Minnesota nuclear plants in the news

March 5th, 2015

BreaktimeThat’s Prairie Island Nuclear Generation Plant behind Kenya…

Two nuclear issues in today’s news, one at Prairie Island and one at Monticello.

Prairie Island in the Beagle:

Prairie Island Unit 2 safely shut down; operators investigating fire alarm

And in the STrib:

Fire alarm prompts unscheduled shutdown of Prairie Island nuclear unit

While there was no indication of a fire, plant personnel are “taking conservative actions” and putting the unit out of service to investigate what happened, a statement from utility said.

One of the Prairie Island nuclear power plant’s two units in Red Wing is being shut down Thursday in response to what Xcel Energy is calling an “unusual event.”

According to the utility, a fire alarm went off overnight in the Unit 2 containment building. While there was no indication of a fire, plant personnel are “taking conservative actions” and putting the unit out of service to investigate what happened, a statement from the Minneapolis-based utility said.

“There is no release of radioactive materials as a result of this event, ” which was declared shortly after 4 a.m., the statement added.

Unit 1 is operating normally, said company spokesman Tom Hoen. The incident has not affected the utility’s ability to generate electricity, Hoen said.

A notification of an “unusual event” is the lowest of four emergency classifications established by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The notification indicates a potential reduction in the level of safety at the plant but no threat to public safety, the utility explained. Hoen said he was expecting more information about the shutdown later Thursday morning.

In December, Unit 1 was taken out of service to allow workers to replace a reactor coolant pump seal during an outage.

Xcel Energy has one other nuclear power plant in Minnesota, a one-unit facility in Monticello, northwest of the Twin Cities.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

At Monticello, it seems there are recurring security problems, in the St. Cloud Times:

Feds continue stepped-up oversight of Monticello plant

And in the STrib:

Increased federal oversight at Monticello nuclear plant to continue after violation spotted

MONTICELLO, Minn. — Federal regulators will continue increased oversight at Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear plant after a security issue was found.

The St. Cloud Times (http://on.sctimes.com/1EQvPjM ) reports issues that led to the problem spotted in the last quarter of 2014 have been resolved. The improvements were found in two recent inspections, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission said.

Those improvements mean the commission won’t move the Monticello plant into a category of plants with the most serious performance issues, as the commission said would normally happen without changes.

Details of the violation were not released by the commission, but it called the problem a “greater than green” security finding. Green translates to an issue of very low safety significance and is the lowest rating on the commission’s color-coded scale.

The federal commission stepped up inspections in 2013 after it found that the Monticello plant wasn’t ready for worst-case flooding along the Mississippi River.

Pete Gardner, the plant’s vice president, said the security issue was found by plant workers, who corrected it and notified federal regulators.

The plant is committed to making safety improvements, Gardner said.

And here’s the Forum view of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee hearing on repealing the nuclear moratorium — no mention whatsoever of Dr. Arjun Makhijani:

Nuclear power moratorium debate returns

A state law bans nuclear plant construction.

It is time to give Minnesota utilities the ability to consider a new nuclear plant, said Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, sponsor of a bill to overturn Minnesota’s nuclear power plant moratorium.

“We appreciate the solid base of energy it provides,” she said about nuclear power.

Nuclear plants near Red Wing and Monticello provide a significant amount of Minnesota’s electrical power. Their licenses to operate end in the early 2030s, and if a new plant were to be considered, planning would need to begin soon.

An Xcel official said nuclear power is a good response to increasing rules to limit fossil fuel use.

Randy Evans said Xcel has no plans to build a new plant, “but at the bottom of the issue is we believe it does not make sense to leave any (energy) sources off the table.”

Nuclear opponents said new plants cost too much, builders cannot find adequate financing and they offer too much safety risk.

“Nuclear power plants remain an unacceptable power source,” said Bill Grant of the Minnesota Commerce Department.

Since the last Minnesota nuclear power plant started in 1973 and the last coal plant began producing power in 1987, the state has added wind, natural gas and biomass power, Grant said. Now, he said, the state is well positioned to get electricity from more natural gas plants and Canadian hydroelectric facilities.

The issue returned to the Minnesota Legislature Tuesday for the first time since Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was seriously damaged by a tsunami created by a major earthquake March 11, 2011. A bill that many thought would pass the Legislature that year ceased progress with the tsunami.

A Senate energy committee heard Kiffmeyer’s bill and one specifically lifting the moratorium on the Monticello plant, but took no action.

Chairman John Marty, D-Roseville, said he doubted that any bill coming out of his committee would overturn the moratorium, but he predicted that there would be attempts to amend an overall energy bill in his committee and the full Senate to strip the ban.

Marty said that he wanted a thorough hearing of the issue since it is bound to come up for more debate and the House appears to lean toward passing an anti-moratorium bill.

The Prairie Island Indian Community, which sits next to the Red Wing-area nuclear plant, sent a statement to Marty’s committee opposing lifting the moratorium.

The Tribal Council’s statement said that the tribe is not opposed to nuclear energy, but any increase in generating capacity or storage of waste nuclear materials “is irresponsible without a long-term national solution for storing spent nuclear fuel.”

The federal government promised 32 years ago to establish a place to store nuclear waste, but that never materialized. So waste is stored in hardened casks near the Prairie Island and Monticello facilities.

George Crocker of the North American Water Office opposes nuclear power, and said that the industry requires huge government oversight.

“There is no industry in the history of humanity that has more need for government than nuclear power,” he said, because of safety and financial reasons.

Nathan Makala of the Heartland Institute in Chicago, however, said that nuclear power is safe and “requires far less land than other sources of green energy such as wind.”

Nuclear supporters said it causes little pollution and can pump millions of dollars into the local economy. It provides “stable and affordable energy,” Makala said.

Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Nuclear
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