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Motor fault, legal problems, future delays …. giant costly Vogtle nuclear project struggles on

Vogtle 4 start-up moved to 2024

World Nuclear News, 09 October 2023 #nuclear #anti-nuclear #nucler-free #NoNukes

The in-service date for the second AP1000 plant at the site near Waynesboro, Georgia, has been revised after a motor fault was discovered in a reactor coolant pump. Meanwhile, Georgia Power has agreed to pay the plant’s co-owner Oglethorpe Power Corporation USD308 million in settlement of an ongoing dispute.

The motor fault in one of the unit’s four reactor coolant pumps – or RCPs – was discovered during start-up and pre-operational testing, Georgia Power said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)……………………………

Southern Nuclear believes that the motor fault on the RCP at Vogtle 4 is an isolated event, the companies said. The projected schedule for Vogtle 4 “primarily depends on the continued progression of pre-operational testing and start-up”, it added: “As testing continues, new challenges also may continue to be identified, which may result in required engineering changes or remediation related to plant systems, structures, or components (some of which are based on new technology that only within the last few years began initial operation in the global nuclear industry at this scale). These challenges may result in further schedule delays and/or cost increases.”

Dispute settled


In the same SEC filing, Georgia Power and its parent, Southern Company, announced the agreement with Oglethorpe Power to resolve a dispute regarding cost-sharing and tender provisions of the joint ownership agreements relating to Vogtle units 3 and 4. Georgia Power has agreed to make a payment of USD308 million to Oglethorpe for a portion of Oglethorpe’s previously incurred construction costs, as well as paying a portion of Oglethorpe’s further construction costs for the units – around USD105 million – based on the current capital cost forecast. It will also pay 66% of Oglethorpe’s costs of construction with respect to any amounts above the current project capital cost forecast. The parties have agreed to dismiss pending litigation on this issue, including counterclaims by Georgia Power.

Georgia Power resolved a similar dispute with another of the plant’s co-owners, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG Power) in September 2022. Similar litigation with the other co-owner, Dalton Utilities, is still pending.

Construction of the two Westinghouse AP1000s began in 2013. Unit 3 ………………… Plant Vogtle is jointly owned by Georgia Power (45.7%), Oglethorpe (30%), MEAG Power (22.7%) and Dalton Utilities (1.6%).

October 10, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Endless electricity and water use: the Artificial-Intelligence-Blockchain-Data Centre -Nuclear-NuScale nightmare to come

Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs

Please, no crypto boom, thank you

The Register, Tobias Mann, Sun 8 Oct 2023 #nuclear #anti-nuclear #nucler-free #NoNukes

Colocation outfit Standard Power hopes to power two new datacenters in Ohio and Pennsylvania entirely by miniaturized nuclear reactors from NuScale.

Standard Power makes no secret it focuses on providing datacenter services to not just those into AI workloads and other kinds of high-performance computing but also those performing proof-of-work blockchain mining, the kind needed to craft digital tokens like Bitcoin. The significant energy requirements of this type of blockchain work spurred an investigation by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last year, and calls by lawmakers to implement reporting and/or sustainability requirements for such operations.

Generally speaking, a datacenter packed with proof-of-work miners is going to demand a chunky amount of power. Concerned it may not get adequate electricity supplies for its new facilities, which by the sounds of it will support blockchain mining as well as other workloads, Standard Power said it hopes to take the nuclear option.

“We see a lot of legacy baseload grid capacity going offline with a lack of new sustainable baseload generation options on the market especially as power demand for artificial intelligence-computing and datacenters is growing,” Standard Power CEO Maxim Serezhin said in a statement.

And the colo outfit’s Ohio and Pennsylvania datacenters may need or get a lot of power. The company expects to deploy 24 of NuScale’s small modular reactors between the two sites. These reactors are reportedly capable of generating 77 megawatts apiece — putting the total deployed capacity at 1,848 megawatts.

Despite the announcement, it may be a few years before Standard Power can realize its nuclear dreams. As we learned in January, Idaho National Labs will be among the first to demonstrate NuScale’s reactors, and the first of these modules isn’t expected to come online until 2029. We asked Standard Power when it expects its facilities will be operational; we’ll let you know if we hear anything back…………………………………..

Standard Power is hardly the first datacenter operator to get excited about nuclear power, either. Cumulus Data opened a datacenter next to a nuclear plant — the full-size kind — in January and last month we learned that Microsoft is now hiring someone to potentially deploy SMR systems to power its growing cloud enterprise.  https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/08/standard_power_nuclear_datacenter/

October 10, 2023 Posted by | ENERGY, technology, USA | 1 Comment

14 October 12-2pm ET Join Us WARHEADS TO WINDMILLS – ONLINE FORUM

 https://www.nuclearban.us/join-us-warheads-to-windmills-online-forum-october-14th-12-2pm-et/

Abolishing Nuclear Weapons and Fossil Fuels: What will it take? #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes

Following a webinar on May 7th which brought together leading organizations and activists working on the two crucially important issues of climate change and nuclear war, this forum will allow for more in depth discussion on how the climate and nuclear weapons movements can work together to save the planet from these existential threats before it is too late. Merging these into an inclusive mass movement in the transition to a greener economy is essential!

An online forum with speakers on climate solutions, nuclear solutions, and a panel on how we can help each other build a strong and inclusive movement. Followed by breakout rooms to share ideas on action.

Speakers and Schedule: all times listed in ET…………………………………………………………………

October 10, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear | 1 Comment

All This Death Is The Fault Of The Western Press

The western press are largely to blame for all this. If they’d just told the truth instead of running “Palestinian child walks into bullet” headlines this whole time and telling everyone that boycotting Israel is genocide, political pressure could’ve long ago been brought about to force a peaceful and just resolution to this mess.

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, OCT 9, 2023

Israel is reportedly preparing a ground invasion of Gaza very soon in response to Saturday’s Hamas attack. We can expect things to get much, much bloodier from there.

Meanwhile the US has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean in support of the coming Israeli military operations, on top of the additional military aid Biden has already pledged to Netanyahu. At the same time, The Wall Street Journal claims that the Hamas operation was coordinated with both Iran and Hezbollah. 

This war has the potential to expand in some very ugly directions in the coming weeks.

Whenever something like this happens warmongers always seize on the emotional frenzy of the moment to shove through insane acts of warmongering and scream vitriol at anyone who questions them. Then later when all the facts are in people slowly start to realize that something went very wrong, and that they were deceived.

After 9/11 anyone who didn’t support multiple full-scale ground invasions of sovereign nations was a terrorist sympathizer and a Saddam apologist. We were told Al Qaeda were evil, irrational actors who attacked because “they hate us for our freedom”, and we need to support a war on terror against any nation deemed threatening because all such monsters understand is violence. Now both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are regarded as colossal mistakes by anyone who’s honest.

When Russia invaded Ukraine anyone who wanted peace talks instead of a rapidly escalating proxy war between nuclear-armed nations was a Putin lover and a Kremlin shill. We were told Putin invaded solely because he is evil and hates freedom, and we need to support a war against him because all such monsters understand is violence. Now the counteroffensive failed, the US is having trouble getting proxy war funding through congress, and even the head of NATO acknowledges that this war was provoked by NATO expansion.

And now we’re facing another instance of intense emotional frenzy, and we’re being told that Hamas attacked Israel completely unprovoked for no other reason than because they are evil monsters who love killing Jews. We will be told to support any act of war deemed necessary, because all such monsters understand is violence.

Someday we’re going to have to stop falling for this tired old song and dance.

The western press are largely to blame for all this. If they’d just told the truth instead of running “Palestinian child walks into bullet” headlines this whole time and telling everyone that boycotting Israel is genocide, political pressure could’ve long ago been brought about to force a peaceful and just resolution to this mess.

If they’d just done their jobs and reported the facts to the public, there never would’ve been enough public consent for the US empire to back a brutal apartheid regime which cannot exist without nonstop violence, and peaceful resolutions would’ve become unavoidable.

Instead they hid all those abuses from the public for generations, creating an environment where peaceful resolutions are impossible and giving rise to Palestinian factions which understandably see violent force as the only viable answer.

This is their fault. They created this mess with a mountain of lies and obfuscation, and now those lies are being paid for with rivers of blood. The western press are war criminals. They’ve committed crimes against humanity…………………………………………………

It’s getting harder and harder to argue that the US-led world order brings more peace and stability to the world than the war and instability it causes. As more and more force is brought to bear against nations and groups who refuse to submit to Washington’s dictates, we’re seeing more and more conflict and chaos. Russia’s refusal to lie down before Washington resulted in the Ukraine war and all the nuclear brinkmanship that comes with it. Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Syria and Iran refusing to prostrate themselves to the US power alliance results in constant violence in the middle east. As the imperial crosshairs move to Beijing we’re now faced with the terrifying prospect of a hot war with China.

At a certain point you have to ask, if the US-led world order requires more and more violence and nuclear brinkmanship to maintain, what specifically is the argument for maintaining it in the first place? Does it not at some point begin to cease looking like “order” at all, and instead like a tyrannical empire trying to rule the world no matter how much death and destruction is necessary to subjugate it?  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/all-this-death-is-the-fault-of-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=137788966&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

October 10, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Loud Explosion Heard In Pakistan’s Dera Ghazi Khan City With Nuclear Facility; Officials Say ‘Sonic Boom’

The loud thud in the vicinity of Dera Ghazi Khan town in southern Punjab caused panic and soon it started trending on social media.

BQ Prime 6 Oct 23

Pakistan authorities on Friday said that the sound of a loud explosion in Punjab province could be due to a sonic boom as there was no information of a bombing incident or an act of sabotage. The loud thud in the vicinity of Dera Ghazi Khan town in southern Punjab caused panic and soon it started trending on social media. Videos circulating on X showed people vacating the area even as rescue teams and police personnel were moving around.

Pakistan’s nuclear research site is in the neighbourhood…………………….

Read more at: https://www.bqprime.com/politics/loud-explosion-heard-in-pakistans-dera-ghazi-khan-city-with-nuclear-facility-officials-say-sonic-boom

October 10, 2023 Posted by | incidents, Pakistan | Leave a comment

Residents closest to Dounreay and Vulcan to be excluded from the nuclear emergency planning zone.

By Iain Grant, 06 October 2023    https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/nearby-homes-to-be-outside-of-dounreay-emergency-zone-for-fi-328741/ #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes

Residents closest to Dounreay and Vulcan are for the first time to be excluded from the emergency planning zone around the redundant nuclear sites.

It is being shrunk to reflect the perceived reduction in risk to the public presented by the adjoining plants.

The zone would be the focus of the response to what is considered a worst-case scenario involving a radiation release.

Up until the plug was pulled on Dounreay’s fast reactor programme in the mid-1990s, its zone extended to five kilometres. The equivalent at Vulcan was two kilometres.

Dounreay’s limit was subsequently cut to 1.5km and reduced further in 2020 when a new linked zone taking in both sites was set at 700 metres.

October 10, 2023 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

US public support declines for arming Ukraine, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows

By Jason Lange and Patricia Zengerle. October 6, 2023 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes

WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Support is falling among Americans of both major political parties for supplying Ukraine with weapons, a warning sign for Kyiv, which relies heavily on U.S. arms to fight against a Russian invasion, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The two-day poll, which closed on Wednesday, showed only 41% of respondents agreed with a statement that Washington “should provide weapons to Ukraine,” compared to 35% who disagreed and the rest unsure.

Support for U.S. weapon shipments is down from May, when a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 46% of Americans backed sending arms, while 29% were opposed and the rest unsure.

The poll was taken as U.S. congressional leaders debate Democratic President Joe Biden’s request for $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine, of which about $17 billion would be defense aid……………………………………………………….  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-public-support-declines-arming-ukraine-reutersipsos-2023-10-05/

October 10, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

NRC Issues Event Notification for Peach Bottom Nuclear Plant, Pa.

Energy Central, WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the following event notification (No. 56753) involving Peach Bottom Nuclear Plant, Pennsylvania:

…………………………………………………….. FITNESS-FOR-DUTY REPORT

The following information was provided by the licensee via phone and email:

“A licensed operator had a confirmed positive test for alcohol during another entity’s pre-access fitness-for-duty screening for unescorted access authorization. The individual’s unescorted access at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station has been denied.

“The NRC Resident Inspector has been notified.”

Original text here: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2023/2…  https://energycentral.com/news/nrc-issues-event-notification-peach-bottom-nuclear-plant-pa-1

October 10, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment