[NukeNet] Davis-Besse Owners Want $$$ After Near Meltdown

[Bill Smirnow]

  CRAC-2: http://www.mothersalert.org/crac   Meltdown Probability According
To NRC:
  http://www.mothersalert.org/probability.org


 Click on URL for more hyperlinks:

   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/06nuke.html
    Nuclear Plant Owner Seeks Payment for Lost Production

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By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: April 6, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 5 - The owner of an Ohio nuclear plant has asked its
insurer to pay for two years of lost production because of corrosion that it
called "unexpected and unforeseeable," even though it had resisted
government pressure to inspect for acid leaks just before the problem was
uncovered in 2002.

The corrosion in the lid of the reactor vessel at the Davis-Besse nuclear
plant near Toledo almost ate through the steel, leaving a hole the size of a
football and nothing but a thin liner of stainless steel holding in the
cooling water that surrounded the radioactive core.

Before the plant's owner, First Energy Nuclear Operating Company, discovered
the problem during routine maintenance, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
had ordered inspections of reactors of that type to see if there was any
damage around the vessel head. The company had petitioned for a delay, which
the agency granted.

In a report made public late Wednesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
which was prepared as part of the company's insurance claim, First Energy
said the corrosion might have occurred over a matter of weeks. When the
company was seeking permission to reopen its reactor, it told the commission
that the corrosion had occurred over a period of three years.

The company is seeking $80 million for replacement of the vessel head, and
$106.7 million for the cost of replacement power. The plant was shut for two
years, while technicians found a replacement head and installed it. The
insurer, Nuclear Electric Insurance, a company with offices in Bermuda and
Delaware, would not comment.

Discovery of the corrosion shocked the industry. The General Accounting
Office, as it was then named, called it "the most serious safety issue
confronting the nation's commercial nuclear power industry since Three Mile
Island in 1979." The industry fears that an accident would choke off all
talk of a nuclear revival.

The damage at Davis-Besse was somewhat different from what the government
had warned about. The issue was damage to a part that penetrates the reactor
head and moves control rods inside the reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission feared the rod might be ejected. Instead, the part leaked
acid-containing water.

The operators got a two-month extension to complete the inspection. If the
corrosion took only weeks, some of it would have been prevented by earlier
inspection.

On Thursday, Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who has urged
the commission to revoke First Energy's license to run Davis-Besse, tried
again. With the new report, he said, "either FirstEnergy incompetently
managed the plant and allowed a leak to corrode the reactor vessel over many
years, or First Energy incompetently reported the root cause of the near
meltdown to the N.R.C."

At the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that often complains
about safety standards, David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, said that if
such corrosion could occur within weeks, the N.R.C. might have to order much
more frequent inspections.

But at the N.R.C., Scott Brunell, a spokesman, called the estimate that
corrosion might occur within weeks "hypothetical" and said that the
Davis-Besse report was "one data point," and not enough to prompt a change.
In response to the report, the commission staff will seek new testing of the
problem mechanism on parts that had been removed from other reactors.
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