[NukeNet] Fire, Possible Explosion[s] At Indian Point

[Bill Smirnow]

  NRC Mandated, Sandia Nuke Labs Study On "Peak Early Fatalities," "Peak
Cancer Deaths," " Peak Early Injuries," "Property Damage":
http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html

     May I suggest that letters to Governor Spitzer, The Journal News,
NYTimes and other print and electronic media include this report and from
whom it eminated. Indian Point is a stationary radiological nuclear weapon,
a weapon of mass destruction which Entergy & NRC feel it's fine to deploy at
our collective expensense. These people belong in jail.



  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/nyregion/07power.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
 Regulatory Commission Downgrades Indian Point Reactor After Fire and
Another Shutdown

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
A firefighter from Verplanck, N.Y., at Indian Point on Friday after the
plant's team put out a transformer fire.


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By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: April 7, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 6 - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission downgraded its
safety assessment of the Indian Point No. 3 nuclear reactor on Friday, hours
after a transformer fire forced the plant's second shutdown in a week and
the fourth in the last 12 months. The commission said it would conduct extra
inspections.

The cause of the fire, which occurred shortly after 11 a.m. at the plant in
Buchanan, N.Y., was not clear. The fire was extinguished by an automatic
system and by the plant's fire brigade, which sprayed foam. No radiation was
released, but people in northern Rockland County, on the other side of the
Hudson River, reported smoke and "booms."

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, which owns the plant, said that
operators were unsure if there had been an explosion. The booms might have
been from an automatic dumping of excess steam, he said.

The commission's downgraded assessment means that additional inspectors will
be sent to look into the cause of the current shutdown and of the last
three.

Indian Point is on the east bank of the Hudson, 24 miles north of the Bronx.
Reactor 1 has been decommissioned; Nos. 2 and 3 produce about 10 percent of
the state's electricity.

The fire comes at a sensitive time for the plant. The owners are seeking to
extend the 40-year licenses on the two operating reactors by 20 years, over
the opposition of the Westchester County executive, Andrew J. Spano. They
are also seeking to find and stop at least two leaks from spent fuel pools,
which are allowing radioactive water to seep into the soil and, presumably,
into the Hudson River. The plant is already subject to extra inspections
because of the groundwater pollution.

The commission acted on Friday because it was the plant's fourth shutdown
since last July 1. The national average is fewer than one unplanned shutdown
per reactor per year. "We're going to get rigorously attacked by our
opponents," Mr. Steets said.

In fact, Susan Tolchin, Mr. Spano's chief adviser, said that while the fire
did not pose an immediate threat, in light of the plant's recent operating
history, "this is a cause for concern for us." At a news conference, she
also referred to the failure of the alarm sirens to work in a recent test.
(The event on Friday was not serious enough to merit their use.) She said
that the shutdowns, the sirens and the age of the plants, both of which
entered service in the 1970s, "are all reasons why County Executive Spano
wants to see the plant shut down."

Studies have shown, though, that building a replacement plant and reducing
demand through efficiency would be difficult and costly. In addition, New
York State has joined a pact with neighboring states to reduce global
warming gases from power generation, which would be much more difficult if
the reactors were shut.

The other operable reactor, Indian Point 2, has had three unplanned
shutdowns in the last 12 months.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ranks reactors according to 16
"performance indicators," and both Indian Point plants had been "green," the
highest grade, in all of them, until the fire. But in the category of
unplanned shutdowns per 7,000 hours of operation, Indian Point 3's grade is
now "white," the second-highest. The other categories are yellow and red.

Seven thousand is the approximate number of hours that a well-run reactor
will operate in a year. As the federal regulators have demanded improved
performance, the threshold for sending in extra inspectors has declined, so
that a single "indicator" below the top grade is now sufficient to do so.

To maximize the number of hours it runs, the owners have switched Indian
Point 3 to an every-other-year refueling system, and finished a refueling
shutdown in record time, 24 days, on March 31. But it shut down again on
April 3, before it could reach full power. In the predawn hours, it
developed a problem in a pump that delivers clean, nonradioactive water to
its steam generators, for heating into steam.

On Friday it was still ramping up to full power when the fire hit. The
company declared an "unusual event," the lowest category in a four-level
ranking of emergencies, at 11:43 a.m. The event was declared over about an
hour later, but the fire was out before the event declaration; Mr. Steets
said the operators took a few minutes to decide whether there had been an
explosion, which would have moved the incident into the category of unusual
event. Being unable to make a conclusive determination, they went ahead and
declared the event.

In Rockland County, C. J. Miller, a spokeswoman for the county executive,
said that residents of Stony Point had called their local police to report
smoke at 11:09 a.m., but that the county did not have any information from
Entergy until an e-mail message at 11:36, and then a phone call 20 minutes
after that. "There is a repeated lag," she said, in what information is
disseminated "and when and to whom. If something happens, we need to act
quickly."

Last July, an electrical flaw in the generator caused the plant to shut
down. Then workers put metal scaffolding too close to electrical equipment
and observed electric arcing, so the plant was shut. A focus of the enhanced
inspection will be to see if there are any physical issues or management
issues that link the shutdowns.

Juli S. Charkes contributed reporting from Hawthorne, N.Y.
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