they can not because public service commission regulates profits is FALSE. They control the rate of return on the invested base but not when new units are added to the base by corporate management deciding to put them on line, ready or not. More reason why distinguishing between rate of return and rate base is not "just semantics."
FALSE.

You haven't shown that cut corners or that the Reactors weren't ready to be put online. There are miles of piping and many pumps involved, so it doesn't surprise me that they shut it down to find some leaks. The normal first year of operation of nukes in that period was only about 50-60% uptime. Again you have not shown any of your assertions to be anything but assertions. The fact that they started it up in December doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Indeed it looks like the Commission investigating the accident looked into that very allegation made by Public Citizen, a Ralph Nader group which published a report 8 days after the accident: "Death and Taxes: An Investigation of the Initial Operation of Three Mile Island No. 2," asserting that GPU rushed TMI-2 into commercial operation before its safety was assured to accrue certain tax benefits.

The Commission instead found:

The Commission retained Martin Whitman to review the financial
issues associated with TMI-2's going commercial. Whitman's analysis --
a summary of which is attached as Appendix F to this paper --
concludes that GPU's financial condition was sound independent of the
$55.1 million in tax benefits that accrued as a result of TMI-2's being
declared commercial in 1978. In fact, Whitman's report states that if
tax credits and depreciation were not taken in 1979, the penalty for
that delay would only be interest on the aggregate tax benefit; the
benefit itself would not be lost but rather delayed.

So while your claim that they got the millions in credits because they went Commercial in 78 is true, what you were implying, that they wouldn't have got those credits had they not done so, is not true. So the net difference, the interest on that money is insignificant in comparison.

As far as "going Commercial" turns out that had been in plan for some time:

in August, Met Ed notified the NRC that the unit would go commercial on Nov. 1, 1978. In October, the date for going commercial was changed to Nov. 26, 1978. In November, Met Ed set the date for commercial operation as Dec. 1, 1978. On Dec. 15, 1978, Met Ed informed the NRC that TMI-2 would be commercial on Dec. 31, 1978.

Finally:

It appears that from TMI-2 management perspective, going commercial was simply an accounting term of art. Declaring TMI-2 commercial had no effect on the operation of the plant since prior to Dec. 30, 1978, TMI-2 has been generating and distributing electricity.

Arthur

 

[Billy T]

{post 1881}... Nuclear plants (PWRs which are most of what we run) don't operate at much less than full power. Their capacity is based on hours of operation, not rate of power. You power them up and they pretty much go full bore. ... Arthur

As this in not necessarily true, I replied:

{post 1822}... As nuclear plants are then most capital intensive, yes they try to keep them operating a full capacity – supply the “base load.” That does not mean they cannot operate at reduced capacity. To do that, I think, they put the control rods deeper into the core and reduce the water flow, so that the steam is still at the same temperature and pressure, just with reduced steam volume produced.

I own shares in Southern Company (Most likely one to put new plant on line and only company that has received the Federal guarantee of the construction loans) They have three nuclear plants in operation and file reports to government if anything in their operation changes. C. Schwab then sends a summary to me. Every few weeks, it tells they have had to reduce the operational power level. ...

Here is my 25 April report from Schwab:
“Southern Co's 1,150-megawatt Unit 1 at the Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia exited an outage Sunday and ramped up to 30 percent power by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. …”
I would say 30% is certainly less than “full bore”
Nuclear plants do often operate at less than full capacity or even go off line for days. Thus their energy generation is less than full capacity times hours of operation. This is because some maintance and testing can (even MUST be) be done when they are running at reduced capacity as the unit 1 is now.

I made no such admission Billy. ... Arthur

but in post 1832 you said:

... the NRC gave it it's operating licence when half of the required safety system was not installed, because the plants accident happened in March of 79, just 90 days later.

(bold added by BT) I had more specific information from what I had read years go in summer of 1979 in the newspapers that it was half the back-up system’s pumps that were not installed, so I took this post of yours to be an admission that my memory was correct at least that half of some safety system (I am sure it was back-up pumps) not installed when they were granted permission to go on line. Nor were they installed until January 1980 when after being on line for a few days they went off line for two weeks for this and more adequate testing of the plumbing system. It was leaking non radioactive water when they went on line on 31 December 1979 to avoid losing the 40 million dollar credit by getting plant included in the rate base for 1980.

If not admitting that plant went on line with half of some safety system not yet installed, what the hell are you stating?

I have always been careful to avoid anyone thinking that the absence of these pumps had anything to due with the March 80 accident by pointing out that they were all installed and working before the accident. They were installed during the January two week shut down.

 

[adoucette]

As to what I was trying to say, Billy, read the whole post:

As for the TMI case, you keep asserting that, please provide some actual proof.
You know, that the NRC gave it it's operating licence when half of the required safety system was not installed, because the plants accident happened in March of 79, just 90 days later.

I was simply asking you to PROVIDE PROOF of your assertion, "that the NRC gave it it's operating licence when half of the required safety system was not installed", I was not saying that your assertion was true.


And NO, Billy, apparently you didn't read the commission report into the accident, it stated quite clearly that they wouldn't lose the Credit even if they didn't go online in December, just the interest on the money, which is insignificant in comparison.

Whitman's report states that ... the penalty for that delay would only be interest on the aggregate tax benefit; the benefit itself would not be lost but rather delayed.

So your assertion that they did this for monetary reasons doesn't hold up.

The Vogtle thing you quoted was about a reactor being powered back up after an outage, they had ramped it up to 30%, but they were on the way to full power. I didn't say they COULDN'T run a reactor at less than full power, that's just not what they normally do, they don't LOAD FOLLOW.

Arthur

 

[Billy T]

... the commission report into the accident, it stated quite clearly that they wouldn't lose the Credit even if they didn't go online in December, just the interest on the money, which is insignificant in comparison.
So your assertion that they did this {went on line 31 Dec79 to avoid losing 40million dollars of revenue in 1980 by having increase in rate base for 1980, not a year later.}on line in 1979 would add to the for monetary reasons doesn't hold up.

I admit that I have inaccurately said the 40 million would be a lost when it would only be delayed a year if the plant came on line in 1980, instead of in 1979. So it is true that They only lost forever, one year of interest on 40 million dollars. I forget the interest rates back then but they were exceptionally high (more than 10% as I recall), so their "forever loss" was only about 4 million dollars. None the less that was enough to motivate the management to put plant on line for last day of 1979, even though it was not completely finished and not yet with plumbing leaks all fixed.

Arguing about the amount is sort of beside the point. My point is and has been that unlike the French's government owned and operated system, the US system is private and run for the benefit of profits. This, with the fact their revenue is the product the allowed rate of return times the rate base tends to encourage "cutting corners" to get a decade or more of investment put into the rate base ASAP.

Many nuclear plant do as Three Mile Island did, get placed on line late in the year even if they are not fully finished. Of course if the are finished in say July the go on line in July to start getting revenue from energy sale ASAP. Most often the "missing parts" have nothing to do with safety - for example perhaps only one of two cooling towers is functional, so the unit will operate at half power until both towers are functional. In TMI the case, the "missing parts" were slightly safety related (but all the back-up pumps were installed and functional before the accident, so had nothing to due with it.)

The accident was caused by primary pump failure made worse by a vent value (purposely open to avoid excessive pressure in the reactor) sticking in the open position so radio-active steam continued to build inside the containment vessel a then had to b e vented to the public.

I have never read any of the NRC reports. All my information comes from newspaper articles during the month or so following the accident. Mainly from the Baltimore Sun, where it was the number one story for weeks as very low level radiation did hit Baltimore. Quite possibly the newspapers were also stating that they went on line 31 December 1979 to avoid a 40 million dollar loss and that too stuck in my mind. Clearly the 40 million was not a "forever" loss - just a one year delay in rate base increase as I understand it now. (I did not remember any dollar figure -just found that 40 million figure in searches now.)

...The Vogtle thing you quoted was about a reactor being powered back up after an outage, they had ramped it up to 30%, but they were on the way to full power. I didn't say they COULDN'T run a reactor at less than full power, that's just not what they normally do, they don't LOAD FOLLOW. Arthur

If Schwab send me a report when they get back to full power, I will post it. This is the unit that about 10 days ago had a still unexplained automatic full shut down. I suspect they are running at reduced power level (30%) and will continue to run at reduced power until they have discovered what went wrong. Thus they are not just ramping up to full power and happened to be at 30%. They are at 30% and investigating. Perhaps they will go to 60% and continue the investigation. I assume that after a few weeks, even if he cause of the automatic shut down is still not known, they will go back to full power.

I will not argue more with you about minor details but only discuss the main point, which is that the US system is run to make profits for the corporations, and while safety is a great concern to them, it is not their only concern. - Profits can be increased with a little "cutting of corners" to add the large investment to the rate base a year earlier, so that is done. The TMI case avoided a "forever loss" of ~4 million dollars and that was sufficient motive to very slightly place the public at additional risk for a few days at the end of 1979 and first week of 1980 (until the missing back-up safety system pumps were installed). This would not have happened in the French system where profits never displaces safety considerations.

I am not sure, how the French set the charge for energy provided. Perhaps they do not even have a "rate base" but politics probably plays a much more important role. I would bet that rates charged per KWh never go up until after the election and only very rarely increased when the economy needs stimulation. The French government can use electric rates to modulate economic activity, at least slightly and reach ALL of the population very directly and immediately (The FED doing the same has a lot of delay and mainly impacts only a small fraction of the population directly.)

 

[adoucette]

I admit that I have inaccurately said the 40 million would be a lost when it would only be delayed a year if the plant came on line in 1980, instead of in 1979. So it is true that They only lost forever, one year of interest on 40 million dollars. I forget the interest rates back then but they were exceptionally high (more than 10% as I recall), so their "forever loss" was only about 4 million dollars. None the less that was enough to motivate the management to put plant on line for last day of 1979, even though it was not completely finished and not yet with plumbing leaks all fixed.

No Billy, the delay wouldn't have cost them interest on it for a full year, once they put the plant online their accounting team would have rolled those credits into their tax liability and held back paying taxes to compensate, and that's done on at most a quarterly basis.

Arguing about the amount is sort of beside the point.

No it's not, you were making the claim that it was a LOT of money and thus you implied they were motivated by that large sum of money to cut corners. Now you are down to 1/10th the amount, so clearly the motivation to cut corners is similarly reduced is it not? But even your last amount is 4 times too high, thus the motivation is roughly 1/40th of what you claimed it to be to start this argument. My contention is that no one was going to risk this huge investment by cutting corners for such a small amount.

Indeed as the commission found:

Declaring TMI-2 commercial had no effect on the operation of the plant since prior to Dec. 30, 1978, TMI-2 has been generating and distributing electricity.

As to the leaks they found that required the shut down, you apparently have forgot what Nuclear Power was like back in the 70s. Compare TMI-2 to the other reactor right next to it:

From the time it went commercial in September 1974, until the end of 1978, TMI-1 had a cumulative capacity factor (actual generation divided by maximum theoretical generation) of 76 percent - more than 15 percent above the national average.

So that 61% was the National Average and in the first year, few plants hit that mark. The outage in January for TMI-2 was not at all unusual for a new plant.

My point is and has been that unlike the French's government owned and operated system, the US system is private and run for the benefit of profits. This, with the fact their revenue is the product the allowed rate of return times the rate base tends to encourage "cutting corners" to get a decade or more of investment put into the rate base ASAP.

We have twice as many reactor hours as the French and only one plant failure which has NOT been shown to have anything to do with "cutting corners".

Indeed, the essential cause of the accident was that the PORV had failed in an open position and there was no indicator of it's actual position. The net was, the operators were confused by the information they were recieving and didn't realize they were having a LOCA. Indeed control room operators at TMI infered water inventory in the reactor vessel from the level of water in the pressurizer based on experience that if there was water in the pressurizer, the reactor vessel was filled with water (which it would be if the PORV wasn't failed open).

The inference was relied on because there was no direct measure of water level in the reactor vessel. So, despite rapidly decreasing reactor coolant system pressure during the accident, water level in the pressurizer rose to unusually high levels and remained high. But the operators, believing that high water level in the pressurizer indicated too much water in the RCS the operators all but eliminated the flow of emergency cooling water into the core at about 4-1/2 minutes into the accident.

In the aftermath it was clear that this was in reality a very MINOR event, that had been made so much worse simply because of operator actions that were largly driven by lack of critical information, the presence of confusing ambiguous information and general poor control room design.

Consider the Alarm Panels. Several Hundred Alarms went off within SECONDS that night. The problem of course is that doesn't help at all, more to the point the information they did need and could have used either was not available or was not easy to comeby.

For instance while they had a "PORV Position Indicator" but in reality it was not a direct reading of the PORV valve position, it only indicated the last signal sent to the valve, in this case it indicated that the SIGNAL to close the valve had been sent. So it LOOKED to the operators like it was closed (this is a case of Ambiguous information) when in fact it was stuck open. The one instrument reading they did have that would have provided data to indicate that the PORV had failed open was the temperature at the discharge point of the reactor coolant drain tank but this instrument was not visible from the main control room:

". . . you have to walk out around the panel and go behind panels that face the control room to actually read this adjacent panel."

I'm sure what we learned from this event was used by the French to improve their control rooms as well.

The accident was caused by primary pump failure made worse by a vent value (purposely open to avoid excessive pressure in the reactor) sticking in the open position so radio-active steam continued to build inside the containment vessel a then had to b e vented to the public.

No Billy, read the commission report. The PORV was not purposely open, it failed in the open position. The reason the PORV valve opened during the reactor SCRAM was because two valves from the Auxiliary Feedwater System that should have been open had been left closed after the March 26 surveillance test performed on motor driven pumps that included the emergency feedwater 12 valves. That test required closing both EFV-12 valves. But they should have been reopened after the test. Unfortunately, there were no procedures for daily inspection of valve positions (there are now).

I have never read any of the NRC reports.

Try it sometime.

Arthur

 

[Billy T]

I said I would tell when unit came back to full power:
"April 26 (Reuters) - Southern Co's 1,150-megawatt Unit 1 at the Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia ramped up to full power by early Tuesday, from 30 percent power Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. The unit shut automatically due to a repair on Thursday and exited outage on Sunday. Meanwhile, Unit 2 was operating at full power."